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Tropentag, October 11 - 13, 2005 in Stuttgart-Hohenheim
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Forestry production systems in change: myth and realities
Jürgen Pretzsch
University of Dresden, Institute of International Forestry and Forest Products, Germany
Abstract
The development of forest production systems is triggered by exogenous framework conditions like markets, rules and infrastructure. Further exogenous influences are rooted in the prevailing guiding trends, visions and fashion, which often have no scientific base. The endogenous driving forces are institution and capacity building, technology innovation and diffusion. Forest production systems development is a complex iterative process responding to exogenous and endogenous factors and involving long term learning cycles.
In the last development decades forestry production systems have diversified and changed rapidly. Besides conventional production systems like natural forest utilisation under state or concession management, private plantation forestry or farm forestry and community forestry, new institutional arrangements like joint forest management and diverse systems oft Non Timber Forest Products (NTFPs) use have emerged. A huge number of case studies on different systems is available. The elaboration of an overarching dynamic framework, which permits a future oriented classification of forest production systems and their valuation by a SWOT analysis are seen as promising further steps.
Rooted in a genesis of forestry production system development, outstanding case studies of forest management systems are presented, discussed and first steps of a key-indicator based SWOT analysis are undertaken. Some of these systems are presented in detail in the contributions of the session. In some cases the long term outcomes of the particular system are still under discussion, as in case of private natural forest management initiatives in Brazil. In other systems outcomes are overvalued, as in the case of some Non Timber Forest Product based systems. Special emphasis is put on community forestry systems in South East Asia. The keynote is a plea for a better categorisation of forest production systems in an overarching framework and a continuous monitoring of their development. Conclusions permit an outlook towards promising pathways of forest production system development.
Keywords: SWOT analysis, Non Timber Forest Products
Contact Address: Jürgen Pretzsch, University of Dresden, Institute of International Forestry and Forest Products, P.O. Box 1117, 01735 Tharandt, Germany, e-mail: tropen
forst.tu-dresden.de
