The conservation and wise use of tropical forest resources is of global concern. The international debate has been focusing on illegal logging and the legality of timber as a contribution to sustainable management of forests. This is reflected in the Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) initiative launched by the EU. Part of the initiative is the development of voluntary partnership agreements (VPA) with a number of important timber trade EU partner countries such as Ghana and Indonesia. Central to the VPA processes, and future VPA-based timber trade, is the use of (broadly accepted) Timber Legality Standards (TLS) in producer countries. Success of the VPAs requires the process to include wider social and environmental issues around forestry. An important question here is: how will the enforcement of agreed TLS affect the lives of rural communities, especially those dependent on timber extraction and trade for their livelihoods? In case the activities of these forest users are not conform the law, are they just illegal or can we talk about a certain incompatibility between a legitimate local demand for access to resources, and current forest legislation and policies that are denying forest-dependent communities a fair share?

 

The “Illegal or Incompatible?” Project aimed to strengthen livelihood considerations in forest policy development to enhance its effective implementation. The specific project objective was to develop broadly supported governance mechanisms that manage the consequences of VPA legal timber legality standards on local livelihoods and to strengthen the capacity of stakeholders to (re)negotiate institutional arrangements for sustainable resource use in Ghana and Indonesia.

 

The Project started in mid-2008 and ended 31/12/2010. Implementation of the Project was negatively affected by the late signing of the VPA and delayed start - not before 2012 - necessitating researchers to think in terms of scenarios rather than in actual impacts. The Project delivered along four broad lines:

 

Forests are declining rapidly in Ghana. The Annual Allowable Cut (AAC) is exceeded with 100% per annum. The “illegal” production (roughly half the AAC) is dominated by small-scale chainsaw millers supplying the domestic market. The “legal” production by the formal timber sector supplies international markets (such as the EU). Growth of both markets results in depleting forest resources. The current response from Ghana and EU as formulated in the VPA is to use the trade in legal timber by putting in place a series of law enforcement measures, as a trigger for the Ghana forestry sector to improve its governance and sustainability. Research has shown however that strict law enforcement threatens the timber supply of the local market, and much of the forest-related livelihood opportunities in rural Ghana of 97.000 people directly, and 200.000 people indirectly. In this scenario legal timber exported to the EU competes directly with local livelihoods. Next to anticipated negative impact of the VPA on livelihoods there are also expected positive impacts such as expected improved forest conditions (potentially increasing natural livelihood assets); expected increased legal involvement of the small-scale timber sector; and expected continuation of multi-stakeholder dialogues in Ghana towards improved forest governance that was triggered by the VPA design process.

 

Research and policy dialogues over the past 2 years revealed two different policy approaches to the emerging VPA implementation in Ghana. On the one hand there is the narrow and rather technical law enforcement approach aiming to ensure adherence to technical norms on commercial timber production and payments of timber exploitation and trade related duties. With current forest laws and policies in Ghana being predominantly anti-poor, enforcement of the legislation will have the same effect. This approach is expected to have negative livelihood implications (especially in the short term). On the other hand there is the broader approach that perceives enforcement as part of improved forest governance and related to socially equitable use of forest resources and on social safeguards mitigating possible negative implications for local livelihoods. This approach perceives the VPA as a first step towards a major forest law and policy reform in Ghana.

 

The Project has been instrumental in bringing research and policy-makers together to interpret the Agreement especially in terms of its intended livelihood outcome. Most notably the clauses on “social safeguards” have been discussed and the potential to mitigate possible negative livelihood implications. These policy debates (1 in Wageningen, 1 in The Hague, 2 in Ghana, 1 in Brussels) resulted in a series of seminar proceedings (2), information sheets (2) and policy briefs (2) that were widely distributed in Ghana, the West Africa Region, the EC/Brussels and the Netherlands to inform policy and practice. The VPA design process and emerging implementation in Ghana is a multiple stakeholder process representing advocates of both approaches. By bringing out the differences between these approaches and anticipated impact on the livelihoods of forest-dependent communities through research, capacity building of selected stakeholders, facilitating and documenting policy dialogues, the Project has informed ongoing decision-making in Ghana and the EU on the future of Ghana’s forestry and its beneficiaries.