Perceptions on Participatory Forest Management Impacts on Poverty for Selected Forests Adjacent Communities in Kenya

Abstract

Forestry management in Kenya for over a century was managed by the state with hardly any community involvement. Kenya Forest Service (KFS),the precursor of Forest Department (FD)was started in late 1890s. Formal involvement of communities in forest management in Kenya started in early 1990s but gained momentum in the late 1990s and by 2007 there were over 40 forest sites scattered all over the country where communities were participating in forest management. These initiatives are being implemented by several stakeholders with KFSparticipating while civil society is playing the major role. Forest management where communities and other stakeholders are being involved is generally referred to as Participatory Forest Management (PFM). PFM has been defined as a forest management approach, which deliberately involves Forest Adjacent Communities (FACs) and other stakeholders in sustainable management of forests within a framework that contributes to community's livelihoods (KFS,2007). There is increased interest to determine the impact of several interventions on the forest and lately on the communities' livelihoods. Use of typical monitoring systems have not provided the desired results. This has led to development of participatory monitoring tools in which communities set the impact indicators and protocols. This ensures that, the communities are able to undertake self evaluation and develop improvement procedures. The Action Research into Poverty Impacts of Participatory Forest Management (ARPIP) was undertaken under this premise. ARPIP research in Kenya was undertaken in five study sites. In each forest, a community which had been implementing PFM was interviewed to capture the PFM benefits and a community not practicing PFM was also interviewed to capture the forest benefit disparities. In each study sites 40 households were interviewed after categorization into four well-being livelihood categories. It was evident that, PFM practise in Kenya is in various stages of implementation with Dida being the oldest site where PFM has been practiced for over 10 years. The other sites such as Kakamega is below 5 years. Though PFM in Kereita and Upper Imenti was started in 2000, legislation and lack of funds are major factors that have slowed down the process. Loita forest provides a completely different form of PFM, referred to as Traditional Community Based Forest Management (TCBFM). This illustrates that communities are able to manage resources without destroying them though it is evident that the system is facing challenges emanating from changing socio-economic situations. Though PFM is just starting in the country, its benefits and costs are yet to be consolidated but there are some emerging salient issues such as: • With the operationalization of the Forest Act No.7 of 2005, the stage has been set for national roll out for PFM implementation. For this to be successfully done, areas that require immediate attention are: o Awareness creation on the Forests Act with a view to standardizing the interpretations to support a harmonized application of the Act and PFM implementation o Developing of subsidiary legislations through a very consultative process with immediate action being targeted to CFA formation and developing PFM partnerships framework between KFS and other partners o Benefits and costs sharing mechanisms both between KFS and communities and within communities o Developing (or review of) PFM guidelines o Harmonization and standardization of the PFM process o Capacity building on PFM and livelihoods among government and NGO/CBO staff PFM was not known in all the study sites where the survey was undertaken except in Dida, Kereita and Upper Imenti. This trend shows that PFM was well known in forests with Civil society (NGOs and some community based organizations) involvement. The perception of what is PFM and what are its objectives and benefits by the community and other stakeholders varies from forest to forest. PFM is interpreted as everything from non-residential cultivation to areas where communities own and manage the forest for their benefit like in Loita, to other areas where the government has overall control of the forest like Buyangu. PFM is viewed principally as a means for achieving better forest management by Government of Kenya (GoK) officers while civil society view it as means for reducing poverty for Forest Adjacent Community (FAC). These stakeholders' differences in their objectives for supporting PFM will affect how PFM is implemented. It is difficult for the community to earn a direct income from the forests because they are generally being managed for biodiversity conservation and as water catchments. PFM is contributing towards poverty alleviation in the case study sites through initiation of Income Generating Activities (lGAs) with beekeeping and sale of seedlings being the major ones. The benefits accrue at varying degrees, being highest in Arabuko-Sokoke forest (ASP)where PFM has been practisd for over 10 years, the communities are earning the highest income and is lowest in Kereita where IGAs like eco-tourism are just starting. In sites where PFM is not being practised or just starting the communities are benefiting from the forest illegally through poaching timber, poles and grazing. In forests like Lower Imenti, the communities are accessing water for horticulture farming for export crops, an indication that the pillar on which to support PFM may be forest specific. The communities are bearing the highest (negative impacts) of PFM in most forests. These impacts include patrolling for free, attending meetings, raising seedlings in nurseries and plantation establishment. The latter needs urgent attention as the community have been establishing plantations without any arrangement on how they will benefit. There are intra-community negative impacts where the poor women, elderly men and women and youth benefit less than the younger men and women. Though the rich do not participate in PFM they were the major beneficiaries. At household level men are the key decision makers while women and youth are the ones generating cash with men making decision on its spending. Cash accruing to boys is less available to the household, a behaviour exhibited also by men. These impacts can be mitigated through: • Stakeholder capacity building • hybridizing traditional TCBFM forest management systems with PFM management approaches. • Developing local and national institutions to support PFM implementation • Enacting rules and guidelines to steer the partnerships • Developing stakeholder networks to support PFM implementation • Initiating new benefits and increasing the existing ones • Developing systems to cater for the poor and other disadvantaged members of the society • Developing site specific PFM legislation All the wellbeing groups are involved in PFM in some of the study sites. In Dida,there is involvement of almost all groups in PFM while in Upper Imenti the richest and the poorest were not involved. In Loita, the poorest were missing but they are supported to survive by the other wellbeing groups. PFM benefits accrue to those directly participating in PFM. The CFAs in most cases consider gender with women having the treasurer position but one group had a lady chairperson. The youth were missing in all the committees. Most of the stakeholders' believe that PFM can reduce poverty but there was no consensus on how this can be done. This calls for national guidelines on how PFM can contribute to poverty alleviation. Where PFM is being implemented there is consensus that it is contributing to better forest management but it is too early to start counting the benefits. From the study sites it was evident that unless there is a deliberate effort to include the poor, PFM implementation may not change the current arrangement where the rich are benefiting more than the poor. The success of PFM in Kenya depends mainly on out of forest Income Generating Activities (IGAs). Beekeeping and eco-tourism are emerging as the most common IGAs.