130 Sustainability Assessment

Binswanger (1989) and Mahar (1989a) highlighted that the role of subsidies and tax breaks, particularly for cattle ranching, was one of the reasons for land clearing in the Amazon. Schneider et al. (1990) and Reis and Marguilis (1991) emphasized that incentives on agricultural rents had encouraged small-scale frontier settlement in the Amazon region. Indeed, the agricultural sector showed the largest share (over 80% on average) of total deforestation in all tropical forest countries (Barbier et al., 1992). The direct impact of forest activities in deforestation was minimal (.10%). This was partly because most commercial logging used to be done by selective logging. Amelung (1991) has shown the details of two alternative measures of forest degradation, biomass reduction and forest modification.

Although the economic influence on resource operations is clear to the governments and their advisors, in most cases, the attitude of people and governments of developing countries toward resources cannot be explained by economic principles or does not reflect in the economy of the country. Perhaps there are certain other factors, which are not explainable by economics alone. The influence of policy actions and the nature of administration together may ruin the resources of developing countries. Thus, it is important to evaluate administrative criteria pursued in policy implementation.

10.8 ADMINISTRATIVE FACTOR

Administrative factors of a country can be perceived as the role of organizational, institutional, and legal arrangements. Institutional and legal arrangements governing land tenure and transactions can have significant effects on resource use. For example, in some countries, property laws establish deforestation as a prerequisite of formal claim over the land for those settling in forested areas (Mahar, 1989b; Pearce et al., 1990). Large areas of old growth forests and economic forest zones in the Amazon have been lost by such exploitations (Grainger, 1993). Moreover, many governments are unable to effectively manage the public forest estate, resulting in illegal encroachment of logging. Short concession periods for logging operations on public land reduced the incentives for reforestation. Stumpage and license fees were frequently set at very low rates, which fail to reflect the scarcity value of standing timber. The case for fisheries resources of Bangladesh is similar. All of these are administrative factors have happened due to weak

institutional arrangement. The following sections show the limitations of different aspects of administration.

10.8.1 Right and Tenure

Right and tenure are administrative criteria with which access and admission to the resources are controlled. In the absence of right and tenure, a resource area essentially becomes an “open access” resource from which no one can be excluded. Under those circumstances, individuals may try to maximize their short-term benefit in a competitive fashion, leading to a quick exhaustion of resources. Failure to design appropriate concession arrangement for public resource areas and insecurity of ownership of new resource development (e.g., plantation and fish culture ponds) can create similar conditions of open access situations. That is why private individuals and their concerns usually make harvesting decisions based on short-term profit maximizing decision and may have little regard for the potential for greater future returns from the timber stand.

10.8.2 Decentralization

Decentralization may be one of the best options for undertaking resource operations and participation efficiently. In developing countries, like Bangladesh, where the history was centralization of power, decentralization of power both waxed and waned at different periods, particularly when governments changed. In long-term planning, as in forestry, lack of decentralization or frequent change of decentralization of power creates barriers to the sustainable management of resources. Although there are certain institutions for decentralization, e.g., Local Government (Union Council), Upazilla Parishad, in Bangladesh, villages in Indonesia (UNDP, 1993) and “Barangay” in the Philippines (de Guzman and Padilla, 1985), the institutions were more inclined to economic development than to environmental sustainability. Moreover, the structure and power of those local institutions have been changed frequently in Bangladesh with the changes of Government (Hye, 1985). Even the centralization concept in developing countries only works in limited cases like economic disbursement. On the sectors like social security, there is a weak centralized control; thereby, the centralization itself does not get completed. Different forms of decentralization have been shown in Fig. 10.1.

132 Sustainability Assessment

Decentralization

Vertical Horizontal

Decentralization: It involves giving discretionary power to local officers but decision is from center.

Delegation: It involves with offering partial power of decision but central authority may overturn it.

Devolution: Involves granting decision-making power to local authorities using their own responsibility.

Intermediation: Letting a variety of organizations not formally part of the government, to carry out activities which otherwise would have been done by the local governments.

Philanthropization: Where state encourages private voluntary organizations to channel resources to the local level or to work with local institutions perform some task which the sate otherwise would perform.

Fig. 10.1 Characteristics of decentralization. UNDP (1993) and Uphoff (1985).

Not all forms of decentralization would be useful for resource sustainability of a country. The utility of particular form of decentralization depends on the consideration of size of the country, population, and other sociopolitical factors (UNDP, 1993). For example, densely populated countries require more layers of governance than sparsely populated countries. In the case of highly populated countries, lower layer governance should have the equivalent power of the lowest layer of governance in sparse populations. However, quantities estimated from decentralization should be treated with care and need to be complemented by a broader knowledge and understanding of concerned countries. The authority and emphasis of decentralization may be expressed by the following terms:

•The expenditure decentralization ratio—the percentage of total central expenditure expensed by local authority of the resource department.

•Modified decentralization ratio—assuming that certain expenditure cannot be decentralized, e.g., staff salary, what proportion of the rest is spent by the local authority.

•Revenue decentralization ratio—it is the percentage of local authority revenue to the total central revenue. The larger ratio

shows higher revenue decentralization. In Bangladesh, almost all forest revenue is decentralized but controlled by the central power.

•Financial autonomy ratio—it gives an indication of local authorities’ independence from the central authority. It is the percentage of local authority revenue to the total expenditure.

•Employment decentralization ratio—local authority employees as a percent total employees of the department.

Although the reflection of decentralization in total governance could have an effect on the decentralization of a resource management system, the decentralization pattern of one country may not be the same and similarly useful for other countries. For example, the Indian mechanism of decentralization adopted the Franco mechanism, unlike the British or American system, in which several facets of deconcentration and decentralization combined (Muttalib, 1985), whereas in the Philippines it is a democratic decentralization, merely an American system (de Guzman and Padilla, 1985). Thus, the financial position of local government and its relationship with central government shape the pattern and sometimes power of local governments (Muttalib, 1985).

10.8.3 Accessibility

Sustainability of a policy depends on accessibility in formulation and control of resource accessibility through policy implementation. Accessibility during policy formulation establishes democracy and social participation ensuring a fair assessment of the needs of society and expectation of policy. Policy sustainability thereby can be arranged by negotiating between needs and expectation at the very beginning of policy.

Policy implementation on the other hand controls the accessibility of resources. Accessibility speeds up the transformation of resources. This happens when the access cannot be controlled administratively. Thus, a road network, is recognized as a useful tool for forest development in developed countries. In developing countries and particularly in highly populated countries, road development beyond a controllable limit causes resource degradation. Reis and Margauilis (1991) have found a correlation between the increase in road construction and an increase in the rate of deforestation in the Amazon area. Regarding the biodiversity loss as well, Reid and Miller (1989) claimed that the decline in rich biodiversity (50 90% of world biodiversity) of tropical forests gets affected more by road construction than the selective logging. Thus, for developing countries the road network can be an indicator of forest sustainability.