Emerging Role of Community Forest Management in Reducing Carbon Emission ?Insights from Land Tenure

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Emerging Role of Community Forest Management in
Reducing Carbon Emission ?Insights from Land
Tenure REDD Nexus

• Anar Koli
• PhD candidate, University of Tsukuba
• 3rd November, 2010

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Introduction

• In spite of various debates, there is general
  consensus that REDD initiatives are more likely
  to be effective in reducing emission if they
  build on the interests of forest communities.
• Thus, Community Forest Management (CFM) is
  considered to be a cost effective platform to
  reduce carbon emission as well to enhance the
  forest benefits of the forest dependent
  communities.
• However, how and to what extent REDD/REDD can
  bring the real opportunity to community forest
  users or how it can be workable both for the
  carbon credit buyer and local forest user still
  remain in debatable stage.

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Objective of the Presentation

• To what extent Community Forest Management (CFM)
  can play its role in global carbon mitigation ?
• Why carbon payment may not ensure the benefits of
  the marginal forest dependent communities in
  Bangladesh?

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Some Background Information

• Bangladesh in the climate change context
• REDD in the Bangladesh context
• Carbon payment based on the instrument Payment of
  Environmental service (PES)
• Community Forest Management Paradigm

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Bangladesh -in the context of climate change

• With 0.15 of carbon emission, Bangladesh -one
  of the most climate vulnerable countries
• Profound effects on the 1.5 billion people who
  presently live in coastal areas
• 1 m rise in sea level by 2100 affecting 17.5 of
  total land mass respectively (The World Bank
  2000)
• About 40 million people of Bangladesh out of 144
  million will become environmental refugees due to
  1-m sea level rise (Earth Policy Institute 2004)
• Many of its ecosystems including forests
  especially the coastal mangrove forests are
  already being heavily affected from climate
  change, its associated hazards

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Coastal zone of Bangladesh
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REDD in the Context of Bangladesh

• REDD is policy approaches and positive
  incentives on issues relating to reducing
  emissions from deforestation and forest
  degradation in developing countries and the role
  of conservation, sustainable management of
  forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks
  in developing counties (UNFCCC Decision 2/CP.
  13-11)
• A particular focus of this presentation is on
  the carbon payment of REDD which is based on the
  instrument of Payment of Ecosystems Services
  (PES)
• The core idea of this approach is that external
  environmental service beneficiaries make direct,
  contractual and conditional payments to local
  landholders and users in return for adopting
  practices that secure ecosystem conservation and
  restoration (S. Wunder 2005)

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Deforestation and Forest Degradation situation of
Bangladesh

• Bangladesh has 17 of the landmass designated as
  forest but the statistics of FAO indicate that
  the actual tree cover is estimated at around 10
• During last ten years ending 1996, more than half
  of the closed forests (medium to good density)
  have been degraded to poor density forests (other
  forests).
• Area under plantations in Coastal Afforestation
  divisions has declined by more than 25.
• The protected area in two of the three wildlife
  sanctuaries in Sunderbans has gone down (FAO,
  2000)
•  

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Carbon Sequestration Aspects of Bangladesh

• Bangladesh has high floral diversity in the
  forests which have high biomass and carbon
  density. It is estimated that more than 5000
  species of higher plants available in Bangladesh.
• On average 92tC/ha is stored by the existing tree
  tissue in the forest of Bangladesh (Mia et al
  (2007). The gross carbon content in the forest
  indicates that Bangladesh has high capacity for
  carbon sequestration.
•  Sunderbans are the Worlds largest mangrove
  swamps in Bangladesh that are highly carbon
  sinks, hold large quantities of carbon in
  standing biomass and in sediments. They can
  absorb and store more carbon than they release.
• However, coastal and marine ecosystems still have
  not been incorporated into the existing carbon
  revenue schemes
•  
•  

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Contribution of CFM in Forestation in Bangladesh

• While state centric forest management fail to
  reduce the high rate deforestation and forest
  degradation, CFM in Bangladesh has significant
  contribution to enhance the forest coverage
• Around 10 of the forest lands in the deforested
  Chittagong forest area have reforested under
  different participatory aforestation and
  reforestation program.
• However, up to now, enlarging the area of forests
  (e.g., through afforestation and reforestation,
  A/R), is not part of REDD, A/R is part of Clean
  Development Mechanism (CDM).
• Also community peoples have positive contribution
  in the bio-diversity conservation and forest
  protection.

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REDD and CFM Relation

• Involvement with REDD, CFM can help sequester
  and store carbon with simultaneously offering
  benefits to the community
• Community participation can increase the 3 Es
  such as effectiveness, efficiency, equity and
  co-benefits and therefore enhance the
  sustainability of the REDD initiatives (Agrawal
  and Angelsen 2009)
• When the REDD scheme is emerging and its carbon
  payment schemes is to be considered as a
  significant incentives, it is urgent need to
  understand the challenging aspects like to land
  tenure complexity, the local institutional
  capacity which are determinant factors of its
  success.
• These institutional factors are challenging in
  the sense that without solving these factors,
  they not only can pose the improvement of the
  process but can bring further risks and
  vulnerability for the marginalized forest
  community.

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• Fig1The framework of the CFM and REDD nexus
  with land tenure and their potential outcomes in
  response to climate change
•  

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• I would like to focus this CFM-REDD nexus from
  Bangladesh perspective based on two aspects.
• Land tenure security
• Local Institutional Capacity this issue I focus
  from the field survey on a protected areas
  Chunoti wild life sactuary (CWS) in 2010.
• Chuntoti Wildlife Sanctuary (CWS)
• One of most deforested and degraded areas in
  Bangladesh. It was declared as protected area
  (PA) in 1986 to combat deforestation.
• From 2004 CFM in the form of state-community
  joint co-management has been operating in this
  protected area.

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Findings of field survey on CWS

• Contribution of CFM in protecting forest health
• 87.5 of the respondent expressed that there is
  significant positive changes in regard of the
  forest health such as reducing deforestation,
  forest degradation, enhancing bio-diversity
  during the last several years and they have
  active involvement to bring this change.

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Table 1 The contribution of Community Forest
Management in forest protection

•  Source Field survey at Chutonoti Wildlife
  Sanctuary, Bangladesh in 2010

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Local Institutional Capacity

• Type of involvement -co-management has brought
  some significant changes in forest management
  CFM become institutionalized and forest
  communities have directly been included in the
  forest governance process.
• Participation-Forest communities participate in
  the co-management institution actively however
  they cannot influence the decision making.
• Roles of the co-management committee vary in
  regard of the type of work like, participation
  is high in work plan preparation than that of in
  the budget allocation discussion.

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Decision making space of marginalized forest
communities

• Elite group has strong position and the
  marginalized forest users remain marginalized in
  the co-management committee and council.
  Marginalized forest users remain more or less as
  observer.
• The number of the representative of marginal
  group in the co-management institution is
  disproportionate. The members from local elite
  group represents around 3 times higher than that
  of the marginal groups.
• Forest user groups have not been developed as
  formal institution or effective platform even in
  the co-management arrangement.
•  Most of the key discussion and decisions are
  lead by the forest department, project official
  and local elites.
• The position of the women participants is worse
  the total women member in the co-management
  committee and council is only 4 and all of them
  are the member of the Union Parisad (lowest tier
  of local government). The poor women forest users
  remain the most marginalized one, they could not
  be included in the co-management institution as
  members yet.

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Land tenure situation

• Land tenure remain in an insecure and complicated
  manner in all most all the resource management
  regime
•  In the collective arrangement or any other
  community oriented management mechanism, their
  land tenure is not secure. Most of the cases,
  state control the ownership and community have
  some property rights in limited scale
• The community who are based on customary rights
  are more vulnerable and their tenure is more
  insecure in terms of ownership and tenure time.

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Management type Ownership of land Challenges for REDD
State/gov. management -Reserve forest -protected forest/areas State ownership Corruption and Rent seeking problem Poor implementation enforcement capacity No/limited mechanism for payment of compensation or PES
Collective management Afforestation in roadside, coastal areas Co-management of protected areas Buffer zone CFM Village forests State ownership, sometimes transfer ownership to individual The state transfers management rights to CFM/individual but ownership remain with the state Limited forest management rights to forest communities Elite capture/elite domination Land rights may emerge as a key discriminating factor for access the REDD benefit
Community management (customary system) State ownership Sometimes resource holding by clans, group or individual based on customary rights Complicated land rights Encroachment problem Marginalization of poor and ethnic forest communities
Private management -private forest land homestead gardening Individual/collective ownership Poor and marginalized people may be excluded from land and resource rights

• Table 2 Different forest management regimes and
  their tenure and the related challenges for REDD

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Conflicts and exclusion based on tenure insecurity

• Exclusion, confrontation and violent conflicts
  over forest resources and land tenure security in
  the most two potential zone for REDD site
  Chittagong Hill Tract (CHT) forest and the
  Madhupur Sal forest
• Exclusion in CHT forest
• CHT forest- high concentration of ethnic minority
  groups historically and they used to live on
  their traditional shifting cultivation.
• These ethnic communities suffered for their
  livelihood from the insecure and complex tenure
  arrangement 18.67 percent have been evicted from
  their ancestors land in CHT
• In the early 1960s-about 100, 000 indigenous
  people were displaced.
• In 1976 resettlement of lowland people in CHT
  area and 1992 declaration of reserve forest or
  rubber plantation scheme displaced a large number
  of the ethnic forest community from their own
  land and resources.

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Land tenure situation all around the globe

• The experiences from the first generation REDD
  implementing countries like Bolivia, Cameroon,
  Indonesia, Tanzania and Vietnam all show that the
  issue of land tenure and participation all these
  are key issues and key challenges however. to
  date there has been little action on reforming
  the land tenure all through the globe.
• A summery of resource rights situations of
  relevance of REDD in the seven rainforest
  countries indicates that the land tenure security
  and resource rights largely exist in paper, in
  many cases not even in the paper. In practice
  basically their level is low, in some case medium
  (Lorezo Cotula and James Mayers 2009) .

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Private (individual or collective) land and/or tree ownership allowed? Private (individual or collective) land and/or tree ownership allowed? Local (incl. customary) use rights in place and recognized? Local (incl. customary) use rights in place and recognized? Indigenous peoples rights protected? Indigenous peoples rights protected? Carbon rights defined and addressed? Carbon rights defined and addressed? Local voice in land use change decisions? Local voice in land use change decisions? Benefit sharing and revenue-allocation arrangements? Benefit sharing and revenue-allocation arrangements? Support for local resource rights through institutional responsibilities and capabilities? Support for local resource rights through institutional responsibilities and capabilities?
On Paper In Practice On Paper In Practice On Paper In Practice On Paper In Practice On Paper In Practice On Paper In Practice On Paper In Practice
Barzil Yes Med Yes Med Yes Med No Low Yes Low Yes Med Yes Med
Cameroon Yes Low Yes Low No Low No Low Yes Low Yes Med Yes Med
DR Congo Yes Low Yes Low No Low No Low Yes Low Yes Low Yes Low
Guyana Yes Low Yes Med Yes Low No Low No Low Yes Low Yes Low
Indonesia Yes Low Yes Low No Low No Low Yes Low Yes Med Yes Med
Malaysia Yes Med Yes Med Yes Low No Low Yes Med Yes Med Yes Med
PNG Med Yes High Yes Med No Low Yes High Yes Med Yes Low

• Table 3 Key indicators of insecurity of local
  resource rights for REDD and related mechanisms
  in seven rainforest countries.
• Source Cotula, L. and Mayers, J. 2009.

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Conclusion Opportunities Vs Risks

• Is a scenario all together pessimistic? I argue,
  no but the relation of REDD, CFM and land
  tenure is not simple rather complex.
• The relation REDD and CFM are conditional and
  two of the key conditional aspects are tenure
  security and local institutional capacity .
• This land tenure security challenge put this
  relation as a double sword dimension. If the
  tenure security problem can be solved then it can
  brings a wider opportunity both for the forest
  communities REDD initiatives. But if the tenure
  situation remain same or get worse then it would
  not only exclude the marginalize community, it
  can create conflicts and further vulnerability.
• In a carbon governance model thus this very
  local issue should get priority as it affects the
  global level outcomes
• This challenging situation can be driver for
  better carbon governance and resource rights for
  marginalized community.