SOCIAL FORESTRY AS A DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM - Edited2020
SOCIAL FORESTRY AS A DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM - Edited2020
SOCIAL FORESTRY AS A DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM - Edited2020
Lucrecio L. Rebugio
Structurally, the social forestry environment can be divided into two broad interacting
categories: a) biophysical - described in terms of its edaphic (soil), physiographic (topography),
climatic, vegetative, and land use characteristics. And, b) socio-economic-described in terms of
its demographic, economic, cultural, and political characteristics.
Table 1 shows a more refined (but no means detailed) structural categorization of the social
forestry environment. It includes the biophysical and socioeconomic parameters at the micro
and macro levels, which could be relevant to the practice of social forestry.
Table 1. Structural and Spatial Parameters of the Social Forestry Environment.
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Micro Macro
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Local National International
1. Biophysical Environment
1.1 Edaphic
o Soil structure x
o Soil – water relations x
1.2 physiographic
o topography x
(altitude and slope)
1.3 Climatic
o Rainfall distribution x
o Precipitation-evaporation difference x
o Temperature regimes x
2. Socioeconomic Environment
2.1 Demographic
o Population density x x
o Age and educational structure x x
o Migration patterns x x
o Settlement patterns x x
2.2 Economic (wealth)
o Income and occupational structure x x
o Land tenure x x
o Market and credit facilities/organizations x x x
o Work alliances/organizations x
Temporally, the environment of social forestry can be viewed as past, present, and
future. A past or historical view may shed light on the circumstances that brought about
present conditions that strongly justify the practice of social forestry in a given country, and the
prevailing factors that presently constrain such practice. A future view may suggest present
courses of action geared towards desirable social forestry ends (goals and objectives).
The temporal dimension implies that the environment of social forestry is dynamic; it
continuously changes through time. As such, social forestry constrains and opportunities also
vary with time as the environment changes.
Indeed, a three-dimensional view presents a complex picture of the environment of
social forestry. Not only is it structurally and spatially diverse, it is also dynamic (changing
constantly). Effective forestry programs must necessarily find a way to cope with this
bewildering complexity.
2.2 Goals/objectives
Goals/objectives are the changes/condition which social forestry development programs
seek to create/achieve in response to the needs, problems, and demands of the target and other
relevant systems.
The goals/objectives of social forestry dev’t can be expressed/described in various ways
(Table 3).
First, they could be described temporally, as short or long-term goals. In social forestry
development, the temporal dimension is very important because of the necessity to reconcile
the generally long-term/perennial nature of forestry with the short-term needs of the primary
social target, the rural poor. Social forestry goals/objectives must be so well balanced and social
forestry practices/technologies well designed to respond to the short-term needs of the rural
poor for food, fodder, fuelwood and other basic needs, and the long-term need of the
community for social and environmental stability.
Second, goals/objectives can be described hierarchically, implying that lower-order
(specific or elemental) objectives lead to achievement of higher-order goals (generally/ultimate
or systemic). The specific goals of social forestry programs vary from place to place (spatially)
and from time to time (temporally) because problems/needs of target systems in different
localities at different times differ. Regardless of the place and time, however, the specific
objectives of social forestry may reflect one or any combinati0on of the following needs
(Rebugio, 1983).
1. Self –sufficiency in food, fuel wood, fodder and other basic needs;
2. Soil stability, water conservation, and wind protection;
3. Aesthetic improvement; and
4. Higher income of local people and communities.
The above objectives may be similar to those of other forestry activities. However the
difference is that the objectives of social forestry are deliberately link to the needs of
local people and communities.
While the specific objectives of social forestry program vary, the ultimate goals, are
basically the same. Generally reflecting tropical land-use and social problems, the goals of social
forestry development program are ideally land productivity, technological sustainability,
ecological stability and social equity, with the latter on top of the hierarchy. This implies that
the ultimate goal of social forestry is not physical but human. While social forestry is concerned
with the development of forestry areas, that means towards the development of human
communities. In this sense, the people and the community, not the forest, are the final
indicators of a successful social forestry program (Rebugio, 1983).
Third, social forestry goals/objectives can be described by their degree of durability, priority,
consciousness of intent, and type of impact.
Program-goal formulation, it is usual to highlight only the desirable, high priority, and
intended goals/objectives. The unexpected/unidentified outcomes, whether desirable, of low
priority, or undesirable, are normally neglected, yet in practice they often have stronger
influence on the course which social forestry development takes. For example, in some social
forestry projects, the desired goal is fuel wood for the poor, but the course of social forestry
practices usually leads to fuel wood/timber for the rich. Therefore, in social forestry program
formulation, it may be wise to develop a high, degree of deliberate consciousness not only of
the desirable intended outcomes which social forestry seeks to achieve but also of the
unintended goals which social forestry seek to avoid or minimize.
The latter may serve as an effective warning system for social implementers when the
direction of social forestry programs runs an undesirable course. They also serve as additional
control indicators for social forestry impact evaluation.
To many, goal formulation appears easy. In fact, however, goal decisions, whether in
social forestry and/or other development programs, are difficult to make, because these are
often based on conflicting problems/needs/demands of the target system and the relevant
systems in the environment. To facilitate goal decisions, a participative mechanism for effective
goal articulations, aggregation, and resolutions is imperative.
2.3 Technology
Technology refers to the set of biophysical/mechanical and social processes involved in
the achievement of social forestry goals and objectives
Some production processes includes possible range of technologies for social forestry. It
suggests that social forestry need not be confined to forest production. It must include forest-
product utilization and other forestry-productions as well.
The nature of the target system, its characteristic, needs and problems, and the types of
goal/objectives set, directly influence the choice of technology most appropriate for a given
program. Appropriate social forestry technology must be relevant or goal-oriented, sustainable,
and culturally consistent. Considering that the primary target is the rural poor, technologies are
cheap, simple, and duplicable are generally preferable (Matela 1981).
In social forestry, decisions on the most appropriate technology start with what are
indigenous or locally available. If local technologies are found to be effective they must be
diffused on a wider scale through effective extension techniques. If indigenous are found to be
wanting, more desirable alternatives should be developed.
The implementation of social forestry programs may be lodged in just one or few
agencies or may be diffused to many multiple agencies. Where social forestry
activities/programs are implemented by numerous agencies, a superstructure for effective
coordination and control may be desirable.
Social forestry agencies may have varying degrees of autonomy. Some may be highly
autonomous and self-sufficient in resources, but many if not most have very scarce resources
thus they are highly dependent on other local and external agencies.
In the tropical country of Asia, decision making is still generally highly centralized. But
the peculiarities of social forestry as a development alternative necessitate a decentralized
form of decision making that could insure meaningful participation of all concerned parties. The
success of social forestry program in these countries, therefore, will depend largely on the
extent central decision makers share their decision-making prerogatives to other people
concerned.
2.4.2 Resources.
Resources refer to the financial, physical and human resources available for the
development of social forestry.
Financial resources include all budgetary allocations from all sources, local or external;
physical resources include supplies, equipment, building and other infrastructures; and human
resources include all staff at all levels included I the design and implementation of social
forestry program.
The level of resource support for social forestry varies from one country to another, but
at the moment, financial and physical resources for social forestry are generally scarce and the
manpower/staff are few and inadequately trained. The primary reason for this is that new
program such as social forestry are seldom accompanied by adequate budgetary allocation.
However, resource scarcity in social forestry has recently been abated by the extensive support
by external aid and finance agencies (World Bank, 1983; Myers, 1984).
2.5 Strategies
Strategies refer to the various means employed by the social forestry agency to develop
program, to organize resources for effective project implementation, to maximize people’s
participation, and to improve systems/program effectiveness.
a. Program development.
In search for an appropriate program development strategy in social forestry, rural
development programming experiences in the tropics offer at least two alternatives --- the
blue-print approach and the learning process approach (Korten, 1981).
This approach, with its emphasis on careful pre-planning, reflects the textbook version
of how development programming is supposed to work. Researchers are supposed to provide
data from pilot projects and other studies from which project designers will choose the most
cost-effective design for achieving given outcomes. Administrators of the implementing
organizations are supposed to execute the project plan faithfully, much as building contractor
would follow construction blue-print, specification and schedules. Once implementation is
complete an evaluation researcher is supposed to measure actual changes in the target
population and report cycle so that blue-prints can be revised.
a.2. Learning process approach. This is an alternative approach which has been
successfully tried in three Asian countries on a scale of operation beyond the pilot project
stage. This approach assumes that the success of development programs in promoting the well-
being of a target group depends on the fit or close correspondence between beneficiary needs
and program output, between programs task requirements and the mechanisms for beneficiary
demand expression and the decision processes of the assisting organization (Figure 2)
Examination of the three Asia success suggests that the blue-print approach never
played more than an incidental role in their development. None was designed and
implemented. Each emerged out of a long-term learning process (underscoring mine) in which
villagers and program personnel shared their knowledge and resources to create a fit between
needs, actions, and the capacities of the assisting organization. Each had a leader who spent
time in the villages with an idea, tried it, accepted and corrected his errors, and built a target
organization around the requirement of what he learned.
In each instance the overall process can be broken down into three stages, each with its
own unique learning requirement. The element of each stage can be describe roughly as
follows:
In the cases examined there was no though given to simply testing a program model and
a pilot context and then leaving it to other implement. To the country each was distinguish by a
substantial continuity of personnel. The people who had the experience of figuring out an
original program design capable of doing the job were the same people who then built an
organization around that model adapted to its requirements.
Because of its participatory nature, the learning approach could be intuitively perceived
as the more appropriate program development strategy in social forestry. However, although
affective in the longer run, it would appear to many forestry decision-makers as a relatively
slow process considering the enormity of the problems social forestry has to address.
However, in an attempt to develop an appropriate program development strategy in
social forestry, social forestry planners should be guided by useful insights derived from the
application of the learning process approach.
The who and what dimensions imply some capabilities that are necessary for
meaningful participation in some types of activities. And the how dimension implies some
means or strategies to motivate capable participants to participate actively in social forestry
activities. The assumption is that capable participants do not necessarily participate or involve
themselves in social forestry unless they are motivated to do so.
Based on the implications of the who, what, and how dimensions of participation,
3 types of strategies to maximize local participation in social forestry projects become evident;
(1) the development of local institution/organizations for participation,
(2) education and training to improve the capability of local people to participate meaningfully,
and;
(3) the provision of incentives such as land and project tenure security, favorable market for
products, technical and support service, favorable loan arrangement, etc. to
motivate/encourage local targets to involve themselves actively on a sustained basis.
A balanced and effective social forestry extension strategy must be based on the
adequate knowledge/understanding of the following major elements/process:
Result of empirical studies on the adoption process (Table 8), suggest the relative extent
to which some of the above factors affect the promotion/transfer of social forestry
practices/technologies.
Based on these empirical knowledge and the peculiarities of social forestry, a model for
the promotion of social forestry practices can be adapted.
2. Both the change agent and target system are potential adopters of innovations
implied by given resource practice.
3. A fit between technologies and the capacities of the social forestry agency, and
the needs of the target system is implied.