Forest management dynamics of the Siran watershed in the Western Himalayas region of Pakistan : a forest resource policy perspective | |
| Author | Khurshid, Muhammad |
| Call Number | AIT Diss. no.RD-00-4 |
| Subject(s) | Forest management--Pakistan Watersheds--Pakistan |
| Note | A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Technical Sciences, School of Environment, Resources and Development |
| Publisher | Asian Institute of Technology |
| Abstract | Forests play an important socio-economic and environmental role on earth. Exploitation of forest resources within the carrying capacity of the natural ecosystem has always ensured their sustainability but in recent decades man has overexploited these resources to meet various needs. Pakistan with only 4.8% of its total land area under forests is also experiencing unsustainable forest management. Forests were exploited to meet not only the domestic and commercial wood-fuel needs but also timber needs of the local and external markets. Moreover, the local communities as a source of income generation have also used forest resources to increase their cash income earnings. This study has attempted to analyze time series forest cover change in the past three decades in three adjacent sub-watersheds of the Siran watershed in the Western Himalayas in Pakistan, investigated its causes using wood demand and supply analysis and evaluated various sustainable forest management options. The GIS based spatial analysis showed that despite government efforts to conserve these forests, 75% of the forests were completely converted either into regeneration area (34%) or barren areas ( 41 % ) during the past three decades. The Protected Forests have lost 41 % of its cover and the Guz.ara Forests 34%. Results show that the forest degradation stress has greatly increased in the eighties and afterwards. · Social analysis was done using Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) and questionnaire survey to examine the biophysical and resources requirements of the local communities. Wood demand and supply analysis shows that the annual wood-fuel demand by the local communities has always been above 70% of all the wood demands in the past three decades. The annual wood supply from all sources could not satisfy the annual wood demand leaving an average annual supply gap of 5000 m3 • This gap is either filled by importing wood from other nearby forests or from outside the study area. Commercial logging by the Forest Development Corporation (FDC) and the Forest Cooperative Societies (FCS) also contributed significantly to accelerate the process of · forest degradation especially during the eighties. Using stakeholder analysis the key wood demanding stakeholders in terms of their wood demand stake were the local communities, the external commercial timber consumers, tobacco growers and Afghan refugees. The wood supplies stakeholders were the Forest Department that controls the Common Pool Forests (CPF), the FDC, the FCS and the farm foresters. Analysis of the cause effect relationship of the system shows that the pressure factors of increased wood demand by various stakeholders coupled with the enabling factors of the market failure, government failure and institutional failure has led to large scale forest degradation during the past three decades· in the study area. Strategic analysis of the system indicates that lack of national conservation strategies in the past coupled with paucity of resources, institutional weaknesses and lack of community based forest management has further aggravated the problem. Moreover, using SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis, it was observed that the internal weaknesses and external threats outweigh the internal strengths and external opportunities of the Forest Department. Based on these analytical results, priority issues were identified to develop a Sustainable Forest Management Strategy in the Siran watershed. Using feasibility and evaluation cri teria these issues were evaluated in terms of their economic efficiency, social soundness, institutional acceptability and environment and natural resources sustainability. The proposed Sustainable Forest Management options which fulfilled this criteria were the Community Based Forest Management, Wood Demand and Supply Management Interventions, Institutional Restructuring and Income Generation opportunit"ies using Integrated Forest Management in the study area. |
| Year | 2000 |
| Type | Dissertation |
| School | School of Environment, Resources, and Development (SERD) |
| Department | Department of Development and Sustainability (DDS) |
| Academic Program/FoS | Rural Development, Gender and Resources (RD) |
| Chairperson(s) | Remigio, Amador A.; |
| Examination Committee(s) | Apisit Eiumnoh;Hussain, Zakir;Thapa, Gopal B.;Clemente, Roberto;Mohd, Rusli Bin; |
| Scholarship Donor(s) | Joint Japan/World Bank Graduate Scholarship Program; |
| Degree | Thesis (Ph.D.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 2000 |