19 Rethinking principles of reforestation: using local knowledge for reforestation - Yang Congming^[26]

ABSTRACT

Plantations are playing an increasingly important role in rural economic development and poverty alleviation. In the last two decades, commercial plantations have become a major force in local development in China by providing raw materials, infrastructure, employment, income and environmental services. In the past, forestry plantations usually involved a "top-down" perspective, monoscientific knowledge and ignoring local needs, knowledge and values. Additionally, there was clear-cutting of shrubs as well as burning the planted land. Plantations entered an impasse, with the common irony of "planting every year, but not a tree to be found anywhere!" Access to information can lead to awareness of other distinctive methods. Knowledge is socially determined and constitutes a social order and social construction of reality. This study examines the contributions of both scientific knowledge and local knowledge to plantation-a holistic view to relearning knowledge and to use local knowledge for sustainable forestry management.

INTRODUCTION

China is a country basically short of forest resources. Its forest reserves are not only limited but also unevenly distributed. In 1995, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) statistics, China’s forest coverage, per capita area of forest and per capita forest growing stock ranked respectively the 111th, the 119th and the 160th among 179 countries and areas in the world. In 2000 the total forest area in China amounted to 134 million ha, with a standing stock volume of 11.785 billion m³ and the forest cover increased to 13.92 percent. However, China has a long history of forestry management (China Forest Bureau 2000). In ancient times, the forest resources were relatively rich. With increasing population, agricultural production and urbanization, forests were destroyed gradually. Moreover, the severe deforestation by rulers of successive dynasties and destruction by wars gradually reduced the forest area. Soil and water losses became more and more severe, and natural hazards were happening with increasing frequency. After the founding of the Peoples Republic of China in 1949, the central government attached great importance to expanding forests and developing forestry. From the central to the local authorities, forestry departments were set up, and a series of general and specific policies, rules and laws were formulated. The state invested a lot of funds and implemented many reforestation and forest conservation projects.

Guizhou Province is located on the eastern slope of the Yunan-Guizhou Plateau in southwestern China. The province covers an area of 176 128 km², of which mountains and hills account for 92.5 percent. There is a multiethnic population of 32 million people here. The Han and other minority ethnic groups such as the Miao (Hmong), Gong, Buyi, Yi, Shui, Yao, Gelao and eight others have been cultivating amidst a culture of dance, song and music in Guizhou from time immemorial. Guizhou is a mountainous region with abundant biological resources. It has a warm and humid subtropical climate with mild winter and cool summer, plus a high rainfall, which enhances a large diversity of natural species and an excellent climate for tree growing. It is regarded as a key province of forest in southern China.

Nevertheless, Guizhou is a province of economic underdevelopment. In the past ten years the central government invested extensive funds and implemented many projects to develop the economy as well as forestry. The provincial government also endeavoured to reduce poverty and improve the environment. Consequently, a series of development policies were formulated, bearing such slogans as "Green Industry", "Integrated Mountain Exploitation", "Greening Guizhou in Ten Years" and "Agriculture Exploitation Through Technology" and so on. In addition, many forest development projects were introduced such as reforestation through antipoverty projects and forest protecting programmes of the World Bank. In the last ten years, a total of 5.34 million ha in Guizhou was planted, around 40 thousand ha annually and 30 thousand ha on mountain slopes. The forest cover rate is 25.83 percent with only 4.5 percent increase in the last ten years.

The key study site was centered in the forested Taijiang Ethnic County, east Guizhou, and is an ethnic minority county of the Miao and Dong. Before the logging ban in 1989, 90 percent of its incomes came from timber production such as of fir, pine and bamboo. Planting trees and logging were major activities for local people and they had a long history of forestry management and production. However, during the last decade, many developmental projects were implemented in this region, with planting trees a significant feature and it played a central role in antipoverty actions and ecoregeneration. From 1990 to 2000, the region has planted 4000 ha of fir, pine, pear, plum and orange, with survival rate of 60 percent.

RESEARCH PROBLEMS AND JUSTIFICATION

Plantation therefore plays an important role in forest development. In the last two decades, more than 25.4 billion trees were planted in China through a compulsory tree-planting campaign. In recent years, especially after the Yangtze River floods of 1998, forestry in China has witnessed an unprecedented trend of development. After 1998, the state implemented logging ban in natural forests and upland conversion, in order to expand the forest area. A "Green Revolution" was launched everywhere with about 5 million ha planted each year.

In spite of great efforts China still faces a crisis in forest resources. In current years, soil erosion, desertification, water shortages and flood hazard have occurred frequently. This has led to a rethinking of forest science and management and a need for audits, since investment in reforestation equates poorly to survival. Forestry science in China has epistemological groundings in the biological sciences of Germany and was brought in by academic discourse with USSR, defining forests in a way that is totally detached from any cultural basis. The science of forestry was used as an academic anchor for state exploitation of resources. Stoott (1999) suggested the social nature of the construction of what constitutes a forest, as a concept which goes beyond the value of a neutral object, allowing it to become embedded in the process of "myth-making". "Forest" becomes a social construction that reflects the manner by which a dominant group perceives it, and attaches value to it, as part of a system of knowledge and representation. On the other hand, forests act beyond mere resource-cultural symbols and social abodes. Forest management not only integrated timber production, but also combined forest land systems, which accommodated multiresource systems, and so on. Forest thereby delegitimized the indigenous knowledge systems of communities.

Farmers, as sophisticated knowledge producers (Kloppenburg 1991), explore alternative ways of generating knowledge, developing a broader knowledge base to allow a finer responsibility for human and natural resources, including sustainability of forest.

The primary objective of this paper is to discuss domination in forestry science and practices, to reveal the manner by which forests are defined and governed through Western modes of constructing knowledge; to identify the boundaries between forest scientific knowledge and local or indigenous knowledge; to understand the capacity of knowledge production; and to consider use of the local knowledge to formulate an alternative model for sustainable forest development.

HYPOTHESES

• Beyond scientific knowledge, local knowledge may generate alternative ways of forest management.

• Local knowledge may contribute to alternative models for reforestation.

• Modern technology combined with local knowledge may enhance forest sustainable development.

OBJECTIVES

The objective of this study is to have a systematic and comparative assessment of scientific knowledge and consequences of local knowledge on reforestation projects in local communities. Specifically, the study aims to accomplish the following:

• To analyse the professional discourse of reforestation, identifying the boundaries between scientific knowledge and local knowledge.

• To investigate the reason why commercial reforestation fails and the way in which local people react and then redefine reforestation.

• To identify the social reality of forest management in forest-dependent communities.

• To examine the limitations of scientific knowledge in reforestation, as well as to assess the value of local knowledge within reforestation.

• To use poststructuralism theory to analyse the reason for success and failure in reforestation, and to try to seek a sustainable way of forest management.

CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

Reforestation usually imposed a "top-down" approach with professional practices, ignoring local needs, values and rights; it has monopolized land in times of food shortage and has degraded landscape and local lifestyles. Reforestation involves different needs and expectations between different groups. Only foresters are concerned with trees as economically productive organisms. Other people are more concerned with the many functions or meanings associated with trees to the modern imperatives of biodiversity conservation and recreation. With the development of a new forest, however, local people will be faced with the sudden introduction of a new set of circumstances, which is explainable locally only by making references to existing belief systems and values.

Forest management and plantation technology, borrowed from the German and Soviet practices since 1949, introduced a scientific system applied by agencies of the State, representing benefit to the State. The monoculture system involved clear-cutting and burning, results in loss of some renewed and natural forests, and damage to biodiversity. Thus, failure of planting meant also loss of vegetation and biodiverse habitats. Science-based reforestation was not typically efficient or successful.

Scientific knowledge about forest is a preoccupied discourse; as Molnar and Patricia (1992) pointed out, "science is a way of accumulating knowledge in inter-subjectively testable ways. It can be misused or distorted, but these are human and institutional foibles, not problems inherent in the practice of science". Forest science holds many methods in common with other disciplines-such as hypotheses, the experiment and other approaches-as well as many instruments that extend beyond the reach of human senses.

The conditions appropriate for both simple and complex reforestation and the contributions each can make were analysed. Complex reforestation, whether established from scratch or within natural forest, was subject to numerous different claims. Its ownership, management and silviculture presented new challenges. Frequently, conflicts emerged between scientific knowledge and local knowledge. Government, dependent on expert narrative and often focusing on regional economic development, inevitably followed a preoccupied discourse parallel to political benefit. On the other hand, local people would focus on income and food security; pursuing a share in modern society, they would prefer income generation as a short-term practice. So reforestation became a paradox as conflict emerged between event-centre and human-centre.

However, in the community, farmer-foresters applied efficient and sustainable approaches, with traditional, long-term practical experience and knowledge. There was more attention to protection of surrounding conditions, and they pursued small-scale production, without clear-cutting or burning. They knew of appropriate species for the locality and applied their own techniques and knowledge for reforestation. For instance, in Guizhou

Qiangongnan District, the Hmong and Dong ethnic people have had thousands of years of experience of planting fir and pine, because as part of a tradition when a daughter was born, the family planted up to 0.2 ha of fir or pine in the mountain areas. They called this planted area the "daughter forest", which when harvested eighteen years later would pay for their daughter’s marriage expenses.

In fact, marginalization of farmer’s and hegemony of scientific knowledge were the key reasons that commercial reforestation failed. Knowledge is ideologies that mask or mystify social systems, organizations and classes, must "listen and learn" from local actors and be thus be guided, allowing and involving local practices.

It entitles local knowledge to be part of a well-informed ethnographic practice that relates sensitively to the everyday problems of project beneficiaries and frontline development personnel (Contreras 2001). Construction (or in many cases, reconstruction) of a more sustainable and socially just agriculture has led many individuals to argue that we need to give greater attention to local knowledge (DeWall 1994). Critics of sustainable forest production have used the scientific model precisely. They assume that sustainable reforestation means stopping using existing chemical technologies, particularly fertilizers and pesticides. Their careful economic calculations show lowered production in the traditional crops raised under conventional forest technology. Their models are static ones; when the technology is taken away, nothing else changes. Alternative agriculture is not simply the absence of certain technology. Other practices (non-chemical technologies) are substituted and cropping patterns change. Thus we discover that on the fields of farmers who are seriously engaged in system-level scientific discovery, crop rotations and changed tillage practices can keep production near previous levels and net returns at levels higher than under conventional technology. The introduction of forest land can breed unwanted pests if it continues to be surrounded by land which bears monoculture. Change at one part of a system requires changes in other parts; conventional agricultural science considers those necessary changes as beyond the scope of their research protocols.

Reforestation may be voluntary and indigenous villagers are not legally required to work with new forests. In effect, however, they are structurally forced to do so, because each family is given ownership of only a quarter of a hectare of farmland. This plot is too small to provide their needs, and intentionally so historically. That form of bureaucratic element usually aimed at the administration of both nature and man-made forests by scientists or so-called specialists. Reforestation was the professional forester’s dream of completely controlled and regularized forest, that yielded predictable profits, combined with a controlled and regularized population that yields calculable and predictable amounts of labour, an ideal unit of a standard worker caring for standardized trees (Flora 1992). Such a plantation consisted of identical-aged, monocultural plots of fast-growing trees, such as pine, apple, plum, pear or other fruit. The square plots had trees in rows at optimal growing distances from each other and they formed a "classic, normal forest" (Vandergeest 1997), with a plot being cleared annually and immediately replanted. When the trees matured after ten years, felling had gone full circle and the first plots were cleared again. Existing technology of plantation can indicate weaknesses and strengths so scientific principles can be effective applied to improve it. We may have to expand our conceptual framework to incorporate not only the technical aspect of knowledge but also to include the spiritual values and way of thinking that are bound in practical activities. We may need to "relearn" distinct cultural principles which will provide new insights into the relationship between people and the environment. Particularly important are the holistic aspects of local knowledge-how the invisible spiritual world reflects the environment and connects with production systems. The relearning of local knowledge in this regard should help us to arrive at a fuller understanding of the scope and limits of scientific technology and professional discourse that we presently follow.

Reforestation expresses the utopian ideas inherent in bureaucratic dimension and may be seen as a concerted institutional attempt to implement these ideas, whereas, farmers have accumulated large bodies of empirical knowledge. In a "new paradigm" of knowledge production, learning the "farmer first" approach to acknowledge plantation can derive a new role for alternative reforestation.

METHODOLOGY

To develop this paper, its arguments and conclusions have been constructed upon multiple methods of enquiry and observation. These include making observations of individuals and groups who command and implement scientific knowledge, on site with local native communities, conducting numerous semistructured interviews and discussions with respondents from the various constituencies of the Taijiang research project; attending meetings and workshops at various levels of reforestation and interacting with forest-based villagers and the associated working committees. This ethnographic approach was also supplemented by archival search and documentary analysis.

LOCAL REDEFINED PLANTATION AND FORESTRY

Technology is the organization of tools and techniques for the performances of tasks (Friedmann 1992). However, in dominating forest science, highly regimented protocols are demanded to plant straight rows of fast-growing (but exotic) fuelwood species. Actually, project designers and professional foresters had failed to realize that innocuous-looking, fallow scrubland was actually a part of a delicately balanced, indigenous agroforestry system. Plantations were burnt because leaders and project managers were overriding local and traditional land-use rights. Residents lost access to much-needed forest products.

In the Taijing County, the Hmong farmers have not surprisingly accumulated much experience and knowledge about tree cultivation. They never cut maple and old trees since these are considered "friends of the ancestors." The Hmong farmers consider trees as equal to humans. Children cannot climb old trees, for they believe that this goes against the will of the spirits. The Hmong farmers believe that sickness or death will occur, if people cut or climb old trees.

The Hmong in Tageba believe that everything has a spirit and being; their ancestors organized everything of the world including their spirits and forestry. So, in Tageba, a popular well-known legend is "Old trees protect the village, old men manage the affairs of community." People believe that the old trees around the village have spirits that should be preserved. Many ethnic people of the area believe that large mountains in the big forestry areas also have spirits.

The paidong, as planting trees is known in Hmong language, is a regular activity in Tageba. The most respected men in Hmong communities are the planters. The Hmong in Tageba spend about seventy-six days a year planting. Each year they clear land or secondary bush in order to prepare the new fields for planting trees in the spring. Fir seeds are planted in the remote mountains as the early, spring rains fall in January to early March. They know which species are best for each area and apply their own techniques and knowledge on forestation. Besides using timber for their houses, the Hmong make use of other parts of the tree for various purposes. Trunks are used for piling and bark is used for cladding.

Many of the people’s names are derived from the phrases associated with trees. One Hmong headman, for example, is called "growing tree." This is because he grew slowly when he was a child. So he received this name from his father in order to bless him to grow more quickly, as a tree. When a child is born, the family adopts one big tree as his "father." When a child cries or becomes ill, his family will give a new name to him, based on what elements, such as wood, water and soil, he lacked in the original meaning of his name. Also a new father would construct one or two wooden bridges for the village. After these are finished, their children should have good luck and heath in the future. If the adopted tree thrives, that means the child would remain safe. In one instance, in Dade village, there are 40 people who recognize a 50-year-old fir, near a well, as their "tree father."

In short, the local people hold varied beliefs in connection to forests. Their music, their stories and their craftwork such as embroidery, often depict the relationship between people and forest. But their belief in the forest spirits does not prevent them from cutting trees; instead, they deal with the spirits by appeasing them with rituals and offerings after the cutting.

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN SMALL-SCALE NATIVE REFORESTATION AND LARGE-SCALE COMMERCIAL REFORESTATION

DISCUSSION

Modern, scientific knowledge is centralized and associated with the machinery of State, and those who are its bearers believe in its superiority. Indigenous knowledge, in contrast, is scattered and can be associated with a low prestige of rural life; even those who are its relatively successful bearers may believe it to be inferior.

Farmers and scientists apply their senses through microscopic landscapes and across diverse locations. Farmers have continuity of experience and personal involvement and entitlements within one environment; thus they can generate craft knowledge and insight into the workings of the natural world at a particular place and time (Molnar and Patricia 1992). Thus, the perspectives of farmers and scientists are complementary and supplemental to one another and need not be in conflict. One forester has noted that scientists understand the main effects of most factors of production but that it is the interactions that are most interesting. In this context, local knowledge can be viewed as the understanding based on experience of the configuration or counter-position of the factors of production, on an individual farm in a particular environmental setting. Local knowledge does not contradict scientific knowledge, but rather expands it.

Part of local knowledge consists of technologies developed over decades of adjusting farming systems to local agroclimatic and social conditions. The time frame-planning agricultural productivity for the future-is part of local knowledge that we see even in conventional agriculture, as complex crop rotations are developed to take advantage of system interactions over time, in order to conserve moisture and nutrients and reduce pest populations.

Sustainability, unlike productivity, is not absolute. What is sustainable at one time and place may not be sustainable in another. Sustainability may not be an "immutable mobile". Forest scientists, unlike many other biological scientists, have been concerned with controlling nature rather than understanding it. As a result, it may happen that scientists able to seek out the "immobile mutable", will be outside institutions of forestry to include farmers in reforestation technology. There is a maturing agreement that forest must become more sustainable, and an increasing agreement that sustainability will mean decreased damage to soil and water, although it can be used to create a more sustainable forest as well. But an alternative forest agenda requires that we redefine our ends as well as our means.

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