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The uneven success of tropical forest product marketing initiatives over the past decade has illuminated our poor understanding of forest peasant livelihood systems. This dissertation explores how , when and why peoples living within biodiverse tropical forests turn to the sale of forest products to meet their needs over time, through a detailed examination of commercial forest extraction by the Tawahka Sumu (pop. 1,000) of the Mosquitia region, eastern Honduras. The study uses a multi-method, multi-scalar approach that incorporates conceptual insights from cultural ecology, agricultural economics, and peasant studies. / A detailed household census (n = 116, or 88% of Tawahka households in 1998) was used to establish patterns of reliance on commercial extraction. As a group, the Tawahka were found to manage a diverse market income portfolio in which commercial extraction contributed some 18% in 1997--98 (US$23/capita). At the household level, however, reliance on the extractive sector varied from 0--93%. Analysis of multi-year income data suggests that households move easily into, and out of, the sector. Statistical analysis indicates that the most important determinants of this sporadic engagement are unanticipated household-level calamities (illness, crop shortfall). / This ex post insurance function of commercial extraction was also demonstrated over longer time scales by a detailed historical analysis of the Mosquitia's dugout canoe trade, which revealed that the sale of dugout canoes has provided local peoples with an important fall-back during periods of economic recession. Discussion highlights the dynamism of peasant livelihoods, in which forest product sale is seen as only one response to householders' changing needs over both the lifecycle of the household and larger economic cycles in the region. / The modern dynamics of the canoe trade appear to have changed little over two centuries, emphasizing the little-recognized continuity within native exchange systems despite market penetration and monetization. During the 1990s, the Tawahka sold half of the approximately 500 canoes they made, mainly to Miskito buyers. The future of canoe commerce is threatened by pressures on the forests of the newly-created Tawahka Asangni Biosphere Reserve, including high internal growth rates, ladino colonization, and agricultural reorganization in the wake of Hurricane Mitch. The implications of the study's findings to conservation and development initiatives in the neotropics are discussed.

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Smallholder tree cultivation and management is a common form of land-use in high potential areas of Kenya. Some practices, such as the planting of trees on field boundaries are strongly rooted in customary notions of land and tree tenure. Others, such as the planting of black wattle (Acacia mearnsii) woodlots, are more recent innovations, introduced to produce commodities for domestic and export markets. This thesis explores the historic, cultural, and economic dimensions of tree growing in Kenya, using archival and ethnographic data, land-use surveys, and results from a survey of 123 households in the upper coffee/lower tea zone of Murang'a District. The household survey was designed to explore the hypothesis that tree growing complements formal employment as a strategy for overcoming poorly operating factor markets and helps to ease land-use constraints imposed by labour migration. Tree planting is favored because of its low capital and recurrent costs and when farmers are unable to plant other more resource-intensive crops. The survey focused on households which currently maintain a black wattle woodlot and on households which operate parcels which were used for growing black wattle in 1967, but which have since been cleared and are being used for growing something else. The survey showed that woodlot growing households operate larger parcels, are older, support fewer residents, and have more non-resident relatives than other households in the survey. Woodlot growing parcels are also at a lower altitude and are more steeply sloping than other parcels. Patterns of resource allocation suggest that woodlot growing households are more risk averse. Logistic regression (logit) modeling explored causal relationships, suggesting woodlots are indeed more likely to be established as households age and as labour becomes scarce, and that woodlot clearance takes place when labour is more available to cultivate the holding.

The broad aim of this research is to further our understanding of the incorporation of nature into socio-political processes of transition within countries at war. The concomitant capitalist production of nature and construction of political power is examined through the case of forest exploitation in Cambodia. The thesis draws on political ecology, sociological theories of power, and political economic theories of commodity chains to explain the apparent failure of both the Cambodian government and the international community to employ logging revenues as a positive factor for 'peace and reconstruction'. The main period of study extends from 1987 to 1998, during which Cambodia's protracted civil war ended. Timber represented over that period close to half of Cambodia's export earnings. However, this revenue largely escaped official taxation and reportedly fuelled the conflict, broadened wealth disparities, and deepened an environmental crisis. Rather than fully subscribing to this 'politics of plunder' story-line, this thesis examines the complexities of forestry practices, and flows of logging revenue, and analyses their relationship with the construction of political power throughout the process of transition. This construction of political power is interpreted through a neopatrimonial model in which social actors' politico-economic strategies both influence, and are influenced by the transition process. In Cambodia during the period of study, these strategies reinforced a 'shadow state' politics, through which the political elite, in part responding to the demands of international markets and the political challenge of the UN-sponsored peace process, consolidated its power by reorganising productive networks outside formal governance. In turn, domestic and international actors through both discursive and material practices resisted these strategies. The case of logging in Cambodia is thus interpreted as a contested process of transforming nature and incorporating space into 'productive networks', as part of a broader political economy of power.

This study develops and tests a method of intervention designed to incorporate the concept of sustainable development into management strategies for the natural tropical forest, in the particular case of forest exploitation by small-scale local sawmilling enterprises. Sustainable development is defined as a development process that satisfies jointly the goals of the biological, social and economic spheres of forest management. A review of orthodox management strategies suggested that they focus on maximizing benefits in only one or two of these spheres, and are inadequate to address the requirements of truly sustainable development. The stakeholder concept, adapted from modern corporate management theory, was identified as one model with the potential to satisfy the requirements of sustainable development. A management strategy based on stakeholder theory, termed the Integrated Management Approach (IMA), was developed for the case of locally-developed sawmilling enterprises dependent on the natural forest. The IMA is an iterative process based on the following steps: (1) the definition of criteria and the collection of information to describe the system as it was intended to operate (i.e., the Technical Limit of the operation) and as the enterprise is found at the time of initial intervention (i.e., the Benchmark Situation of the enterprise); (2) development of Negotiation Aims, based on the information collected, according to which the enterprise can progress towards the Technical Limits necessary for sustainable development; (3) identification of stakeholders and (4) their stakes in the enterprise; (5) assessment of stakeholder satisfaction, and negotiation from that basis towards the Negotiation Aims; (6) monitoring and iteration as necessary. Three East African sawmill enterprises were used as case studies to develop and test the IMA. The case studies exhibit many of the social, economic and biological conditions which have hindered successful implementation of traditional management systems to the natural tropical forest. The outcomes of the IMA process for each case study were compared in terms of the rating accorded criteria for each sphere and across spheres, and of the participation and satisfaction of stakeholders. In general, all parameters increased with successive iterations of the IMA, although a major change of attitude by one of the key stakeholders in the final iteration for one enterprise reversed many of the gains previously made, thereby demonstrating one of the limitations of the strategy. The results of this study suggest that the IMA has considerable potential to progress the objective of sustainable development for the case of local sawmilling enterprises operating under frontier conditions. They also suggest that the IMA should be applicable more generally, in facilitating sustainable development for a variety of enterprises based on natural resource use.

Dry cloud forests on the western slopes of the Peruvian Andes were mapped from aerial photographs, 306 stands being recorded from 4^o50'S to 12^o47'S. The frequency and area of these stands, as well as most parameters analyzed in the eight sample sites, show a steep decreasing latitudinal trend and are strongly correlated with the latitudinal rainfall gradient. The mean area of the forest stands decreases from 115 ha in northern Peru to 42 ha in central Peru. The number of species recorded decreases along the study area from 52 to 13 and there is a well defined latitudinal sequence of species. Mean density and basal area per hectare of stems ≥10 cm gbh decreases from 2995 individuals and 79.91 m^2 in the north to 500 individuals and 17.27 m^2 in central Peru. The vertical structure is similar throughout the study area, emergent trees reaching on average 22 m and the main canopy 12 m in the north and 13 m and 7 m respectively in central Peru. Regeneration is very active in northern Peru. Juveniles have been found for a high proportion of species, including all common ones, and most species show a logarithmic decline in number of stems with increasing girth. There is a steep decreasing trend towards central Peru, where few species regenerate, mostly shrubs. The pattern found may be the result of the combined effect of grazing and a climatic change towards drier conditions evidenced in the regeneration pattern of most sites.

Graduation date: 1978

Thesis (MSc)--University of Stellenbosch, 2007. / Bibliography. Also available via the Internet.

Thesis (M.S.)--Oregon State College, 1951. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaf 45). Also available on the World Wide Web.