Trees, Forests and People (Dec 2021)
Small forest growers in tropical landscapes should be embraced as partners for Green-growth: Increase wood supply, restore land, reduce poverty, and mitigate climate change
Abstract
Our ideas and investments for landscape restoration should be broadened to include sustainably managed plantation forestry, especially those owned by small growers in forest-rural landscapes, as a part of the solution. Small growers play seminal roles in tropical forestry; for example, they provide about 90% and 60% of the industrial wood in India and Vietnam, respectively, and are central for countries such as Ethiopia and Uganda. They contribute to restoration of degraded landscapes in large areas. Wood production and use of wood products as a carbon positive, renewable, recyclable material should be a part of climate change mitigation actions. Forestry and wood-based business is providing livelihoods for millions of rural households and probably helping hundreds of thousands of families out of poverty.Tropical countries are facing widening wood supply- demand gaps. Substantial growth of wood production from small-scale plantations via both higher productivity per unit area and carefully managed land expansion, may be the only options for closing this gap. Nevertheless, there is no reliable inventory of the number of small-scale growers and households involved in any tropical country. Similarly, there is a serious lack of attention given to productivity in small -scale plantations, and exploring how sustainable management practices can improve productivity, product value, economic outcomes, and environmental benefits, at appropriate spatial and temporal scales.Many projects carried out in the name of small growers within country are fragmented, donor-driven, and uncoordinated. They will be more effective for providing benefits to small-growers if each recipient country developed a holistic and coherent strategy with priorities for advancing small- scale plantation forestry, within which, projects from international groups are harnessed. Creation of a cooperative (public-private), action and impact driven organisation(centre) is proposed. For success, the private sector should engage small growers as co-investing partners for advancing Green-growth and landscape restoration, and thus foster a direct conduit for channelling the global interests in tree-forest based solutions for improving the environment and reducing rural poverty.Small-scale plantation forestry can be substantially strengthened by three opportunities: the growing demand for wood, the role of forests and land restoration in the global carbon cycle and for low-emissions economy, and the urgent need to uplift rural economies and reduce poverty. These challenges are interwoven, and sustainably managed forestry offers integrated solutions for addressing them.
