Exploring the forest - poverty link: key concepts, issues and research implications

What role can forests and forestry play in the efforts to reducepoverty in developing countries? Do forests help prevent extreme hardship, even when they don’t reduce poverty?

The report argues that:

• A striking gap exists between, on the one hand, the neglect of forests in economic developmentand poverty reduction strategies and on the other, the high (and sometimes unrealistic) expectations regarding the role for forest products in parts of the forest literature
• From a macro-level perspective, economic growth normally does trickle down to the poor, at least over time and at aggregate scales. The forestliterature tends to ignore this effect, including the impact of forest rents flowing into other sectors
• Non-timber forest products (NTFPs) serve subsistence needs, can have important ‘gap filling’ functions and sometimes provide regular cash income. However, there is a strong association between poverty and NTFP dependence. Paradoxically, the same characteristics that make NTFPs important and attractive to the poor, alsolimit their potential for increasing incomes
• Timber has traditionally been the rich man’s lot but the current trends of increased local control over natural forests, smallholder tree growing and small scale, wood-based enterprises maysomewhat modify this picture
• The realm of payments for ecological services is expanding rapidly and has a huge potential but the extent to which the poor will benefit remainsuncertain

The ten most promising areas for future research are:

• Natural forest products in household livelihoods (focusing on both safety nets and increased welfare)
• Small scale wood-based processing enterprises
• Globalisation, trade liberalisation and forest-product markets
• Smallholder tree planting and private sector partnerships
• Payments for forest environmental services
• Economy wide benefits from forest-based rents
• On-site ecological forest services
• Local resource control and land tenure
• Decentralisation, governance and forest-market deregulation
• Integrating forests into macroeconomic strategies