Promotion of Livelihoods and Threats to Forest Resources in Thnout Chum Commune, Pursat Province
Sunday, November 15, 2009 15:24
Thnout Chum sits along National Road 5, about 15km away from Pursat provincial town. In terms of geography, in Thnout Chum commune there are mountains, rivers (Thlear Maorm River) and forest, which covers over two-thirds of the total area of the commune. Thnout Chum is divided into 14 villages, with a total population of 11,550, including 5,927 women (2007 statistics). About 95% of people earn their living from rice farming and are reliant on nature; there is a low yield during the rainy season. Additionally, about 70% of people produce palm sugar in the dry season.
Production of palm sugar helps reduce the livelihood burden for most people: when they meet subsistence shortages owing to low yields from rice farming, palm sugar production fills up the gaps caused by these shortages, helping over 40% of the total population.
Thnout Chum is full of palm trees and forest cover. The forest provides firewood for palm sugar production, and raw materials such as the palm juice from palm trees. People began to cut down trees within the commune a long time ago in order to meet their own production needs, and this kind of practice became a customary activity. This led to the gradual destruction of the forest. Bigger losses came from the cutting down of trees for commercial purposes after 1993 (during the time of the first Cambodian general elections after many decades of internal conflict) and forest clearance for new cropping and farming purposes.
The decrease in forest resources led to the creation of community forestry in five villages of Thnout Chum commune, supported by Concern and other organizations, with cooperation from other communities, local authorities and the Royal Government Degraded forest areas were established as community forestry areas in 1999. With protection under community forestry, trees have grown more densely, reaching a level of about 80% of the previous forest cover.
As a matter of fact, the presence of community forestry has not really reduced incidence of forest clearance, either inside or outside the community forests. Increase in demand for palm sugar has made demand for firewood higher – for use to refine palm sugar. As a result, the nine-member commune council initiated and implemented a firewood-efficient cooking project, to reduce the amount of firewood collected from the forests. However, the council and citizens feel little hope that demand for firewood will decrease while there is high demand for palm sugar. In this regard, job creation and income generation through sugar palm production are threatening forest resources in Thnout Chum commune.
STAKEHOLDERS IN NATURAL RESOURCE MANAGEMENT AND LIVELIHOODS
ROLES OF COMMUNITY FORESTRY
Community forestry was established in the hope that forest destruction activities would decrease. However, this hope could not be realized: forest destruction activities outside of the community forest areas continued to escalate; moreover, the demand for firewood and palm sugar rose.
The forest is an important source of firewood for villagers in 11 villages who earned their living from producing palm sugar. The increase in demand encourages production, and this means more firewood is required. The need for firewood seriously threatens the existing forestry community, which has tried hard to carry out forest protection.
The community can protect only the forests within the boundaries. Members of the community can not enter the forest to cut down trees. However, as in other places, some members of the community cut down trees for firewood near the boundaries of the community forest in order to be able to produce palm sugar. Community forestry does not provide them with enough quick economic benefits to tackle their livelihood problems. Lack of legal recognition from national level and uncertainty regarding the sustainability of the community forest mean that people have to think more of the present than of the future.
Cutting down trees for firewood has become routine in villages where there is a tradition of palm sugar production. Outside houses, there are piles of firewood collected from the forest, kept for refining palm sugar. At some houses in Bangkong Kmum village, piles of wood can be seen, from two to three meters in length, about 10 pieces in two or three different places. This has made it clear that both logging and forest protection are happening at the same time in a village where both community forestry and a tradition of palm sugar production exist.
The village chief, also the chief of Bangkong Kmum village community forestry, recognizes that forest degradation is occurring in his village. Before, local people could cut down trees within or near the village; now, people living in Bangkong Kmum have to collect firewood from Sbay Kleh Mountain, located about 5km away from the village. This concerns the village chief – he feels that, in future, villagers will face a shortage of firewood, and there will be only one way to compensate: collecting very small pieces of wood to use for refining instead of firewood.
Facing such a challenge, the village chief suggests that the community forest should grow more trees on 2 ha of vacant land within the Bangkong Kmum community forest. It has also been suggested to grow more trees, such as Ang Kagn or Angkear Dei trees, which are easy and fast to grow, on idle village land or in the rice fields. Such measures can solve deforestation to only a limited extent.
ROLES OF COMMUNE COUNCIL
Generally, the roles of the commune council can be seen through the annual commune investment program (CIP). Using CIP, the commune council can raise natural resource and environment issues, which includes strengthening of community forestry and job creation. However, other roles of the commune council are not specified in the CIP. Some programs belong to NGOs, which request cooperation and support from the council; others are inter-commune cooperation projects and district/khan initiative projects.
For Thnout Chum commune, the roles of the commune council in relation to the forests and promotion of livelihoods are reflected through the CIP, support for community forestry, implementation of energy-efficient cooking, a palm sugar production project and a market search effort. All these projects are intertwined and complementary, and are linked to the roles and capacity of the commune council.
COMMUNE SUPPORT FOR COMMUNITY FORESTRY
The commune council in Thnout Chum has provided recognition and support to community forestry. Both of these elements were the starting point for the establishment of community forestry. One member of the council is the head of a central committee of the community.
Moreover, the council has helped the community in project proposals related to community forestry, such as prevention of forest fires and legalization of community forestry through the eight-step principles.
The council integrated these projects into CIP, which received support from EPDO. In fact, the commune council prefers high priority sectors, for example infrastructure projects, to projects related to community forestry. The council understands that, without external support, it will have to find the means to support community forestry. It has considered collecting annual contributions from community members (1,000 Riel per family) to use to support operations.
The commune council, which has a duty of contributing to forest protection, acknowledges that it does not have sufficient capacity to prevent ongoing forest destruction. It depends on the Forest Administration and NGOs, whose support has not yet been totally fruitful. The one option left to the council was promoting energy-efficient cooking, which reduces consumption of firewood.
IMPLEMENTATION OF ENERGY-EFFICIENT COOKING PROJECT
Increase in firewood consumption has led to the use of equipment to refine palm juice using less firewood. These innovative devices are called energy-efficient cookers (or poung). The village chief of Bangkong and another two or three villagers received training on how to produce such cookers in Kampong Chhnang province in 2003, then trained other people in the commune to learn about different consumption levels between normal cooking and energy-efficient cooking, specifying that, before using poung, one family required 50 to 100 carts loaded with firewood – one cart equal to two to four big trunks – for one season of sugar production; after using poung, one family needed only 10 to 20 carts of firewood.
The importance of poung, when used for refining (sometimes called palm sugar poung) encouraged another initiative to increase the use of this device. The commune council proposed a project for palm sugar poung production in their CIP, to be implemented in Chambok Thom, Bangkong Kmum, Choir Mkearn, Tream and Kro Bei Sar villages. The commune council provided 40,000 Riel to each family to produce a poung (94 families); in 2006 and 2007, there were 100 additional families. It is noteworthy that disbursement of funds to local people was slow; in most cases, the budget was given during the rainy season, when people were busy with their rice cultivation and there were fewer palm sugar production activities. In addition, providing funds during the rainy season might lead to people using the money before the time for palm sugar production.
The commune council wants to use the limited budget for these activities for the maximum benefit in order to increase the number of benefiaries and does not require the people to pay back the money to the commune but instead to transfer it to another villager. This mechanism has not reached a level of ‘100% use of poung for palm sugar’ in the commune, as in 2008 it was considered more of a priority to use the limited budget available to deepen one pond in a village that was experiencing water shortage.
PALM SUGAR PRODUCTION PROJECT
Thnout Chum commune is full of palm trees, and people in its 11 villages earn their living from sugar production (except Tmei, Boeung Veal and Takeo villages). People are employed in this occupation only during the dry season, which lasts for only about five to six months (December to May or June). This kind of work is traditional and has been ongoing for centuries, and depends mostly on firewood and palm trees. Loss of palm trees means loss of employment. Therefore, people are really concerned about any factors threatening their palm trees.
Two or three years ago, a great many palm trees were cut down in Thnout Chum commune. Seeing such a situation, the united commanding unit of Krokor district called a meeting and issued measures to prevent the logging. The commune council contributed to this work through information dissemination to citizens on not cutting down palm trees. Now, one rarely sees palm trees cut down.
However, the commune council and relevant stakeholders still have no inventory of palm trees in Thnout Chum. Moreover, there is no project supporting the conservation and replanting of palm trees. Such projects should be initiated by the commune council as part of its efforts to promote improved livelihoods for the people, as in through the palm sugar flour project.
The palm sugar flour project was implemented under a pilot district/ khan initiative project of Krokor district, which covered Thnout Chum commune together with other nearby communes. The project is considered by the commune council to be a pilot project: it started in 2008 in Bangkong Kmum village. So far, the flour has been seen to be of good quality, and the commune council and Buddhist Development Association and Supporting Environment (BDASE) believe that production of such flour is helping Thnout Chum commune.
Palm sugar flour brings in more income than normal palm sugar. Local people tend to produce more because the price, as compared with normal palm sugar, is almost three times higher. 1kg of palm sugar flour is 3,000 to 4,800 Riel, whereas normal palm sugar is 1,300 to 1,800 Riel. In addition, palm sugar flour has a bigger market. The market and new challenges arising within it, is a main focus of attention for the commune council and other stakeholders, as it is a critical factor for sustainability of livelihood improvements for local citizens.
MARKET SEARCH
The commune council understands the inter-linkages between different projects existing in the commune: these projects have created a production chain, from raw material to finished goods and marketing activities. The projects are separated by their different inputs and the fact that their support arrives from different institutions within different timeframes. Wood is a raw material for firewood, palm juice is a raw material for refining sugar, poung is a tool for refining sugar, people are the labor power with the skills to process palm sugar, the commune council is in charge of overall management, NGOs and the provincial local administration unit (PLAU) provide comments and suggestions or help to seek markets.
The Thnout Chum commune council understands that the market is an important factor in the successful upgrading of livelihoods through palm sugar production. The commune council is involved to some extent in market search activities for the people. The commune council received US$1,000 from Prom Vihearthor organization and aimed to buy palm sugar from the people to resell to buyers at a higher price. However, some people lacked money and had to borrow money from other buyers; as a result, to pay back their debt, they had to sell their sugar to those buyers at a cheaper price. Because the council did not have money to lend, it could not buy sugar from the people as planned. Lack of funds was a challenge for the council in its efforts to increase bargaining power and search for markets for the people.
In the commune, there is no team in charge of market search. In such a team there could be great diversity of members, under the lead of the commune council. The commune council also acknowledges that it lacks knowledge about markets. The council believes that training and practice would make it more knowledgeable and able to carry out its roles more effectively in the future.
ROLE OF NGOS
Community forestry receives support from EPDO, and market activities receive assistance from BDASE. This support is separate and limited, owing to budget and human resources shortages. In community forestry, EPDO supports only information dissemination, community strengthening and coordination for legal recognition in line with laws, sub-decrees and guiding principles. In 2008, after the NGO cooperated with the khan Forest Administration in Pursat to define potential areas for community forestry and submitted documents for approval at the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, and after the central level of the Forest Administration verified these, it was learnt that the community forests in four villages of Thnout Chum had boundaries that overlapped with the economic land concession of Pheapimex company. At present, parties are in the process of negotiation on this issue and are waiting for a decision on the potential areas for community forests from the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. This has made the NGO unable to function in terms of providing support to the community.
Concerning production of palm sugar, not many problems are encountered in terms of quality and market. BDASE piloted production of palm sugar flour in two villages where good palm juice could be found, Bangkong Kmum and Choir Mkearn, which can be used for producing good quality palm sugar flour. The quality of the palm sugar flour can compete with that of other provinces that have expertise in producing such sugar flour, such as Kampong Speu and Kampong Chhnang provinces. The pilot yielded results gradually; the number of participants increased remarkably. In Bangkong Kmum and Choir Mkearn, membership rose from 10 families in 2007 to 20 families in 2008 in each village.
BDASE provided trainings on palm sugar flour production skills and also assisted in market search. BDASE sought markets for palm sugar flour by exhibiting the product in other provinces and buying flour from the local people to resell to the final consumers. Palm sugar flour has been displayed for sale in modern markets in Phnom Penh, in Conferel company and in France.
In order to ensure a supply for the market, the association signed a contract to buy palm sugar flour from the people at an amount not higher than that which it could then resell to buyers. However, BDASE experienced a challenge: lack of funds for buying the sugar from the people. The NGO claimed that it would seek capital from donors or borrow money from a private bank, and asked the people to pay interest on behalf of the NGO. Such measure would ensure sufficient supply for markets of palm sugar flour. The commune council could play a role in seeking capital for the NGO to borrow or hire the organization to find more markets.
It is of note that, at present, the NGO and the commune council are not cooperating with each other to find markets. From the point of view of the NGO, the commune council should be involved in the process: for example, building relationship with organizations, businesspeople and companies and seeking training to promote capacity and skills in producing palm sugar flour and marketing. Moreover, such duties should be proposed in the CIP.
At any rate, the association recently started integrating its programs related to production of palm sugar into the CIP. In October 2008, during the district integration workshop (DIW) in Krokor, the NGO promised to help propose projects on production of poung and training on palm sugar flour production through a temporary agreement, although these projects are outside of the CIP. Before, the NGO had never brought up ideas about production of flour within the CIP process.
PROMOTION OFPEOPLE’SLIVELIHOODS
The local people have had better living standards since each family has worked on producing palm sugar. The desire to be better off and more able to purchase necessary items, as well as the social setting, have pushed local citizens to try to increase their production in order to gain more income. Before, one family could produce only about 5kg to 15kg per day; now, they produce from 20kg to 40kg. Productivity has increased because: (1) production time now lasts from 6am to 5pm or 6pm; (2) more mature people join in the production effort; and (3) the number of families in the commune has increased.
As a result of higher productivity, people can sell more sugar. Most people sell their sugar every day; a small number store their sugar (some as much as 6 tons) until they have more than they sell. 1kg of sugar can be sold for 1,500 to 1,800 Riel. Most of the sugar produced in Thnout Chum commune is transported to be sold in Battambang and Banteay Meanchey provinces, where production of rice is higher than elsewhere.
Besides income from palm sugar, another source of revenue is rice cultivation. Farming provides more income than sugar, with an average yield of about 2 to 3 tons per hectare. Increasing the rice yield is not yet a high priority and has not obtained much attention from the commune council. Furthermore, the council has not clearly defined whether Thnout Chum commune specializes in rice cultivation or sugar palm production. Attention to specialization or expertise, as well as increasing production skills, would increase productivity, jobs and income, and promote local development. When the living standards of the people improve, contributions from the people to local development projects will increase; moreover, there will be fewer difficulties collecting such contributions.
(In fact, the commune council usually collects contributions as planned and always on time.) Normally, the contribution ranges from 2,000 to 5,000 Riel per family. The village chief of Bangkong Kmum says: ‘If the contribution is set a little higher than this, people are still able to contribute.’
CONCLUSION
Production of palm sugar in Thnout Chum commune has improved the livelihoods of local villagers; market demand is increasing and palm sugar has generated more income. However, such production requires more firewood from nearby community forest areas and threatens forest resources. In this regard, the energy-efficient cooking project of the commune council was created, although it has only reduced the amount of firewood cut by a small amount. Until now, the forestry community, the commune council and the Forest Administration have had no concrete measures to deal with the situation. Replanting trees, especially trees that are fast and easy to grow, is a secondary measure that may need to be taken into account.
Meanwhile, Thnout Chum commune also has some special characteristics, especially its efforts to create interlinked and mutually complementary projects, such as the establishment of community forestry – which preserves the forest and serves a source of firewood, energy-efficient cooking and sugar palm production.
(Source: D&D Bulletin, the publication of the Commune Council Support Project, Volum 8 No.7, July-September 2009)