Randi Kaarhus
in collaboration with
Ivar Jørgensen, Judith Kamoto, Reginald Mumba, Margaret Sikwese, and Sandy Ferrar
NKHALANGO!
A Social Forestry Model
Experiences from
Blantyre City Fuelwood Project in Southern Malawi
Noragric
Agricultural University of Norway
This publication was commissioned by the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD) to Noragric, Agricultural University of Norway, and was carried out in collaboration with Bunda College of Agriculture, Malawi.
Reproduction of this publication for educational or other non-commercial purposes is authorised without prior written permission from the copyright holder provided the source is fully acknowledged.
ISBN: 82-92277-01-3
© Kaarhus, Randi, and Ivar Jørgensen, Judith Kamoto, Reginald Mumba, Margaret Sikwese and Sandy Ferrar, 2003
Noragric, Centre for International Environment and Development Studies Agricultural University of Norway (NLH)
P.O. Box 5001 N-1432 Ås Norway
Tel.: +47 64 94 99 50 Fax: +47 64 94 07 60
This publication is also availble as a PDF file on Noragrics Internet site:
http://www.nlh.no/noragric/publications
Cover design: Sandy Ferrar and Berit Berge
Design: Sandy Ferrar, Svein Olav Daatland and Berit Berge Printed at: Ås Trykk, Norway
University of Malawi Bunda College of Agriculture
Preface
After some 14 years of cooperation in support of the Blantyre City Fuelwood Project (BCFP) in Southern Malawi, the Norwegian Government/NORAD involvement was phased out in 20012002.
A final evaluation showed that after the two first phases of limited success, the project had turned into a remarkable modern social forestry project. Central to the success was the development of management powers of the local communities. Ordinary people, men and women, had been given the opportunity to organise themselves in order to take charge of important natural resources in their local environment, including the more
encompassing task of utilising the forest in a sustainable way for common benefit and development.
How could the lessons learnt through this project be made available for other programmes in development work and
cooperation? The desire to pass on experiences from the BCFP to a wider audience triggered the idea of extracting key results from the evaluation report and the essence of the project and turning these into a manual. The present book is the result of that idea.
We thank the team, whose enthusiasm for the task has given us an inspiring book. We hope it will inspire other actors and agents to promote people-centred and decentralised forest management, highly needed both in Malawi and elsewhere!
Arild Skåra NORAD advisor
Table of Contents
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1.1 Why present NKHALANGO! as a social forestry model? 8 1.2 The policy framework for social forestry in Malawi 13 1.3 Project organisation: Advantages and empty plates 15 1.4 A brief outline of the model 19
2 The BCFP Story what we learned in the field 21
2.1 Community mobilisation 21
2.2 Village Natural Resource Management Committees 28 2.3 Training and capacity buildin 35
2.4 Land tenure and forest land 39
2.5 Forest management and management plans 44 2.6 Monitoring and accountability 48
2.7 Marketing and sale of forest products 61 2.8 Bylaws and implementation 63
2.9 Benefit sharing 69
3 Recommendations and what we would change if we did it again 77
3.1 Lessons learnt and suggested improvements 78 3.2 Alternative income generation 90
3.3 Promoting empowerment and building social capital 93
4 NKHALANGO! A social forestry model 97
4.1 Pre-requisites for success 97 4.2 Key actors and activities 102 4.3 Guidelines for implementation 105
4.4 Towards sustainability - ensuring stabilisation 113
ANNEXES 117
1 Malawi: Background information 119 2 History of the BCFP 121
3 Decentralisation and local power structures in Malawi 124 4 History of social forestry in Malaw 127
5 Example of Forestry Management Agreement 130 6 Example of Bylaws 133
7 Acknowledgements 138
8 The research and writing team 140 9 Abbreviations 142
10 References 143
Table of boxes
Background
The Blantyre City Fuelwood Projec 9 Land tenure in Malawi 10
The international forest policy dialogue 12
Traditional and new structures of forest management 28 The role of a VNRMC 29
Matrilineal rules and practice 30
Concept
Mobilisation and sensitisation 23
Management and monitoring, two hands of the same body 49
Accountability and transparency 53 Financial accountability 56 Audit 58
Empowerment and social capital 94
Story
Dont call me Bwana! 24
Kinship relations in village politics 31
Training allowances, benefits and conflicts 38 Land tenure and tree tenure 41
Indigenous forest resources at Aliseni village 46 Greedy Village Head dethroned 51
Blankets for orphans 52
Accountability in Lubeni Village 53 Fertilizer for Matowa village 68
Benefits beyond boundaries: Blankets for the clinic 72 Equal opportunities for children 75
Building social capital in Kantimbanya village 95
Discussion
Mobilisation and self-mobilization 25 Authority and witchcraft 26
Why not cultivate maize on forest land? 43
Can the blessing of money be a corrupt practice? 59 Uniformity and flexibility: the Forestry Act and Bylaws 67 Is sustainable charcoal burning possible? 91
This Chapter presents a brief overview of the BCFP process that has led to the Nkhalango! model.
During the1990s, community oriented approaches to natural resource management spread across Africa. In the field of wildlife management the Zimbabwean CAMPFIRE model has become particularly well known.
Whether it is considered a success story or not, the CAMPFIRE model has become an important point of reference in the community-based management of wildlife resources. Adapted versions of the CAMPFIRE model and similar approaches to wildlife management have been adopted in several African countries. But when we turn to the management of forests, similar models are not easy to find. There seem to be more prob- lems than solutions, more questions than answers, in the field of the community-based management of forest resources. Why?
Internationally and at national level, changes in for- estry policy have shown a clear shift in forestry values over the last few years. The original conservation
perspective was that forests have intrinsic value only and should be protected by keeping people out. The new
perspective involves a community-ownership approach, in which forests are managed primarily for their social and economic benefits to local people. But are there actually
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NKHALANGO!
good examples of community-based forest management in Africa? Where do we find the evidence of good results?
We believe the experience described in this book can be viewed as a relative success story. Not because the
experience was a complete success, nor because we have designed a model with any guarantee of success, but because we are able to present some encouraging results and approaches that can be applied and adapted to the local conditions elsewhere. What we have written here is a description of the methods and procedures that were applied and the important lessons learnt under the
Blantyre City Fuelwood Project (BCFP). The project began in the late 1980s in three districts in southern Malawi:
Blantyre, Zomba and Chikwawa. It started out as a SADC pilot/demonstration project. In its first two phases it experienced a number of problems that did not encourage others to follow its example. It is the third phase, carried out between 19972001, that is of particular interest.
The experiences from this last phase of the BCFP form the basis of the NKHALANGO! social forestry model.
1.1 Why present NKHALANGO! as a social forestry model?
The model synthesizes key elements of the general approach and practical experiences from the BCFP in Malawi. It also recommends a number of improvements to the methods and procedures originally used in the BCFP.
The recommendations are based on information collected by a five-member multi-disciplinary team during an
eight-week period of fieldwork between March and May 2002. Interviews and discussions with a large number of resource persons provided important insights and
information (see Annex 7). Finally, they reflect the experiences and discussions within the research team itself (Annex 8).
We have given the model a Chichewa name:
NKHALANGO! Nkhalango means forest. Our ambition is that this social forestry model shall be used, and revised in the process. We hope that it will be taken as a point of departure for new experiences leading to improved social forestry in Malawi.
Background
The Blantyre City Fuelwood Project
The BCFP was initiated in 1986, setting out to solve some of the problems resulting from accelerating deforestation in the surroundings of the two major towns in southern Malawi, Blantyre and Zomba.
In the 1980s, scarcity of forest products and rising prices of fuelwood at local markets were considered problems that could be addressed through a large-scale wood production and marketing project. The project objective was to provide fuelwood and construction poles at low cost to the urban poor.
In the first phase of the project, extensive areas of customary forest land were acquired from neighbouring villages. The project planted eucalyptus (known colloquially as bluegum) on most of this land. By the mid 1990s, 4 700 ha of bluegum plantations had been established and wood was being harvested and sold.
By this time the project had run into serious problems. New approaches were required (see Annex 2).
The idea of local people participating in sustainable use and management of forests took root in Malawi, as in a number of other countries, in the early 1990s. In 1992, Malawi Forestry Department representatives returned from the Rio Conference on Environment and
Development with the conviction that the idea of commu- nity participation in sustainable resource management must be followed up. They realised that this would not only mean developing new policies, but also
implementing completely new forestry practices in Malawi. This presented the challenge of combining several objectives:
Better conservation of forests and woodlands
More sustainable use of forest resources
Improved livelihoods for local people
In the early 1990s, Malawi had just embarked on a process of radical political change, from a dictatorship to a multi-party democracy. During the 1990s a whole series of new policies, laws and programmes were formulated and implemented. In 1996, both a National Environmental Action Plan and a new Forestry Policy were approved. A new Forestry Act was passed in 1997.
In order to implement these new policies and laws, a National Forestry Programme was developed and presented in 2001 (see Section 1.2 below.)
Background
Land tenure in Malawi
Land tenure refers to the authority or right to use land and its associated forests or water resources. But tenure does not allow unrestricted rights to over-exploit the resource. The right to use a resource is associated with social obligations and environmental responsibilities regarding the management of the resource.
There are three categories of land tenure in Malawi:
Most land falls within the category of customary land, the source of livelihood for most Malawians. The forest land that was acquired by the BCFP was customary land. It was acquired through negotiations and agreements with Village Headmen and women and their Traditional Authorities (TAs). These local leaders have traditionally had responsibility for the allocation of customary land to villagers and small-scale farmers.
The second category is public or State land. Forest and Wildlife Reserves are public land under Govern- ment control.
The third category is private land. This is land leased to private companies or individuals on long-term commercial leases; some forest plantations, and tobacco or tea estates fall into this category. These private landholdings are a source of income and employment for a small minority of Malawians.
Both the National Environmental Action Plan and the National Forestry Programme emphasise the role of local communities in natural resource management. How should these new ideas and policies be put into practice?
That was the big question. The BCFP was at this time a long-established, large-scale afforestation project, based on commercial forest management principles and the marketing of forest products. In 1995, in line with the new ideas and programmes, the projects Steering Committee decided to take the chance and hand back the forest land, now mostly eucalyptus plantations, to local village communities to be managed by elected Village Natural Resource Management Committees, as provided for in the new Forestry Act.
In the BCFP, full management responsibilities, and rights to revenue collection from the forests, were
handed over to 113 village communities during the period 1997 to 2001. To ensure that these resources would be managed and used for the benefit of all villagers, the communities were required to elect Village Natural Re- source Management Committees (VNRMCs) before the formal handover.
This meant that in its third and final phase the BCFP was totally transformed. The third phase promoted very different approaches and methods, initiating a completely new model of forestry. In the first two phases the project was based on commercial plantation-forestry approaches.
This involved local people providing labour and receiving income from jobs in forest management, road
construction or the timber industry. At the same time local villagers were often considered a threat to the productivity of the forests. The forest plantations had to be protected from local people seeking to use both
plantations and indigenous forests according to their own needs and interests.
In the final phase, BCFP staff mobilized and assisted village communities to elect VNRMCs. These
Committees, in accordance with formal agreements with the Government, are responsible for promoting
participatory forestry on customary land through protec- tion, management and the sustainable use of forest resources. The project provided training for both project
staff and Committee members in leadership skills, forest management, marketing and basic accounting. The project staff assisted the VNRMCs in developing forest management plans for their newly acquired bluegum
Background
The international forest policy dialogue
Forestry policy in Malawi, as in most other countries, has been influenced by the international forest policy dialogue.
This dialogue has resulted in the establishment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Forests (IPF) and subsequently, the Intergovernmental Forum on Forests (IFF) which devel- oped international consensus on policy recommendations for numerous issues related to forest management.
The IFF ended its work in 2000 and a new UN institution was established. This is called the United Nations Forum on Forests (UNFF). As part of its mandate, the UNFF supports the development of National Forestry Programmes in all countries, and promotes further dialogue related to establish- ing formal international agreements related to forestry.
International consensus has not yet been achieved on the establishment of a forestry convention with legally binding agreements. However, most details regarding recommenda- tions for sustainable forestry and participatory forestry are not controversial. Strong recommendations, regarding decen- tralisation of decision-making and management of forests by involving local communities, have come out of the
international process. FAO, UNDP and the World Bank are equally strong in recommending participatory forestry. This is a basic strategy to achieve sustainability while at the same time boosting poverty reduction from forest management. All these developments have influenced the new forestry policy and legislation in Malawi.
Malawis National Forestry Programme is an excellent implementation document that is well aligned with current international trends in forest management.
plantations. BCFP staff also organised a process of
drafting local bylaws for the management and protection of the forests. These bylaws are intended to serve as an important tool in the work of the VNRMCs.
The basic idea behind this approach was that the de- centralisation of full management powers over local forest resources would create a sense of community ownership, which in turn would promote sustainable use of this important resource. By carefully managing their newly acquired forests, communities could develop a stable source of income from the sale of forest products.
This income could be used for emergency purposes in villages trying to cope with periodic food shortages,
constant poverty, and the increasing effects of HIV/AIDS.
Even more important in the minds of the BCFP project managers was that these funds could be used as a basis for rural development, as determined by the villagers themselves.
This model provides real incentives for local people to protect the resource and achieve sustainable harvesting of their own forests. In doing so, the rural communities acquire for themselves, the role of main providers of fuelwood, construction poles and other forest products to urban markets.
1.2 The policy framework for social forestry in Malawi
The NKHALANGO! model could not have developed without the backing of new national policies, including the ongoing process of decentralisation in Malawi. The first phases of the project reflected development thinking at that time. The third phase of the project that
resulted in the model we present here was planned and implemented during a period when new approaches to development were emerging world-wide.
The participatory resource management ideas that were consolidated at the Rio Summit were part of an even wider change of perspective among forestry decision makers world-wide. The concepts of integrated development and interdisciplinary approaches had gained support during the same period. Foresters had become exposed to
experiences from other disciplines, all of which have
contributed to the new policies and legislation for the forestry sector. At the same time, non-forestry related legislation for natural resource management developed in the same direction.
In Malawi, the National Forestry Policy of 1996 strongly reflected these new approaches. The Forestry Act of 1997 removed a number of restrictions on local peoples access to, and use of, woodlands and their products, and promoted equity and participation in woodland management by local communities. The previ- ous Forestry Act focussed on protecting forests from people, restricting access to and use of woodlands. Both Acts promoted the protection of forests for the benefit of the nation, as overall goals, but the strategy for achieving this has now changed. The Forestry Policy and the Act are both embedded in the Constitution of Malawi, and obtain support from the Decentralisation Policy and the Local Government Act of 1998. The Forestry Policy also promotes co-ordination between the Department of Forestry and other government agencies, as well as NGOs and other stakeholders. These policies have thus not only changed the general approach to development, but they have also become more integrated and
compatible with each other. Both of these factors have been important for the development of the social forestry model presented here.
The experiences gained through the BCFP provided inputs into the National Forestry Programme (NFP).
Forestry policy and legislation have also been integrated and reinforced in the NFP. This Programme sets
strategies and prioritises actions. It defines key
stakeholders to implement local community participation.
The NFP provides direction and procedures in a number of areas:
The process of institutional change
Optimising policy influences on forests and livelihoods
Building local governance through decentralisation
Supporting community based forest management
Strengthening forestry extension
The Local Government Act of 1998 has also been of im- portance in developing the NKHALANGO! model. The Act promotes decentralisation and establishes systems and institutions at the local level. The activities of the District Assemblies and the VNRMCs have become elements in a common structure with the shared objec- tive of local development (see Annex 3).
The NKHALANGO! model has developed together with the legal and policy changes in Malawi. It may be seen as resulting from but also as one of the driving forces for the new participatory approach to development in Malawi.
1.3 Project organisation: Advantages and empty plates
In the 1980s and 1990s the BCFP was organised as an aid (or externally funded) project with a project manager and support staff at several levels. A separate project office was constructed at the premises of the Regional Forestry Office (RFO). Field offices were constructed in four field sites. The deputy director in the Forestry Department in the Ministry of Forestry, Fisheries and Environmental Affairs, was appointed as project director
of the BCFP, with the overall responsibility for project execution. In addition, the project had a Local Steering Committee and, in its third phase, a transitional
Monitoring Committee of local leaders, MPs, District Commissioners and representatives from the Forestry Department.
These structures and linkages were important for implementing the project. The linkage to the national level of the Forestry Department was of great importance to secure support for the strategies selected. Without close contact between the project and the Department, the decision to hand over plantations to the communities could never have been taken. In fact it was quite a dra- matic decision at the time and needed sound legal, ad- ministrative and political backing.
The linkages to local level institutions were also of major importance for successful implementation of the project.
Working with TAs, Group Village Headmen and village leaders was necessary to obtain support for project decisions, activities and regulations. Working with the District Assemblies and District Commissioners was also important for bringing project activities into the larger circle of development efforts coordinated through the District Commissioners office. The BCFP set out to accomplish a task that was indeed ambitious:
implementing a training programme and transferring management powers over resources to village committees on a scale that was unprecedented in Malawi. This re- quired an organisation equipped to handle a complex network of changing relationships and the huge task of organising activities and events.
The advantages of organising these activities outside the normal structures of the government forest
authorities are:
A clear focus on a defined set of objectives
Better control of project funds and resources
An opportunity to handpick people to implement the project tasks that were, in part, very different from the routine work of RFOs and DFOs.
On the other hand, the weaknesses of the project have become increasingly clear as we have developed the model. The well equipped and well staffed project office was able to effectively implement its responsibilities, while the nearby RFO and DFO offices lacked the necessary resources to do their routine work. Such a situation creates tension and a feeling of resentment. Why does the project get all the resources and then all the prestige of success? Anyone could have done equally well with the same resources! As a result, co-operation between the project and the RFO/DFO was not as effective as it could have been.
The project also brought with it investments of a mag- nitude that created major inequalities between project and regular staff. With the phasing out of the project and its funds, vehicles, buildings and equipment are difficult to maintain and repair. Many of the BCFP staff have left or have been transferred, while the staff remaining at the Regional and District offices feel that the capacity they had acquired with that assistance, is even more needed now. Forestry Office staff have not had the same degree of involvement in the capacity building process;
some do not have the same network in partner
institutions and among local people all of which are necessary to make a participatory forestry programme work.
The situation that has resulted from the phasing out of the BCFP is, however, not at all unique among externally funded projects world-wide. What remains is very often a feeling that the feast is over, and the staff who try to keep up the work are left with few resources to meet a high level of expectations. The feeling is that all that has been handed over is an empty plate!
The adaptation of the NKHALANGO! model to any new locality should be based on a much more flexible and low- key approach, integrated as much as possible with the activities of Local Government institutions. Especially in the first phase, the establishment phase (see Chapter 4.3.1) there will probably be a need for some sort of
project organisation. The follow-up phase, the stabilisation phase, should prepare for the integration of the
NKHALANGO! activities with the normal operations of existing structures and organisations. The optimal organisation will depend on local conditions. The NKHALANGO! model may be implemented by a small project organisation established by the Local
Government, or by an NGO, or as a joint initiative of several stakeholders.
1.4 A brief outline of the model
NKHALANGO! is aimed at achieving sustainable use of forest resources through providing assistance to commu- nities to build their capacity to:
Organise themselves to achieve defined goals
Make management plans
Manage and harvest their forest resources
Market the products
The ultimate aim is that income and benefits derived from the forests should be equitably shared among community members.
The model grew out of a conventional afforestation project, planned, planted, managed and marketed with foreign aid. The realisation that the original project was unsustainable without continual financial input,
coincided with the world-wide move towards participatory management of natural resources. As a result the project made a 180° shift in its approach. This shift provided the conditions for the development of the NKHALANGO!
model.
Communities adjacent to the established plantations were identified, and locally adapted tenure
arrangements were negotiated with traditional leaders and local authorities. Each village was assisted in the election of a committee to be responsible for all forestry related activities. These include:
Planning for the management of afforested land
Marketing the harvested products
Accounting for the income
Ensuring that the income is used to the benefit of the community as a whole
The necessary training to perform these functions, in- cluding leadership skills, was supplied to Committee members, village heads, Forestry Department field staff and extension workers.
The basic assumption that drives the model is that a real feeling of ownership of the resource, and the
tangible benefits from it, will foster a nurturing attitude in communities that participate and benefit. This
interdependence provides the conditions that support rural livelihoods and conserve forests.
The structure of this book
CHAPTER 2 provides a record of various aspects of the BCFP activities from the perspective of those involved.
These accounts serve to illustrate and discuss the issues that have influenced the projects progress. They are intended to provide insight into the attitudes and understanding of the process by local people. They also reflect the gain in understanding achieved by the projects technical advisors and managers and representatives of the funding agency.
CHAPTER 3 sets out the main recommendations
resulting from the four-year final phase of the project.
CHAPTER 4 describes the model itself.
Selected background information and related reference material are set out in ten APPENDIXES.
This chapter presents the basic approaches, procedures and methods used in the third phase (19972001) of the Blantyre City Fuelwood Project. We discuss some of the strengths and weaknesses, and point out important lessons learnt from the BCFP experiences.
2.1 Community mobilisation
A measure of success in mobilisation can be attendance at an announced meeting, or practical results such as tree seedlings planted or a forest plantation weeded. The BCFP staff saw successful mobilisation in a considerable increase in the time people spent working together for the good of the community, like forest management activities, improved attendance at meetings, and
participation in decision-making processes and elections.
We must, however, take into account that people in villages have a large number of different activities, especially during the rainy season, a peak period in the agricultural cycle. Working in the fields, clearing,
planting, weeding, harvesting and preparing the harvest for household consumption or sale at the market, is time consuming. Even during the dry season, regarded as a slack period, villagers attend activities such as
chinamwali (the initiation ceremony), sell products at the
2 The BCFP Story
Lessons from the field
markets or get casual jobs outside the village. In addition, people are concerned with moral obligations.
With the tragic epidemic of HIV/AIDS, funerals are becoming increasingly common, and both time and resources are directed towards attending to the most basic needs of the sufferers and their families.
More generally we can say that the amount of time spent on a development activity by an individual will depend on the expected benefit. The expected benefit will be an important determining factor in the choice of
whether to attend a particular developmental meeting or not. During the BCFP project period, there were varying degrees of attendance at village meetings; in some villages attendance of both men and women was high; in other cases, there were more women than men or vice versa.
Sensitisation may contribute to more sustainable natural resource management in local communities.
Sensitising initiatives can be carried out by extension officers or by NGO workers. But sensitising is only one element in the mobilisation process.
What are the factors behind successful mobilisation?
With constant food shortages and insecure livelihoods that we find in Malawi, it seems important to bring in new ideas about how to use and manage natural
resources. It is also necessary to facilitate processes that make local people aware of new opportunities and new ways of addressing the problems of their day-to-day lives.
In providing new information, that is sensitising local people, extension workers can play an important role in local development.
But here the personal character, the courtesy and personal approach of the extension worker when
communicating with village people is of great importance.
It is vital to establish good conditions for dialogue, for an exchange of views and experiences, rather than a top- down command line.
Concepts
Mobilisation and sensitisation
Mobilisation comes from the word mobile meaning free to move. Mobilisation means getting people moving for a cause or common goal.
Community mobilisation means identifying human resources in a community and putting them to use in organised and joint activities, such as people with:
Enthusiasm
A special interest in the goal
Leadership qualities
Mobilisation can also mean putting community resources to work for the common good, and organising the use of these resources, including voluntary labour used in community work.
Mobilisation comes with sensitisation. BCFP management saw there was a clear need for community members to be sensitised about the environmental problems of deforestation.
That was a precondition for the villagers to be mobilised to do something about it. But what does sensitising actually mean?
Sensitising comes from the word sense, meaning to feel or understand. Sensible means being aware, or having good sense. Sensitising has to do with making others aware by providing new information about an issue. Examples are:
To provide information about the importance of the forest cover on a local hill in preserving the villages water sources
Or provide information about the capacity of the tree called nsangu, the Acacia (Faidherbia) albida, to improve soil fertility Sensitising means making people draw new conclusions from what they already know. Local people may well know that the surroundings of their village are being deforested. Sensitising them in this case would mean to make them aware that this could be a reason for concern, and for changes in practice. Sensitising should make people aware that they can do something, given that they actually are, or have become, concerned about local defor- estation.
Sensitisation is a major tool in the process of mobilisation.
Story
Dont call me Bwana!
When the BCFP established the forest plantations, most of the labour force was drawn from the sur- rounding villages. The relationship of project staff to community members was that of a bwana (boss) to a casual worker. In the third phase, project staff became extension workers and the former casual workers were the new owners of the forest area. In this way they became partners in the task of forest conservation.
Did the bwana/casual-worker hangover still affect the interaction between the two?
In an effort to change the former relationship, staff insisted on not being treated as bwanas. Local people were encouraged to use the term alangizi instead of bwana. Alangizi refers to the extension workers role as advisers, underscoring a partner- ship in forest conservation.
This change may have caused considerable pain and reluctance on the part of some officers in the beginning, but gradually many found more pride in achieving results through working with the communities than in holding on to a high position.
The role of facilitator requires a different set of skills to that of forest patrolman or forestry expert.
The sensitisation process directed at the staff included how to address a meeting, how and where to sit during a meeting, how to encourage commu- nity members to speak up, and how to listen to what people say.
When selecting extension staff, the project deliberately looked for personal qualities like humbleness, dedication, and helpfulness.
But old habits are hard to break, and one result was the saying: If you call me bwana, you have to pay a chicken!
Discussion
Mobilisation and self-mobilization
Mobilisation can take different forms. Community mobilisation often needs some kind of external input, in the form of sensitisation or external assistance in getting better organised.
A mobilisation tool used here was the organisation of meetings.
At these meeting elections were held, management plans were discussed or progress reviewed. Meetings were usually announced through the Village Head, in accordance with local tradition.
Traditional authorities play an important role in assisting staff to mobilise communities.
When the BCFP staff takes the initiative to organise a meeting, it is external mobilisation. The ability of the Village Head to call community meetings is a question of selfmobilisation. The same applies to the ability of the committee to get local people to co- operate in forest management. Self-mobilisation depends on local leaders having the authority to lead decision-making processes to decisions that can be accepted by all (or most) community mem- bers.
In some cases the mobilisation of local people is dependent on external agents intervention, and even more on the incentives or benefits provided through external funding or project money. In the current situation of abject poverty for many Malawians, it is no surprise that people choose to be mobilised by external agents who are able to pay for community work, and even for attending meetings or training courses.
On the other hand, this type of mobilisation with incentives can make it more difficult for local leaders, either elected Committee members or Village Heads, to mobilise people without offering such incentives. This is a real problem for long-term goals in terms of local selfmobilisation and empowerment.
The BCFP project managers actively worked on changing attitudes among staff and villagers alike. The old
relationship of forest officers and extension workers as the bwanas and the people as humble receivers of instructions was not compatible with the newly established partnership of social forestry.
Nevertheless, sensitising and mobilisation does not depend solely on the ability of the external agent/
extension worker to establish partnerships. A great deal depends on the capacity for self-mobilisation within the local community. Our experience is that both
mobilisation and self-mobilisation depend on existing social relations in the communities, and on good
leadership at the village level. Mobilisation depends on how well local institutions work. More specifically it depends on the leadership qualities of the Village Head, and on relations between families and groups within a village.
The authority of people in traditional power positions in Malawi, such as Village Heads and TAs, is usually based on the respect common village members have for these positions. But in practical terms, the actual authority that a Village Head commands is also based on the personal respect he or she gains through personal work and actions. Their capacity to mobilise local people
Discussion
Authority and witchcraft
In Malawi, where traditional hierarchies and power structures still seem to have consider- able influence over peoples lives, one might think that local authorities could base their ability to mobilise people on fear among village members. Here fear of witchcraft could be a case in point.
But this does not seem to be the case. We found that fear, in particular fear of witchcraft, cannot be used as a resource by local leaders to mobilise people. A Village Head who is known to have witchcraft powers (mfiti), may strongly influence social relationships, and may even create a socially destructive environment in his village. But that does not mean that he is able to mobilise people, either for meetings or for community work.
depends on the villagers' respect for the person in the position. This is different from the fear they may feel, because of the influence someone in power can have over peoples lives and livelihoods.
Power relationships vary from village to village. In some villages the authority of the Village Head is firmly based on the personal respect for how he or she performs this important role. Such is the case in Lubeni village, in the area of TA Somba. Here the villagers clearly said that the role of the Village Head is to mobilise local people both for meetings and for community work. They told us that when, for instance, weeding is needed in the communitys forest plantation, the Village Headwoman herself will be in the forefront of the work party, in order to mobilise the rest of the villagers to join in the work for the common good.
Generally, it seems that community mobilisation is easier where the village is well organised under the leadership of a respected Village Head, and where the population is stable and homogenous. For several
decades scarcity of land has forced people to leave their mothers village, and form new villages in less populated areas. At present, however, there are many indications of increasing economic and social differentiation even in villages that suffer from generalised poverty. Over time this will probably result in less homogeneous villages.
Newly formed villages and those with diverse social groupings have been found to be difficult to mobilise. This situation will hopefully be taken as a challenge by NGOs that have sufficient dedication, knowledge and resources to work with communities that may not turn out to be
success stories during the first year of a social forestry project!
2.2 Village Natural Resource Management Committees
The Malawi Forestry Act of 1997 provides for "the
promotion of participatory forestry on customary land" (§
29). According to the Act, one of the ways the Director of Forestry may enter into a forest management
agreement is by providing for the formation of village natural resources management committees for the purposes of managing and utilising village forest areas
(§ 31). It was this legal model that the Blantyre City Fuelwood Project set out to put into practice in its third phase.
The forest management agreements created through the BCFP were formal agreements between the Director of Forestry, representing the Ministry and the
Government on the one hand, and the local residents of a village on the other, represented by a Village Natural Resource Management Committee (VNRMC). A VNRMC is a legally formalised institution. This means that the
Background
Traditional and new structures of forest management
Traditionally, Village Heads were the custodians of forests in Malawi. The Village Head directed all activities relating to the forest. Most village forest areas, established in the 1920s, were under the jurisdiction of Village Heads, who were expected to set aside part of their land to forest activities for their subjects.
Over the years changes have been instituted in most areas, and even the village forest areas that were established in the 1920s now have Committees as custodians. More generally, however, there is as yet limited experience with elected bodies representing local residents and managing joint resources.
The good functioning of these Committees still is a real challenge.
Background
The role of a VNRMC
The role of a VNRMC is to regulate access to the village forest area, but also to assist the Village Head in the management of village woodlots and protected forests on public land.
In addition, it is their responsibility to conduct reforestation programmes, issue permits for forest utilisation, organise forest management work, and keep financial records. They should also organise fire patrols and fire fighting in and around the forest, enforce laws on conservation of forest resources, and regulate the utilisation of forest products.
With the current decentralisation policy, and a new and more decentralised system of local government in Malawi, Village Develop- ment Committees (VDCs) are to be elected in all villages. The VDC should in principle have an important role with regard to all
development initiatives in a village, and the formal role as the VNRMC at village level is as a sub-committee of the VDC (see also Annex 3).
Committee has the power to sign a formal Forest Management Agreement with the Government. After agreeing on the borders and demarcating a new village forest area (see also Chapter 2.4, Story box: Land tenure and tree tenure), the BCFP staff assisted communities in the election of Village Natural Resource Management Committees.
The first step was to elect and organise VNRMCs as defined in the new Forestry Act of 1997. The Village Head would usually be approached to assist, and he or she would then convene a meeting where the roles and esponsibilities of the Committee could be explained.
The VNRMCs have been formed according to a model where a committee should consist of 10 members, namely: Chair, Vice Chair, Secretary, Vice Secretary, Treasurer, Vice Treasurer, and four Committee
members. In practice, we found that some variations on this model exist. In several villages, an extra ten people were elected. The reason given was that 10 people were not enough to carry out all the work that is the VNRMCs responsibility. The solution to this problem had been to double the 10 committee member-model so that the extra ten could assist the first ten in forest management and information-dissemination in the village.
The BCFP also had a rule stating that a minimum of 30 % of the elected members should be women. In
practice, the representation of women in the committees varied quite a lot from community to community. In villages close to town, and those villages where matri- lineal rules and practices are very strong, the commit- tees have more women than men. In villages close to town, the men are often employed in town and therefore do not have time to be involved in forest management activities.
Background
Matrilineal rules and practices
All village members are, in principle, eligible for election to a VNRMC. However, it appears to be very difficult to elect
strangers onto the committees, i.e. those who have just settled in or married into the village.
Rules of descent and inheritance in the BCFP project area generally follow the matrilineal system, and residence is usually uxorilocal, which means that the husband goes to reside in the wifes village. These in- married husbands, akamwini, are usually seen as strangers and do not stand much chance of being elected, unless they have lived in the village for a long time.
Democratic elections of Committee members should ensure representation, accountability and transparency.
That is, it is assumed the Committee will be elected from various sectors of the community, thus representing the various social groups within a village. It is also assumed that the people on the Committee will check one
anothers actions and decisions. In this way the deci- sions made by the Committee should be representative of what the community, as a whole wants. In contrast, it is believed that placing all responsibility on one persons shoulders could easily result in local dictatorship and misuse of power.
Forestry assistants and sometimes forest guards were involved in organising elections of VNRMC members.
Most of them had no formal training in participatory methods, but were nevertheless given the responsibility for facilitating this process. As a result, they sometimes tended to dictate rather than assist local people in the process, and some of the committees were no doubt elected without due consideration to democratic principles.
Story
Kinship relations in village politics
In Matowa village, the Headman told us that it is much better if the elected members of the VNRMC are not relatives of the Village Head. He said that relatives are usually "of the same mind". Close relatives cannot be expected to voice a different opinion or contradict the Village Head during a meeting.
Different views and opinions are necessary to move along, he said, Different opinions make it possible to discuss different options and make better decisions. He believed that the functioning of the VNRMC in his own village was a good example of this. (See also story box: Fertiliser for Matowa village.)
A few cases were also reported where the Village Head handpicked the members of the VNRMCs. In fact, the performance of the forestry assistants themselves was measured by the number of VNRMCs created, rather than by the quality of the election process. This led to too much emphasis on efficiency (many elections in a short time) and not enough emphasis on democratic principles in the organisation of the election processes.
In practice, forest assistants were always present during the election meetings. The venue of elections was mostly at the Village Heads compound. Therefore there would be relatively large numbers of the Heads family in attendance at the election, compared to numbers of non- relatives. This could of course affect the elections.
Sometimes the venue of elections was the primary
school, and in these cases the influence of Village Heads and kinship relations on the elections would be less prominent. Before the community proceeded to vote, the Forestry Assistant would generally advise the
communities on the characteristics that are required of leaders. They also advised villagers not to vote for the Village Head or his/her close relatives, and most villagers actually followed this advice. In several cases where close relatives of the Village Head were elected, there have been problems or allegations of
mismanagement of funds.
The election of Committee members was conducted in a similar manner throughout the BCFP area. The people attending the election meeting were asked to suggest candidates. The candidates were either blindfolded or sent away from the group so that the voting was done without them seeing who voted for whom. To vote, community members would either raise their hands or line up in a queue behind the one they preferred among the blindfolded candidates.
In most cases people told us that they elected Committee members based on characteristics such as trustworthiness and diligence. In some cases,
trustworthiness counted more than literacy, even in the election of the Committees treasurer. We found,
however, that the treasurer can be faced with a very difficult job when it comes to accounting in detail for
income and expenditures over time, especially if he or she is illiterate. Sometimes illiterate treasurers have been assisted by more literate community members. But this is an awkward situation, and there is a need for additional literacy and numeracy training.
Terms of office and replacement
The term of office for the elected VNRMCs is five years.
In some cases there have been a number of dropouts.
Sometimes Committee work turned out to be very different from what the elected members had first expected. Sometimes, especially in the beginning, Committee members withdrew because of fear of
reprisals when they patrolled the forest area to protect it from illegal logging or charcoal burning. In these cases the Committee member was generally replaced by someone nominated by the Village Head.
The issue of how and when to organise the next
election is seldom discussed. The very idea of a person in a position of power being replaced by somebody else
through elections is still relatively new in the Malawi context. At the local level, Traditional Authorities and Village Heads keep their position till their deaths. By contrast, the term of the elected VNRMC members should be 5 years in office. After that they can be re- elected once, or replaced by new candidates.
Preparing democratic processes leading up to new elections after a 5-year term is an important challenge to the District Forest Officers in what was the BCFP area.
It is worth noting that the issue of democratic replacement is an important theme on the national political scene in Malawi. This may lead to increased awareness and more interest in how the replacements/re-elections are
carried out in the BCFP area.
VNRMCs and ANRMCs
In addition to the Village Natural Resource Management Committees, it was also decided to form Area Natural Resource management Committees (ANRMC). These committees were established to cover several villages, and their mandate was to oversee and monitor the work of the Village Committees within the area (which usually corresponded to a forest block).
Area Committees (ANRMCs) were based on the model for Village Committees (VNMRCs) with a total of 10 members (including Chair, Secretary, Treasurer etc.) and were also established through general elections.
However, due to large distances and little information, the participation in the election meetings for the ANRMCs varied a lot, and they could hardly be
considered representative for the residents in the area.
In some cases the TA had a dominant role in the election/appointment of these committees.
One of the tasks of the ANRMC should be to assist in managing conflicts among and within the VNRMCs in the area. They should also co-ordinate development activities across several villages, such as bridges or roads, and they should serve as links between the TA and the VNRMCs. In addition they should have an important role in monitoring the record keeping of the VNRMCs. How- ever, the ANRMCs have not always functioned according to the ideas behind their establishment. On this point there is scope for reform and improvements (see chapter 2.7 and chapter 3).
2.3 Training and capacity building
The BCFP provided training to both local community members and field staff in order to build capacity among the new partners in participatory forest management.
The project focused on training in leadership skills, forest management, marketing and bookkeeping. In many local communities, people attributed the capacity to organise in new ways, manage the forest resources, and keep accounts, to this training. One villager answered a question about the importance of training with a proverb,
Kusadziwa nkufa komwe, which signifies:
"Being ignorant is the same as being dead in other words, without knowledge there can be no growth or development.
Once the VNRMC was elected, the priority in the training programme was leadership skills, enabling Committee members to organise and lead others in community work. Later they were trained in forest management, marketing and bookkeeping. The Village Head was also invited to the training sessions, and the bookkeeping course was reserved for the Committee Chair, Secretary and Treasurer, in addition to the Village Head. A larger number of community members, aiming at a total of 30 people per village, were trained in forest management.
The training organised by the BCFP was in part given as residential training at specific locations providing teaching and overnight accommodation facilities.
Leadership training and bookkeeping courses were usually located away from the participants home communities. Forest management training and
marketing courses were usually conducted in the village as day training.
A number of factors can be listed in favour of both day training and residential training. When assessing the cost of training per student, training within the local setting proved to be 10 times cheaper than residential training. Several factors contributed to this cost
difference. One was that during residential training, participants were given a certain (small) amount of
money as compensation for lost income. Day training was not paid. But since day training took place in the local setting, it was often interrupted or postponed because of emergencies and high priority events such as funerals, which are becoming increasingly common as a result of HIV/AIDS. Residential training, on the other hand, had minimal disturbances and low absenteeism.
This system of giving incentives to participate in
training in the form of cash allowances has brought with it a number of unexpected problems.
A logical conclusion at this point seems to be that training allowances should, whenever possible, be avoided. Food, and if necessary accommodation, is
different and should be provided by training organisers.
There has, in fact, been much discussion among project organisers in southern Malawi on this point. Some NGOs have decided not to pay allowances at all. In a situation of generally deepening poverty and acute food and livelihood crises among rural populations, it can at times be
difficult to implement this decision. On the other hand, if the objective of training is capacity building, it may be counter-productive to introduce incentives that become more important than the training itself. Perhaps these incentives have also served to draw attention away from the real content of the courses? People who want to learn new things will be interested in attending courses that they have heard positive things about from others. Such a reputation will depend on the content of the course, the relevance of the training, the teaching methods used, and the attitudes of the trainers.
Rural community members in southern Malawi may show little confidence in their own knowledge and
abilities. In order to create an optimal learning situation, it is particularly important that the trainer is interested in what people already know about an issue. It is also important that external trainers show respect for local or indigenous knowledge, and an interest in discussing different ways of approaching a problem, for example in forest management.
Creating confidence in the community members' own abilities and capacities was often a learning process for the trainers themselves. This training of trainers' element may not have been taken sufficiently into account in the BCFP.
What the project did was to provide training in
monitoring and evaluation for project field staff, forestry assistants in particular. The training was to enable forestry assistants to monitor the forest management activities of the VNRMCs and verify their accounting practices.
Story
Training allowances, benefits and conflicts
Occasionally, training allowances have aroused conflict between the VNRMC, who went for residential training, and other villagers, who only received day training in forest management. Instances of Committee members boasting of the money they had received in the presence of others especially created resentment. As a conse- quence, some villagers refused to be involved in forest management activities since, apparently, it was not the community as a whole but only the VNRMC who were benefiting.
Occasionally, training allowances have been seen as a resource the Village Head could distribute as he wished. There have been cases where the Village Head has substituted an elected member of the VNRMC with a relative, who would then receive the allowance. In one village, the elected Treasurer was a mkamwini (a man married into a matrilineal village). The Village Head decided that the treasurer should be substituted with one of his own relatives during training. The treasurer did not resign because of his omission, but his performance was definitely affected since he did not get the chance to acquire the necessary skills to carry out his function.
In another village, there had been a misunderstanding about the difference between day training without
allowances, and residential training where participants received an allowance. A number of Committee members and other villagers turned up for a forest-management training session in the village. When they heard that they would get no allowance they refused to participate in the training.
They told us they had felt cheated. They had under- stood that they would get an allowance, but when the day came, there was nothing. Later they admitted regret that they had not gained the knowledge presented during that training. If a new course were to be offered without allowances they would participate. But they also felt that refusing on that occasion was a question of defending their dignity.
The need for this training was realised after project staff encountered problems and inconsistencies in the record keeping of some Committees. It had been discovered that meetings called by VNRMCs were sometimes rather irregular and that the local communities did not always follow the plans of the forest management. However, this training was only provided very late in the third phase of the project, and the effects of the training have, as yet, been variable. (More on monitoring in 2.6.)
2.4 Land tenure and forest land
Before forest plantations were established in the BCFP area, land tenure of village forest land was under
customary law. Most of the forest land that was acquired in the first phase of the project was actually customary forest land on steep slopes (see Background Box: Land tenure in Malawi, Chapter 1). The transfer of user rights from the local communities to the BCFP was negotiated with the TAs in the areas, and to some extent also involved the Village Heads. Agreements were signed between the TAs and the BCFP, which acted on behalf of the Government in the establishment of forest
plantations.
At that time, some of the forest land was used for cultivation and grazing. All farmers who had cultivated forest land within the project area got some compen- sation from the project. Similar compensation was not given to people who used the land for grazing, and it has later been argued that they should also have been
compensated. On the other hand, land tenure and land use, especially with regard to forest land, is a complex issue, and all potential conflicts are not solved through compensation alone.
Local communities in the BCFP area do not have equal access to forest land. Recently established villages lack customary land rights, including rights to a village forest area. In general, land rights and land tenure is an
extremely important issue in Malawi, where land is without doubt the most important source of livelihood for people in rural areas. Family, kinship and community identities are also connected to land rights. At the same
time we see that with the high pressure on land and rural people moving and settling in new areas, disputes about land are becoming increasingly common. Not surprisingly, conflicts also occurred in the BCFP area.
When the decision was made to hand over forest
plantations to the local communities in the third phase of BCFP, the question of who should now get the forest plantations had to be addressed. Especially in those cases where communities located adjacent to the
plantations were without traditional rights to forest land, difficult decisions had to be made on how to divide the plantations. This division also involved the distribution of the benefits from a total investment of about 120 million Norwegian Kroner by the Norwegian Government,
approximately 1 270 million Malawi Kwacha. The dilemma is illustrated in the following map.
The main consideration in redistributing forest land was, of course, traditional land tenure rights. Another factor was the actual population now living adjacent to the forest land, their needs, and the likelihood of local people harvesting the products they needed the most, such as fuelwood, in nearby forests.
The argument went as follows: If village B was not allocated a forest plot in the area that traditionally had been part of the customary forest land of village A, the forest plantation next to village B is likely to be over-cut.
Why? Because villagers in B, a stones throw away from the plantation, no doubt would be reaping benefits from the forest while those in village A, who lived further away, would not be able to control the harvesting of these resources on a daily basis.
Another central consideration on the part of the BCFP was to create a system of tenure and local conditions that would facilitate the sustainable use and
management of the forest plantations. Therefore, an argument for changing the original boundaries was that this could be a way of preventing illegal use of the forest, such as the re-opening old cultivated lands in now
established forest land.
Story
Land tenure and tree tenure
How do the communities react to the type of arrangements described here? In one case, the Village Head resented the idea of tree tenure rights in his traditional village forest being allocated to a neighbouring village. He felt this would bring conflict in the future, and he thought it very likely his
successors would not have enough knowledge about these land and forest boundary issues. The Village Head later accepted the arrangement because it was made clear in the written agreement between the Community and the
Government that the original land tenure boundaries were not affected, only tree tenure rights.
Later the Village Head reported that although the system of allocating forest plots was based on the premise of preventing villagers from cultivating in their previous gardens, there were still cases of cultivation within the forest plantation. He was planning to consult his counterpart Village Head in the neighbouring village to evict the encroachers. If this did not succeed, he would have to report the matter to the Traditional Authority.
