Vocational Training Centres as Hubs for Community Forestry Extension in Solomon Islands

Transcription

1 [PS16] Vocational Training Centres as Hubs for Community Forestry Extension in Solomon Islands Timothy J. Blumfield 1 and Frédérique Reverchon 1 1 Introduction The Rural Training Centres (RTCs) are vocational training centres established to give life skills training to young people who have not completed formal education. There are 45 RTCs and a further 55 Community Based Training Centres (CBTCs) scattered throughout the Solomon Islands archipelago, making them the ideal base from which to offer community forestry extension. As part of a project for the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), we have developed a model for establishing the RTCs and their associated CBTCs as hubs for community forestry extension, organising workshops and field days within their communities, providing training in agroforestry and forest rehabilitation and establishing community-based nurseries for the distribution of the improved planting material that the project is developing. ACIAR project FST/2007/020 Improving silvicultural and economic outcomes for community timber plantations in the Solomon Islands by interplanting with Flueggea flexuosa and other Pacific agroforestry species established demonstration trials in three RTCs (Blumfield et al., 2013), though this in itself led to the uptake of agroforestry into a further 13 of the 34 RTCs.The partnership with the Solomon Islands Association of Rural Training Centres (SIARTC) has been an important aspect of disseminating agroforestry information in a country with poor infrastructure and communications and this relationship will be strengthened in the new project. 1.1 The Tyranny of Distance Solomon Islands is an archipelago of nearly 1,000 islands that vary in size from small coral atolls to large volcanic ranges (Figure 1). Less than 20% of the population live in urban areas, the rest are scattered throughout the country, mainly on the larger volcanic islands. There are less than 600 kms of public roads in the entire country (C.I.A., 2013) meaning that boats are the primary form of travel for everywhere outside the main population centres on Guadalcanal and Malaita. Transport services are reasonable to these larger population centres but hardly exist elsewhere. The most prolific form of local transport is the wooden canoe, carved from a single trunk of the canoe tree ( Gmelina moluccana). Those who can afford it have larger boats with an outboard motor, either wooden, fibreglass or aluminium which are often used for inter-island trips. 1 Environmental Futures Centre, Griffith University, Australia. t.blumfield@griffith.edu.au and

2 IUFRO 3.08 & 6.08 Joint Conference Future Directions of Small-scale and Community-based Forestry Figure 1: Solomon Islands The difficulty of communication provides very real challenges for extension work mainly due to the lack of basic infrastructure that inhibits travel between communities. When project FST/2007/020 was established, our original intention was to establish demonstration trials in a few locations that would act as a focal point for extension work with growers brought in for field days and training the trainer opportunities. There was also the problem of land tenure. Melanesia has a complex system of land ownership (Mohamed and Clark, 1996) with a mix of matrilineal and patrilineal societies and actual land ownership obscured beneath interweaving layers of custom and obligation. Even the trees on land owned by one person can be the property of another. Establishing potentially valuable plantings on customary land was an open invitation to conflict. It was therefore essential that demonstration plots had to be established on land that was free of customary obligations with a clear and established title. Both Government-owned and Church-owned land met this criteria and the involvement of both bodies in education throughout the Solomon Islands provided the vital key to the solution of both problems. In particular, the involvement of the many different Christian denominations in non-formal education through the rural training centre network, and the establishment of these RTCs on church-owned land provided both the unencumbered land and the vector for the dissemination of the agroforestry systems. There is a long history of church involvement in non-formal education and the rural training centre model has proven responsive to local needs in a manner often unavailable to the rigid structures of the formal education system (Reymer, 1999). Rural Training Centres are run by specific denominations and draw their trainees from all over the Solomon Islands, not just from the local community. These centres therefore become the ideal locations for both training and demonstration plots as trainees return home to villages throughout the archipelago, taking with them the ideas and knowledge gained at the Centres

3 2 Method In order to test the effectiveness of the proposed model for the development of RTCs as a focus for extension activity, we have selected 5 RTCs in separate provinces to develop as community forestry hubs (Figure 2). FST/2007/020 established demonstration trials in three Rural Training Centres (RTCs), though this in itself led to the uptake of agroforestry into a further 13 of the 34 RTCs. In agreement with the SIARTC, this involvement will be expanded with the aim of including agroforestry trials in most of the remaining RTCs and secondary forest management trials in some (3-6) of the community-based RTCs (CBTCs). Community-based nurseries will be established to provide the improved seedlings that will underpin the success of this approach. Figure 2: Conceptual framework establishing the role of RTCs as a hub for the dissemination of knowledge on community forestry extension. 3 Discussion 3.1 Agroforestry Extension in a Fragmented Landscape Community forestry extension has been virtually non-existent in Solomon Islands due mainly to the difficulty of travel and communication. Forestry extension has always been heavily reliant on field days and workshops and, in areas where education levels are poor, a practical, hands-on approach to extension is paramount. One of the legacies left behind by the AusAID funded Forest Management Project was a network of Community-Based Forestry Extension Officers (CBFEOs) who, as the name suggests, live within rural communities providing advice on forestry matters. These CBFEOs are poorly resourced and receive little practical support from Head Office in Honiara, again due to the difficulties of travel and communication. It therefore seemed logical to bring the RTCs and the CBFEOs together

4 IUFRO 3.08 & 6.08 Joint Conference Future Directions of Small-scale and Community-based Forestry We have also received support from the Ministry of Agriculture for the involvement of the Agricultural Extension Officers in the development of the RTC hubs. Our partnership with the Solomon Islands Association of Rural Training Centres (SIARTC) has been an effective tool for reaching students and it has been decided to make this network the basis for extension activities, drawing upon the close linkages between the RTCs and their local communities. We were particularly interested in utilising the relationships between the established RTCs and the Community-Based Training Centres (CBTCs) which are established by local communities and which call upon the RTCs to provide trainers as needed. 3.2 Sustainable Forest Management Not all areas within the Solomon Islands are suitable for commercial plantings due to location and remoteness, yet in many cases the local forest has been destroyed or severely degraded by logging operations. These areas are ideally suited for reforestation projects that will restore the timber and non-timber resources for local use and will have the capacity to benefit local communities through carbon and biodiversity credits through schemes such as the CDM and REDD+. As part of the strategy for keeping growers informed of the choices they have with regard to forestry, this project will establish trial areas to examine the use of agroforestry as a tool to bring about forest rehabilitation. Research trials will examine rehabilitation strategies while also examining the potential to feed in to the carbon and biodiversity credits available through REDD+. These trials will be village based but there are also community based RTCs which will be the focal points for the rehabilitation activities. Most RTCs are denominational and are separate from specific communities, operating on church land. CBTCs are situated within villages to train the village young people in vocational skills and they therefore have access to village land for their activities. This approach will require the active participation of the village landowners who will be involved from the onset of our engagement with the RTCs. We will involve both CBFEOs and the community -based RTCs in trials to improve degraded forests through agroforestry with field days starting in the second and third years to demonstrate the results to the community. Students will be trained to undertake biodiversity monitoring using a transect-based approach to identify and number local birds and results will be collated and displayed during field days. Growth measurements by the students will be used to demonstrate carbon gains from agroforestry plots, thinning trials and secondary forest management trials. The results will also be displayed at the RTCs and used in Field days and workshops. 3.3 Community-Based Nurseries The end of the supply chain for providing high quality germplasm to communities will be the establishment of a network of community-based nurseries that will use the improved genetic material being developed through our own projects and through the Ministry of Forestry. A specific approach of this initiative will include community participation in the propagation of seed stock; thereby engaging local knowledge and practices in the nursery and tree planting program. Currently the teak seed most widely planted in the Solomon Islands comes from a clonal orchard established and

5 distributed through the Ministry of Forestry. A provenance trial underway on Kolombangara will soon be turned into a seed production area, further improving the available germplasm and our iown project has established a seed production area for Flueggea flexuosa, the local tree we use in out agroforestry trial. Seed from these seed production areas will be supplied to the community nurseries through the forestry network, a system that will be enhanced by the involvement of the CFEOs. 4 Conclusion RTCs were developed as a response to the difficulties of transport and communication in Solomon Islands. The Community based RTCs were developed as communities identified specific needs within their own areas and involved the active participation of the community. There institutions are therefore the ideally placed as the centres for extension activities and, through the establishment of demonstration trials can exist as a practical resource for other extension activity. Acknowledgments The research described in this paper is undertaken through funding provided by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research. We would also like to acknowledge the contribution of the Solomon Island Government Ministries of Forestry and Agriculture and the ongoing support of the Solomon Islands Association of Rural Training Centres and the staff and students of the Centres we work in. References Blumfield, T., Bacon G. Lyons, K, Walters P, Tutua S and Moveni R, (2013) Improving silvicultural and economic outcomes for community timber plantations in Solomon Islands by interplanting with Flueggea flexuosa and other Pacific agroforestry species, Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research Final Report Publication Code: FR , ISBN: Central Intelligence Agency, 2013 The World Factbook Washington, DC: Date Last Accessed, 21/07/2013 Mohamed N, Clark K (1996) Forestry on customary-owned land: Some experiences from the South Pacific. Rural Development Forestry Network Paper 19a. Overseas Development Institute, London. Reymer C (1999) Breathing New Life into Education for Life: A Reconceptualisation of Non-Formal Education with a Focus on the Melanesian Pacific. Joint Conference of the Australian Association for Research in Education and the New Zealand Association for Research in Education, Melbourne, Australia