Improving opportunities for sustainable market links towards alleviating poverty and increasing incomes for forest-dependent communities
The
NTFP-EP considers it essential to achieve conservation and
sustainable management of forested landscapes that communities are
able to maintain or improve their livelihoods, and that they have the
opportunities to develop and manage a thriving community economy.
Especially for indigenous communities, cultural and structural
discrimination bar their access to socio-economic development
opportunities; the failure of development project proponents and
industries to exercise meaningful FPIC in customary forests and
protected landscapes prevent communities from having a say in
projects and investments that transform or worse destroy their
livelihood. These may also hinder them from designing and
implementing their own livelihood and resource management plans.
There
are other challenges to achieving sustainable community livelihood
goals such as the lack of business skills and enterprise development
capacities among communities. Not all community based economic
development initiatives are profitable and sustainable, so they
resort to other income sources that are not environment-friendly but
which might provide better incomes like mining, charcoal making,
illegal logging or wildlife poaching. Hazards posed by climactic
changes like typhoons, heavy rains and flooding are also key
challenges in these communities. Together with land conversions and
unsustainable harvesting practices, they magnify already existing
vulnerabilities in the NTFP-EP’s partner communities.
The
NTFP-EP assists local and indigenous communities in developing
forest-based enterprises, making them operational and contributing
gainful income for its members. But some communities are just not
interested in mainstream business or “economic commercial
activities”, and this needs to be respected. Nevertheless, these
communities have vibrant livelihood activities that may include
village level production and small-scale trade of household produce,
forest collection and seasonal harvests. In a number of cases, both
subsistence and (local) market-based livelihood activities make up
the community economy and these thrive under conditions of good
community leadership, the maintenance of customary natural resources
governance, and sustainable resource management systems and
practices.
For
the many communities that engage the market actively and beyond
village boundaries, they also face a number of challenges, and for
which they seek support and partnerships:
- difficulty
in meeting the volume, quality demand, and standards of the market;
- product
competition,
- lack
of access to efficient technologies; and
- the
basic lack of awareness and appreciation by government and market
actors of the value of nature and culture-based enterprises, which
makes technical support, extension and innovations to be either
distant or costly for the community enterprises.
The
NTFP-EP will prioritize the following outcomes:
- that
there is an enabling environment for community forest-based
livelihood and enterprise strategies;
- community-based
non-timber forest products enterprises (CBNEs) allow community
participation and benefit sharing;
- CBNEs
are profitable, sustainable and resilient;
- CBNEs
contribute to culture protection and promotion.
Strategic
Actions
- Facilitate
CBNE development across partner communities under NTFP-EP CBNE
development guidelines, principles and agreements with communities
that conform with NTFP-EP values and principles.
- Develop
and enable value-based and sustainable market linkages for CBNEs
through green intermediaries and equitable partnership agreements.
- Facilitate
the creation of committees to oversee the enterprises, conduct open
consultations with stakeholders, and ensure that
enterprises/projects will comply with the FPIC requirement.
- Document
agreements that specify the benefits of these enterprises to local
and indigenous communities.
- Conduct
feasibility studies and develop markets that are willing to accept
the limited volume capacity of CBNEs. This entails responsible
branding, value chain management, and ensuring the standardization
of quality, social responsibility, and environmental accountability.
- Develop
and integrate a community-based resource management approach into
the CBNE model which will include education and capacity building,
resource assessment, regeneration, sustainable harvesting, and
monitoring systems.
- Climate-proof
all CBNEs in the partner communities.
- Document
traditional knowledge and technologies in partner communities.
- Conduct
educational campaigns to highlight the detrimental effects and
health hazards of destructive industries or enterprises that may be
destructive to ecosystems, culture and traditional livelihoods
- Adopt
culturally appropriate technologies and market instruments that will
enhance the value and benefit of community and forest-based
livelihood programmes.
- Support
the transfer of traditional livelihood skills and practices to the
younger generation.
- Engage
policymakers to push for policies that support CBNEs.
- Maintain
a database of good practices community economy and livelihood
development; the database is available and maintained in all NTFP-EP
countries; replicate and upscale where appropriate.