Timber certification where is the voice of the biologist

Study by REMP reported presence of criss-cross roads in the reserve which revealed existence of illegal logging within the forest. Data regarding harvesting areas and relative harvesting pressure in Rufiji District between and Figure 3 revealed that the area of highest harvesting pressure was Ngumburuni.

This indicates that, for many years logging has been one of the main causes of disturbances in the Ngumburuni forest reserve. The study has revealed significant role of NTFPs towards poverty reduction and sustainable forest management to community adjacent to Ngumburuni. The products represent very significant component of the household livelihood and income options.

It was further noticed that, villagers realized more NTFPs from reserved forest compared to that obtained from the general land. However, Ngumburuni Forest Reserve is still facing disturbances especially that caused by human activities such as illegal logging, bush fire and shifting cultivation. Similarly, lacks of unclear policies and low commercialization skills have been found to be major limitations to optimal use of NTFPs. Based on findings from this study and previous researches conducted within this forest, further comprehensive studies are needed to examine and quantify the amount of NTFPs collected over time against the existing stock.

This will provide much needed information to be used for the sustainable utilization and management of the forest resources. Ongoing disturbances that threat quality and quantity of NTFPs at Ngumburuni FR should be addressed by involving local people, their leaders, local government authorities and central government. Furthermore, Tanzania Government is supposed to formulate new policies that will enhance the potential of NTFPs in poverty reduction and empower communities through clear institutional framework to respond to the increasing demand.

Arnold J E M Identifying links between forests and poverty. Andress H Climate change-driven forest fires marginalize the impact of ice cap wasting on Kilimanjaro. Journal of Global Change Biology 11 7 : Occasional Paper no.

Claire K Managing ecosystem services: What do we need to know about their ecology? Journal of Ecology Letters 8 5 : David M Woodland loss and restoration in a savanna parks: A year experiment. African Journal of Ecology 42 2 London: Earth Scan Publishers Ltd. FAO, Rome Journal of Environmental Extension. Vol 6. Pp Lambin E F Conditions for sustainability of human environment systems: Information, motivation, and capacity. Global Environmental Change , Journal of Agroforestry Today 6 2 A voice from villagers.

Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism. Forest and Beekeeping Division. Dar es Salaam, United Republic of Tanzania. Socio-Economic Report Report No. Forest Ecology and Management Tanzania Journal of Forestry and Nature Conservation 75 : 74 - REMP, Rufiji. Sheil D and Wunder S The value of tropical forest to local communities: Complications, caveats and cautions. Conservation Ecology, 6 : 2- 9. London: The University Wisconsin Press. The Overseas Development Institute, London.

Final Report. Go to top. Keywords: community, disturbances, policy, resources, sustainability Introduction The role of Non-timber Forest Products NTFPs for sustainable forest management and poverty reduction has received increased attention for many past years Sheil and Wunder Data collection Data were collected from three villages closest to the forest reserve namely: Mangwi, Mkupuka and Umwe North, in three phases.

Data analysis Data collected using PRA was analysed with the help of communities, and the results were communicated back to them. Figure 1. NTFPs as sources of household income. Figure 2. Various food products obtained from Ngumburuni Forest. Livestock Research for Rural Development 25 5 Reputed therapeutic effect of medicinal plants according to villagers around Ngumburunu Forest Reserve.

So we have an interesting network of both spatial and temporal scales of seed production, vertebrate movement and local community livelihoods. Can we bring this back to Michigan? Think about the acorns again. Was it any different here?

I think not. The passenger pigeon was once 3 billion birds. Audubon describes it as blackening the sky. They moved over very large spatial scales throughout the northeast and midwest. They would descend on acorn and beech crops. And when the native americans were moving over the landscape they had similar patterns of both hunting and resource use. So, then I asked the question, "how does large scale selective logging, both the rate, extent and intensity, affect this reproductive system?

And also the spatial scale. And I no longer can do the vertebrate censuses that I had begun years ago in the sense that the entire mosaic surrounding it by timber concessions have been logging since the mids. Note the agricultural areas in blue.

So we don't have a case where there is a lot of shifting or agriculturists moving into forest areas. We are looking at large scale timber conglomerates and the use over the area. However, I use logging in two unique ways. One, I used it as a large scale experiment; a density dependent experiment of how does changes in the density of dipterocarps affect recruitment and regeneration?

Also, I tried to understand and integrate the ecology studies with more applied studies across this region. So after spending some time learning about the natural system with empirical studies and manipulations, I did some large scale studies with timber concessions where there are actually no forest treatments. So we could just see what is the affect of dipterocarp removal over large scales on a different sequence on recruitment.

Next, I worked with a model concession when I was a US AID senior forestry advisor and senior, yes, I'm used to these age jokes, was a misnomer, I was 25 years younger than anyone.

The only time US AID had ever hired an ecologist and the only woman on the staff of mainly economists. However, we worked with a model timber concession; Consuma [name of company] is similar to Weyerhaeuser in that it controls 2.

However, they applied full treatments as prescribed by the Indonesian government. Armed with the ecological background and understanding the system, I went in to test the basic assumptions of the Indonesian selective logging and harvesting system, from both a socio-economic and ecological perspective. While I did this, I presented this to the Indonesian government and World Bank and a number of the donors, and I was asked by the Indonesian Minister of Land Use Planning and Development to continue as his personal forestry advisor.

It was the first time any of these basic policies had been, a challenged and, b understood what they meant in practice. I won both the backing of NGO's and of governmental organizations as well as responsible timber concessionaires, because someone who is field-based understands how logging works. Really the enrichment planting, for example, was requiring these timber concessionaires to apply something that was very misaligned and did not fit with the ecology of Bornian forests.

Then I went and did an application of how were these results to affect central government policy. So I surveyed all 72 timber concessions in West Kalimantan. I went through their year records and compiled a number of different pieces of information to put together the puzzle and investigated 15 or 16 of these timber concessions in a randomly stratified way, including big companies, those connected to downstream industries.

This gave us some insight of how we could affect policy change with something that was realistic, field based, of what was actually going on in the ground. That was conveyed in a number of policy memos both to the Minister of Forestry and to the Minister of Land Use Planning and Development.

They were looking at this as a major resource base that they were not using wisely. This is just to show you the difference with a lot of the donor agencies and those working in the central government, is they really never got down in the field and asked: What's your incentives here? Are you getting paid by the cubic meter? What kind of decisions would you make?

So we looked at it from staff, replanting, timber concessionaires and managers to understand the incentives of these companies, and what may work as reduced impact logging or something that would actually increase economic benefits to the country, and reduce the ecological damage.

This work is not very glamorous. I've spent two years living in logging camps such as this. This is kind of my terminator team. The crew that I hung out with. Abdula, the local who had been working chain saw; Tu Tus has been living in the forestry industry for years.

It was very different than some of the big donor agencies who would drive up in a Mercedes and walk around for a day. I lived in this shack for about 3 months.

I'm still here to talk about it actually. You can notice the chain saw operator on the far left. He's the one with the cut on his head, since it's a very dangerous profession. But most of the people that I worked with were very pleased to have someone who is both interested in what was going on and, actually have a voice in some of the things that they wanted to change in terms of both policy and practices.

So we followed the chain from both harvest and actual extraction through the chain of custody, logs, down through the plywood mills. This is, just briefly looking at the forestry policy timeline in both US and Indonesia. And first and foremost is what goes on in the US is very important to policy leaders. They are very aware. Most of the changes that happen in policy in came with the Clinton-Gore ticket.

They were very conscious of Al Gore's sponsoring of the tropical timber ban when he was a senator. Many of the timber concessionaires mentioned this. There were a number of other activities going on in the international arena. Certainly the Real Earth Summit, tropical timber bans were mentioned.

The International Timber Trade Organization put up a sustainable criteria by the year So what we were able to implement during that brief window was a period of proposing timber certification, changing spatial planning, and we then moved into this last year of and to really change forest policy to be regional, bio-regional [or spatial planning], to give more control to those responsible timber concessionaires.

In fact, they are allowed to seek now, for the first time, timber certification. We revamped some of the land use policies to edge toward community based forest management which, in a state controlled nation, is a major step.

Now they are performance based so the funding is based on partnerships--both with Universities, non-governmental organizations, and outputs. It's also easing into a change in political structure and management of the resource base in Indonesia. So, now what we are working toward is bio-regional planning. There's been a move toward de-evolution of para-infrastructures. We are looking at land use both in terms of watershed, mangrove, and park management on a very different scale than we were before.

They are putting into place individuals both from the outside and within the government and supporting non-governmental organizations to look at a more integrated approach to land use in Indonesia. One of the case studies is West Kalimantan; it has been singled out by the Indonesian government to look at how they can decentralize their role to still achieve national ecological and social economic objectives.

To look at working at an appropriate spatial scale for management and, for the first time, talking about empowerment of stakeholders. This was a major change and it has given me a lot of hope for resource management in that region.

They have been asking the Indonesian government, specifically the Minister of Land Use Planning and Natural Resources and Environment, for the best science and forestry information on these regions.

They have asked many of my students to produce key policy memos on time to multiple use forestry or joint implementation for carbon offsets. They are looking to promote private sector and public partnerships both from US industries as well as in the Indonesian private sector. They are looking at collaborative voluntary partnerships. They are using adaptive processes so they're looking, for the first time, at experimenting and changing forest policy--which is very rigid with prescriptions--to something that is performance based and based on some sustainable indicators.

Michigan has an incredible role to play in the Indonesian forestry sector. It's difficult to see but we often go to our meetings with either Wolverine or Spartan caps. It's been a tremendous surprise to me just being associated with the University of Michigan, what a wonderful role we can play and have played in both training and influencing policy makers.

To be clear here, there is still a lot of tension between Michigan State and Michigan. My last trip I bought about 20 hats for the Detroit Red Wings championship so we, at least, could all represent Michigan. So they have asked us to form a partnership in working both with forest policy and with environmental management. Of the remaining acreage, the butte Valley National Grassland, designated in , is on 18, acres. This is a district with a very active vegetation management, wildlife and ecosystem restoration program.

The district enjoys sunshine on the average days per year. The elevation is 4, feet which produces a high, dry climate. Winter snowfall is normally light and melts quickly. The average annual temperature is 48 degrees F and average annual precipitation is 14 inches.

The average high temperature in July is 80 degrees F, with the average low in January 22 degrees F. Recreational opportunities and facilities are abundant in the Butte Valley. The Goosenest Ranger District has 3 campgrounds. The most popular is Juanita Lake, covering 40 acres with 23 units. Martin's Dairy and Shafter Campgrounds are also available on the district. Medicine Lake, east of the district on the Modoc National Forest, covers acres with 73 campsites available.

These Forest Service campgrounds are usually crowded in the summer and fall months. For winter recreation, there are 2 snowmobiles parks available. Juanita Lake Campground offers a fully groomed cross country ski trail. The wide variety of wildlife draws a large number of hunters to our area. Mule and black-tailed deer, along with bands of antelope, are seen throughout the year. Butte Valley lies in the major stopping off place for waterfowl in the Pacific Flyway.

At the peak of migration October , the numbers of waterfowl are estimated between 3 to 4 million birds. Bird watchers and photographers enjoy Canada Geese, many species of ducks, bald and golden eagles, goshawks and swans, just to name a few.

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