Empowerment of small-scale communal forest growers based on four case studies: opportunities, challenges, and risks - towards a suitable solution

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to assess the challenges, opportunities, and risks of small scale communal forest projects across four communities in South Africa, and through this, to make a contribution to the neglected topic in the field of Geography of the commercial sustainability of traditional rural communities. The study is situated within the broader concerns of the levels of impoverishment amongst South Africa’s rural poor and the urgent need to expand the forestry industry and address the looming timber shortage. It examines small-scale communal forest projects at the intersection of the rural development discourse, people-centredness and community participation. Descriptive analyses were used to determine the socio-economic characteristics and demographics of households and community participants in the study areas; the multinomial regression model was used to determine the benefits, challenges and risks experienced by households across all four projects (i.e., Mkhambathi, Sinawo, and Ntywenka in the Eastern Cape Province and Mabandla in KwaZulu-Natal). The main challenges highlighted in the household interviews, focus group and key informants’ discussions revealed five major challenges: fires (i.e., forest fires [79%]), crime (timber theft [70%]), reduction of grazing land (45%), water shortages (4%) and lack of employment (32%). The study further indicates that there are opportunities as 80% of the sampled households perceived participation in the forest communal projects as a means to alleviating poverty. This is confirmed by the significant relationship (p<0.001) in the perceptions of household respondents on job creation. In the Sinawo project, 99% of the households perceived that job creation was due to the establishment of forest plantations in their area, the highest when compared to the other projects (i.e., 74% for Mkhambathi; 61% for Mabandla; and 39% for Ntywenka). The experience of community owned plantations in the Mabandla project clearly indicates that with adequate support, local communities can run plantation enterprises generating year-round employment and sustainable annual incomes. The study recommends as key ingredients for success: access to grant funding to leverage loans from a development finance institution such as the IDC; providing new entrants with the necessary technical and managerial support; and mentorship arrangements such as those provided by SAPPI, ECRDA and PG-Bison.