1 / 19

JUSTICE IN THE FORESTS

JUSTICE IN THE FORESTS. ENSURING FOREST LAW ENFORCEMENT HELPS THE POOR CIFOR. SYNTHESIS REPORT OF THE RESEARCH PROJECT ON FOREST LAW ENFORCEMENT & RURAL LIVELIHOODS. Marcus Colchester with

axl
Télécharger la présentation

JUSTICE IN THE FORESTS

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. JUSTICE IN THE FORESTS ENSURING FOREST LAW ENFORCEMENT HELPS THE POOR CIFOR

  2. SYNTHESIS REPORT OF THE RESEARCH PROJECT ONFOREST LAW ENFORCEMENT &RURAL LIVELIHOODS Marcus Colchester with Marco Boscolo, Arnoldo Contreras-Hermosilla, Filippo Del Gatto, Jessica Dempsey, Guillaume Lescuyer, Krystof Obidzinski, Denis Pommier, Michael Richards, Sulaiman N. Sembiring, Luca Tacconi, Maria Teresa Vargas Rios and Adrian Wells

  3. Forest Law Enforcement and Governance (FLEG) • Concern about illegal logging • FLEG justified as: • Poverty alleviation (MDG) • Curb forest loss • Promote Sustainable Forest Management • Capture revenues for the State • But does FLEG really help the rural poor?

  4. First attempt to fill the gap • Case studies in Honduras & Nicaragua (Atlantic Coast), Bolivia (Amazon), Cameroon (South), Indonesia and Canada (BC) – separate papers • Literature review, interviews • Workshop • Synthesis Report • DFID, PROFOR

  5. Extent of Forest Dependency • Lack of reliable information about numbers • Wide range of social groups depend on forests • game, • non-timber forest products, • farmland and forest fallows, • fuelwood, • extraction of timber, • environmental services, • subsistence, barter and trade • wage labourers or as small-scale suppliers in local timber industries. • Even in developed countries, forests central to livelihoods and cultural identity

  6. Laws affecting People • customary laws and norms widely applied • international laws relating to trade, human rights and the environment • national constitutional provisions • national and local laws relating to • land tenure, • human rights, • conservation, wildlife • forestry

  7. Setting the Frameworks • Favourable land laws have been framed in the context of strong social mobilisation • Forestry laws have been heavily influenced by timber industry lobby • International agencies have pushed for laws that favour large-scale highly capitalised forestry industries (SFM and revenues) • Community forestry not given much priority: civil society pressure has been crucial to gains made

  8. Problems in the Laws • Rights of ownership, use and access often not recognised • ‘Forests’ often treated as public lands or even ‘state-owned’ domains. • Forest-related laws frequently contradictory and incompatible • Livelihoods of many forest-dependent poor are often technically illegal • Definition of ‘legal’ forest use thus highly contentious.

  9. Selective Application • Forestry Laws which restrict forest access and use by local communities and give preferential access to large-scale forestry enterprises, applied more vigorously than complementary measures that recognise community rights. • Even where procedures do exist by which communities can apply for secure rights in forests, these are commonly too onerous and costly to be widely used.

  10. Enmeshed in wider political economies • Illegal forest use not just an outcome of poor governance • Integral part of political economies. • Global demand for timber • Deeply entrenched patronage systems • Linked to political networks

  11. Communities ensnared • Lack of security in forests - contributes to: • poverty, • conflicts over forest resources, • subsequent repression • human rights violations. • Existing benefit-sharing schemes function poorly. • Most small-scale forest use is ‘illegal’ • Bureaucratic obstacles to regularising tenure

  12. Experiences with enforcement • ‘Soft’ enforcement - positive incentives, • ‘Hard’ enforcement - including criminalization • Lack of good baseline data • Hard enforcement often ineffective • lack of strong penalties • weak institutional capacity • no independence in the judiciary • Enforcers complicit in illegalities

  13. Impacts on the poor • Tend to focus narrowly on the enforcement of forestry laws to the neglect of laws that secure rural livelihoods • Rural poor disproportionately targetted • Well connected and politically protected people not penalised • Mass expulsions of indigenous peoples and local communities from forests and protected areas • Poverty and insecurity exacerbated

  14. A forest ranger’s view: ‘We have always pushed the little guy around because they have no political clout. It has always been our way of convincing ourselves and the public that we are doing our jobs. Yet the real crimes… the real damage is committed by the big corporations. They are ones who need to be hammered! It will never happen in a meaningful way... they are too powerful.’

  15. Ways Forward (1) Basic Principles: • Address full range of laws related to forests and forest dependent peoples, not just forestry laws • Adopt a rights-based approach to forest law enforcement - strengthen human rights networks, improve independence of judiciary, promote legal literacy among rural communities, provide legal aid • Aim governance reform programmes to create public accountability and transparency in NRM • Ensure broad engagement with civil society • Base FLEG on national governments’ commitments to reform (not donor driven).

  16. Ways Forward (2) Correcting unfair legal frameworks: • Promote participatory law reform • Eliminate legal ambiguities, secure indigenous and customary rights to land, and provide rural communities with rights of access to and use of forest resources; • Encourage ratification, application and use of international law (HRs and CBD) • Participatory assessments of people’s use of forests, the extent to which laws secure such activities and is actually applied • Assess impact of forestry on livelihoods, benefits to the poor, compensation and mechanisms for redress.

  17. Ways Forward (3) Even handed enforcement: • Insist on even enforcement of all forest related laws; • Incorporate strategies for the effective participation of communities in designing and applying enforcement strategies and laws; • Simplify the bureaucratic, fiscal, management planning and legislative requirements for securing tenures and permits for community access, use and marketing of forest resources (esp. FMPs).

  18. Ways Forward (4) Effective law enforcement: • Improve interagency coordination • Maximise transparency and accountability • Monitor impacts of FLEG on the rural poor • Awareness-building among rural communities about law and FLEG • Community and NGO monitoring of compliance • Independent observers - clear TORS and assured information access • Depoliticize the appointment enforcers and NRM managers

  19. Ways Forward (5) Target the major abusers: • Overhaul criminal laws and penal codes so enforcement can target corporations and not just individuals • Develop new laws that set out the legal obligations for corporate responsibility • Improve financial sector and money laundering laws and regulations • Target agents dealing in illegal timbers in bulk through intervening in large-scale transportation, processing and international trade • Promote regional cooperation to avoid cross-border laundering • Adopt procurement policies to curb buying illegal timbers

More Related