Enforcing the law in forests: are poor people being persecuted?

Illegal logging is a major problem in many developing countries. However, current attempts to enforce forest laws do not always target the causes of illegal logging. Instead, they persecute poor rural people living in forest regions.

Illegal logging causes huge environmental damage and deprives governments of revenue. Research from the Center for International Forestry Research in Indonesia warns that the current focus of law enforcement efforts is unfair. It focuses too greatly on poor and marginalised groups who depend on forest resources.

Forest Law Enforcement and Governance (FLEG) has emerged as an international policy framework to tackle illegal forestry and promote sustainable forest management. The aims of FLEG are:

• to confront illegal logging activities
• to act for justice and poverty alleviation
• to combat corruption and promote good governance in forest management.

The impact of FLEG law enforcement on forest communities has not been fully appreciated. In many countries, current forest laws limit the rights of forest dependent communities. For example, they often face difficulties exercising their rights to the ownership, access and use of forest resources.

Key findings from the research include:

• The extent of forest livelihoods is often under-appreciated in forest laws. A lack of reliable information about forest-dependent communities illustrates how detached they can be from policy making processes.
• Many forest laws are contradictory, which makes it difficult to determine what is illegal and what is not.
• Illegal forest use, including logging and collecting bushmeat, is often an important part of local economies. Local communities may be guilty of illegal activities when trying to collect food and resources for subsistence living.

Laws tend to be applied selectively and favour large-scale forestry industries or those who can afford to pay bribes. FLEG targets small-scale forest users, which reinforces the exclusion of forest dependent communities from policy processes. FLEG rarely challenges large businesses, chief executive officers or shareholders who benefit from illegal forest activities. This approach therefore does little to tackle the causes of large-scale illegal logging.

Key policy recommendations include:

• Target large-scale illegal loggers, not small-scale operators. This will have a greater impact on reducing illegal logging and reduce the unfair targeting of rural communities.
• Adopt a rights-based approach to forest governance, giving more attention to human rights and encouraging community access to justice.
• Encourage programmes to reform governance in ways that make forestry authorities accountable to the public for their actions and decisions about natural resource management.
• Use participatory reform to change forest-related laws. This will mean that the opinions of forest communities are represented.

Source(s):
‘Justice in the forest – Rural livelihoods and forest law enforcement’ Forest Perspectives 3, Center for International Forestry Research, by Marcus Colchester, 2006 (PDF) Full document.

Funded by: UK Department for International Development; PROFOR

id21 Research Highlight: 4 January 2007

Further Information:
Marcus Colchester

Contact the contributor: marcus@forestpeoples.org

Center for International Forestry Research, Indonesia

Center for International Forestry Research
Situ Gede, Sindand Barang
Bogor Barat 16680
Indonesia

Tel: +62 (251) 622622
Fax: +62 (251) 622100
Contact the contributor: cifor@cgiar.org

Other related links:
'Laying down the law in the forestry sector'

'Illegal logging and forest livelihoods: which way forward for greater justice?'

'Bringing legality to the timber trade'

'Fighting illegal activities in Asian forests'

See id21's links for forestry