ABSTRACT

Miombo woodlands cover vast areas of southern Africa. Of comparatively little interest for export-oriented commercial logging, they are part of a complex system of rural land use that integrates woodland management with crops and livestock. There is also evidence that woodland resources are extensively used for household consumption, greatly reducing the risk of households falling deeper into poverty as a result of environmental or economic stress. New opportunities for improving the management of miombo woodlands, with poverty mitigation in mind, suggest four policy options. First, communities are becoming more active in managing local natural resources, a result of decentralization and land reforms, which suggests that there may be good scope for strengthening related policy and legal frameworks and the measures to implement them. Second, new and integrated conservation-development approaches are emerging, which suggests possible scope for providing payments for environmental services to increase the value of managed woodlands. Third, markets throughout the region are developing and expanding, which suggests great scope for enhancing forest-based markets by removing restrictive legislation and by supporting local producers and forest enterprises. Fourth, all these opportunities suggest that public forest institutions can be revitalized by strengthening their service delivery orientations, with poverty mitigation as a main objective.

Notes

1.

The figures for Cavendish (2000) were recalculated to exclude non-woodland environmental income (such as clay and gold).

2.

Illegal extraction is not captured in these figures.

3.

There is one FSC certificate for the management of Zambezi teak in Zimbabwe, covering 41 574 ha, and two FSC certificates in Mozambique for the management of unspecified natural forest covering around 71 000 ha.

4.

Also the global perspective on these themes in Sunderlin et al. (2007).

5.

Reduced emissions from deforestation and forest degradation.

6.

Comparisons of public expenditure across sectors ought to be based on a common numeraire that is sector specific, sector expenditure as a share of sector GDP. But forestry GDP estimates are exceptionally poor. Nonetheless, for Tanzania, at the very most (given the forestry GDP under-estimates) the GDP of agriculture is 11 times that of forestry, and yet budget allocations differ by a factor of 40.

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