Conservation logic in the forests of south-west Ethiopia: Linking honey producers to markets and the implications for sustainable forest management

Sustainable trade in non-wood forest products (NWFPs) has been much tested as a strategy for leading to the dual objectives of forest conservation and poverty reduction. Whilst this approach has met with concerns about elite capture, poverty traps and unsustainable harvesting, the literature on NWFP commercialisation identifies key factors essential for NWFP enterprises to work well. One of these factors concerns the relationship between those who manage the forest, and those who derive income from the forest. This paper discusses NWFP development and marketing in the biodiverse forests of south-west Ethiopia, and describes the institutions in place to manage forests under participatory forest management (PFM) and the different forms of trade for NWFPs, principally honey. Forest use decisions were in the past partly governed by family claims to bee trees and so-called ‘honey forests’, which indicate that the link between conservation and trade is not new. The context is research and development work undertaken by the University of Huddersfield and Ethio-Wetlands and Natural Resources Association, 2003 to date. Participatory forest management associations (FMAs) have responsibility for demarcated forest areas. NWFP marketing is carried out by different forms of co-operatives, some with structural links to the FMAs and others with none. Honey trade is also carried out by farmer-owned trading companies and individual traders. This paper explores how project work linking producers to markets has been obliged to pay close attention to the connection between the way trade happens and the way forest management happens i.e. the conservation logic. There is some evidence that the increasing honey price is revitalising traditional claims to bee trees, and co-operatives linked to FMAs understand the rationale for giving a percentage of their profits to the FMA. The paper discusses the link between sustainable forest management and honey income

The Numbers Behind Mushroom Biodiversity

Fungi are among the most diverse groups of organisms on Earth. with a global diversity estimated at 0.8 million to 5.1 million species. They play fundamental ecological roles as decomposers, mutualists, and pathogens, growing in almost all habitats and being important as sources of food and health benefits, income, and to maintain forest health. Global assessment of wild edible fungi indicate the existence of 2327 useful wild species; 2166 edible and 1069 used as food; 470 medicinal species. Several million tonnes are collected, consumed, and sold each year in over 80 countries. The major mushroom-producing countries in 2012 were China, Italy, USA, and The Netherlands, with 80% of the world production, 64% of which came from China. The European Union produces 24% of the world production. Italy is the largest European producer, Poland is the largest exporter, UK the largest importer.Fungi are difficult to preserve and fossilize and due to the poor preservation of most fungal structures, it has been difficult to interpret the fossil record of fungi. Hyphae, the vegetative bodies of fungi, bear few distinctive morphological characteristicss, and organisms as diverse as cyanobacteria, eukaryotic algal groups, and oomycetes can easily be mistaken for them (Taylor & Taylor 1993). Fossils provide minimum ages for divergences and genetic lineages can be much older than even the oldest fossil representative found. According to Berbee and Taylor (2010), molecular clocks (conversion of molecular changes into geological time) calibrated by fossils are the only available tools to estimate timing of evolutionary events in fossil‐poor groups, such as fungi. The arbuscular mycorrhizal symbiotic fungi from the division Glomeromycota, generally accepted as the phylogenetic sister clade to the Ascomycota and Basidiomycota, have left the most ancient fossils in the Rhynie Chert of Aberdeenshire in the north of Scotland (400 million years old). The Glomeromycota and several other fungi have been found associated with the preserved tissues of early vascular plants (Taylor et al. 2004a). Fossil spores from these shallow marine sediments from the Ordovician that closely resemble Glomeromycota spores and finely branched hyphae arbuscules within plant cells were clearly preserved in cells of stems of a 400 Ma primitive land plant, Aglaophyton, from Rhynie chert 455–460 Ma in age (Redecker et al. 2000; Remy et al. 1994) and from roots from the Triassic (250–199 Ma) (Berbee & Taylor 2010; Stubblefield et al. 1987).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Miombo woodlands and rural livelihoods in Malawi

Farmers in Malawi remove woodlands to plant crops but they also derive a vast range of other basic needs from the surrounding forests. These miombo woodlands have until relatively recently always been vast in comparison to the human population and their needs. Over the years the woodlands and the way they have been used have changed, but their contribution for maintaining well being and providing peoples’ basic needs appears to have remained important. The main changes in the woodlands are a decrease in the area of woody plants remaining and the nature of the interface between woodlands and people. Forest area has reduced considerably; about 2.5 million hectares of forest land were converted to agricultural land between 1946 and 1996 (Openshaw, 1997). The nature of the interface between people and miombo – once limited to being a superstore of products for the home, the farm and the hunt – has increased in complexity. The purpose of this booklet is to explore some of the dimensions of the people/miombo interface and in particular identify those key areas that are most crucial for food security and poverty alleviation

Forest beekeeping in Zambia: Analysing the nexus of sustainable forest management and commercial honey trade

The need to achieve human development without harming the natural systems on which all life depends, is one of the greatest challenges of our times. The aim of this research is to deploy and develop social-ecological systems thinking to a miombo forest landscape in north west Zambia where thousands of people make a living from forest beekeeping. There exists significant critique about whether trade in non-timber forest products (NTFPs) can help deliver the dual goals of poverty alleviation and forest maintenance. Trade in forest honey appears to be an exceptional case, yet inadequately studied. This research fills a gap in understanding about the link between forest honey trade and forest maintenance. Honey trade is already commercialised in north west Zambia and so provides a case study scenario within which to ask, Given that the market for honey is assured, do beekeepers maintain forests’? Case study methodology found that trade is driving an increase in forest beekeeping, with income invested in education, in farming and as capital for other enterprises. Self-reported measures of economic wellbeing showed beekeepers to be slightly better off than non-beekeepers. Beekeepers negotiate de facto rights to hive sites and engage in ‘early burning’ to mitigate potential damage to flowers, bees and trees caused by dry season fires. Beekeepers apply this forest protection tool over thousands of hectares of forest. Beekeepers do not manage forests using scientific principles of inventory and planning, and features of a common-property management regime are largely absent. The study reveals entities and components of a forest beekeeping livelisystem – a complex, knowledge rich system where ecological elements and human elements are intricately connected in a robust social-ecological system The system is driven by trade, is productive and works with minimal external costs. The role beekeepers play in maintaining this forest system must be acknowledged and supported by development planners, local authorities and leaders and consumers who buy the honey

Research on non-timber forest products in selected countries in Southern and East Africa: themes, research issues, priorities and constraints

In this paper, the outcomes of a consultative meeting on non-timber forest products are reported and discussed. The meeting was organised by CIFOR and IUCN's Eastern Africa Regional Office on 15 and 16 September 1995 in Nairobi, Kenya, with the aim of discussing research priorities and information gaps related to non-timber forest products. The workshop brought together 11 people, representing forest research institutions, NGOs and other organisations involved in research related to non-timber forest products. The countries represented were Malawi, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. During the meeting priority themes and issues were identified. These relate to management systems, policy and institutions, and community roles and social dimensions. Priority constraints include lack of personnel with appropriate expertise, inadequate financial resources, and insufficient data and information. A large number of solutions to overcome these constraints was discussed. It is concluded that since the main relevance of non-timber forest products in Southern and East Africa is at the local and subsistence level, an elaboration of the results of the meeting into workable research questions and methods should be defined at that level in an iterative process of action research, involving researchers and local users and managers of the forest. The meeting can be considered as a first, though authoritative, approximation of the needs in research on non-timber forest products in the region. It was agreed that elaboration of the findings of the meeting into specific action would be the only useful next step