The World Bank/WBI’s CBNRM Initiative

Case Received: February 9, 1998

Author: Hamadì Konandji

Fax: +223 4830

This case-study describes the implementation of that part of the Strategy on Domestic Energy (SED) that concerns the Supply of Firewood, within the framework of the participatory management of natural resources, especially forest resources, by local communities in Mali.

The Republic of Mali lies between the 10^th and 25^th parallels. It is a continental country, irrigated by West Africa’s two greatest rivers, the Senegal and the Niger. With a surface area of 1,240,000 m², Mali is one of West Africa’s largest countries. In 1992 its estimated population was 9 million, of whom 80 % still lived in rural areas. Population density varies from 1 person per km² in the semi-desert regions of the North, to 30 people per km² in the most densely populated areas.

The country’s ecological diversity is reflected in the variety of its vegetation, which forms numerous wooded areas, ranging from the scrub savanna in the north (production less than 10 m³/hectare) to the scrub land that covers 25 % of the country’s southern regions (production between 20 and 40 m³/hectare) to the forests of the Sudan-Guinea region (where production levels vary between 50 and 80 m³/Hectare and can even exceed 100 m³ /hectare in the great western-forest regions.

The Strategy on Domestic Energy (SED), drawn up and adopted by the Government of Mali in 1992, is one of the most important elements of national forestry policy. This is particularly true of THAT PART OF THE STRATEGY THAT CONCERNS THE SUPPLY OF FIREWOOD.

The SED comprises two parts: Demand and Supply. It essentially meets two domestic-energy development goals:

• On the Demand side: to improve access to energy and its use, particularly in its modern forms, and to thereby improve daily living conditions for a part of Mali’s population;

• On the Supply side: to ensure, through the wise use of forest resources by rural communities, that the supply of firewood contributes to economic development and does not harm the environment.

The strategy, which is supported by the World Bank through Global Environment Facilities (GEF) and Dutch financing, was initiated in January 1996. It has been implemented in five (05) of Mali’s administrative regions: Kayes, Koulikoro, Sikasso, Ségou and Mopti.

The part of the SED concerning the management of timber resources is carried out by a Firewood Unit (CCL) set up for this purpose by the authorities.

This unit is responsible for defining priority regions with regard to the implementation of community-based management of timber resources, for providing education, for ensuring that local communities participate in the proposed innovation, and for providing technical and organizational supervision of local communities in terms of the wise management of natural resources. The implementation of that part of the SED concerning the management of timber resources involves major reforms, whether of an institutional, organizational, regulatory or legislative nature.

Although the strategy was drawn up in 1992, its implementation has only just begun.

Law # 95-004/AN-RM of January 18 1995 (defining the terms for the management of forestry resources and dividing the national forests into publicly owned State forests and privately owned State forests) and Law # 95-003/AN-RM of January 18 1995, concerning the organization of the exploitation, transport and trade of wood, and creating rural institutions for timber management and rural markets for timber sales determine the legal and institutional framework for the implementation of the Strategy on domestic energy (Supply Part).

The uneasy relationship between the post-colonial State and traditional Mali society has always been reflected in a lack of participation by the people in the country’s economic and social development process and their disrespect for existing laws.

The legislative and regulatory measures governing the plan for the management of natural resources originate in the French colonial decree of July 4 1935. Forestry legislation consisted of a collection of protectionist police measures, based on a very liberal interpretation of the notion of the State forests, and whose effects were multiplied by chronic shortages in the human and material resources of the forestry service with respect to the requirements of resource management. This failure to involve the people has tended to perpetuate the preference for an economy based on gathering and to encourage the predatory exploitation and mining of its resources. Today, population explosion and soil infertility constantly combine to increase the surface area of agricultural land at the expense of the forests.

The country finds itself in a situation where an ever-growing population is chasing after ever-diminishing resources, sometimes beyond the resources’ natural capacity for renewal, thereby leading to areas of desertification. Human activity is seen as the main cause of the degradation of forest resources and a leading cause of the degradation seen on the edges of major cities and along major highways.

Due to the acknowledged failure of this largely repressive and limiting policy, Mali has attempted, since the 1980s, to put an end to this repressive approach by offering the people incentives to assume a larger role in the global development process. And yet, because the new forest policy of 1982 was drawn up in a broadly authoritarian political climate, its more positive elements were never implemented. The 1986 forestry code revision was also unable to put those elements into effect.

Nonetheless, certain innovative projects were carried out within the framework of the participatory management of natural forests. These projects of course rapidly encountered problems with the allocation of resources and the degree of acceptance shown by the end users. Those problems could not be solved within a context of the existing rigid and repressive legislation.

Following the popular revolution of March 1991, rural communities began to demand the clear and lasting recognition of their rights to the natural resources found on their lands, and their right to participate in the affairs of their country. They went from passive resistance to the violent rejection of any form of State authority and, on occasion, expressed their sense of alienation by means of the systematic destruction of natural resources (forest resources in particular) to which they had previously been denied access.

Since March 1991, many initiatives have been undertaken and many reforms implemented, with a view to allowing the people to participate more actively in, and take greater responsibility for, the sustainable economic and social development of the country. The State has created legal and institutional frameworks that seem best able to encourage people to participate in the management of natural resources. They include the following:

• The policy on population (May 8 1991): the main goal of this policy measure was to control population growth in order to bring it into line with the demands of economic growth;

• The new policy on national forests offered three specific options: a social option, an economic option, and an ecological option;

• The policy on decentralization: On February 11 1993, the National Assembly approved Law 93-008, which defines the conditions for independent administration of local authorities and devolved to those communities part of its own powers of resource management.

• The Rural Development Plan (SDSDR) of March 1992;

• The National Plan on Environmental Action;

• Membership of the International Convention to Combat Desertification (CCD) of 1994;

• The National Strategy on Domestic Energy;

• The National Policy on the communication of development issues;

• The revision of all fundamental and sectoral laws (public and private codes, laws on joint action, forestry laws);

• The restructuring of the Water and Forestry Department, seeking to change to a new national policy on rural development.

And, in particular, Decree # 422, which fixes the quotas and taxes payable for the exploitation of timber (between the State and local authorities).

• Law 95-003 defines the institutional and legal framework for the implementation of the SED program (Supply part).

• The law provides for the creation of rural timber markets, managed by local timber-management groups, of a committee on quotas and of a committee on new ways to resolve conflicts.

• The rural timber market is a locally managed commercial institution endowed with the right to exploit the part of the forest attributed to it. The market’s purpose is to improve the living conditions of rural communities while ensuring the wise and sustainable use of forest resources and reorganizing the trade and allocation of timber.

• The rural market organizes the primary timber trade for the benefit of rural communities.

• The project also concerns the organization of companies involved in transporting wood for fuel to towns and the organization of forestry controls.

• The drawing up of development plans for the supply of timber to large cities, with a view to ensuring that supplies reach favorable areas, under the management of rural communities.
  

• The intervention of the private sector in the implementation of these reforms, in order to provide support for the project.

To date, the project has achieved the following:

• the establishment of around thirty rural timber markets in the various areas targeted by the project, under the management of local communities.

• the allocation of forest zones for riverside communities in certain State-listed forests,

• the drawing up of development plans for the supply of timber to the country’s two biggest cities (the capital Bamako and Ségou), which determine the priority supply areas.

• The creation of independent associations of timber traders and transporters in each of the project’s five (05) targeted urban centers.

• the creation of a framework that is better able to control the exploitation and transportation of wood

We may note the following concrete effects of these institutional reforms:

An increase in the price of wood used for fuel, a revaluation of the price of uncut timber and other energy sources (gasoline, gas). Professional tradesmen/transporters are denied access to local resources. This both reduces outside pressure on resources and increases the amount of timber available to rural communities, etc.…

Positive lessons

The organization of a timber network, the participation of women, participation of the private sector, and associated groups; the significant role played by rural communities in the management of their own resources, increased understanding of the role played by each partner in the sustainable development of forest resources. The project is essentially founded on the principle that the government defines the operating framework but leaves the decisions to the economic structures of the private sector. The people are supervised by the NGOs and other preparations bureaux.

Within the context of the structural-adjustment plan on democracy and decentralization, this approach might easily be reproduced anywhere in the country, as a way to manage the development of manufacturing networks in a spirit of understanding for the role of each partner involved.

Difficulties in revising Decree # 422, difficulties with supervision of professional timber tradesmen/transporters.

Problems setting up the institutional framework for finding alternative ways to manage conflicts (committee on conflict management foreseen by Law 95-003).

In the modern political climate, the state is not able to take decisions to increase fees in order to discourage uncontrolled exploitation. Strong reluctance on the part of certain State representatives to transfer certain resources to the people.