1.0 INTRODUCTION
This paper is intended to explain the existing extent and trend of local underutilization and mismanagement of Forest Resources (including Timber, Logging/Logs and Bee Products) resulting in low/insignificant collection of taxes/revenue/royalties for Poverty Reduction in Tanzania. The arguments made in this paper have relied on references from various studies, which were commissioned by the Government of Tanzania. The recent study is titled, ‘Lessons Learned from a Logging Boom in Southern Tanzania’, which was conducted in 2007 by the Research on Poverty Alleviation-REPOA. According to REPOA, forests and woodlands in Tanzania cover around 40% of the total land area, yet support the livelihoods of 87% of the poor population who live in rural areas. Some 16% (and up to 60% seasonally) of households from villages located near forests in southern Tanzania benefited from logging and timber trade during 2005. Over 90% of the energy used in the country is wood fuel derived from the forests. In economic terms, rural communities, traders and the government have lost massive potential revenues to wasteful harvesting and processing, non-collection of
royalties and under-valuation of forest products. At village level, through mid- 2004, local harvesters have chronically under-valued hardwood logs. Consequently, they have been receiving barely one hundredth of the export price despite the fact that no value-adding had taken place since the logs were obtained. Revenue lost by central and district governments due to the under-collection of royalties reached up to 96% of the total amount of potential revenue due. The study found that, at central government level, it was tentatively estimated that nationwide losses of revenue to the Forestry and Beekeeping Division amounted nationally up to USD 58 million anually due to the under-collection of natural forest product royalties in the districts. Also, it was found that, some District Council budgets would have increased by several times over if potential timber revenues were actually collected. Substantial revenue losses were also apparent prior to and during shipment. For example, the trade statistics show that China imported ten times more timber products from Tanzania than appear on Tanzania’s own export records. This suggests that Tanzania collected only 10% of the revenue due from these exports. Further, this important social and economic resource has continued to degrade at an alarming rate. Around ten million hectares of forest land were lost between 1970 and 1998. At the harvest rates experienced during 2003 and 2004, and based on official forest inventories, it is apparent that all harvestable Class I and II trees in Rufiji and Kilwa Districts will have been felled within 20 years. The deleterious effects of deforestation on water catchments, hydroelectricity, soil erosion, fire outbreaks and the status of biodiversity are now evident in many parts of the country.
2.0 LOCAL UNDERUTILIZATION AND MISMANAGEMENT OF FOREST
RESOURCESSUCH AS TIMBER, LOGGING/LOGS AND BEE PRODUCTS
This paper is intended to explain the existing extent and trend of local underutilization and mismanagement of Forest Resources (including Timber, Logging/Logs and Bee Products) resulting in low/insignificant collection of taxes/revenue/royalties for Poverty Reduction in Tanzania. The arguments made in this paper have relied on references from various studies, which were commissioned by the Government of Tanzania. The recent study is titled, ‘Lessons Learned from a Logging Boom in Southern Tanzania’, which was conducted in 2007 by the Research on Poverty Alleviation-REPOA. According to REPOA, forests and woodlands in Tanzania cover around 40% of the total land area, yet support the livelihoods of 87% of the poor population who live in rural areas. Some 16% (and up to 60% seasonally) of households from villages located near forests in southern Tanzania benefited from logging and timber trade during 2005. Over 90% of the energy used in the country is wood fuel derived from the forests. In economic terms, rural communities, traders and the government have lost massive potential revenues to wasteful harvesting and processing, non-collection of
royalties and under-valuation of forest products. At village level, through mid- 2004, local harvesters have chronically under-valued hardwood logs. Consequently, they have been receiving barely one hundredth of the export price despite the fact that no value-adding had taken place since the logs were obtained. Revenue lost by central and district governments due to the under-collection of royalties reached up to 96% of the total amount of potential revenue due. The study found that, at central government level, it was tentatively estimated that nationwide losses of revenue to the Forestry and Beekeeping Division amounted nationally up to USD 58 million anually due to the under-collection of natural forest product royalties in the districts. Also, it was found that, some District Council budgets would have increased by several times over if potential timber revenues were actually collected. Substantial revenue losses were also apparent prior to and during shipment. For example, the trade statistics show that China imported ten times more timber products from Tanzania than appear on Tanzania’s own export records. This suggests that Tanzania collected only 10% of the revenue due from these exports. Further, this important social and economic resource has continued to degrade at an alarming rate. Around ten million hectares of forest land were lost between 1970 and 1998. At the harvest rates experienced during 2003 and 2004, and based on official forest inventories, it is apparent that all harvestable Class I and II trees in Rufiji and Kilwa Districts will have been felled within 20 years. The deleterious effects of deforestation on water catchments, hydroelectricity, soil erosion, fire outbreaks and the status of biodiversity are now evident in many parts of the country.
2.0 LOCAL UNDERUTILIZATION AND MISMANAGEMENT OF FOREST
RESOURCESSUCH AS TIMBER, LOGGING/LOGS AND BEE PRODUCTS
Both MKUKUTA and MKUZA, do recognize the fact that, governance has a pivotal role in determining the development outcome of forest product trade. This is especially true in less developed countries with a large natural resource base and a policy environment heavily influenced by the forces of administrative decentralisation, market globalisation, political democratisation, rural empowerment and infrastructure development. The above refered government development strategies, concur that in an ideal scenario, good governance at all levels helps ensure forest product trade provides broad-based and equitable benefits in line with national and local development goals, without compromising forest integrity. Unfortunately, in Tanzania, a complex interplay of social, economic and political factors has tilted the ideal balance in an unfavourable direction in recent years. Despite a well-developed institutional framework for forest management and numerous remedial measures since 2003 (including, at the extreme, national indigenous hardwood harvest and export bans), the forestry sector has continued to be plagued by poorly controlled, irregular and unsustainable activities. Amongst the most serious concerns are massive revenue losses, negative social impacts, forest degradation and weakened governance structures. In all cases, poorer people living in rural areas are disproportionately affected, despite ongoing decentralisation and a legal framework that promotes broad-based empowerment. Governance shortfalls have been identified by many stakeholders as a key limiting factor to addressing these concerns. Timber trade volumes stayed high throughout 2003 and up until mid- 2004 when enactment of new forest legislation banned the export of round wood from natural forests. During 2003, a year when trade was only marginally interrupted by logging and trade restrictions, it was estimated that over 500 000 m3 of timber was harvested for commercial purposes from southern Tanzania (a figure which combined officially recorded harvests and estimates of unrecorded, illegal felling). This volume is equivalent to over 830 000 trees, with harvesting intensity reaching 91 m3 of timber per km2 of forest (mostly coastal forests and miombo woodland) in Rufiji and Kilwa Districts.
3.0 POLICY FRAMEWORK
In Tanzania, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism is responsible for forest resources. The Forest Ordinance is the major legal instrument of the Tanzania forest policy. It covers the creation and declaration of forest resources. The Forest Ordinance is an administrative instrument which enables the establishment of reserves. The Ordinance can be extended to cover the establishment of institutions other than state forest reserves, such as village forest reserves, controlled areas, silvi-pastoral areas for pastoralists, etc. Minimum management standards for village and private forest lands may be included in the forest ordinance, with a provision that the Forest and Beekeeping Division supervises their enforcement. Key areas are reserved for biological conservation as strict nature resources. Appropriate incentives in the form of subsidies, subsidized loans or tax reductions are considered desirable for fostering afforestation. The Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism is obliged and may take the necessary action to implement these provisions. Royalties and penalties in the Forest Ordinance Rules are established by the Government in such a way that fees are payable on non-plantation and plantation forest produce by types. These royalties are periodically adjusted. The fees neither reflect the value of forest products to the society nor the resource replacement cost. This contributes to deforestation and forest degradation. At the same time artificially low wood prices are hampering farmers to make investment in tree growing, due to low expected earnings. The Government will in the future subsidize conservation and not consumption. Tanzania has initiated actions towards incorporating environmental concerns in forestry.
4.0 FOREST SITUATION IN TANZANIA
It is estimated that the country's forest area has declined from 44,300,000 ha or 50% of total land area in 1938 to 33, 096,000 ha or 43% of total land area in 1987. Currently forests are estimated to cover 33.5 million ha.Causes of deforestation are mainly heavy pressure from agricultural expansion, livestock grazing, wildfire, over exploitation of wood resources for various purposes, and other human activities. There are no reliable figures on deforestation in Tanzania although according to United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates, it ranges from 130,000 to 500,000 ha per annum. The major effect of deforestation is the deterioration of the ecological system with resulting negative impacts on soil fertility, water flows, and biological diversity. Domestic energy demand in Tanzania has been rising rapidly in recent years because of population growth. Tanzanian forests supply the bulk of the energy demand. Wood accounts for 90% of the total energy used in Tanzania. While the supply of fuel wood is dwindling, demand is rapidly increasing. More than 90% of the population depends on wood fuel energy. Charcoal is used widely in urban centres with an estimated consumption of 392,000 tonnes per annum and charcoal burners/producers are licensed to burn charcoal in both public woodlands and productive forest reserves. Firewood is mostly used in rural and peri-urban areas. In 1993, fuel wood consumption was estimated at 45 million cubic meters per annum, with a per capita wood consumption of 2.0 cubic meters of round wood per annum. The rural areas alone consumed about 43.8 million cubic meters of firewood. By the year 2000, fuel wood demand to surpassed 60 million cubic meters. It was also estimated that an average of 45,000 trees of 0.2 cubic meters size were cut daily for fuel wood in the 1980s. Other uses of fuel wood include: fish smoking; salt pans; tobacco curing; bricks and tile kilns; pottery, ceramics, and kaolin production. Over the past three decades, perspectives on the role of the forest have changed considerably. There is also pressure arising from the ever increasing demand for wood fuels, fodder, timber and forest land for other uses, especially agriculture. The challenge now is how to manage the forest resources as a national heritage on an integrated basis in order to optimise their environmental, economic, social, and cultural benefits.
4.1 The value of Forest Resources
The value of the Tanzanian forests is high due to the high potential for royalty collection, which increases revenues to the country, exports and tourism earnings as well as the recycling and fixing of carbon dioxide and conservation of globally important biodiversity. However, the present use of natural resources is unsustainable (e.g. wanton tree-felling for charcoal production, bad farming methods that precipitate soil erosion, bad fishing methods). This precipitates poverty by eroding sources of livelihoods and destroying environment. The challenge is to implement policy and enforce mechanism for sustainable exploitation of the resources. There has not been adequate encouragement of community participation in identifying, planning and implementing steps to protect natural resources and environment or effective enforcement of existing regulations and by-laws
4.2 Contribution of forest resources
Currently, the contribution of the Forestry sector to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is between 2.3% and 10% of the country’s registered exports. This contribution is also found to be lower compared to value the country’s forestry riches
4.3 Mismanagement of Forest Resources
- Deforestation
- Fire destruction
- Poor governance:
Ø Illegal hunting
Ø Corruption
Ø Poor policies
Improper conservation of water sources
4.4 Effects of Illegal Timber Trade
o Massive revenue shortfalls
o Unsustainable rate of harvesting
o Irreplaceable losses of biodiversity
o Deterioration of the national's water catchments
4.5 Interventions
• Community participation
• Improve local benefit flows
• Outreach and advocacy to combat forest crime
• Enhance forest policies
5.0 CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Experience in Tanzania over the past few years indicates how sustainable and equitable timber trade has yet to be realised in the country, despite a relatively welldeveloped policy and legal framework for forest management and the implementation of numerous remedial measures. The author, has an opinion that, if we were to realise reasonable profits from forests and other forest products including bee harvesting, higher priority should be put on forestry governance and the implementation of a holistic approach, since corruption – the primary factor affecting governance shortfalls – is occurring in many forms and at many levels. Quoting the study by REPOA, the paper would strong wish to adopt some of the recommendations as follows:
• Implement standardised reporting and monitoring for timber harvest and trade information;
• Apply greater emphasis on forestry during public income and expenditure reviews;
• Ensure internal disclosure of forestry sector assets by public officials, and leadership messaging to denounce internal involvement and collusion in timber trade;
• Use public notice boards at village and district levels, and publicise clear investment and business guidelines, including criteria, timeframes and roles;
• Undertake targeted campaigns on anti-forest-corruption;
• Consider the outsourcing of forestry revenue collection in a step-wise manner;
• Introduce performance-based incentive schemes for forestry staff;
• Develop, sign and publicise a MoU or circular between Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism and Prime Minister’s Office – Regional Administration and Local Government to clarify roles and responsibilities, including direct reporting of District Forest Officers to the Head of the Forestry and Beekeeping Division/Tanzania Forest Service;
• Reassess appropriate forest inventory methodologies;
• Initiate community awareness programmes covering options for community participation,
timber values, potential benefits, responsibilities, and legal procedures;
• Review the application of national harvest bans to ensure there is no breach of Participatory
Forest Management agreements; and - Establish Tanzania Forest Service roles, responsibilities and lines of reporting in an expedient manner, incorporating inputs from different sectors.
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