SCHOOL OF GRAGUATE STUDIES

DEPARTMENT OF DEVELOPMENTAL ECONOMICS

Assignment on forest policy

BERKTI GETU

January, 2020

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Introduction
Forest policy is the laws and regulations that guide the protection and management of nation’s
forest. It helps to maintain healthy forest ecosystems, which are essential for working towards a
sustainable future and improve the quality of life. Forest policy can be developed by national and
local governments and by organization or individuals. Generally speaking, policies arise from
real or perceived problems. While understanding the impetus for a policy may interest many
forest and natural resource managers. It helps them to understand how to work effectively within
the legal, regulatory and operational environments that the policies create. Forest managers need
to understand the extent to which they can manage their forests in order to meet their desired
objectives and also need to understand the extent of the economic, environmental and social
contributions that their forest make to the landowners and to the society. Policy development
processes evolve in the political climate of the country or region within which an area of land is
situated. There are those who have dedicated their careers to the development and assessment of
forest policies. This paper aims to provide a basis for understanding recent forest-related polices
in China and Ethiopia their backgrounds, with special reference to the relationship between
economic growth and forest conservation. Although, we have suffered with certain data
limitation especially with Ethiopian new draft of national forest policy, it’s impossible to access
the draft because of confidentiality until it is published for public but some of the officials helped
us with some highlights and we’ve tried to cover the paper with the information/data we obtained
from the internet and of course with the info we’ve collected from the officials.

China national forest policy

Natural forests are located mainly in the upper and middle reaches of the Yangtze and the
Yellow Rivers, as well as in the northeastern provinces, where the overexploitation natural
forests has caused many kinds of environmental problems. These environmental problems
accelerated after the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, and by the 1990s the
extent of the negative impacts became extremely serious. Among recent environment crises,
large-scale floods have occurred frequently and their damage has become more extensive. In the
watersheds of the Yangtze and the Yellow Rivers, flood damage from repeated large floods
during the 1990s has been significant. A large flood in the summer of 1991 killed 2,300 people
and resulted in huge economic losses. A catastrophic flood in 1998 in the watersheds of the
Yangtze and the Songhua rivers, which killed 3000 people and affected 240 million others, is
still fresh in people’s memory. In 2000, a dozen sandstorms attacked northern China, including
Beijing. The country as a whole and forest conservation authorities paid great attention to these
natural disasters, triggering various environmental constraints on domestic timber production.

Natural forest protection project

The most significant reason for the sharp drop in domestic timber production is a recent key
national forest policy the” Natural Forest Protection Project” (NFPP). The policy was announced
in 1997 and launched in 1998 in order to accelerate the improvement of the ecological
environment in degraded natural forests and, at the same time, to realize biodiversity
conservation and the sustainable development for social and economic welfare (Lu,2000).
According to the master plan, this project focuses on natural forests in 17 provinces or
autonomous regions: Sichuan, Yunnan, Chongging, Hubei, and Xizang provinces in the upper
reaches of the Yangtze River; Qinghai Ningxio, Inner Mongolia, Shaanxi, Shanxi, and Henan
provinces in the upper and middle reaches of the Yellow River; the State forest area in the
northeast and the Inner Mongolian part in Jilin, Heilongjian and the Inner Mongolia autonomous
region, where natural forest resources are distributed relatively densely, as well as the tropical
forest areas of Hainan province and Tianshan Mountain and Altay Mountain in Xinjian
provinces. Eleven of these provinces are in the western region and overlap with the target
provinces of a major initiative known as the Western Development Project; the NFPP is one key
element in the Western Development Project for the improvement of the ecological environment
in the region. The Chinese government has implemented the NFPP with great enthusiasm by
means of such measures as concentrated investments, full-scale implementation jointly mandated
by central and local governments, and rapid structural reforms of the forest sector with mainly
governmental and central control for implementation. In order to ensure steady implementation,
the project term is divided into the first phase from 1998 to 2000 and the second phase from
2001 to 2010. In the first phase the project focused on the reduction of log production in natural
forests, the development of conservation forests, and a re-shuffling of personnel in charge of
logging works and the forest products industry. As a base of the project, all natural forests were
divided into three forest management types: protection forests (felling prohibited), conservation
forests (felling restricted) and timber forests. Comprehensive commands were then issued, such
as a sharp reduction of log production, the establishment of 14 million hectares of
forests/pasture, and incentives for the management of natural forests, along with huge public
investments. The project is now in its second phase, emphasizing the development of
conservation forests, forest management, improvement of timber production capacity and the
revitalization of local economies. Domestic timber production has kept shrinking since the
launch of the Natural Forest Protection Project, due to the steady implementation of this project
(WWFChina ,2001).

1. Recent key forest policies

Three major streams of forestry-related policies have been introduced recently to overcome the
environmental crisis and the shortage of the domestic log supply. The first stream is a series of
policies to attain forest conservation through the implementation of the NFPP and the “Grain for
Green” project, newly launched in 1999. Second is a set of policies aimed at increasing the
efficiency of domestic timber production under sustainable forest management (SFM), such as
forest certification, forestry sector privatization, and reform of taxation and charges. The third
stream is the policy for free trade in forest products.

1.1. Policies for forest conservation.

1.1.1 Steady implementation of the NFPP

Since 1998, remarkable progress has been made in natural forest protection through intensive
implementation of the NFPP group of newly launched forest policies. In September 1998, eight
provinces located in the upper or middle reaches of the Yellow River and Yangtze River, such as
Sichuan, Guizhou, and Yunnan, ordered logging bans in natural forests, one after another.
Immediately afterwards, timber markets and sawmills located in or near natural forest areas were
obliged to close, and strict forest protection was implemented. In the state forests in northeastern
China, the reduction of harvest volumes and reinforcement of natural forest protection were
promoted by means of a top-down approach. Between 1998 and 2000 the central government
invested 2.68 billion Yuan (U.S. $ 322 million) in the project (Chinawood ,2001 February). In
2000, in addition to 1.3 billion Yuan (U.S. $ 156 million) spent on natural forest protection, the
government allocated a 420 million Yuan (U.S. $ 50.4 million) subsidy for the conversion of
farmland into forest and pasture and a 92 million Yuan (U.S. $ 11 million) subsidy for desert
treatment.
So far 4.64 million hectares in the forest zones and 790,000 hectares in other areas have been
afforested. Additionally, 516,000 hectares of natural forest areas underwent recovery growth
with artificial assistance. State forest restructuring has also been promoted at a rapid pace. A
reshuffling of personnel affected 190,000 personnel. Moreover, the numbers of retired
employees and layoffs reached 110,000 and 90,000 respectively, in 1998. In the 999 fiscal year,
280,000 positions were reshuffled, in addition to 320,000 retirements and 150,000 layoffs. In this
way the project has steadily proceeded towards its goal by means of the top-down approach. On
the other hand, the drastic changes in natural forest management and the reforming of state forest
policies have caused various negative economic and social impacts at the local level.

1.1.2 “Grain for Green “Transforming steep farmland into forests or grasslands

In 1999 the Chinese government initiated the “Grain for Green” project to transform steep
farmlands into forests or grasslands, aiming to reduce erosion in the upper or middle streams of
the Yellow and Yangtze rivers. The government will spend 229.3 million Yuan (U.S.$
28million) on the project to convert 343,300 hectares of farmland to forest and grassland, and
430,000 hectares of wasteland to forest. The government will give farmers who transformed their
farmland into forests or grasslands 1,500 kg of grain per hectare for farmers living around the
middle and upper reaches of the Yellow River or 2,250 kg of grain per hectare for farmland in
other areas. Three hundred Yuan (U.S. $38) in cash will also be provided to each farmer
converting one hectare of farmland into grass or timberland. The government also provides,
through local forestry authorities, seedlings or grass seed for farmers to plant. The Task Force on
Forest and Grassland Development in the West was established under the China Council for
International Cooperation on Environment and Development (CCICED) in order to research and
promote well considered measures of environmentally and socially sustainable development in
China’s western regions.

1.2 Policies for promotion of sustainable forest management

1.2.1 Encouraging forest certification

Encouraging forest certification in domestic timber production is a recent noteworthy change in

China. WWF-China (World Wildlife Fund) is the main organization striving for the introduction
of forestry certification schemes, as has happened in other Asian countries. Various kinds of
initiatives, research, and activities have been set up since 1997, and in 2000 and 2001 substantial
efforts to adopt Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) schemes for forest management in China have
been promoted at a rapid pace. The demand for certified wood in China is still very small.
However, some demand has been appearing in several foreign companies, which have advanced
into China recently, such as IKEA, the prominent Swedish international furniture distributor,
B&Q, a large British home furnishing chain store in Europe, and Carrefour, a French worldwide
supermarket chain store. Recently, as demand for FSC-certified forest exports expands, forestry
operators in China are coming under pressure to take note of the trend. For example, interest in
certified timber has been increasing among export-oriented domestic furniture makers. Furniture
exports accounted for U.S. $ 2.7 billion in 1999, more than 6 percent of the total export value for
all sectors. Thus it seems that potential demand for certified wood has been growing gradually,
and presents a strategic opportunity to expand external market share. To encourage the
application of forest certification, the government of China is planning to provide favorable
taxation policies for timber producers, aiming to offset the costs of certification and SFM.

1.2.2 Accelerating forest tenure reform

In China, forest land is owned by the State or by collectives, according to the Constitution and
Forest Law. Since the early 1980s when the “de-collectivization” of forest tenure was launched,
the process aimed at increasing the emphasis of the private sector has accelerated. An extension
of China’s rural “household responsibilities system” (HRS), the de-collectivization of forest
tenure essentially involves transferring the right of ownership and management from the
collective to rural households and communities. A goal of the reform is to give farmers
incentives for more efficient and sustainable forest management. Until now, since the major
movement called the “three fix” (i.e., three reforms) policy, a large amount of forest land owned
by the state or collective was transferred to private sectors, including farmer cooperatives and
foreign investors through contracting, auctions, or leasing. Consequently, the private sector has
become one of the main players in SFM. In the “three fix” policy, three procedures clarifying
rights to forests with emphasis on mountainous areas, delimiting self-keeping (or self
maintained) plots, in which the right to manage and use trees is given to households, and
establishing a forest production responsibility (or stewardship) system were implemented,
aiming to transfer responsibility for forest planting and management to households (Sai ,2000;
IIED in printing). There are two ways to distribute forest land among households (Sai ,2000). In
responsibility forest land, households manage trees and land, and the rights to forest management
and ownership are separated. Actually, land allocation to households has proceeded rapidly, in
combination of an afforestation contract with a collective.

In recently established forest conservation projects, such as the NFPP and Grain for Green
project, the system of contracting forest land to private entities has been positively applied as a
tool for incentives for private sector participation. A variety of evidence of positive economic,
social, and environmental impacts has been emerging as a result of recent forest land tenure
reforms, including improvement of land-use efficiency, increase of productivity, proper land
allocation to more efficient entities, diversification in the income base of farmers, activation of
local infrastructure, an increase of local farmer participation with local authorities in decisions
that affect the forestry sector, and improvements in watershed protection, biodiversity, and
landscape conservation. In contrast, negative impacts have also been identified. Lost customary
rights to resources and increased inequality are examples of negative social impacts, such as the
weakening of some ecological services, such as water quality.

1.2.3 Reform of forestry taxation and charges

At the moment the State Council (China’s central government) is in the process of reforming
taxation and charge systems for all sectors across the country. The forestry sector is one of the
key sectors that needs to be reformed completely. The reforms are made necessary because the
burden of all kinds of taxation and charges, especially in the south where the majority of forests
owned by collectives are even now being allocated to individual farmers for management is
really too heavy to encourage effective management. China’s opening up and reform began with
the decentralization of decision-making and income-collection powers. Since1984 the State
Council has issued a series of policies allowing local government and central sector authorities to
collect charges in order to cover the deficit of governmental income over expenditures.
Accordingly, local public governments and authorities established various items of taxation and
charges. There are various types of officially approved taxation and charges, and these are very
complex within and between localities. In addition, a great number of unofficial charges exists.
The current complex and burdensome system of taxation and charges has caused negative
economic impacts, such as low profits and a decline of motivation for forest management,
leading to a decrease of domestic log production, especially from plantations. In one county of
Hunan province, it was observed that the profits for farmers were reduced remarkably from 55 to
33 percent by taxes and charges. In one county of Jiangxi province, a slowdown of the pace of
private sector involvement in forestry management as well as a decrease in land prices of about
70 percent were reported. Despite this, the government is not successful in fully collecting
forestry taxation and charges as revenue in Jiangxi and Hunan. The actual collection rate of fees
was estimated at only 40 to 70 percent.

At the same time, the system has brought about social impacts, such as a relative increase in
poverty in forestry areas, increased social burdens, and illegal activities in the forestry sector, etc.
With respect to illegal activities, it is reported that black market timber accounted for 10 percent
of the total timber production in one county of Hunan province, because of severe taxation or
illegal approvals of logging. Examples of these kinds of illegal activities are not difficult to find
in the southern provinces, which face severe taxation and charges. Moreover, the current
situation weakens the motivation for planting trees, and accordingly leads to the exploitation of
natural forests and speeding up of the environmental crisis in China. It is generally observed that
investment for plantation on barren lands, particularly by the private sector, has been sluggish
due to the low anticipated economic returns. In one county of Jiangxi province, the proportion of
public enterprise investment to total investment in a forestation declined, individual farmers and
private enterprises made no investments in afforestation. The CCICED conducted joint research
with the IIED on the issues from and provided the policy recommendations for reform of forestry
taxation and charges. The recommended policies are:-

 reduce forest taxation and fees

 strictly clean up illegal fee collection; and
 Merge or abolish overlapping tax categories and reduce the level of taxation.

Up to now, new policies on these subjects have not been issued. However new policies will be
prepared under consideration of these points.

1.3 Timber trade policy towards full liberalization

The promotion of timber imports is one important strategy to tackle the timber supply shortage.
Thus when the shortage of the domestic timber supply appeared in the 1980s, the government
gradually opened up timber trade with foreign countries, and since the middle of the 1990s tariff
reductions for forest products have been reduced to zero step-by-step, in line with an agreement
with the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum (APEC). In May 1998, the government of
China submitted a unilateral plan to APEC for trade liberalization (zero import tariff) in nine
sectors, ahead of schedule. One of the nine sectors is forest products. Since 1 January 1999,
China has decreased preferential import tariffs for 49 items of forest products including logs and
wood pulp from 1 to 3 percent to zero, and for four other forest products from about 20 percent
down to 10 percent. In terms of wood furniture, the tariff was reduced from 78 percent in the
early 1990s to about 40 percent in the mid 1990s, and to 22 percent since 1999. The reduction of
non-tariff measures (NTMs) also has proceeded along with the commitment that China will
eliminate almost all after 2004. Currently, there are no NTMs for forest-related products. Other
trade management regulations of the forest product trade, such as export licenses, import
registration, import and export commodity inspection, and other import certifications, will be
relaxed and opened up to the private sector.

In December 2001 China became a member of the World Trade Organization. Policy measures
towards zero tariffs for forest-related products trade have since accelerated. Half tariffs and value
added tax (VAT) policies for small border trade, which have contributed to the recent rapid
increase of log imports from Russia to China (Yamane and Lu, 2001), will be abolished in the
near future, because the policies have been judged to be non-tariff barriers to free trade. As
mentioned above the trade liberalization of forest related products has proceeded at a rapid pace
and will provide favorable conditions for timber imports. On the other hand, China’s timber
demand seems to be steadily growing at present due to continuous economic growth and the
progress of the Western Development Project. Although various afforestation projects have
proceeded energetically over the last two decades, it will take decades more for the forests to be
ready for harvest. As a result, the gap between timber demand and domestic supply has
continued to expand, and it is likely that China will depend even more on imported timber to
compensate for the deficit in domestic timber supply. However, neighboring countries with
abundant forest resources are limited. Although eastern Siberia and the Russian Far East head the
list of log suppliers to China, Japan also has a high demand for the timber from these areas.
Thus, competition for timber supplies will likely increase in the near future.(policy trend report)
Conclusions

The government of China appears to be making aggressive changes in forest-related policies,

including those dealing with implementation of forest management. The root cause of the
dynamic changes in policies is the resource depletion of natural forests, mainly because of
overexploitation and frequently occurring forest fires, plus the consequent serious environmental
problems leading to huge damage to the national economy. The driving forces for such
aggressive policies are basically economic. Accordingly, the focus of policies is on how to grow
more forests and produce more timber, aiming to shift from natural to man-made forests as a
source with some consideration for sustainable forest management. Efforts to involve the private
sector as a key player represent a relatively new strategy. Ironically, it seems that the policies
have not benefited local communities. Policy implementation has resulted in negative impacts at
the local level. As mentioned above, recent surveys show that the policies themselves are good,
but implementation is poor. Emerging negative social impacts are evident, including social
unrest, land conflicts, unemployment problems and expanding poverty, particularly in local
communities. Such problems appear to be caused partly by to the rapid and aggressive top-down
implementation of projects or uniform methodologies that conflict with the diversity of social,
economic, and natural conditions in China. This experience suggests that the key to successful
fulfillment of policies will be the development of appropriate measures in the early stages of
policy planning and implementation that make allowance for local realities and differences.
Regarding the process of economic growth, as Japan experienced, the private sector will resist
increases in production costs and the consequent drop in price competitiveness against imported
products. China will face the need to find solutions to the challenges of how to internalize the
negative impacts on China’s forestry sector that originate from economic growth, and how to
secure a stable domestic timber supply in a sustainable way. In addition, under the transition to
free trade, the timber industry may have to shift to the value-added approach (raw material
imports, processing, manufactured product exports) in order to maintain balanced trade. Such a
tendency is already evident in the furniture and plywood industries. In conclusion, in order to
attain the difficult goal of simultaneously managing economic growth and forest conservation
while involving the private sector, China’s government would do well to carefully introduce a
variety of workable measures into diverse policies not only for the sound implementation of
forestry and timber trade policies, but also for the mitigation of negative economic, social, and
environmental impacts, particularly in local communities.

Ethiopian forest policy

The development of forest policy in Ethiopia is strongly intertwined with the evolution and
vicissitude of its state structure. Although some accounts claim the beginning of modern
Ethiopian state as early as the second-half of the 19th century, it is generally acknowledged that
an organized and elaborated state structure only emerged after the Second World War (Bahiru,
1991; Teshale, 1995). Since then, the country went through a series of changes in its polity and
politics. The long monarchical rule was replaced by the socialist dictatorship in 1974. Despite the
differences in approach (the former used ‘divine right’ to legitimize its system of rule and the
latter was guided by Marxist-Leninist ideology) both regimes were highly authoritarian and
governed through centralized power structure (Ottaway, 1990; Young, 1997). The incumbent
government that stepped to power following the demise of the socialist regime in 1991 espoused
a markedly different system of governance, a decentralized federal polity and a democratic
political process (Young, 1997; Vaughan, 2003).

Forest policy is broadly conceptualized as a social and institutional arrangements designed to

steer and guide the use and management of forests which ranges from different regulatory
instruments to a general framework defining fundamental assumptions, principles, objectives and
priorities. Although the incidences of deforestation and forest management interventions by the
state was recorded since the beginning of twentieth century (Gebremarkos and Deribe, 2001),
formal forest policy started in Ethiopia during the brief period of Italian annexation (1936–1941).
Italians issued various forest laws and regulations and instigated the first structured forest
administration called Milizia Forestale (Forest Militia) (Melaku, 2003). However, Italians were
expelled from the country before adequately introducing their forestry policy. The predominant
policy preoccupation of the so-called restored Imperial period (1941–1974) was ‘modernization’
following Western industrialized countries (Bahiru, 1991). Modernizing agriculture with
emphasis on large scale commercial farming was sought to transform the country from agrarian
to industrial economy. Forest development and conservation issues were mostly sidestepped
during the restored Imperial period. However, after two decades of competitions between actors
advocating different ideas and interest, the first forest law within the country’s sovereignty was
issued in 1965 (Gebremarkos and Deribe, 2001; Melaku, 2003). Forestry as an autonomous
sector has come to high policy attention and institutional profile after mid-1970s when the
socialist military council, popularly known as ‘Derg’, deposed the Imperial regime. The 1975
revolution induced land reform that extinguished all the pre-existing property rights to land and
nationalized its holdings including private forests and large estates of agricultural farms. The
national political and economic changes coincided with the rise of global fossil fuel prices and
the associated energy crisis of the early 1970s that triggered the surge of interest in biomass
energy as an alternative source (Arnold et al., 2003). Those international drives manifested in
Ethiopia in a strong focus on production forestry and enhanced fuel wood plantations with exotic
fast growing tree species (Davidson, 1989; Demel, 2001; Dessalegn, 2004; Mulugeta and
Tadesse, 2010). Sizable flows of funds from donors earmarked to forest development and the
enthusiasm of the socialist government towards the same end contributed for the establishment
of what later become described as the ‘strongest’ forestry organization in the country’s history.
Following the 1984–1985 catastrophic drought and subsequent famine, the country’s attention
gradually shifted from production to multi-functional forests and a broader conceptualization of
environmental conservation. Since mid-1990s and up until now both forestry and environmental
conservation issues have been overshadowed by the thrusts of accelerated economic growth via
agricultural intensification. Such shifts in attention were also reflected in institutional
arrangements.

Development of forest policy under different historical periods

The ‘restored’ Imperial period (1941–1974) Forest policy has evolved in Ethiopia very lately and
in a distinct way as compared to many other African countries where a colonial forest service
laid its institutional foundation (Turyahabwe and Banana, 2008; Kirchberger, 2010). The first
recorded forest management intervention by the state has begun a century ago through
introduction of fast growing exotic species notably Eucalyptus to augment the supply of fuel
wood and construction material from natural forests (Demel et al., 2010). The Eucalyptus that
initially introduced around major urban centres later became the main components of farm
forestry practices in the country (Davidson, 1989; Pohjonen and Pukkala, 1990).

The first organized forest administration was started during the brief period of Italian annexation
(1936–1941). Italians issued various forest legislations and instigated the first structured forest
administration called Milizia Forestale (Forest Militia) for inventory, supervision, and extensive
exploitation plans (Gebremarkos, 1998; Gebremarkos and Deribe, 2001; Melaku, 2003).
However, Italians were expelled from the country before adequately introducing their forestry
policy. The development of forest policy during the so-called restored Imperial period is best
understood by examining the competition between discourse coalitions, the emergence of certain
power relations, and the formulation of specific rules. The Imperial ruling elite sought
commercial agriculture as a main vehicle to realize their modernization drive. Readily available
natural resources such as timber from the forest was turned to be the main source of income to
fuel the economy and forest land was considered as wasteland or frontier to expand the emerging
commercial agriculture. The five years Imperial government plans that officially stipulated
agricultural modernization encouraged investors to convert forest lands into commercial farms
like coffee and tea plantations in southern and southwest Ethiopia. Some of the incentives for
private investors include exemption of land tax during the early years of agricultural investment,
granting lease for long duration, and converting forest waste land to valuable agricultural land
was used as a precondition to claim for land ownership rights (Gebremarkos and Deribe, 2001;
Dessalegn, 2008).

All reports stressed the fast depletion of forest resources, the negligence of the forest sector by
the Imperial government, and the urgency to formulate forest laws and establish an autonomous
forestry organization that helps to implement the law and take care of the forest. The
modernization discourse was advanced by the ruling elites that controlled all state machineries as
clearly manifested in the five years perspective plans the interest of the ruling elites was
economic gains from the forest, whereas a strong forest law and an autonomous forestry
institution was assumed to hinder such short term exploitation (Melaku, 2003).

The first forest law within the country’s sovereignty was enacted in 1965, twelve years after
submitting the first draft bill, and after having been rejected four times by lawmakers. Some of
the reasons for such drastic move to pass the law that was blocked for more than a decade were:

 During the amendment processes the draft law became softer so that the final version
was weak enough to be acceptable by the nobility and the landed class.
For instance, articles demanding strong forest protection were made less strict for
private forests (Gebremarkos and Deribe, 2001).
  After a long impediment of the draft bill the protectionist coalition compromised their
stance to overcome the stiff resistance from parliament to have at least a ‘weak’ forest
law.

The detailed regulations were issued in 1968 after four more years of fight over meaning and
interest. By the time that the regulations were issued the organization that was supposed to
implement the plan remained weak, understaffed, and without sufficient financial resources. For
example, Melaku (2003) reported that the semi-autonomous forestry department was downsized
to section level within the ministry of agriculture and the only forestry-training centre in Ambo
Agricultural School was closed a couple of years before the law was issued. The same report
indicated, only 10% of the budget that the sector demanded was allocated between the years
1968–1973. In general, the impact of the 1965 forest law on institutional setups and other power
arrangements were less significant (Melaku, 2003).

In the early socialist era 1975–1985 the need to institutionalize a professional model of forest
management was recognized well before the downfall of the monarchy. Forest policy only
received high political attention and institutional profile following the mid-1970s Ethiopian
revolution. The revolution among others induced land reform guided by Marxist political
ideology that extinguished all the pre-existing property rights to land and nationalized its
holdings, including many of the private forests and commercial farm estates. The 1973–1974
great Ethiopian famine that precipitated the collapse of the Imperial regime signaled the failure
of modernization driven by commercial agriculture (Clapham, 1988; Dessalegn, 1994).
Economically, they sought to tap the growing demand for wood products by enhancing
production forests, particularly with fast growing exotic species (Mulugeta and Tadesse, 2010).
The convergence of professionals’ enthusiasm and political priority created high time in the
history of Ethiopian forest policy. However, the top-down command-and control system of the
socialist military government did not allow open competition between groups advocating strong
production forestry and/or other land use options. Yet, dissent and unheeded response to the
dominant policy were expressed through idiomatic expressions, jokes, and poetries (Pausewang,
2002). One of such popular poetry coined in Amharic (Ethiopian national language) during this
period reads as: Deh’ina deh’ina mere’t ba’hirza’f lebese Yeme’yarso a’tito hizbu iya’lekese
(Fekade, 2002) “all the fertile lands are covered with eucalyptus while the masses/peasants are
crying in need of land for farming.” Beside the non-participatory demarcation of agricultural
lands for tree plantation, the ill-defined use right to the planted trees created long-lasting hostility
between the peasant population and the state (Alemayehu and Wiersum, 2006). The socialist
government established an autonomous forestry institution – Forest and Wildlife Conservation
and Development Authority (FAWCDA) within two years after the revolution. This institution
has been characterized as the strongest forestry authority ever having been active in Ethiopia
(Gebremarkos and Deribe, 2001; Yonas, 2001; Melaku, 2003). Berhanu (2009) noted that the
period of FAWCDA was the ‘golden age’ of forestry, characterized by intensive forest
development activities, the outcome of which are most of the currently existing plantations;
including the extensive fuel wood plantations around urban areas. On top of the national political
and economic changes the global trend, particularly the discourse on fuel wood crisis around the
mid-1970s, contributed to the increasing focus on forestry. As a reflection of the then dominant
political discourse, the preamble of the 1980 forest law states: Whereas, Ethiopia’s forest which
formerly covered most of the country has been depleted by the defunct feudo-bourgeois for
selfish interest of the aristocracy and the nobility; Whereas, immediate and decisive action must
be taken in order to avert this disasters situation by agitating and coordinating the broad masses
to plant, conserve, develop and administer the country’s forest and wildlife resources; Although
the proclamation recognized the role of grass-root organization such as Peasant Association (PA)
in forest development, enormous discretionary power was bestowed to FAWCDA, a central
government agency, to designate, demarcate, and administer all forested land where the authority
deemed it necessary for conservation and production purposes.

Parallel to the development in the forestry sector, the socialist government took various measures
to enhance agricultural productivity and transform the rural economy. Some of those measures
include: - Implementation of radical land reform that abolished the tenant landlord relationship
and private ownership of land (realization of a popular slogan ‘Land to the Tiller’). - Introduction
of a new village level government structure, Peasant Association (PA) entrusted with the
administration of local affairs, Organization of smallholder farmers into producer’s cooperatives
(collectivization program), Clustering of small and scattered villages into mega villages
(villagization and resettlement programs), ostensibly to overcome fragmentation of farmland and
to offer efficient rural infrastructures and social services. However, many of these measures were
later found to be counterproductive and agricultural sector grew less than planned during the
socialist regime. Habtemariam (2008) indicated that agriculture grew at an average rate of 0.6%
per annum from 1973 to 1980 and 2.1% from 1980 to 1987. Factors that contributed to low
agricultural growth included increased incidences of drought, extended civil war and political
unrest, ‘strict’ centralized planning and government price control, forceful resettlement and
villagization program, and the conscription of young and productive peasants for military
purpose (Hoben, 1995; Dessalegn, 2008; Habtemariam, 2008). Following the 1984–1985
devastating drought and subsequent famine in the country, the conservation coalition nonetheless
got policy space to bring their argument into the forefront. It conceptualized the value of forests
and other woody vegetation primarily for environmental functions such as land stabilization,
erosion control, regulation of climate and hydrologic flows. The proponents of this discourse
were predominantly pooled from soil science, agro-forestry, conservation biology, ecology and
similar disciplines. The problem associated with promoting monoculture exotic species such as
the alleged ecological drawbacks of Eucalyptus and the mysterious mass-dying of Cyprus
species in some parts of Ethiopia was presented as evidence against the production forestry
stance (Davidson, 1989). Simultaneously with the episode of drought and famine in Ethiopia, a
shift in global discourse also helped to switch the balance of power from production forestry to
environmental conservation.

The Ethiopian Forestry Action Program (EFAP) in 1994, a comprehensive four volumes
document, with a support from FAO and UNDP. EFAP was prepared following the general
framework of the Tropical Forestry Action Program (TFAP) that was initiated at the ninth World
Forestry Congress held in Mexico in 1985. The EFAP initiative basically emerged from the
FAWCDA’s ten years plan (1984–1993) that targeted to increase the forest cover of Ethiopia to
24% in the planned period (Melaku, 2008). The primary programs of EFAP include tree and
forest production, forest industry development, forest resources and ecosystem management, and
wood energy development (EFAP, 1994). It is clear from its contents that the EFAP programs
were dominated by the classical production forestry paradigm. Owing to the weakening of such
discourse at that time and the fall of the socialist regime in 1991, EFAP has never been able to
impact the formal policy arrangement neither was it accompanied by an adequate
implementation mechanism. The document remained an in-house reference for forestry
sympathizers who voiced alarm about the danger and the consequences of not establishing an
autonomous forestry sector. The Tropical Forestry Action Program was also unable to coordinate
international support to forest related programs at the national level and it ceased to serve as an
international framework in June 1995 (Melaku, 2008). As the period between mid-1970s and
mid-1980s was often mentioned as a ‘golden age’ in the history of Ethiopian forestry, the time
since mid-1990s has been marked as a period of institutional ‘stagnation’ by most foresters.

Development of forest policy under the Federal Republic (1995–up to present) Mid-1990s
witnessed landmark reforms in social, economic, and political spheres of the country. The most
significant one was the adoption of a new Constitution in 1995 that heralded a decentralized
federal polity and a democratic political process (FDRE, 1995). The intention of decentralization
in Ethiopia was to transfer constitutionally specified authorities from central government to
autonomous regional states and local governments. The constitution bestowed substantial
decision-making autonomy to the sub-national units including the authority to manage resources
under their jurisdiction (Meheret, 2007; Young, 1998). Within this broader policy framework,
forest management authority has been legally shared between government agencies at different
administrative tiers. The new plural political platform also enabled the involvement of non-state
actors, including community-based institutions and NGOs into forest governance. Nonetheless,
the national government remained mandated to set standards and policy frameworks on affairs
concerning environmental and natural resource management. Article 51, sub article 5 of the 1995
constitution particularly vested the power to enact laws for the utilization and conservation of
land and other natural resources, including forestry, to the Federal government.

Rural Development Policy and Strategy (RDPS) document drafted in mid-1990s and issued in
2001 is one of such document disclosing government plans and strategies concerning agricultural
and rural development including forestry. Content analysis of the RDPS document revealed how
government perceived the role of forest in supporting the envisaged rapid economic growth.
Forestry issues were given marginal attention and are mentioned only in ten lines in the
document of 280 pages. The strategy focuses on how forests or trees supplement agricultural
production and contribute to the planned rapid economic growth rather than developing the
forest sector by its own virtues. The message in the RDPS document clearly implied the shift in
government priority from forest development to agricultural intensification. The shift in
government attention was also manifested in organizational setups. Again, in 2011 Forestry was
reorganized as a Case Team under the Natural Resources Conservation and Development
Directorate of the Ministry of Agriculture. Government claims that the integration of forest
development with crop and livestock production has enhanced the synergy between the two
sectors. It advocates the aptness of the new arrangement and the progress in resource
management including the increase in forest cover from 3% to 9% following the implementation
of the strategy (MoA, 2010). However, adversaries of this view argue that AI overemphasize
crop production and marginalize other components. In the continuous effort of reinstituting a
strong forestry sector, a new forest policy was ultimately approved in 2007. It emphasizes
economic forestry which focuses on how to meet forest product demands of the society and
increase the contribution of forest resources to the national economy. Its general objectives read:
‘to meet public demand in forest products and foster the contribution of forests in enhancing the
economy of the country through appropriately conserving and developing forest resources’.
Given the long stand and position of advocates for forest conservation in Ethiopia, it is rather
strange to have such one-dimensional, production-focused policy objectives.

The impacts of global discourse on the national forest policy process

The development of forest policy during the Imperial era saw very little input from the
international policy processes. However, in the era of growing international forest related
discourses and development cooperation global impact on national forest policies gradually
increased. For example, the rise in global fossil fuel price in the early 1970s, particularly, the
influential discourse on the ‘other energy crisis shaped the focus of national forest policy in
developing countries including Ethiopia. As a result of such international process, production
forests with fast growing exotic species were emphasized in Ethiopia to tap the ‘booming’
demand in wood products (EFAP, 1994; Gebremarkos, 1998). The institutionalization of such
stance was further facilitated by sizable funds and capacity-building programs from multilateral
and bilateral agencies such as FAO, UNDP and SIDA. Towards the end of 1980s, however,
global attention gradually switched towards sustainable forest management where multiple-uses
of forests such as maintenance of genetic diversity, watershed protection, and regulation of
climate change were emphasized (Umans, 1993; Arts, 2006; Arts and Buizer, 2009). This shift of
emphasis was reflected in Ethiopia when the production forestry oriented organization,
FAWCDA, dissolved and merged with soil and water conservation sectors. In the aftermath of
the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, forestry was reconstituted under the newly
established Ministry of Natural Resources Development and Environmental Protection.
In retrospect, one could argue that the impact of external factors on national forest policy
remained negligible during the socialist era. This is not to neglect the significant role of the
international organizations specifically, the remarkable contribution of the Swedish International
Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) in the field of forestry education and research.
However, their influences were mainly restricted to the technical sphere and minimal in
reshaping policy paths. For example, the preparation of the Ethiopian Forestry Action Program
(EFAP), which was predominantly supported and pushed by the international community, took
nearly ten years to convince policy-makers and translate into implementation instruments. The
delay was predominantly attributed to the impenetrable tendency of the then socialist
authoritarian regime. In contrast, the period since mid-1990s has seen a considerable increase in
the influence of the international discourses on the national forest related policies (Young, 1998;
Keeley and Scoones, 2000; Melaku, 2008). Such marked increase is attributed to several changes
in the global and national political contexts. Globally, the increasing pressure from donor
countries and powerful international institutions such as the World Bank and IMF towards
democratic governance enabled the emergence and growing role of non state actors in the
national policy process. Internally, the demise of the socialist regime and the adoption of
democratic system of governance enabled the process of sharing forest management authority
between multiple governmental levels, as multilevel governance.

As studies have shown the role and the involvement of Ethiopia in the international negations
and the adoption of forest and environment related treaties have significantly increased since
mid-1990. The Prime Minster of Ethiopia led the African heads of states on climate change
negotiation at Copenhagen (COP 15). He is re-elected to chair the African heads of state and
government on the UNFCCC climate change conference held in Durban, South Africa (COP 17).
Despite the growing role of Ethiopia in the international climate negations and treaties, critiques
point out that little effort has been made in the country to harness deforestation and land
degradation (Melaku, 2008; Tibebwa and Negusu, 2009; Demel et al., 2010; Mulugeta and
Tadesse, 2010; Ensermu and Abenet, 2011). In reaction to this claim, the government of Ethiopia
issued the Climate-Resilient Green Economy (CRGE) strategy in 2011. Unlike the other
government overarching strategies such as RDPS that loosely mention forestry issue, CRGE
strategy stipulates forestry as one of its four pillars (FDRE, 2011). However, it is too early to
assess the effect of this new initiative on the Ethiopian forestry sector.
There is a new policy launched currently in Ethiopia but we are not able to access the draft as
we’ve tried to mention at the beginning of this paper, here is the highlight:-The policy has a big
dream: restoring 22 million hectares of degraded lands and forests by 2030. By doing so, the
country aims not only to increase tree cover and restore degraded forests, but also to significantly
enhance the forestry sector’s contribution to agricultural production systems, water and energy to
improve food and nutritional security and to create more opportunities for employment and
household income. It is a bold and laudable pledge made as part of the 2011 Bonn Challenge and
the 2014 New York Climate Summit’s goal of restoring 350 million of hectares worldwide by
2030. With some 80% of Ethiopians living in rural areas, one approach is to pour resources into
forest protection, rehabilitation and conservation by enlisting smallholder farmer labor for the
cause mainly through food or cash for work programs. Until now, that has been the predominant
method of action of projects supported by development partners. Meanwhile, the government’s
approach has been to increase awareness of smallholders on the need to responsibly manage land
and other natural resources and systematically mobilize these rural communities to provide free
labor for landscape restoration tasks through annual soil and water conservation work and tree
planting campaigns. Ato Kebede Yimam, State Minister of the Forestry Sector, says the new law
contains the following three key changes:

 Recognizing participatory forest management as a vehicle to enhance the role of

communities in sharing responsibilities and benefits of managing natural forests in
accordance with agreed-upon management plans;

 Providing incentives for the private forest developers through mechanisms such as lease-
free land, better access to land use and forest ownership certificates, and tax holiday until
and including the first harvest (for private investors and associations) and the second
harvest (for communities); and

 Putting severe penalties on those who expand farming into forests; tamper with forest
boundaries; or set fire, harm endangered species, settle, or hunt or graze animals in state,
communal, association or private forests.

Minister Yimam says the ministry been working to socialize the new law since it was enacted in
January 2018. The revisions were based on inputs from policy- and decision-makers at a range of
levels, as well as CIFOR scientists – which, Minister Yimam says, make the law an impressive
example of science and politics coming together for the betterment of a landscape. “The law,
recognizing the need to strengthen the role of the State in protecting biodiversity rich forests with
global and national significance has identified reserved forests where access is strictly limited,”
says Yimam. “On the other hand, the law intends to promote the socio-economic contribution of
forests to the surrounding communities and to local and national economies.

Conclusions

Throughout the history of modern Ethiopia, agricultural development paradigm has been firmly
entrenched while forestry was mostly marginalized with the exception of the period between
mid-1970s and mid-1980s. The dynamics in the global forest related discourses and the national
political orientation and economic priorities constitute the most important factors shaping the
evolution of forest policy in Ethiopia. The prime time in the history of Ethiopian forestry was
recorded when the global discourse shifted towards biomass as alternative sources of energy for
the rising fossil fuel price that coincided with the national political and economic change in
favors of forest development. The 1984–1985 catastrophic drought and subsequent famine, the
shift in global attention towards multi-functional forests and broader environmental conservation
issues gradually undermined forestry as autonomous policy field. Most of the times, forestry was
integrated into agricultural sector with the intention to maximize the synergy between the two
sectors. However, the integration of the two sectors did not yield positive outcomes. Throughout
the successive regimes, the development of agricultural policy was marked by unbalanced
objectives and priorities that hampered the potential to capitalize synergy between the two
sectors. The Imperial government overemphasized commercial agriculture run by a few
landlords and neglected the majority of smallholders engaged in production of subsistence and
non-cash crops. The socialist regime abolished landlordism and prioritized state and collective
farms at the expense of smallholder individual farmers and stiffly discouraged private initiatives.
The agricultural policy under the current government overstates the potential of smallholder
agriculture and crop production, with very limited attention to other sectors such as natural
resource conservation and forest development. The institutionalization and deinstitutionalization
process of forest policy in Ethiopia revealed trends of change and continuity. The interplay of
complex structural factors including the national politico economic change, and environmental
calamities coupled with the global discursive shifts contributed for the dynamic processes of
forest policy development. The structural factors delineated the broader context and enabled or
constrained one discourse coalition over the other. Such complex interaction of ideas and
structural factors, on one hand, stimulate the institutionalization of dominant discourse that
reflected in the emergence of new coalition, new rules, and new organizational arrangement. On
the other hand, it can also pave the way for the deinstitutionalization of the once established
policy practices aligned with the weak or receding discourse. The autonomous forestry sector
gradually weakened and lost its essence with the emerging concept of multi-functional forestry
and a broader environmental conservation discourse.

Summary

Policies to improve forest development and management should be a priority for developing
nations. In most African country the problem facing with the forest policy are bound with
problem inherent in countries with limited resources, huge number of marginalized rural poor
and an inconsistent history of participatory management. The success of china initiatives offer
some useful lessons for other Asian and African countries that have resource but manage them
with policies inefficiently. For political and social stability, it is imperative that the wealth of
rural people must also advance. If policy makers clearly realize the problems facing with forest
management and willing to take actions, the improvement of forest development and
management will be attainable.

References
http//:www.ncbi.nih.gov.public

 Policy Trend Report ,2001: China, forest policy trend, natural forest protection,
resource deficit, direct/indirect causes
 China wood 2002: Yamane, M., and W. Lu. 2001. Analytical overview of the recent
Russia-China timber trade. International Review for Environmental Strategies Vol. 2
No. 2 pp. 335-347

[email protected]. New policy in Ethiopia seeks to advance the country’s forest restoration
and sustainability through socio-economic incentives and increased recognition of local
communities. CIFOR Photo/Mokhamad Edliadi.