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4.7 Forest Policy

special topics in this chapter: 7. Methodological Recommendations

last part: Bibliography

5 Comments and Recommendations on Policy

In Yemen the problem of limited resources, of the need to restrict the use of such, is very outspoken and much more urgent than many countries with similar environment and problems.

The total area of Yemen is 500000km-2, the population 14 millions. There are only 2 million ha of woodlands left with an average density of 150 "trees" per ha, an average height of 3.3m and an average volume of 8m-3. The wood use is estimated at 5.2 million t per year - the sustainable use rate (= increase) 4.7 t/y (what represents a highly heuristic estimate).

In Somaliland the total area is 176000 km-2, with a population, as well tribally organised, of 2-3 millions. The woodlands of one to two million ha are mainly (over-)used by 25 million animals and commercial charcoal production. Still the situation is much better than in Yemen, as the average standing volume (21m-3/ha) is about three times higher.

For Mali in comparison one can (so far) definitely not speak of a distribution problem. A population of 10 million, on a total area of 1.24 million km-2, has 223000 km-2 of forests with an average standing volume of 73m-3/ha at their disposal.

Under such circumstances a purely technical approach in dealing with the dwindling resources is useless for Yemen. The main ecological factor is the human being and "Science" has to find out, how to deal with the destructive processes.

The "science" needed for such endeavour needs to be open, system oriented and to include finalities (motives).

The most important cultural differences between Yemen and "The West" are:

• Traditional culture and lifestyle are strongly molded by the dry and harsh environmental conditions.

• The Yemeni economy is by no means capitalist and market oriented, but much more subsistence and social oriented (= tribal).

• Socio-political decisions are based on consensus.

• The dominant science is theology, the knowledge and interpretation of shari'a, that means the strive for submission under the first cause and the set finalities.

• Governing means convincing, reaching consensus - in a very decentralized way.

6.1 Water Scarcity

Yemen's population has not only reached a critical size in relation to forests, but also in relation to the productive areas in general, especially what concerns the available water. Rain is scarce and unreliable, drought can happen any 3 (one dry season) to 10 years (no rainy season at all). The bulk of the population lives on a pure subsistence economy based on sorghum. The major "cash-crops" are qat and coffee. Livestock as well are mainly kept for this purpose (besides the milk for daily consumption).

Irrigation in all variations is the base of the Yemeni agri-culture, an agriculture optimally adapted to local conditions. Not only does it use the most drought resistant plants, but rain water is carefully stored and distributed, soil and plants are (traditionally) being protected from evaporation and transpiration by mulching, wind protection (walls and hedges) and pruning. Water in such an environment has a prize and a value. The dry and harsh environment formed the Yemeni culture, not only what concerns agri-culture, but as well the social organisation. Modernisation (pump irrigation, piped supplies, flash toilets ...) threatens the sustainable use of water reserves, especially groundwater. No regulations could so far be developed. The price does not represent the true and whole value of water!

Soil on the other hand is considered as a raw material and brought to the water! The value of the land depends mainly on the availability of water. Soil can be transported, if lacking.

Erosion is being enhanced through transport of soil, grazing and fuelwood collection. It is mainly hindered by terraces and a high stone (skeleton) content of the soil, resulting in a stone plated surface (naturally formed "microterraces"). The influence of forests is minor, as the density of the shrublands is very low.

The economic interest in wood production is very low, as wood can be bought at Hudeidah.

Moreover, the bulk of the fodder is produced on the farm (sorghum stalks) - that's the public opinion, that's the local "common sense", that's the problem forestry has to deal with in Yemen: "When it rains the forest regenerates, the range is lush, food and fodder are plentiful and the sheep keep out of the forests. Rain is "rahma" - God's blessing." So everything depends on rain - that means, everything depends on God.

The major conclusion resulting from this dominant influence of water on traditional culture and everyday rationality is:

Keep away from irrigated forestry!

[Do you really think that's rational and no big deal? Try once to formulate that idea in a group of development experts! > The reuse of wastewater is an aspect that deserves much more attention!]

6.2 Woodlands and trees

A major problem seen by us, the "development experts", the national and international development institutions, is the overuse and destruction of the natural environment. It is our viewpoint.

We can let the locals see it and understand it. Still, the local "common sense" is that good land, where water is available, has to produce food and economic revenue! The two major topics substantiating this point are:

"El shegerat aqul al ard" (Trees eat the land!)

"El ghaba ma fish faidhe" (Forests do not make sense).

Trees and their wood are of very limited economic importance. For townspeople the woods along the riverbanks, producing poles and construction wood, are economically sufficient - so there is no need to care for the large shrublands.

The result of this attitude is a constant expansion of agricultural use and a progressive clearing of the few remaining woodlands. Additional problems are the use of destructive harvest methods. "Positive selection" is leading to the disappearance of trunk forming trees and high quality wood. Fuelwood harvest is bigger than the increase and the natural regeneration has difficulties to survive due to drought and grazing.

The fact that woodcutting and charcoal making is a traditional "unemployment insurance" [see already in "1001 Nights"] or helps to get some additional income does not make the situation easier. The wood markets are very disperse. The wood prices are not dependent on the scarcity of wood, can't be controlled and are of no use for steering purposes!

Grazing is done under very limited guarding. The range is not managed. There is no rotation system or other care (regeneration enhancement and protection, enrichment plantations ...) given to the range, only some natural rotation due to the use of agricultural leftovers during the vegetation season. The effect can be clearly seen, as perennials are disappearing from the range.

Agro-forestry is not a traditional system in Yemen.With few exceptions, agroforestry, as described by "experts", just means some old trees left from formerly cleared woodlands or aggressive species as Ziziphus that have not (yet) been removed.

Still - there are a few ways, a few positive aspects giving hope that the situation might be improved:

- Certain promising attempts by villages to protect village forests do exist!

- Indigenous trees are tended in woodlots. A Jebel Bura' mainly: Terminalia / Breonadia / Cordia / Olea

- The historical extent of traditional tree cultivation shows, that a few projects and some new informations won't be sufficient to change them. Since Mesopotamia and Egypt, that means for over 4000 years, tree cultivation in the Near and Middle East emphasised on fruit trees! As well the tending of woodlots along wadis and other water courses and water storage systems date from the same time! Those should be studied more intensively and their potential for expansion evaluated.

- But tradition is not all, often the opposite is wanted: "This (the local species) we have it, we want something new." This explains the relatively successful marketing of amenity trees in the nurseries. New, foreign, exotic trees are more estimated than indigenous species. Exotic species have been brought from Aden already before half a century.

The problem of overuse is in fact an economic problem. The majority of the Yemenis still live from agriculture, but agriculture does only in rare cases (qat) produce sufficient income in cash. Due to the climate the agricultural productivity is very limited and hasardous. Most Yemenis depend on additional external income. But, the buffering capacity of the Yemeni economy is very low, so large parts of the male workforce has to emigrate.

The traditional Yemeni agriculture, the tribal lifestyle, is no base for the development of a "capitalist" system. It is a subsistence economy without accumulation, it is "peripheral" to the world market. So, unluckily, Yemeni economy does not create alternatives.

The fact that extensionists focus their approach on "innovators and leaders" is in a way counterproductive. Landowners, people that have pumps and water, are rich people. They do own more land and they can more easily dispose of some parts for tree plantation. But assistance focussing on those "pioneers" is only increasing existing economic bias. It does by no means alleviate pressure from the natural woodlands as most people do not have pumps. I repeat: Water is very scarce and should not be used for tree irrigation - except for a short startup period.

Woodcutting and charcoal making for commercial reasons, for profit, is looked at critically, as it is to the favour of few, at the costs of many. It would be most easy to reduce that impact as it is conform to the distributive and egalitarian customs of the tribal society!

Moreover: Where wood trade has a significantly negative impact on the vegetation cover and near to protected areas, subsidised LPG distribution points should be established. That is the dream of many, but those subsidies would cost a lot. Fuelwood substitution by gas works well in towns - in the mountainous areas the transport costs are prohibitive, four to seven times the price of the filling.

An important measure would be to check agricultural use of erosion-prone drylands with less than 200mm of rainfall per year, especially in the Tihama, but as well in the eastern wadis [Herzog M: Al Buque. Agricultural Development of Wadi Amlah: Protection against wind and sand. FAO August 1989]. The removal of vegetation on those lands should be balanced by the plantation of at least equal amounts of agroforestry trees. Even better would be the revival of traditional ways of "intercropping", where sorghum has been planted in between the natural vegetation.

Economically promising tree plantation in Yemen are probably only roadside plantations, especially with Eucalypts. The idea to replace reeds in the wadis with bamboo has unluckily not yet been tested, but might save lots of trees, cut for poles, as well.

6.3 Sustainable management and the ownership question

Muslim share in three things: Water, Fire and Pasture!

Forests are per definitionem excluded from the cultural "system" as musha' or mawat - wasteland. Those terms denote any lands not used for agriculture! Land is revived and claimed by irrigation, clearing, plowing, planting, sowing, levelling and the establishment of ditches, trenches or walls. Luckily certain regional and local exceptions exist as private agroforestry (mainly wind shelters for banana plantations), private woodlots and common lands regulations.

The lack of land registers makes afforestation work difficult. In many cases you will only find out, when you try to use it for afforestation e.g.). Even then you are never sure, that the land belongs to the one that claims it. It needs a strong will, commitment and patience to succeed in this business - it needs an action research approach.

If forests are better protected under state, private or common ownership can't be generalised. The critical point is that the owner has to have the right and the will to defend his property. Forest where in good shape during the rule of the Imam, as rules where enforced. After the revolution they were cut down, as a symbols of oppression! Tree planting was done most efficiently during the military rule of Al Hamdi. His plantations are being respected up to now. The forests of South Yemen were under strong protection during the PDRY-time. The redistribution (privatisation) of land after the unification lead to clearing (conversion into agriculture). The lack of government authority, combined with the lack of tribal rights for protection is favouring the plundering of common lands.

There are a few known exceptions as e.g. the Sheikhs of Jebel Lawz and of Al Irian that declared the village forests as protected. Even if in both cases a strict enforcement is not possible, still a lot of cutting is going on, the forests were able to survive so far.

There are several private owners that respect and protect their own trees, especially noteworthy are the agroforestry models with Junipers at Halamlam and the Prosopis cineraria stands, protected by beduins on the range at Maifa'a.

The main factor in favour of tree protection is, when they are regarded as valuable (qat, incense, fruit trees). But still, due to the minor economic importance (in monetarists terms) of most trees and shrubs:

For traditional reserves (mahjour, hemma, haram, hawtah) the use restrictions have to be declared by the owner! A declaration by the authority would mean an expropriation and has been handled as such in legal cases (Dhamar e.g.). So mahjour nowadays is not too promising for forest protection. Its importance is rather historical.

The situation, problems and approaches of protection of natural areas has been presented in detail under the GEF-proposal: National Natural Areas Protection Network (NNAPN) (s. details in App II). The areas of major importance are Jebel Bura', Jebel Laws, Jebel Iraf, Qubeytah, Houf and Socotra. What concerns species, from the forestry standpoint there are the Juniper stands (list in App. II), Prosopis cineraria, Draceana ombet and a whole list of rare trees, some of them already eradicated. The focus of protection activities is the same as for social forestry > detect and reinforce local structures. All the above mentioned areas are strictly differing the one from the other!

Moreover - Purely protective efforts do only have some chance if additional financial means from the international community are made available. It is easy to blame the locals here for "shortesightedness", but if we compare the attitude of the US, the world's biggest polluter in what concerns CO2 (two times the output per head of Switzerland or Japan!) - that is strictly refusing any reduction ... who can argue ...

So each area needs a special approach. The forest areas at Bura' e.g. belong to three categories of owners:

Ø The central forest in Wadi Rigaf, the Commiphora stands in upper Wadi al Aswad are part of the Waqf Begeli and can be managed as National Park (agreement of Mohsin Jahja Ibn Jahja on video, aug. 1993).

Ø The slopes south of Khamisi's farm, in the center of the forest are the Donation of Sahmed Ali. In that area no house construction, no ploughing, no coffee or qat, no fruit plantations are allowed! The forests below Makharib and Bani Baqi belong to those two villages and have to be managed in agreement with them, as well as Wadi Bussal, belonging to the latter village as well.

Ø For the protection of the Dracaena ombet stands at Al Kadhra the private owners have to agree. (s. Fetwa Zabara).

In cases as this one, where one single family owns large areas of lands(forests), considered as common, protection is difficult or the family. Governmental assistance may cause problems as well, as it will be in favour of (not particularly poor) particulars. The contract with the owner is by far not sufficient. Additional agreements have to be reached with the traditional users. A management concept can't be done without their participation, that means it can't be done without their agreement and participation. Legal declarations are easy to be obtained - but impossible to impose. There won't be different ways - other than the traditional, admittedly lengthy one, to reach such an agreement: information - discussion - conviction - consent - acceptance - local monitoring and control. State, clergy, administration, community officials and individuals have to cooperate.

Ø On Socotra and Houf e.g. the tribes and villages are willing and able to manage their own forests - but need some legal support and assistance, as there is no traditional right for the protection of woodlands. (s. Fetwa Zabara).

Yemen's population lives in small communities, mainly hamlets, that are highly disperses due to the mountainous, rugged, inaccessible landscape and the need for water accumulation. Agriculture under those semi-arid conditions needs large, bare runoff areas. So the population density is directly correlated with rainfall.

The social aspects of this disperse, individualistic population, with a culture based on dialogue and ad hoc consensus - not on formalised and written laws - can be seen as a major problem - but as well as a chance. (s. later on).

Cooperation is unluckily not as common as one might wish. Unpaid cooperation happens only between family members, on request on village level, for the establishment of common irrigation schemes, especially storage (dams, cisterns), and schools. Work at the road e.g. is paid. Common work on rangeland or forest is unknown.

The use of the common lands is open. The introduction of rules and restrictions is very difficult and time consuming. State assistance will clearly be needed, but issuing formal laws won't be sufficient. The communities have to be given rights and duties in managing their affairs.

6.4 The steering of development by politics and education:

6.4.1 The Governmental Institutions

Governmental steering in the fields of environment and forestry is still lacking. This is due to several problems:

Forest- (as environmental) policies do not have any socio-cultural background. While on one side international assistance is clearly needed, there remains the fact, that on the other side, in over 20 years of FAO work in Yemen, no viable, adaptable policy or law has been worked out. All existing papers are ivory-tower approaches, policy formulations, by mostly foreign experts - instead of policy formation, in cooperation with the locals. Mekhowar (3) ("The forestry department shall keep a record for each auction to contain conditions to be observed by the contractor concerning forest areas to be invested, types and sizes of trees, method of cutting trees, and period of investment and removal of products from forests (18) and Saadallah (7) are two striking examples! The proposed environmental law sounds similar: "No harvest is allowed - except with permission!"! The comment on all those propossals can be very short: Not feasible! Millions of women go to collect fuelwood almost daily! Who of them is going to town to ask for a permit while often not having the money to go to the nearest hospital or doctor!? Who will control the permits? Who is going to arrest women without permit? (He might not survive it!). What will be controlled - and how far the control will go is purely in the hands of the villages and the district authorities!

Earlier projects (especially Harraz) retraced their problems to the lack of assistance from an almost nonexisting forestry directorate. In the meantime the situation changed, the directorate is a general directorate with a staff of almost 20 engineers and technicians. Still, the problems are continuing. Now we have the institution, but it lacks function. Who wonders - if the policy is not adapted to the local conditions.

As well as the Yemeni agriculture is adapted to the environment - as bad is the Yemeni bureaucracy with its cumbersome procedures and forms, adapted to do its duties. It shows the effects of bureaucracy at its worst.

The social organisation of Yemen is still basically archaic, tribal. The political structures, processes and steering instruments have not been sufficiently developed. The GD forestry as well as the Environmental Protection Council do not have the capacity to control the development or to execution protection programs in natural environment on their own.

The training is technical. Education and experience in dealing with "management" questíons are lacking. The situation of Yemen is in fact very specific, and the training of "technical specialists" abroad solves only the minor part of it.

Government institutions are either one (big) man show or tribal groups, but lack communication and integration. (Tribalism and scientific specialisation combine as well as capitalism and science, both with their restricted aims and responsibilities!

The result of years of institution building are clusters of artificial, imported, "rent-paying", uncoordinated (s. water) institutions - striving for economic survival, not for impact!

There is an urgent need to ad functions to the established structures! So far there is a lack of planning, lack of money, lack of commitment and lack of technical as well as social responsibility.

So far no fit has been found between the ideal of the centralised (Islamic immamate stile) government and the disperse egalitarian tribal "anarchy".

In addition to the fact, that governmental institutions lack function, there is the problem, that they do not have vital and working relations with the rural population. The government owns only some 2% of the lands! So its influence should not be overestimated!

Under those conditions it does not make sense, to attach projects strictly to governmental institutions. The participatory generation of proper cooperation and interaction between the government and the disperse population, the owners and users of the forest, must make part of the project!

6.4.2 Awqaf - Guidance by Islamic Law (Sharia)

Giving a first, superficial look at trees in the Quran, we might think that the situation is not very promising. Trees in the Quran are mainly spineless trees and fruit trees. Spiny trees and the tree suqum are trees of the hell! Neither 'urf nor sharia contain directly applicable rules concerning the protection of the natural environment. There is a need for interpretation and dissemination. But the general attitude of the Quran is positive: God's creation needs active protection!

As described, the Yemeni culture is formed strongly by the lack of water on one side. On the other side it is the spiritual Islamic values that guide individuals and society. A major communication and information channel would be the awqaf, as first it is responsible for the mosques: "The 40'000 mosques in Yemen are an important communication channel to reach men, who usually make the important household decisions related to family health, spending, education, nutrition, and upbringing." [UNICEF, Childern and Women, p. 47:]. Second it is responsible for the schools and a decisive partner in curriculae development. Third, it owns (administrates) some 15% ! of the country.

A cooperation between Awqaf, Local Development Councils [LDC], Agricultural Offices and District Directors, sheikhs and village leaders (aqil & mamoon) should be developed in order to assume collective responsible for environmental protection and management. The awqaf is the best channel to convince, motivate, set (new) values. It should (s. fetwa Zabara) be leading in implementing protection of nature:

A1: Tree conservation is the duty of the government, scientists, preachers and all classes of people, because the tree is of God creation, so he entrusted us with its conservation.

A2: People should participate in the common forage which is not owned or due to particular persons. The mortmained estate of Bura' Mountain Forest should be subject to the provisions of the endower ("waqf creator". transl.). Its protection is necessary and must be preserved by the guardians ("mutawalleen") and with government help. Its trees mustn't be cut at random manner, because this forest is of Yemeni glorious heritage. It is the task of government and persons in charge to prevent its extinction by stopping trees cutting so that its benefit to continue for the coming generation.

A3: The Ministry of Agriculture should help the special guardian from Bajili House in protecting the forest from extinction particularly it contains trees not exist in the whole world, therefore, such trees must be preserved and developed.

A5: The government should guide the owners of rare trees to preserve, make them familiar with their value and assist them in conserving such trees.

A6: The tribe who owns the forest may oblige such groups and tribes to plant and afforest the forest in return for their continued fire-wood and cutting from the forest. A new planting must be done in return for cutting from the forest.

The users have to take care, the government has to guide and assist in protection It as the tribes have the right and duty to limit excessive use. The scientists have to deliver necessary information and the preachers have to in>form the people (to improve the local "Weltanschauung") and to keep a watchful eye on God's creation.

6.4.3 Extension

The cultural base for tree planting has to be enlarged by awareness raising. Here some international assistance is clearly needed.

The largest problem of the existing extension service is its immobility - and this is not (only) due to the lack of cars. Given the multitude of isolated settlements, the lack of centralised communication channels that might be "fed" from a central position (top-down), an immobile forestry extension is just useless. Mobile extension services have done a good work in Somaliland. Nowadays, due to the civil unrest (and the unwillingness of international aid to tackle such "fluid", nonmaterial approaches), those activities got unluckily stuck [s. Herzog, M. [1996]: Forestry and Woodland Management in Somaliland. Problems, Background, Development Potentials. Caritas Switzerland].

Actions should be started by the extensionists, as farmers won't visit the center to ask for information about trees (except fruit trees!). Extension has to get mobile, to assist the farmers, to discuss with them, to convince them, to "motivate" then at least through the distribution of seedlings.

The messages used so fare in extension are imported through foreign school- and textbooks, foreign extension experts. Often they are not valuable, e.g. what concerns the advantage of afforestations in smoothening floods. Yemeni agriculture does live on floods and superficial runoff in general!

There is a lack of knowledge on how to address environmental problems in this society. Yemen's archaic leadership is based on conviction, on oratory skills, dialogue and consensus. This socio-cultural environment does not allow for a purely technocratic approach, but what is needed first, are locally, culturally valid, convincing arguments.

Ø Extension has to make sense

- what most often means, 

first you habe to make = create a sense for the intended purpose

In this respect, to target the >tribal honour<, social responsibility might be promising as well (recommendation of Dr. Awale, Somaliland). Honour has a high value in any tribal society, often higher than money!

Very rewarding is extension work at schools, personally for the extensionist and functionally for its demonstrative value and rapid spread of information. The same is valuable for restaurants, water holes, wells and the like, where visual extension material might be placed strategically.

The reestablishment of the wood and shrub cover on wastelands around villages is needed. But the necessary lengthy and extended dialogue needed to reach consensus is quite cumbersome. Moreover, due to the needed protection from sheep and goats those plantations get very expensive.

The extensionists should not be taught "knowledge" alone (fixed messages), but they need the capability to analyse the situation at the village, at the farm, with its social and technical aspects, to find feasible solutions for plantations, protection, rotation and care. The extensionist has to detect and enhance personal and common interest in trees and in the care for the natural environment. He has to be able to interpret his textbook knowledge, to detect locally the ecological niches that are promising for afforestations, as e.g.:

- water: roadside, ditches, irrigation channels, agroforestry

- land: village surroundings, ...

- motivation: personal interest: amenity, fodder, bee-range ...

The extensionist has to be able to motivate action locally. Besides immobility this will be the largest problem - how to move away from "buying participation"! As there is no state service he has to find or create local interest groups, to train and assist them (with seedlings e.g.), to start small pilot projects with them and to evaluate those. Lots of small scale afforestations should be established. In addition to wood production, they will have a demonstrative, educative and awareness raising effect: Wood is important and can generate income! The evaluation should not be restricted to technical data, but contain an evaluation of induced social and motivational changes, in the spirit of action research. They have to be able to study and learn in communication and cooperation with the locals.

6.4.4 Nurseries

The establishment of nurseries was the first step of each forestry programme. So nowadays quite a dense net of nurseries has successfully been established in Yemen. The problems are the same as with governmental institutions. Many of the nurseries are "not functional", that means they produce very small outputs - often due to a lacking demand. The problem nowadays is to raise the interest in tree and shrub plantations and to get seedlings planted, protected and taken care off. For this purpose the establishment of small scale nurseries is preferable. Those should have an additional extension function, as especially school nurseries.

A problem that has not been solved is the question, if nurseries should first serve motivation and incentives (free seedling distribution), or if nurseries should be run economically and generate income. At the present stage 'assistance' has probably still more weight. As a compromise already now many state nurseries produce amenity trees and garden plants as commercial output, helping to co-finance nursery costs.

In addition to the reliable introduced agroforestry trees, state assisted nurseries should produce a substantial part of indigenous species. The indigenous trees will anyhow to be given free or at a nominal fee, as the interest in such exists, but on a low, certainly not economically viable, scale. The collection of seeds of indigenous species, especially of rare and threatened plants, their production and plantation, is again a potential for job creation.

The government will have to control seed imports and local collection, in order to preserve the genetic diversity and to avoid the creation of genetically too identical strains! Introduced plants have to be systematically tested - in cooperation with research.

6.4.5 Rural Socio-Politics

What concerns the common lands of villages and tribes, their use is guaranteed for all Muslim. Still the shari'a allows restrictions:

Ø The village leaders have the right to oblige any resident or alien, using range and forests, to assist in replantation work.

Ø The village (and tribal) assemblies, have the right to delimit zones and declare them temporarily or permanently protected. Waqf and private owners are encouraged to do this on their own land].

Ø They have the right to set qualitative and quantitative limits to harvests.

Ø Strong and convincing leaders are needed on the spot, in the villages!

The most important duty of the government is, to guide and assist local leadership and communities. For that purpose it has to coordinate activities of awqaf, LDC, local Administration and village. Coordination means here strictly the search for common ground and consensus, not orders!

The Local Administration and the Local Development Council (Local Defence Council of former South-Yemen) should be re-vitalised to execute on the spot activities. It should overtake some care for forest and range. In spite of having their own priorities, being undemocratic, often corrupt and in most cases not very efficient (s. ex. Mokha and Khokha) - this institutions are needed. They are the local tax collectors and the local project executors! If they are not capable or willing - they have to be trimmed, not bypassed! Neither the government nor the international community will ever be able to finance a technical forestry service as modelled by the World Bank e.g. It can only try with the help of some incentives to stimulate the locals in developing some local systems that assume responsibility for taking care of the natural resources. The minimum what government has to contribute, is knowledge (extension), some technical means (seedlings, in cases ev. fencing material & tools), where possible salaries for afforestation programmes (or food for work).

The limited force of state and law aks for a realistic system of control. Such system can't rely on formal institutions. The village economy has to be put at the core - the management has to embrace the whole: the people (work, food), the animals (fodder), the environment (water, range, forests). The problem is to develop a "holistic microeconomy", to "manage" village & region as a company (or cooperative, what concerns common lands). As the management can't be fully institutionalised, because most processes can't be quantified, it has to be (at least to start as) a qualitative management by exception" - mainly limiting excesses. A lot might be learned from the methods of "change management" as well - if we do not try to quantify all processes with prices, but allow for a substantial part of value-oriented behaviour.

6.5 Foreign Assistance - The need for International Assistance:

Economic Problem: Projects for the protection of nature are very urgent and won't be done without international assistance or even pressure, as compared to the pressing economic problems they are clearly of a minor priority.

Approaches that might even be of some economic interest:

Socio-Political Problem:

a) Projects have to be adapted to the local possibilities. Their basic activities have to "make sense" - not for the foreigners, but as judged by local common sense. So far, in spite of differing knowledge and a multitude of papers on that subject, strongly unadapted structures and finalities are imported. The lack of such institutions has been and still is seen as the main problem. This leads to the establishment of structures - but not structures adapted to the local conditions and socio-cultural settings.

b) The government should be assisted in assisting the communities. Unluckily, again against better knowledge, assistance funds are mainly channelled through governmental organisations. Unlucky as well is the fact that Yemeni NGOs are no big alternative. Most often they are composed of the same people that lead the governmental institutions - and they are in not much better shape than the government itself.

Recommendations and Comments:

Instead of focusing on that abstract institution at governmental level, projects will have to assist in the integration and interrelation of those institutions with the executing organs at the areas of impact. Tribes and rural populations as executing agents have to be better integrated into administrative and political processes through backfeeding! Government and projects have to delegate responsibility, to assist tribes and villages in the protection of their common lands. And they have to build up a sense of common and integral responsibility. A responsibility not limited to timeliness, technical and financial correctness, but the responsibility to make projects work by fitting them into the local natural and technical environment.

7 Comments and Recommendations on Methodo-Logy:

The aim of this lengthy practical and theoretical occupation with development was to find out how culturally well integrated - that means "sustainable" - projects (in forestry) can be developed. Forestry, as other fields of environmental management, is difficult, as in many cases, including in Switzerland, it is getting more and more peripheral to "the market". The management of natural forests is a cultural innovation for many developing countries. Such innovations, bringing new informations, introducing new methods and processes, can't be implemented by decree. Their "objectives" have to be "translated", to be made understandable, acceptable and motivating in terms of local understanding and of local culture, local value-systems. The core elements of the method is the integration of "forestry" (a type of "culture" - sylvi-culture - in between heuristics > the general search for problem solutions and topics > the integration into the local culture<.

This action-research is a "by-product" of the project work with FAO. From 1988 to 1990 two forest inventories have been done. From 1990 to 1993 mapping, inventorying of Junipers and other forest remnants was continued. This approach was technocratic and formal. From inventory data the harvest potential was derived (63m³/y for some 500 people) - and the major recommendation was to employ some guards. As the motive for the locals was the generation of employment, but funds were lacking, there was no result.

Biomass, regeneration and phytosociological inventories, productivity estimates have been undertaken as well at Jebel Bura'. The main result of the inventories was:

The dominant ecological factor is the human being!

That means that "forestry" has to concentrate on the process of human use of forests, in general on social processes.

Protection, as sustainable management of forests, depends primarily on people and the basic question of social forestry is: Which social group or institution is able and willing to assume responsibility.

A first step is the identification of social and governmental structures and of land-owners. At Jebel Bura' this meant the study of 27 villages with 14000 people - living in and around a forest area of 300 ha!

Size, tribal affiliation, leadership, economic activities, cooperation, use processes in range and forest, mental relation to forest, differing interests of government and village, information flows ... all that had to be analysed. The results of this first step, a systems analytical approach, described the key elements and the critical factors. The second step, the active assignment of responsibility is already action-research. The differing interests between the actors (government, waqf, tribes, villages, individuals) needs negotiations and mediations - what is (a kind of) politics.

Practically the whole set of PRA-methodology was used what concerns methods, mainly participatory observation, semi-structured and narrative group interviews; secondary data and literature review, especially historical reports.

This type of situation analysis gives a good understanding of local culture. But if we would replace RRA or PRA by ethnography it would be a mistake. The aim of such research is "to manage and to protect" forests, the aim is action - not theories and papers!

7.1 A Holistic Search for Problems and Solutions: Heuristics

The scientific approach to problems is mostly defined by the problem-solving capacity of the discipline. That problem is solved that can be handled, that can be dealt with by scientific methods - not that problem that is at the core of the troubles, not that problem that has urgently to be solved!

The existing cultural practices and norms as well are setting limits. Zaniecki said 1919: "Man is absolutely unable to perceive or to conceive any other nature than the one he sees through the prism of culture, absolutely unable to act upon nature otherwise than in culturally determined ways." So far for the influence of IK on cognition. On the epistemological level this principle has been formulated and analysed by Duhem and Quine: "The conclusions we take from one's observations are dependent on the whole system of one's presumptions and expectations" - that means, even natural science is somehow standing on a "metaphysical base".

Science in its western form is not to be abolished totally - but has no more importance than the other two elements, knowledge in general and the humans - with their needs, wishes and dreams. As integral development principles are undermined by any fractured approach, the responsibility of all participants has to be integral - not sectoral. There is a strong need to get rid of restrictive patterns of thinking, not only those due to ones own cultural background, but also, may be even more, those due to scientific and especially economic paradigms.

A Heuristical analysis has to proceed as follows:

1 Definition of the problem

2 Formulation of all potential solutions

3 Establishment of the morphological box, containing all potential solutions

4 Analysis based on determined, chosen values and norms

5 Decision

6 Realisation

The most important thing is, not to select, not to drop solutions, before arriving at step four! The two biggest "de-selecting" factors being:

a) the scientific one, that excludes all problems that can't be approached "scientifically".

b) the economic one, excluding all problems that do not allow for "economic" (profit oriented) solutions (No money - no motive).

Under the given circumstances it is especially the lack of water that hinders an intensification of agriculture, or irrigated sylviculture. That means that the laws of economy are of not much help.

Moreover there is a the lack of formal laws. But even if those would be available - they would not be applicable due to the famous "lack of acceptance". As there is no steering by power, but only by consensus, the total reliance on villages and tribes is a must. There is just no other way. And the only way to introduce new ways of dealing with the natural environment, to introduce a new culture, is by communication, is conviction by locally valuable and acceptable "arguments".

7.2 The Holistic Search for Knowledge of Orientation

The relevant norms for decision making in development projects should logically be the norms of the targeted society - not the norms of the donors - an important, but mostly neglected aspect of "participation". To be able to base decisions on local norms, those have first to be known and understood! That is the aim of Topics (and hermeneutics) - to understand the local system of "meaning" of "common sense". The technical knowledge, the descriptive, causal, "scientific facts", is not sufficient. Such knowledge has to be completed by knowledge on individually and socially wishful means and ends - religious and other traditional knowledge serving as orientational knowledge. "Any policy recommendation - whether made by professional policy analysts, or non-professionals - is grounded, if only one looks deeply enough, in a system of ethics. It is hard to imagine a recommendation of evaluation existing in a moral vacuum. To possess any degree of persuasive power at all, a policy recommendation must be reasonable - that is, produced by some generally recognised form of reason. Paul Diesing outlines a number of forms of reason which can act as warrants for a course of action: technical rationality (instrumental to the preference of policy makers), economic rationality (net utility maximisation), political rationality (consensus among the relevant political actors), legal rationality (the structure of legal rights), and social rationality (social harmony)." [Rose p. 5]

Topics is the method to find powerful, convincing arguments able a) to identify, b) to understand and, if needed, c) to criticise and remodel ideologies and "Weltanschauung". The rise of science during Renaissance eliminated the idols from its methodology:

• idola specus - the idols of the subject

• idola tribus - the idols of the tribe

• idola fori - the idols of the market

• idola theatri - the idols of the religion(s)

We see clearly that a lot of arguments, restricting an open access to problems, are in fact still ideological. The effect is still the same as in medieval time - and proofs disruptive if "ideological differences" are as pronounced as between Yemen and Europe. The idols of the modern society are more and more dominated by those of "the subject" and "the market". The dominant idols of Yemen are just the opposite: "the tribe" and "the religion".

We use without hesitation the idols of the market (profit, globalisation, productivity, ...) refuting the idols of the tribe and of religion - without much of a "scientific" argument in favour of ours.

Still - in the case of Yemen the local ideology produces destruction as well: "trees do not make sense". So the basic problem with forestry in Yemen is - how can this attitude, this mentality, this view be changed? How can we refurbish trees and forests with meaning? How can we give forestry new, additional ends (causa finalis), values that are not monetary? Is there, additional to the homo oeconomicus and homo ludens, a homo sapiens (a wise human being), and eventually a homo theosophus (a God-Loving) that do not only crave for more money and material goods?

This we can only find out if we understand the locally valuable, acceptable and agreeable arguments - "the natives point of view". This needs a situation analysis that is not restricted to causalities but might be rather described by Georgesu-Roegen's "politoscopes": Scientists (or philosophers) that find out how the people feel and what are their motives. Such kind of knowledge, common sense, commonplaces, might look trivial - but it is the "integral knowledge" of the majority, it is the knowledge serving orientation, it is the knowledge that, in the end, decides on what action will be taken and what will be left.

7.3 Development and Management ("Science")

Management means to guide, to "organise" and to control. Management is aims oriented, is action adapted to the local situation. The credo of management is: "The right way of thinking is situation-oriented thinking". The relation to development is clear, roughly the same steps and means are needed - but the main difference must absolutely not be ignored: development can't be done with an exclusive profit-orientation (a MBA is still not the best qualification for a development expert). Development needs to respect traditional and local values and norms.

The five major processes that development and management have in common are:

7.3.1 Planning

What is rather normal in modern management literature (s. change management), to include the partners and the staff in planning, organisation (group leadership), decision making, operation control and development, generation and use of knowledge - is as normal in development literature - but not in practice. What the practice of development is lacking in all cases I do personally know, the core of development and of management, is a policy formation oriented towards the target-population. The policy should contain applicable guidelines, that means guidelines that are applied by the executive organs and persons. In most developing countries this will be individuals, small social groups and village communities. The guidelines for development can't be based purely on technical facts, but need to include adapted "orientational knowledge". As understanding of problems and possible solutions is growing with time (in a well-organised project!), each planning approach in the field of development as to be cyclical.

7.3. 2 Leadership/Steering

In tribal society leadership does not allow to rule by orders and decrees, leadership needs dialogue, arguments, conviction, consensus. The target of leadership are people - the means of leadership are social knowledge and social competence - not so much technical knowledge. Influence is only given as far as convincing arguments are available. Formal hierarchy or the hierarchy of knowledge (clergy e.g.) does not automatically give a special right to give orders. If dialogue does not work, if information flows are disturbed, there is no leadership - what is the core of the problem with Yemen's government as well as with Somaliland's or Mali's.

Decision making is part of leadership. As leadership has to convince, decisions have to be taken in a participatory, consensus oriented way.

7.3.3 Operationalisation

Operationalisation is almost impossible under the local circumstances of Yemen, of its scattered, tribal society. There are not many information channels that allow for top-down transfer of information - let alone of orders. The given social structures are very individualistic. The largest functional "social unit" being the village (tribes 'function' only in cases of conflicts). If institutional structures are proposed, they have to take those limited possibilities into consideration and to adapt themselves to the local potential: do what is possible - not what some "institutional theory" demands.

As monitoring & control of action, of processes can only be done with operationalised processes, those get very difficult under non-institutionalised systems - or very easy. If we really understand and accept the local settings we can anyhow only ask for a qualitative and community based (eventually cooperative) monitoring and control system. Given the low density and the minimal economic productivity of natural forests, qualitative control comes close to "management by exception" - only excesses (commercial harvest) have really to be checked and stopped.

7.3.4 Learning

The processes of learning are the most important ones for development. As in "change management" development research has to accept that development projects are primarily trials, experiments, possibilities, pilot projects - and (rarely) the non-plus-ultra from the beginning. Development, as management under rapidly changing, insecure, unknown conditions has to accept "tinkering" as an approach. Technocratic planning does only sound more reliable - but in most cases it is easy to establish lists of (external!) reasons for failure, even before the project started. Development projects are always experiments and should be handled as such. They should carefully, scientifically (action research) monitor all "environmental conditions, all assistance and resistance encountered - until the project succeeds or fails. Only in this way institutional learning, as learning by doing, can take place.

Participatory learning is probably the most important element of development. Participatory learning is related but not equal to awareness raising, training, education or extension. It is two-way communication, creation of new topics and creation of a consensus on such. But again - the base for all learning is already there, it's the different forms of:

Traditional Training: In most Islamic societies traditional training is the teaching of Quran and shari'a. Existing knowledge is being transferred, carried over. Such training has a conservative effect, not only in Islamic societies!

Up to the revolution in 1962, and for many rural areas much longer, such education was all what was needed. The children learned at school to read, to write and to calculate - and memorized parts, if not the whole, of Quran, of the orientational knowledge! At home and on the farm they learned in a nonformal way all they needed to know about agriculture, irrigation, house construction and social dealings (- but nothing about marketing, because this was a disqualifying occupation!). The aim of traditional training was to form a member of the human, tribal, Islamic society.

Training in the West on the other hand is more and more focussing on technical knowledge. Even social processes are approached in such a way and language. The aims are to transfer knowledge on technical feasibilities, to form a functional producer and eager consumer for the market.

I'm being nasty and unscientific, I know. But action and development - that is bound to action - do only happen if different elements in between awareness and action are present. In addition to technical feasibility and socio-economic or socio-culturally grounded motives, the orientational knowledge is absolutely indispensable to motivate, to assist decision making and to serve as foundation for the will.

The aim of the traditional Islamic science was to develop society. It is based not on accumulation of knowledge, but on its assimilation. It is not against innovations, but those are submitted, secondary to the Islamic values, norms, ideals and criteria. Scientists and teachers have to be culturally integrated. Their knowledge has to be presented in a holistic form, as an integral corpus. Even for science consensus stands above competition. The daily religious rites, the five daily prayers and the compulsory congregation on friday (jame'a) are an other cultural expression of this.

The aim of studies is halfway the same as for our industrial society: to earn one's living. But what is more important is the other half, the one we are losing more and more: while enhancing the common good! But times are changing. At present 51% of Yemeni students study Law and Economics, 34% Art and Education and only 9% Engineering, Agriculture and Science - what is exactly what Al Khazali had warned of! The Environmental-Science-Curriculae in the region focus on specialised, reductionist sciences. A social and management oriented education is totally lacking.

In our western approach to decision making and action, the main "actor", the "will", being itself one of the four classical virtues of Aristotle (as "courage"), is counterbalanced by justice - prudence - wisdom.

Wisdom is the real holistic knowledge, is factual knowledge combined with value orientation! Wisdom is the traditional aim of all learning and experiencing. Wisdom nowadays would be to understand and accept that it is not wise to replace all values by prices, that greed, material wants and dominance of few, (the result of competition!) are no base for a socially sustainable development. But

Justice is the all embracing virtue, the base of most constitutions, and a dominant element of most religions. It contains as a core the basic principles of the tribal organisation, being equality, rule by consent and conviction. Justice means freedom, what again is guaranteed by Quran ("There is no coercion in Islam") and tribal rules. The virtue of justice is undermined heavily by the unregulated, competitive market. Income distribution gets more and more unequal as capital has more potential to accumulate the bigger it is already. That ever increasing parts of the population are forced into unemployment by increasing capital productivity is the summit of injustice.

Prudence is moderation, means 'to keep the limits'. It is the respect towards this virtue that blocked the economic development of Yemen by its "qat-potlach", by the refusal of surplus production and accumulation. The negation of this virtue is the dominant problem of our western economy. Instead of striving for "sustainable development" it strives for "sustainable growth" - what is, as anybody knows, impossible. Increasing production leads to increased waste and pollution. If we, Yemen as well as the North, are not able to 'keep to the limits' as they are set by nature, there is no science that will help us out the troubles we put ourselves in.

Courage = will is so far the courage of Prometheus, the courage of "the makers" - not yet the courage of Sisyphus, the courage of those that accept the fate of living in a limited world, doing meaningless work. We will need a lot of courage to accept, to show the natural limits of development and to learn to deal with them! And here we might still learn something from the Yemenis! There is probably no better way in "learning from and with the people in a participatory, democratic, egalitarian way", than what can be experienced during qat-sessions. If Geertz' would have done a "deep description" on Yemen, he would surely have taken those sessions as the core-element of Yemeni society!

Learning starts from a present pre-understanding. This pre-understanding, the existing interpretation system, has to be known and understood. What is "scientifically" the job of psychology or ethnology.

Learning is a cyclical process, as planning for management and political strategies. From data (text), that is mostly analysis by making comparisons, units of meaning are formed and conceptualized into coding units and categories. The situation, the data, the text is interpreted and understood, with the new (pre-)-understanding the hermeneutical cycle is started again, and, if needed, new categories of thinking are created until the system is understandable as a whole. The hermeneutical circle - from the whole to the part and back to the whole - creates a completeness, a "Gestalt", a unity of meaning. The criteria for "truth", for the "right understanding", is here the harmony of the parts with the whole (system).

Learning for development is not "alphabetisation" and calculation. Learning for development is dialectical, philosophical recognition of potentials and limits. Learning needs one element that has not been discussed in the chapter on "management", where it would figure under public relations/marketing - it needs entertainment to complete the four elements and basic principles of rethorics. In the recommendations of Qadi Zabara all the four are present: To teach, to move and to entertain. If the aim is that the masses care for the environment, then the scientists have to do research and to teach, the government and its institutions have to coordinate and mobilise the people in cooperation with the clergy, television, radio, newspapers and organised actions, that have to look for it that the needed information reaches the public. (In an understandable, agreeable way, I repeat.)

In the face of needed restrictions, of respect towards life and the earth, we, the North, do not, unluckily, have much to recommend to the South ), what Rio and the evasive strategies of the USA towards a CO₂-reduction showed.

Last not least: Responsibility of projects and their management can't be only formal, for the operationalised part of the project. It must be integral, it must be wise and, honest, that means it has to assume responsibility for the integration of the project not only on the technical-operational level, for "functionality", but especially on the socio-cultural levels. It has to care for induced processes, be they positive or negative, because projects, even pure "technical assistance", do induce changes and introduce a new culture with new values.

THE END

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Table of Content

4.7 Forest Policy

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last part: Bibliography