Assessment of Management of Communal Forests by Local People. Case Study; Singa Locality

Abstract

In community forest, management the responsibility for making proper arrangements on both technical and organizational aspects rests with local villagers based on their objectives. Much progress has been made in obtaining a better understanding about these different objectives of local people for managing tree resources. The starting premise of this research is to tackle the issue of management of communal forests on sustainable basis for the sake of attaining pre-specified objectives by the rural communities. Singa locality was selected as a case study for this research. Despite the wide spread of community forestry activity in its different forms in the study area, the activity is challenged by the commitment participation of local inhabitants to guarantee sustainable development of the activity. The extensionists used to focus on nursery techniques and tree planting and ignore the other silvicultural operations. This situation becomes worse with the phase-out of the NGOs from the study area.. The broad objective of this research is to assess the potentiality of managing the communal forests on sustainable bases. Two types of data were used to collect the necessary information, namely, primary and secondary data. The primary data was principally collected through interviews with the local people the secondary data includes FNC files, annual reports, projects documents and pervious studies conducted in the same sides. Although animal rearing is the main economic activity in the area, the local people proved to be able to establish communal forests. The FNC and the traditional leaders are the initiators of the idea of community forests in the study area. The different activities of community forestry were made through nafir (working party). The communal forests in the study area are established along the seasonal watercourses and low depressions (mayaa). The FNC encouraged the local people to conserve the tree resources through declaration of community forests and registration after the name of the villages. The main objective of the communal forests in the study area is to generate income for the development of the local communities through provision of public services. The management of the forests is mainly done by elected village committees, which are responsible for mobilization of local people, marketing of products and distribution of benefits. The main conclusion of the study is the possibility of replicating the model of communal forests in similar sites through the collaboration of the FNC and the traditional leaders. The villages' committees play a significant role in the management of the communal forests. The study also arrived to useful recommendations.