Forests and Poverty Alleviation

Poverty can be defined as a pronounced deprivation of well-being related to lack of material income or consumption, low levels of education and health, vulnerability and exposure to risk, no opportunity to be heard and powerlessness (World Bank 2001:15). Thus, poverty alleviation can be defined as successfully lessening deprivation of well-being. In this regard, forest-based poverty alleviation (FBPA) is an encompassing term, where forest resources are used either to avoid or to mitigate poverty, or to eliminate poverty, or both. FBPA is not a stand-alone process. The role forests and trees play in alleviating poverty tends to be linked with other land uses, in particular agriculture and grazing, mixed systems of crop and tree growing and utilisation. There are three principal ways to achieve FBPA: to prevent forest resources from shrinking if they are necessary for maintaining well-being (protecting the pie); to make forests accessible and redistribute resources and rents (dividing the pie differently); and to increase the value of forest production (enlarging the pie). All are vital but are applied differently, depending on forest uses and strategies adopted.