planning for sustainability: access to fuelwood in...

World Development, Vol. 19, No. 10, pp. 1299-1314, 1991. 0305--750X/91 $3.00 + 0.00 Printed in Great Britain. © 1991 Pergamon Press plc

Planning for Sustainability: Access to Fuelwood in Dhanusha District, Nepal

J O H N S O U S S A N

Reading University and ETC United Kingdom

E L S G E V E R S

ETC Netherlands, Leusden

K R I S H N A G H I M I R E

ETC United Kingdom, Newcastle

a n d

P H I L O ' K E E F E

Newcastle Polytechnic and ETC United Kingdom

Summary. - - This paper examines the problem of putting sustainable development ideas into practice through the detailed consideration of a recent fuelwood planning exercise in Dhanusha District in southern Nepal. The ways in which biomass fuels are produced and used are examined through their relationship to tenurial relations and proximity to the district's forest area. From this, the scale and nature of fuelwood problems are identified and a strategy to develop sustainable solutions to these problems is advanced. This strategy is based on the involvement of the local community at every stage of the planning process and the empowerment of local people through their direct control over decisions on the use of land and financial resources. The study concludes that sustainable planning is possible, but is far from easy. Above all, it depends on a different relationship between agencies of the state and the local communities which planning is intended to help.

1. I N T R O D U C T I O N

Recognit ion of the fuelwood crisis facing the world 's poor has been with us for some time now (Eckholm et al., 1984; Soussan, 1988). As is often the case, there was at first a tendency to overstate and simplify the problem, with untenable projec- tions of the mass decimation of the biomass resource base of many areas commonly advanced. In Nepal, this position was related to the devastation of the Himalayan forests, increased erosion in the hills and worsening flooding in the Ganges plain. This simple link between household fuel use and environmental destruction is implicitly accepted by many commenta tors and policy makers, despite the accumulating evidence to the contrary (Hamil ton, 1987). An alternative position blames land clearance for agriculture, not wood use for fuel, for deforestat ion (Bajracharya, 1983; Sattaur, 1987; Hrabovszky and Miyan, 1987). Here , the object ive is diffe-

rent (food, not fuel) but the mechanism is the same: the unsustainable management of land resources by the local community.

More recently we have begun to understand that biomass fuel problems can rarely be general- ized as they reflect complex and variable interac- tions between local production systems and the environmental resources on which they are based (Leach and Mearns, 1989; Munslow et al., 1988). Fuel and food needs are not mutually exclusive (Acharya, 1990; Ives, 1987), and the effective management of the local resource base will allow local people to provide for a wide range of needs (Soussan, 1990; Blaikie and Brookfield, 1987). Put simply, biomass fuel use and the problems that stem from it are specific to people in particular places at particular times.

Much of the complexity reflects two sets of factors. First, the existence of biomass resources in a locality is not enough to guarantee that all who need them have sufficient fuels available.

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1300 WORLD DEVELOPMENT

Local people must have access to the resources; access which is constrained by location, land tenure and land management practices. Second, fuelwood problems do not express themselves as a simple and direct shortage of fuel. As local resource stresses emerge, people cope with the situation in a variety of ways. These responses are variable and indirect, and as such are highly specific to the locality.

Fuelwood use cannot be separated from other aspects of the local production system, and fuelwood stress is part of a wider development problematic. The rural poor live in a biomass- based economy in which local land resources provide for the bulk of their survival needs. Wood and trees are an integral part of this economy; rural production systems involve far more than the production of the main crop, whether it is for home consumption or sale. Rural communities harness a combination of private and common property resources to produce goods for both subsistence consumption and the market. There is frequently a gender division of responsibilities in this, with men typically con- trolling commercial production and women having prime responsibility for providing food, fuel and a range of other basic needs for household maintenance (Blaikie and Brookfield, 1987; Ellis, 1988; Agarwal, 1986). Class-based distinc- tions around the control of land are also important, with larger landowners more concerned with production for external markets, and land- poor and landless households more concerned with access to common resources for domestic consumption. Few poor households can survive by wage labor alone; fuel, fodder, foodstuffs and other essential goods gathered from the local environment are a central part of their household economy.

These complexities of fuelwood production and distribution across social groups present formidable challenges to energy planners. Inter- ventions need to be as varied and as locality- specific as the problems they are intended to confront. The repeated failure of single techno- logy solutions (Warlord, 1989; Armitage and Schramm, 1989), whether they be large plantations, community forestry, improved stoves, or novel energy sources such as wind, solar or biogas, reflects the failure of planners to understand local conditions and, in particular, their reluctance to involve the people they are trying to help in the identification of problems and the design of solutions (Leach and Mearns, 1989). Recent calls for sustainable development arc widely accepted as a moral argument, but are rarely put into practice. This partly reflects a lack of will on the part of national and international

planners and administrators (Wallis, 1989; Grif- fin, 1987), but is also a consequence of our poor understanding of the systems in which we are seeking to intervene. The creation of sustainable solutions requires a different approach, in which the rigorous quantification of supply and demand is subordinated to an analysis of people's percep- tion of the responses to fuelwood stress (Soussan, 1990; Munslow et al., 1988). Such an analysis must take account of factors conditioning access to local biomass resources and niches within the production system which offer opportunities for intervention. If it is to achieve true change, development planning must go beyond the rhe- toric of sustainability to create mechanisms for local empowerment.

2. FUELWOOD IN DHANUSHA

This paper presents such an approach for Dhanusha District in southern central Nepal (see Figure 1). It is based on the results of a detailed survey conducted in 1987-88. Some 80% of Dhanusha District is densely settled farmland in the Terai, the Nepalese part of the Gangetic plain. The remainder, in the north of the district, lies in the southern ranges of the Siwalik Hills, and is a designated forest area under the control of the Ministry of Forestry. The survey was executed by a multidisciplinary team as part of a project funded by the European Economic Com- munity to design a sustainable fuelwood strategy for Dhanusha District, in partnership with staff from the Forestry Department. A rapid appraisal of 20 villages in the district was followed by morc detailed surveys of energy use, biomass resource availability and land management practices in five villages selected on the basis of their location in relation to the main forest zone, the metaled road, and the main urban area of Janakpur. A survey of fuel markets and household fuel use in Janakpur was also executed. A number of sites in the forest zone was studied to ascertain the quality and distribution of biomass resources and to assess indicators of resource stress in the forest. This survey included all biomass (undergrowth as well as trees) and assessed the distribution and quality of different species and the extent and vigor of regeneration. Finally, the main exit points from the forest zone in the north were monitored for a period of one week and the quantities of different sorts of biomass material extracted assessed.

As an area, Dhanusha is comparable to the most severely deforested districts of the Terai such as Mahottari. There is a rich literature on

P L A N N I N G F O R S U S T A I N A B I L I T Y 1301

• ReconnaJssarce villages (~ Deta~qed village studies

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F i g u r e I. Dhanusha District, Nepal.


environmental stress and local management of resources in Nepal, but much of it concerns the hills regions, where land tenure, forest management practices and the history of government policies are all different from those in the Terai (Bajracharya, 1980, 1983; Acharya, 1989, 1990). In Dhanusha one finds the poverty and environmental stress which characterize large parts of Nepal. One also finds responses to these stresses by the local community which offer hope for the future, but which have been largely ignored by the many forestry and energy projects in Nepal. It is these local initiatives, and the knowledge of the environment they reflect, which must form the basis of sustainable fuelwood planning.

Dhanusha District has a pattern of energy demand characteristic of many Terai districts. There is a sharp contrast in patterns of land resource management, control and degradation between districts in Nepal's hills and the Terai. There is an extensive literature on the hills region (Bajracharya, 1980, 1983; Acharya, 1989; Ives, 1987; Sattaur, 1987; Fonzen and Oberholzer, 1989); the Terai has been studied less extensive- ly. The differences between the regions must be explicitly accounted for in policy formulation, as fuelwood problems and intervention opportunities are different in the Terai than in the hills.

Most energy in Dhanusha is used in the household sector, with non-household demand confined to transport, industrial and commercial activities in Janakpur town and some agricultural mechanization and processing. Within the household sector biomass fuels dominate, providing 96% of fuel use. Cooking is the most important source of demand in both rural and urban areas: over 67% of all household fuel use is for cooking (Water and Energy Commission, 1987), with food processing (mainly rice parboiling) account- ing for another 18%.

The northern 20% of the district consists of the southern ranges of the Siwalik Hills, which are mostly covered by degraded woodland (see Figure 1). The rest of the district is almost entirely under cultivated land. Population densi- ties are high (over 370 persons per km 2) and increases as one moves south toward the Indian border. Land holdings are small (Table 1), and many are divided into several plots. Fragmenta- tion and declining holding size have been an increasing problem over time, with a growing proportion of households becoming landless or land poor. About 30% of the rural population were estimated to be landless at the time of the survey. Throughout the district, pressures upon land resources are acute. This is reflected in a severe and rapidly deteriorating fuelwood crisis which hits all areas of Dhanusha, but which is felt

Table 1. Land distribution in Dhanusha District (1981-82)

Total Size of area Average number holding Number (Ha) of plots

Less than 1 ha 46,511 11,653 2.1 1-2 ha 11,393 17,145 4.3 2-4 ha 8,012 22,605 6.3 4--10 ha 2,090 11,312 8. I Above 10 ha 413 6,830 18.6

Total 68,419 69,545 3.2

Source: Central Bureau of Statistics (1985).

most severely by households with the poorest access to land resources.

3. PA'Iq 'ERN OF BIOMASS FUEL CONSUMPTION

Estimates of the average per capita consumption of different fuels in Dhanusha District are given in Table 2. If these averages are represen- tative of the district as a whole, total annual demand for fuelwood is over 134,000 tons, for dung 178,000 tons, for crop residues as fuel 98,000 tons, and for other biomass materials 43,000 tons. As such, fuelwood provides only 38.5% of the biomass energy used in Dhanusha. Dung provides 34%, crop residues 19%, and other biomass such as leaves and grass scrapings 8.5%. The use of residues has increased over time as fuelwood supplies have become increasingly restricted to households located near the forest or that own trees on private land.

Throughout the district biomass fuels are the main source of energy, but in different areas the role of fuelwood, agricultural residues, small twigs and other biomass materials such as leaves and grass is different. As we shall see, this largely relates to land tenure and location in relation to the forest.

Table 2. Average consumption o] ]uel.g in rural Dhanusha

Annual per capita Fuel Unit consumption

Fuelwood kg 315 Dung kg 419 Crop residues kg 230 Other biomass kg 101 Kerosene It 8

Source: Water and Energy Commission (1987).

PLANNING FOR SUSTAINABILITY 13~)3

There is also some seasonality in this variation. Many households (and in particular those located some distance from the forest) gather much of their fuelwood in the slack agricultural season before the wet monsoon. These stocks will last them for some time, but fuelwood is less available during the monsoon period from July to October when agricultural labor demands are at their highest and transport is most difficult. During this period residues replace wood as a fuel source.

Urban consumption averages about 400 kg per capita per year, but varies by income group. Total urban household consumption of fuelwood is approximately 20,000 tons a year. Consump- tion is highest in upper- and middle-income households, for which fuelwood accounts for up to 90% of total fuel use. Low-income urban households use far less wood (about 65% of their fuel needs), partly as a result of their greater use of dung (which is also commercialized in Janak- pur), and partly because of far lower levels of per capita fuel use. For low-income urban households, problems of fuel poverty are acute. A consumption level of one kilogram per person per day for an average sized household of six people will require 30% of the average urban laborer's wages of 20 rupees per day.

A number of industries in Dhanusha use fuelwood as their main source of energy. The largest consumers are brick kilns (which consume over 11,000 tons a year), the distillery in Janak- pur (700 tons a year) and the two tobacco barns (1,000 tons a year each).

Numerous small enterprises, such as res- taurants, bakeries, and artisanai tile makers, also use fuelwood. Their combined consumption is small, however, compared to the large industrial users or the urban household sector. Overall, the commercial fuelwood market in Dhanusha Dis- trict is close to 40,000 tons a year, a substantial level of demand given existing pressures on the district's resource base. The impact of this

commercial fuelwood market is felt far beyond the urban area; a situation found throughout the Third World (Soussan et al., 1990). The over- exploitation of the forest resources in the Siwalik Hills is in great part driven by the commercial market, and in many rural areas wood is increasingly becoming commercialized in response to the rapid growth of urban and industrial demand and prices.

4. BIOMASS RESOURCES AND FUELWOOD SUPPLIES

Dhanusha District's biomass resources can be divided between those in the government forest area in the north of the district (much of which is located in the southern extension of the Siwalik Hills) and those in the mainly agricultural areas which cover the southern 80% of the district. The assessment of the quantity and distribution of the biomass resources in each of these areas presents a number of problems. In particular, existing data take little account of biomass resources outside the forest or non-tree resources inside the forest, and estimates of forest productivity are based on data which do not reflect the substantial degradation these forest resources have experienced in recent years. Table~3 summarizes estimates of the woody biomass resources of Dhanusha. These figures were calculated during the fieldwork in Dhanusha using a combination of field measurements and secondary sources, and represent the best data available.

The forest area (some 30,000 hectares or about 20% of the district) constitutes over 80% of the current sustainable yield of woody biomass, with resources in the agricultural landscape forming the remaining 19%. If the undergrowth in the forest is taken into account, this area contains over 90% of Dhanusha's potential fuelwood supplies. The extent of the forest area has remained fairly constant for the last 20 years,

Table 3. Woody biomass resources of Dhanusha District

Annual yield Area ('000 tons) Total yield

Sources (hectares) "Frees Undergrowth ('000 tons)

Siwalik 30,000 45.6 69.63 115.23 Hills On-farm 2,400 10.95 n/a 1(I.95 Trees

Total 32,400 56.55 69.63 126.18

Source: Field surveys.


reflecting the fact that clearance for agriculture had reached the foot of the Siwalik tlills in the 1960s. The hills themselves have minimal agricultural potential.

The estimated total sustainable yield of 126,000 tons is only slightly less than current estimated demand of 134,000 tons. Not all of this potential supply is utilized, however, as the areas of the forest with the highest yields are those which are most remote from the local communities. The forest is exploited from the most accessible points of entry in the south and along river courses. This has led to substantial over- exploitation in selected areas, with these accessible sites having experienced major degradation in recent times as more material is removed for fuel, fodder and other uses than is replaced by natural regeneration. The severely degraded area is extending further into the forest each year, and it is significant that a high proportion of the biomass produced in the forest area is from shrubs and bushes, rather than trees.

The forest area in the hills is designated forest under the control of the Forestry Department, and officially all removal of biomass material is illegal without permits. In practice few people obtain such permits in Dhanusha District. The local foresters make little effort to systematically regulate the removal of wood and fodder from the forest, but do exercise sporadic control. Local villagers complain of confiscations and beatings by forest guards, and corruption is said to be rife. The need to avoid or bribe forest guards is seen as part of the cost of obtaining forest materials, and in practice legal restrictions on access to the forest make little difference in the quantities of forest products removed. The lack of alternative supplies of fuel, fodder and other forest products means that nearby communities will use the forests regardless of the restrictions placed upon them. Their current alienation from the forest means that they are neither willing nor able to effectively manage the resources they are exploiting. The current relationship between forestry staff and local villagers is extremely antagonistic, and their mutual suspi- cion needs to be overcome if any constructive partnership between them is to be forged.

Biomass fuel supplies in rural areas are dominated by agricultural residues, which are the main fuel source in many communities. There are considerable numbers of trees in agricultural areas, however, which are valued for a variety of purposes (ETC, 1987; Leach and Mearns, 1989). These trees are an important fuel source for the households which own them. There are three principal types of trees on farms in Dhanusha. First, there are private orchards on the edge of

the village. These are dominated by mangoes, but also contain other species of fruit, bamboo, and other trees. These orchards are owned by larger landowners, and are carefully managed. The second type includes sissoo trees on field bunds, and around orchards, ponds and elsewhere. Finally, there are fruit and other trees in home gardens, around homestead plots and elsewhere inside villages. All three categories of trees are privately owned, making access to land the critical factor for assessing the position of rural households' access to local fuelwood supplies. There are a few trees scattered on common property land, such as river banks or communal grazing areas. The quantity of common land in Dhanusha is limited, however, and most of it is not very productive, and contains few trees. The pressure on these common property resources is severe, and has led to their widespread degradation.

In Dhanusha crop residues are used for many purposes, including fodder, construction materials, and manure, as well as for fuel. Similarly, dung is the main source of manure and is used in construction. No agricultural residues arc wasted, and in some localities are increasingly commercialized. Fuel remains a major use of crop residue. In localities where resource pressures are at their most severe, th..e availability of agricultural residues is threatened.

The district-level summary tells only part of the story. There is considerable variation within Dhanusha District in the pattern of access to biomass fuels. This variation had two dimen- sions. First, diffcrent localities within the district have markedly different patterns of biomass resource availability and fuel use. The key factor here is proximity to the forest area in the north, but other factors also play a part. Second, patterns of fuel use and availability vary considerably within any one locality. Land tenure is the crucial factor in this both as a determinant of income and in dictating the direct availability of fuel supplies. An understanding of these variations in access among people and places is vital to any analysis of fuelwood problems and intervention opportunities (ETC, 1987). To provide data on these variations, detailed village-level studies were conducted in Dhanusha. Key results from these studies are summarized in the follow- ing section.

5. FUELWOOD SITUATIONS IN DHANUSHA DISTRICT

The studies of the fuelwood situation in five rural panchayats and Janakpur Town provide a

PLANNING FOR SUSTAINABILITY 1305

detailed picture of the structure of biomass fuel use within the local production system of Dha- nusha. The five villages pre~nted here were selected after a comprehensive reconnaissance of the district in which 20 panchayats were rapidly appraised (see Figure 1). Their varying locations in relationship to the forest area in the north, the main road, and rail transport routes ensure that a wide spectrum of sites has been covered. The panchayats range from Tadiya, which is close to both the forest and the main east-west highway, to Goth Koilpur, which is remote from both forest and any transport routes.

The information was collected using a variety of methods. These included detailed observation, rapid household surveys (using local enumerators with an intimate knowledge of the village), in- depth interviews with key informants, and group discussions with different categories of villagers.

Villages such as Tadiya in the north of the district (Figure 2) have ready, daily access to the main forest area. The collection of fuel or forest products is done almost exclusively by women, and does not require a trip which disrupts other activities. This does not mean that access is easy; it ean still involve a number of hours. The landscape around Tadiya is extremely open, with those trees present being mainly forest relics. Agricultural potential is lower than in the southern parts of the district. There is little irrigation, with maize a major crop and livestock numbers extremely high. In this area wood from the forest provides 90% of people's fuel needs. There is no significant variation in this figure across social classes (Table 4); landless laborers use comparable quantities of the same fuel from the same sources as large landowners. In recent years some families have started to use some residues, but only in small quantities. Biomass from agricultural land is not an important source of fuel. Women in Tadiya did report some signs of biomass resource stress. In particular, they were having to travel considerably further into the forest to meet their fuel and fodder needs, as adjacent areas have degraded to little more than open shrub. Overall, the fuelwood situation in villages such as Tadiya is not serious, but could easily become so if the deterioration of the forest area is not reversed.

The second characteristic fuelwood situation in Dhanusha is illustrated by Sabaila and Ramdaiya (Figure 3) panchayats. In these villages fuelwood is still important, but agricultural residues have emerged as a major source of fuel over the last generation as the forest frontier has retreated northward, Some fuel is still collected from the forest, but this involves a special trip of one to two days. Increasingly such trips involve men as

well as women, and some of the wood is often sold. Households with sufficient land or livestock will meet their fuel needs from their own biomass resources. For smaller farmers, dung and crop residues are more important, as they have few trees, but as land holdings increase a greater proportion of fuel comes from wood from the farmer's own land.

In these areas, increasing differentiation is emerging between different tenure classes (Table 4). Pressures on biomass resources affect all, but those with access to private land resources are able to provide for their needs with relative ease. Those without such access are forced to use inferior fuels, to undertake long journeys to collect fuel and even, in a number of cases, to purchase biomass fuel from local markets.

The third fuelwood situation is found in villages in the south of Dhanusha which are located too far from the forest for fuelwood collection. In villages such as Goth Koilpur and Thadi (Figure 4) dung and crop residues have replaced wood as the main fuel for all except middle and larger farmers who have trees available on their land. Pressures on all biomass resources are severe, and tree planting for a range of purposes is a growing response to these pressures. In these areas the differentiation between tenure classes is acute (Table 4), with many landless households reduced to burning leaves, scrapings of dried grass, and any other biomass scavenged from the few areas of common property land. In some cases, dung has become commodified and is sold for fuel use, and the commodification of wood is widespread. In these areas, access to private biomass resources (both land and livestock) is the determinant of the extent of the impact of fuel scarcity on different households. As presssures on the resource base have increasingly affected all sections of the community, higher income households are entering into competition with landless and land-poor households for all forms of biomass materials. In the southern section of Dhanusha the fuelwood situation has deteriorated to the point where many households (in particular the landless and land poor) are faced with major problems in meeting their fuel needs. The response to these stresses varies, but for households with poor access to land resources the alternatives are limited.

The final fuelwood situation is found in the urban area of Janakpur town, where fuel is a commodity for all households. Wood is still the main fuel source, but wood prices have rapidly increased to one rupee/kg. Other fuels are increasingly being used. Kerosene is used widely in conjunction with wood, with the kerosene typically used for hot drinks and light meals and


T A D I Y A

SIWALIK HILLS

' ~ / ~ OPEN I AGRICULTURAL LAND Plot with houses

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" ! _/ -)1- ~ - - ~ 1 ~ ~ J " - - - L 1/2kin ' Road - /'~ " I " "

t z _ ~ / L I- Lentils ~ "

| ~ / ( ~ 1 1 ~ " ~ Bananas AGRICULTURAL LAND tor,ver

~%~,.., t (~ (~ J Mango grove

OPEN GRAZING LAND

1 - 25 Bight/ / /

2 5 - 4 Bigha.t . 8,'

• 4 Bigha 15 % k 7

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Cattle / goat herding

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with plots of mustard

POPULATION DISTRIBUTION BY TENURE CLASSES

KEY Vi l lage boundary

• f i ~ Houses

N Rice straw s tacks

Main road

~ Crop residue

DISTRIBUTION OF FUEL USE

Figurc 2. Tadiy. Panchayat.

P L A N N I N G F OR S U S T A I N A B I L I T Y

Table 4. Fuel use by tenure class in study villages

Household Fuels Used (percentage total) Category Wood Dung Crop Residue Other

r~diya Landless 88 4 4 4 Below 1 Bigha 78 2 Ill Ill 1-2.5 Bigha 79 - - 7 14 2.5-4 Bigha 92 2 2 4 4-10 Bigha 90 - - 3 7 Above 10 Bigha 90 - - - - 10 Tenants 88 - - - - 12

Sabaila Landless 35 46 ll) 9 Below 1 Bigha 37 55 5 3 1-2.5 Bigha 37 49 9 5 2..5--4 Bigha 50 42 6 I 4-1(I Bigha 48 47 2 3 Above 10 Bigha 55 45 - - - - Tenants 36 46 12 6

Ramdaiva Landless 63 29 8 - - Below 1 Bigha 45 47 8 - - 1-2.5 Bigha 55 35 10 - - 2..5-4 Bigha 33 56 11 - - 4-10 Bigha 58 38 4 - - Above 10 Bigha 87 11 2 - - Tenants 57 35 8 - -

Thadi Landless 4 30 38 28 Below 1 Bigha 15 60 15 10 1-2.5 Bigha 20 56 24 - - 2..5---4 Bigha 55 32 13 - - 4-10 Bigha 68 30 2 - - Above 10 Bigha 80 15 5 - - Tenants 11 48 28 13

Goth Koilpur Landless 5 33 40 22 Below 1 Bigha 25 70 5 - - 1-2.5 Bigha 17 56 26 l 2.5-4 Bigha 64 32 4 - - 4-10 Bigha 73 27 - - - - Above 10 Bigha 83 15 - - - - Tenants 14 60 19 7

1307

w o o d for t h e m a i n m e a l o f t h e day . M i d d l e - a n d u p p e r - i n c o m e h o u s e h o l d s u se e lec t r i c i ty o r bo t - t led ga s w h e n p o s s i b l e , bu t t he i n s e c u r i t y o f t he i r s u p p l i e s is c i t ed as a s e v e r e p r o b l e m . L o w - i n c o m e h o u s e h o l d s a re i n c r e a s i n g l y r e ly ing o n d u n g , w h i c h c a n be p u r c h a s e d for b e t w e e n 50 pa i s e a n d o n e r u p e e p e r s t ick . In J a n a k p u r , fuel p o v e r t y is an i n c r e a s i n g p r o b l e m .

T h e r ap id g r o w t h o f J a n a k p u r ' s f u e l w o o d m a r k e t is h a v i n g a s e v e r e , d e t r i m e n t a l i m p a c t t h r o u g h o u t t h e d is t r ic t . T h e u r b a n m a r k e t is o n e o f t h e m a i n f ac to r s b e h i n d t he u n s u s t a i n a b l e ra te

o f e x t r a c t i o n o f b i o m a s s f r o m t h e fo re s t a r e a in t h e n o r t h , a n d t h e i n f l u e n c e o f th i s m a r k e t is l e a d i n g to t he c o m m o d i f i c a t i o n o f f u e l w o o d o v e r a w i d e r a r e a ( S o u s s a n et al., 1990). T h i s is r e f l e c t ed in t he e x p o r t o f w o o d to t he t o w n f r o m m a n y v i l lages in w h i c h local p e o p l e a re s t r u g g l i n g to m e e t t he i r o w n n e e d s .

6. I N D I C A T O R S O F F U E L W O O D S T R E S S IN D H A N U S H A D I S T R I C T

In D h a n u s h a Dis t r i c t , f u e l w o o d sca rc i ty is


KEY - - - - - - Village boundary

, ~ Houses

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, ~ Dung cakes

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...=&

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Sugar cane

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~ C r o p residue

t w;] )'" DISTRIBUTION OF FUEL USE

Figure 3. Ramdaiya Panchayat.


THADI

LTURAL ~ID

Mango g

~ B Mang°

amboo

Mahin~ Reilwt=7 o,=,,~,, l~,m ~ ~ ~ Village boundary

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. . . . _ BORDER L

Houses

I N D I A

2.5-4 Bigha I 8 ~ 23.7% /

>10 Bigha" ~ I~.1% [ .... / 0.4%


DISTRIBUTION OF FUEL USE

Figure 4. Thadi Panchayal.


having a profound impact on many sections of the population. As is true elsewhere, however, there is no generalizable fuelwood problem (Soussan, 1988; Leach and Mearns, 1989). These resource stresses express themselves in many different forms, and vary from locality to locality. They are specific to people and places. They express themselves indirectly, not as a quantifi- able shortage of energy, but as some form of disruption of the local production system. The key to understanding this variation is access. Fuelwood problems are best understood by looking at how people respond to the resource pressures they face (Soussan, 1988; Newcombe, 1989). These responses can be taken as accurate indicators of fuelwood stress, with different responses reflecting the severity of the problem and the range of opportunities open to individual households.

The first and most widespread indicator of fuelwood stress in Dhanusha is the increase in the time taken to collect fuels. This was cited as a widespread problem, as it reduces the time available for the many other tasks facing rural people (particularly women, who traditionally are the fuel providers). This factor is a particular feature of the northern and central parts of Dhanusha, where the decline in the forest area and the deterioration of what remains mean that people are having to walk further to the forest and, once there, further into the forest to collect the fuel they need. Increased collection time is not confined to these areas, however. Through- out the district people were having to spend more time hunting for fuel as increasing pressures on local resources diminish the quantity of biomass available in all areas.

The decline of wood availability has led to a widespread switch to inferior fuels. This has affected all areas except those immediately adjacent to the forest. Crop residues, such as rice straw or maize stalks, and cattle or buffalo dung are the most widely used alternatives. They are even used by the largest landowning households. As the pressure on resources has accelerated, competition for even these residues has become more acute. Landless and land-poor households in many areas can no longer meet their needs by using residues, and are increasingly resorting to scavenging for leaves, grass and any other biomass they can get; their poor access leaves them no alternatives. For these people, the "'safety net" of agricultural residues has failed. In the worst cases, they are approaching fuel starvation.

Increasing pressure on biomass resources is leading to a rate of exploitation which is resulting in the deterioration of the resource base. This is

most dramatically apparent in the forest area of the Siwalik Hills, much of which has been reduced to a landscape of scrub vegetation with severe erosion damage. Much of this over- exploitation is not for the fuel needs of local people, again emphasizing the point that fuelwood stress cannot be separated from other aspects of the local biomass economy. Over- exploitation is not confined to the hills area. Common property resources outside the forest have universally deteriorated and the use of residues as fuel instead of fertilizer affects soil fertility and structure.

Fuelwood is increasingly becoming a commodity in Dhanusha District. Much of this is due to the growing urban market, but many rural households are also beginning to buy wood. Indeed, a number of villages have substantial periodic fuelwood markets, in which prices are rising as rapidly as those in Janakpur. In some cases it is households with no alternative source of supply which are forced to buy their fuel in these markets. Once again, fuelwood problems hit the poorest first and hardest. During the fieldwork, instances of the commodification of animal residues were also found - - perhaps the ultimate expression of the severity of biomass fuel problems.

These four indicators - - increased collection time, switching to residues, over-exploitation, and commodification - - were the most widely found indicators of fuelwood stress. Many others were also encountered, but they took a variety of forms and were frequently more individual than those already discussed. These other responses have been grouped into four additional categories.

Many expressions of changing cooking and fire management practices were found. Women managed the fire more carefully, adopted enclosed stoves, reduced the number of meals per day or pots per meal. Some have changed to quicker cooking foods. The use of fuel for heating has also declined. These responses can result in significant fuel savings, and some reflect rational conservation measures. They have important nutrition and health implications, however, and must be viewed with care (see Ghimire, 1988, for a fuller discussion of this issue).

Examples of farmers planting trees or crops with a high residue content were encountered. In no case was extra fuel the exclusive reason for increased biomass production (Fonzen and Oberholzer, 1989), but it was cited as a factor in their calculations. Thc southern parts of Dhanusha. where resource pressures are greatest, have noticeably higher rates of tree planting than the northern areas.


Fuel shortages have resulted in reduced biomass availability for competing,demands. In particular, the use of dung and crop residues for fuel has severely reduced manure availability (a situation found in Ethiopia by Newcombe, 1989). This has resulted in increased inputs of chemical fertilizers, which increase production costs and are frequently difficult to obtain. Straw and leaves for fodder, materials for construction and other competing demands are also under stress in many places.

Finally, Dhanusha's biomass fuel crisis has led to a number of changes in the social relations of fuel provision. The rights of landless laborers to collect fuel from their employers" lands are being eroded. Men are increasingly collecting fuel, a task which used to be the exclusive responsibility of women. The use of fires as a social focus is declining. These and many other changes are affecting the fabric of rural social relationships in elusive but profound ways.

These responses to fuelwood stress do not all happen at the same time (Soussan, 1988). Early signs of emerging stress are increased collection times, more careful management of cooking fires and over-exploitation of local resources. These responses can accumulate gradually; there is not often a conscious awareness of change. As the stress worsens, the early signs become more pronounced and people begin to switch to alternative fuels. These changes reflect structural shifts in the pattern of fuel provision. In other words, fuel stress begins to disrupt the routine of local people's lives.

The deterioration of the situation will lead to more profound changes. In Dhanusha, such changes are the widespread commodification of rural fuel supplies, changes in diet patterns and, increasingly, the disruption of social relations of fuel provision. On a more positive note, they also include the wider planting of trees in southern areas of the district. All of these reflect profound changes to the nature of the local production system as the impact of resource stresses (of which fuelwood scarcity is just one) accelerates.

7. BUILDING A SUSTAINABLE FUELWOOD STRATEGY

The indicators listed above illustrate the severity of fuelwood problems in Dhanusha District. As has been emphasized, these problems affect different people in very different ways. It is equally true that different people have different opportunities to confront these problems. This means that intervention strategies must be targe- ted to the opportunities of different groups.

The strategy developed to address Dhanusha's fuelwood crisis stemmed from the analysis of the structure of fuelwood use presented above. The institutional context is important, and in many ways was unusually favorable in Nepal at the time the strategy was developed. There has been a strong push to implement a decentralization program in Nepal, based on the Decentralization Act of 1982. Decentralization has been seen as a vehicle to increase local participation in development planning and implementation. As such, it fits in well with the approach presented here. As Bienen et al. (1990) point out, the implementation of the decentralization strategy in Nepal has been far from smooth, but it did provide us with an opportunity to challenge traditional, top- down institutional structures which otherwise would have been a major barrier to the implementation of the strategy outlined here. The key issues of fuel poverty and environmental degradation need urgent remedies, but traditional approaches which center on expensive and in- appropriate plantations of exotic trees do not reflect the local political economy of fuel provision and are not sustainable in economic, environmental or institutional terms. Building a sustainable fuelwood future requires a strategy in which local people are the central actors, and the real constraints of limited and heavily used biomass resources are recognized. There were three main elements to the strategy developed.

First, the strategy recognized the need for environmental reconstruction in the northern forest area if this area is to fulfill its potential as a biomass supply source for local people. The goal was to permit the regeneration of the area's natural woodland, rather than to institute an expensive planting program. This regeneration should recreate the diversity of the woodland environment, providing local communities with a range of products and ensuring greater environmental durability. This regeneration in turn requires that existing patterns of over- exploitation cease; a goal that cannot be achieved by simple prohibition. Alternatives to the materials extracted from the forest must be found. The commercial urban and industrial market has the greatest negative impact, and was tackled by a fuel switching strategy (outlined below). Local farming communities also use the forest, and for them fuel switching is not viable; they cannot afford commercial alternatives. In consequence, a series of "buffer" plantations of fast-growing fodder and fuelwood shrubs, managed by local communities for their own needs, were planned on Forestry Department land at the main en- trance points to the forest. These plantations are sited in locations which are more accessible than


existing collection areas, and in consequence should provide for people's needs with considerable savings in collection time. This more than compensates for the labor needed to establish and care for the plantations, which are under the direct control of local people and which conse- quently can contain the species they prefer, cultivated using their traditional knowledge base. Financial and technical resources from the For- estry Department are available where needed, but only in response to local requests. The strategy does not impose external technical approaches on local communities.

The legal and institutional relationship of local communities to the forest area will also change, with the area currently controlled by the Forestry Department assigned to different panchayats as "panchayat forests." This will formalize the local communities' rights of access to the forest area and permit the development of effective, locally based forest management. This change in the legal status of the forest is essential if villagers are to have a stake in the effective management of the local resource base.

Second, the biomass resource base of the agricultural areas outside the forest - - the main fuel source for most communities - - was to be strengthened and diversified through the forma- tion of community-based "user groups". These groups would be provided with resources (financial, technical and land as appropriate) to exe- cute a series of local projects aimed at building upon existing responses to stress. The choice of activity is to be in the hands of the groups themselves, but indicative types of local project are the encouragement of tree planting initiatives by small farmers, the establishment of local nurseries on state land by landless or women's groups, and the dissemination of locally designed and produced stoves. Households with land were to be encouraged to increase their woody biomass production, which would lessen their competition with land-poor households for communal resources and residues. Those with little

or no land were to be given access to state-owned land where available. Conservation was to be encouraged. This "greening" of the farming area would also lessen pressures on the forest and help its regeneration.

Finally, a strategy to diminish and ultimately eradicate the urban and industrial fuelwood markets was advanced. This strategy was based on the provision of alternative commercial fuels, which are comparable in cost but are frequently difficult to obtain, to replace fuelwood; a strategy which has been successful elsewhere (Soussan, 1989; Soussan et al., 1990). The main industrial users, which need process heat, were to be prohibited from using wood and provided with access to coal imported from India. This met with a favorable response, as coal is cheaper and easier to handle, and could be engineered relatively swiftly. Urban household energy presents a more difficult problem, but a strategy to promote kerosene among lower-income groups and LPG and electricity among wealthier households was promoted. The cost of these alternatives is not prohibitive (see Table 5), but the cost of stoves and poor supply reliability have discouraged people from switching. Subsidized kerosene stoves for the poor and improved distribution systems should produce a relatively rapid switch from wood in the urban sector, leading to a substantial reduction of pressures on the forest and commodification trends in rural areas.

8. CONCLUSIONS

This paper presents the results of an appraisal of the fueiwood situation in a district in southern Nepal, one of the world's poorest areas. It stems from a real planning exercise, and as such has had to come to terms with the very real constraints on planning in a poor country. The energy crisis in Dhanusha was indeed serious, but even within such a confined area it differed dramatically in the form it took and in people's

Table 5. Comparative fuel prices m Janakpur

Efficiency Conversion Cost of useful Fuel of use factor Price energy

Firewood 10-18% 16.7 mj/kg 1 Rs/kg 0.33 Rs/mj Kerosene 47% 36.3 mj/It 6 R.'41t 0.35 Rs/mj Electricity 50% 3.6 mj/kwh 1 Rs/kwh 0.6 Rs/mj Coal 35% 33.6 mj/kg 2 Rs/kg 0.17 Rs/mj Coal dust briquettes 35% 22.3 mj/kg 1.75 Rs/kg 0.27 Rs/mj

Source: Field surveys.


responses to it. There is no one fuelwood problem, and certainly no one simple, blueprint solution applicable over the district as a whole. Effective planning must recognize its limitations and build upon what is already there. The local communi ty must be at the heart of the planning process, involved at every stage from inception to execution. Their needs and wishes are the base from which sustainable solutions can be built. This sounds simple and attractive, but is enor- mously difficult to achieve in practice. It requires a very different approach to planning, starting with an analysis of the problem which is based on the relationship between biomass fuel use and the local production system as a whole. It also requires a very different relationship between the institutions of the state and the local community.

The key to understanding the localized nature of fuelwood situations is the question of access to local biomass resources, and the basis from which sustainable interventions must be built is the knowledge, actions and priorities of the local community. The planning system must recognize

this and be willing to give local people the power to make real choices over their future. This power will stem from local control over the resources, such as land and capital, which the planning system can make available. We have historically seen a progressive alienation of the poor from control over the resources which affect their lives. This alienation needs to be reversed and local people empowered once again to manage their resource base to meet their needs. This is an uncomfortable message for development planners in both the First and Third Worlds, as the corollary of the empowerment of the poor is a diminishing of their power, but it is one which they must come to terms with if deve lopment planning is to achieve the oft- declared goals of economic progress with environmental sustainability. If these basic factors are recognized and integrated into the formulation and execution of interventions, then there is hope for a sustainable fuelwood future - - even in an area as poor and crowded as Dhanusha District in Nepal.

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