Zambezia (2001), XXVIII (ii).INTERVENTION IN NATURAL RESOURCE USE INBIRIWIRI, ZIMBABWEPARADZAYI P. BONGO AND M.F.C. BOURDILLONDepartment of Sociology, University of ZimbabweThey arrived already knowing everything. They come and look around, butthey see only what is not here (Philipino peasant quoted in Argawal, 1986).Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changinghimself (Tolstoy).INTRODUCTIONThis article discusses issues concerning intervention to protect the naturalenvironment. The discussion arises from a case study in Biriwiri, amountainous district in Eastern Zimbabwe, where many women earnextra income from the craft of bark cloth, using fibres from the bark ofslow-growing trees indigenous to the area. Our research in this area wasan exploratory investigation of the politics of natural resource utilisationwith special emphasis on the use of selected key miombo species, muunze,musasa and mupfuti, or brachystegia glaucescens, brachystegia spiciformisand brachystegia boehmii respectively. There is some concern that thisuse is damaging to the environment, and there have been attempts tofind alternative forms of income for the women, either through alternativesources of livelihood or through alternative sources of fibre.Intervention includes a variety of human and organisational activitiesassociated with the spread of technologies. In its simplest form,intervention may depend only upon mass media contact - perhaps aradio broadcast warning on the ecological impact of cutting trees. Oftenit involves establishing an intermediary presence within ruralcommunities, either through salaried staff (extension agents, village levelworkers, headmen, etc.) or through co-operatives, committees, andfarmers' associations (Abell, 1981, 12). Approaches to intervention canbe categorised into two broad types: those based on "push", where thesystem itself targets innovations which it tries to promote among resourceharvesters, and those based on "pull", where the service organisationresponds to the demands of those seeking help. Demand-led interventionof the second type is rarely seen in Africa when it comes to naturalresource utilisation. Instead, we have a "bureaucracy-led" interventionthat promotes technical innovations which scientists believe will meetrural people's needs.133134 INTERVENTION IN NATURAL RESOURCE USE IN BIRIWIRI, ZIMBABWEEnvironmental intervention has recently become fashionable. BothThe World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have in recenttimes spoken about an ecological crisis. Big business and multinationalcorporations have also jumped onto the bandwagon of environmentalism.The assumption behind this sudden discovery of an environmental crisisis a false democratic utopianism, which says that the challenge to survivalposed by the environmental crisis is so colossal that we cannot afford tolet social and economic differences stand in the way of sharing commonenvironmental problems. Whether you are an irrelevant and outmodedchurch or an illiterate, poverty-stricken villager in some remote part ofthe world or the IMF itself, the environmental crisis equalises all. Beforeit, all must acknowledge the possibility of a common catastrophe or thelate recovery of some opportunities for a common future.In contrast to this view, Ellis Frank (1993, 248) asserts that for thepeasant household, the environment is not about dolphins or whales,toxic waste or the ozone layer, recycled tin cans or newspapers. Instead,it is about resources that contribute directly to family livelihood: water,trees, meadows, wild plants and animals. Environmental aspects of peasantlivelihood must be approached, as must other aspects, by discoveringthe forces acting on individual and social decisions. In relation to this,Einarsson (1996,75) argues that Icelandic fishermen see campaigns againstthe hunting of whales as threatening both a way of life and, in the longerrun, their right to basic subsistence. In Icelandic fishing villages there arealmost no alternatives to fishing. In support of this view, Milton (1996)asserts that conflicts concerning conservation often involve externalinfluence on local resource use, where conservationists and indigenousresource users disagree on how, or even if, a resource should be used.This conversation of conservation (see Kaus, 1990) is often hampered bybasically different cultural assumptions on how natural resources are tobe viewed. Such conflicts are culture conflicts and not just "a question ofscientifically rational standards of resource utilisation.Leach and Fairhead (1998, xiv) illustrate how conceptions ofuninhabited forest as "nature" undisturbed by people, have providedtenurial grounds for national and international guardians to intervene inhabitat protection. Further, views of forests as an ecosystem at equilibriumwith climatic conditions in the absence of human disturbance haveprovided moral and scientific grounds for external management to overridethe "disruptive" effect of local populations. Added to these are moralarguments based on the notions of forest areas as global commons ornational patrimony, to be protected in an undisturbed state for a larger,future good. The reality is that human actions are part of the web ofinfluences on ecological change, and are not external impacts disturbingthe equilibrium. Sargent and Bass (1992) maintain that human impacts onP. BONGO AND M.F.C. BOURDILLON 135the forest are not a function of numbers alone. They are also a function ofthe political, economic and social signals that cause individuals to moveinto and within forests. Outside the forest, it is clear that many prevailingeconomic and policy signals marginalise people, forcing them into theforest. These signals must be understood for more effective intervention.Particularly important is a review of land use and land ownership policiesand practices in the agricultural hinterland. Echoing what Redclift (1987)has highlighted, a particular cultural group will not necessarily respectthe constraints on resource use stemming from the theoretical carryingcapacity of land. Rather, the knowledge gained from sustainable resourceuse forms part of the environmental practices of most indigenouspopulations. It is also essential in intervention to know what environmentalproblems appear unsustainable, to people as well as in technical terms,and the answers lie in cultural interpretations of crisis.This article looks at the use of forest resources by women of Biriwiri.We examine the inter-play between the perspectives of outsideconservationists and members of the community. We also look briefly atthe economic situation of the women, in which immediate and urgentneeds make environmental considerations secondary. We suggest thatsuccessful intervention needs to pay more attention to the immediateneeds and the perspectives of the community.STUDY AREA AND THE BARK FIBRE CRAFTThis article is based on a study carried out in Biriwiri Ward in ChimanimaniDistrict of Zimbabwe. Biriwiri is a sub-catchment named after the BiriwiriRiver that flows through it. It forms part of the Nyanyadzi catchment inChimanimani District and is very mountainous, reaching from 870 metreswhere the Biriwiri flows into the Nyanyadzi River to I 957 metres at thehighest point in the catchment, with very steep slopes. The variation inaltitude results in differences in the rainfall received and temperaturesexperienced in different parts of the area under study. The downstreamparts are dry and hot, whereas the upstream parts are colder and wetter.The soils are mainly red with a lot of stony gravel. Since the area is sohilly, people have managed to cultivate crops on terraced patches of landas a soil conservation measure. Crops grown include millet, wheat (underirrigation), beans, maize, sunflowers and sorghum. The remaining area isfor firewood, for grazing and construction. Also included in this study arethe neighbouring villages of Nyamusundu and Saurombe, plus the westernMhakwe and Chikwakwa areas.In Biriwiri, the importance of forest products is usually more in theway they fill gaps and complement other sources of subsistence inputsand income than in their absolute magnitude or share of overall householdinputs. The incomes that the women earn from craft are not substantial,136 INTERVENTION IN NATURAL RESOURCE USE IN BIRIWIRI, ZIMBABWElargely due to the flooding of the market, which has depressed prices.Further, the earnings are erratic and unpredictable as they are determinedby the number and frequency of tourists and merchants who buy thecraft products. Nevertheless, the craft is an important buffer against theperiodic droughts and poor soils in the area. Those women who madethe best products stood to have more of their artefacts purchasedcompared to the poor performers.Even though earnings from craft are on average not substantial,there are strong political, economic and social signals that causeindividuals to exploit trees for craft. Particularly crucial in Biriwiri arethe problems encountered in agriculture. There were prohibitively highcosts of agricultural inputs, particularly fertiliser, maize, and cotton seedsas well as chemicals like pesticides. During the 199S-99 agricultural season,fertiliser was expensive and scarce. Some shop-owners and middlementook advantage of this shortage by measuring out small packs of about 2kgs or more from 50-kg bags and selling these small packets. In someinstances, one 50-kg bag could fetch $7004750 for a trader from suchsales. This was too high for the rural farmers, considering the fact thatthe normal price for 50 kgs of Ammonium Nitrate was then $289.The women in Biriwiri cut tender shoots of the young miombo trees.They also cut softer branches of big, grown trees of the same species.They extract the fibre mainly by hitting the tree or branch to break theouter hardness whilst the webbing is left inside. They then boil the fibretogether with ash for colouring. They often dry the fibre and pound itwith mortar and pestle (kutwa). The fibre is then pressed to soften it.After this, the fibre is spun (kukosd) into strands or strings (ngoi) of thedesired length and thickness. The standard length of each ngoi is 2metres. The strings are then sold in bundles (pukii) of 20 strings. Oncethe ngoi has been prepared the women use it to weave blankets, hats,mats, small animals, bags, and even clothes.For many women, the handicraft connection is the only opportunitythey have in their lives to earn an independent cash income. Their greatgrandparents used tree fibre to weave blankets (magudzd) in order tokeep the family warm at night. Since then the craftwork has come to beknown generally as magudza. According to the early members of thewomen's craft co-operative at Muusha Rural Craft Centre (also in Biriwiri),a Mrs Chitombo from Mutoko exposed them to vigilant marketing of theircraft items. With encouragement and support from Mrs Chitombo, thesewomen then formed groups with different specialities. Some specialisedin making hats and others in making blankets. Mrs Chitombo took theirartefacts for marketing in Harare. Some whites who saw the items wereimpressed and placed orders. This heralded the commercialisation ofBiriwiri women's craft which was originally utilised for consumptionP. BONGO AND M.F.C. BOURDIL.LON 137only. The women do the craft work throughout the year, even during thesummer season when people are busy in the fields. However, when thetrees shed their leaves in the off-season, the fibre yield is low. At the timeof the research there were four established craft co-operatives, namelyMuusha, Shingirirai, Muzinda and Totonga. A very insignificant numberof men were directly involved in craft work.In this research, one could talk of actors like the Department ofNatural Resources (DNR), the District Council, or non-governmentalorganisations (NGOs) involved in women's craftwork for the purposes ofaffecting, modifying or preventing a result, e.g., unregulated tree cutting.The major player in intervention in bark fibre craft in Biriwiri to date hasbeen the DNR.Although craftwork was most visible in the form of co-operatives,there were some women who did it individually and these often sourcedtheir own clients. They could not join the established co-operativesbecause these had already been oversubscribed. Almost every householdin Biriwiri is involved in craft.It appears as if the DNR is not keen on supporting the women craftworkers, particularly those who are not members of established andregistered co-operatives. The District Head of the DNR expressed theofficial position of his organisation as being not sure whether the craftworkshould be promoted or encouraged, because of its potentially damagingeffect on trees. They have chosen to adopt the "precautionary principle"in natural resource utilisation. According to Agent and O'Riordan (1995,391), the precautionary principle involves taking preventive action aheadof scientific certainty on the grounds of its being better to be safe thansorry. It enables us to narrow the range of uncertainty about theenvironmental impact of human activities. Intervention in natural resourceuse could therefore be justified on the grounds that knowledge aboutenvironmental conditions is particularly inadequate, due partly toconceptual problems (for example how to define soil depletion or loss ofnatural habitat) and partly to the fact that mechanisms often are not inplace to measure raw facts. The DNR head even conceded that hisorganisation had never done research on the rate of tree loss, but aredepending on social mapping, best portrayed by people relating how thedistance to collect firewood has been growing steadily over the years.The DNR has intervened in natural resource utilisation in Biriwiri and theChimanimani District at large in a number of ways, with animators,plantations and the Mhakwe Dam project being chief.The women regard their craft activities as not damaging to theenvironment. One woman emphasised this point by saying:We saw the trees we were debarking regenerate year after year and sowe realised there was no damage being done . . . and we have been138 INTERVENTION IN NATURAL RESOURCE USE IN BIRIWIRI, ZIMBABWEdoing this craft-work since long ago but trees are still there ... Thereforecraft-work is not killing trees.The women attribute the loss of trees to firewood merchants, brickmoulding and to clearing land for agricultural purposes. One Mrs M. ofthe Shingirirai Craft Co-operative emphatically pointed to a small baobabtree in her yard, about which she said:You see that tree? We've been using its fibre since I was a girl and up tonow it is still surviving, therefore our craft does not destroy trees . . .We look after our trees very well knowing that that is where we get ourlivelihood from.The women have even challenged the authorities such as DNR,Ministry of Mines, Environment and Tourism, Chimanimani DistrictCouncil, to prove that they are damaging trees through their craft. In fact,there has been no study on the ecological impact of the craft and no harddata to support the allegations of the officials. This has led to indecisionon the part of the authorities. For instance, the SAFIRE head was quotedas saying:We are not really sure of the impact of this craft. It could be ecologicallybeneficial, since the tree loss (if any) could be thinning, which isbiologically beneficial to the forests.There has in fact been some form of moral self-restraint on utilisationof natural resources in Biriwiri, espoused in the people's displeasure atwanton cutting down of trees. This sense of collective social responsibilitywas demonstrated in a tree cutting incident that happened near MhakweDam. People in the area know that they can be punished for cutting downtrees. Mr Muranda, the local animator in Mhakwe, showed me a tree thathad been cut by someone in late October 1998, who then became afraidto come and collect the wood. The tree was still there in January 1999.The person was afraid of being detected because he knew that he hadflouted social norms governing tree preservation in the area. Thisillustrates collective social policing over natural resource use. In Mhakwe,this collective social responsibility is not confined to trees only, but alsoto other natural resources. For instance, anyone caught by other villagerswashing clothes in Mhakwe Dam will be reported to the authorities, whowill then fine such a person. Many projects are being undertaken toensure tree conservation, including planting mutondo trees, use of chingwastoves (stoves especially designed to use firewood economically) andattempting to divert women's attention from tree fibre craft to commercialfishing and irrigation.P. BONGO AND M.F.C. BOURDILLON 139ATTEMPTS AT INTERVENTIONAnimatorsAnimators are people of either sex given training on environmental issues,who then go about the villages lobbying for sustainable use of naturalresources. The DNR in Chimanimani has, in collaboration with the SaveRehabilitation Action Committee, embarked on a campaign to preventsiltation of the Save River. Africa 2000, an NGO, is also involved in thetraining. Activities during training of animators include: field visits toestablished projects in which the ecology is managed by the community;presentations from government and NGO officials on conservation ofnatural resources; group discussions of these presentations, includingthe work strategies they raise.There are two animators in Biriwiri. These people are supposed toliaise with the DNR on issues pertaining to conservation such as policingstream bank cultivation, cutting down trees, and constructing terracesand contour ridges. However, these animators lack real power to imposesanctions and penalties on offenders and people may choose to ignorethem or to ostracise them should they be too diligent in carrying outtheir duties. One government official had this to say in relation to thisissue:Hapana ane simba chairo...vanhu vanotyanana, zvinhu zvizhinjichaizvozvinorongwa kuitwa pabepa asi hapana chinozoitwa kuona kutizvarongwa izvozvo zvateedzerwa here. Huramende yedu inogona chaizvokuronga misangano asi hapana chipenyu chinozobuda pamisangano iyoyo.(No-one has real power .. . People fear each other. A lot of things aresaid on paper concerning environmental conservation but nothingmaterialises . . . Our government is good at organising and runningseminars which produce no real follow-up and effectual implementationof policy recommendations from these seminars).This is not to downplay the important role that the animators couldpossibly play, but it does point to the fact that they need to be moreempowered if they are to be effective change agents. Animators hadsome success in policing of stream bank cultivation, an activity in whichAgritex was also active; a number of people had their maize crop onstream banks slashed by Agritex in collaboration with animators. Butthere were no other signs of successful intervention. However, suchdrastic action created tension between law enforcement agents and therural community.Animators are members of the communities in which they work.They are aware of the problems that people face, and in particular thelack of possibilities of income outside farming in Biriwiri. Their socialrelations with the people created a moral problem for them when enforcingsome of the laws that impinge on the livelihood of individuals.140 INTERVENTION IN NATURAL RESOURCE USE IN BIRIWIRI, ZIMBABWEPlantationsSAFIRE and Z1MTRUST have a joint effort with the DNR to identify treespecies other than miombo that are considered to be plentiful andtherefore not endangered to replace the miombo species in bark fibrecraft. Once such trees have been identified, plantations will be established.Such plantations will no longer be for subsistence but for commercialpurposes, as is happening in Nyanyadzi, under the auspices of the sameorganisations. In Nyanyadzi, the DNR is establishing plantations of selectedindigenous and exotic plants which serve as reserves of firewood, buildingmaterial and also bark fibre, since the women in Nyanyadzi debark baobabtrees for craft.In Biriwiri no such plantation had been established at the time ofresearch, but some individual households had been given eucalyptusseedlings by the Forestry Commission to plant at their homesteads.However, the gravel in the soil results in poor water retention and mostof the donated seedlings have been drying. For purposes of the craftwork,eucalyptus is unsuitable since It has poor quality and weak fibre comparedto the indigenous miombo woods.With regard to the establishment of plantations in Biriwiri, they donot normally replace virgin forest; rather they replace crops, grasslandsor secondary forests. Due to commercial necessities, they are rarelyestablished on degraded soil, as their objective is short cycles of rapidgrowth requiring a certain level of fertility and water supply (Bazett,1993). Hence they typically occupy areas already being used in variousways by local people. Biriwiri lacks land for planting trees. People needmore land for crop cultivation and have none to spare for tree planting.Nevertheless action needs to be taken to replace trees being lost inmany ways, most of which relate to activities necessary for human survivalin Biriwiri. Sargent and Bass (1992, 200) argue that one of the mostimportant roles of forests in many parts of the world is to regulate watersupplies. Without trees, extremes of water flow, droughts and floods,would be common. Plantations can help in climatic and hydrologicalregulation, but natural forests are uniquely able to conserve high levelsof biological diversity. Tree conservation and planting are important alsobecause with the slow pace of rural electrification, fuel-wood demand willconstitute the principal economic pressure on forests around villages,towns and cities in developing countries. Fuel-wood and charcoal alreadyaccount for 80% of total world consumption in developing countries, forover 2 billion people use biomass as their primary source of energy.Consumption is expected to rise at 1.7% per year world wide, and therewill be increasing commoditisation of non-timber forest products(Montalembert, 1991).P. BONGO AND M.F.C. BOURDILLON 141The Mhakwe Dam projectThe Mhakwe Dam is a CAMPF1RE (Communal Areas ManagementProgramme for Indigenous Resources) project under the auspices of theMinistry of Water and DNR, completed in 1994. Initially this project wasintended for fishing by those on the upper side and for irrigation by thoseon the lower side of the dam. The Mhakwe area animator sits on thecommittee elected to run the affairs of the dam. Mhakwe Ward is themain supplier of bark fibre to Biriwiri women, and the animator is confidentthat it will be possible for them to divert women's attention from craftworkto commercial fishing. The majority of the committee members are women,including the chairperson. One of the sadunhus (ward head) is a woman,1a situation viewed as a plus by the animator in the curbing of tree cuttingand bark stripping by women for craft. By 14 July 1999, there wereworkshops in Mhakwe to draft by-laws to be used on the dam. Thecommunity wants to assert their authority on the dam. They do not liketo have the Ministry of Water employees who built the dam come and fishas they like without the locals' consent.According to the local animator, who also sits on the dam committee,the dam is not exclusively for Mhakwe villagers but for everyone to usefor a fee. Plans are underway to set up charges for each type of use of thedam, particularly fishing. The DNR hopes that as an income-generatingproject, fishing may occupy people and leave them without time for craft-work. They have plans to build booking rooms to accommodate thosewho will be coming from afar to fish and also to put up a vigorousadvertising campaign through billboards, signposts, etc. However,considering the small size of the dam, these hopes are not realistic.The DNR and animators are establishing consolidated gardens nearthe dam where villagers can eam a living through utilising water from thedam. The women, as in Biriwiri, are also being encouraged to plant sisal(chikwengd) to conserve the soil and as a possible substitute for indigenousbark fibre. Vertiver grass (vetiveria zizanoides) has also been plantedaround the dam and in the village.THE PROBLEMATIC OF INTERVENTIONWhilst it is good to take action with a view to curbing environmentaldegradation, Chambers (1997) would want us to proceed with caution inintervention, especially as he asks "Whose reality counts?" He advisesagents of intervention against regarding their views as superior to thoseof rural people being studied. He also challenges the dominance of views1 This is exceedingly rare In Shona society.142 INTERVENTION IN NATURAL RESOURCE USE IN BIRIWIRI, ZIMBABWEby outsiders and professionals, such as that displayed by the DNR headwhen he said,The methods the women employ in their craft are too primitive and wewant to eradicate them, but this doesn't happen in a day... The peopleneed to be educated on proper use of their resources.Chambers would say this is an "upper" dominance view. The upperre-labels the lower and redefines his reality for him. The upper wants it tobe his reality that counts. The point is that the DNR should not justsuppose that people in Biriwiri are going to embrace the dam projectaccording to the perceptions of the authorities. Much depends on thedegree of consultation to ensure the project corresponds to what peoplewant and not what they are expected to want by professionals andoutsiders. In a different context, David Brown (1998) asserted that "silver-bullet technologies", which attempt to replace at a stroke livelihoodsystems that have evolved over centuries with miracle cures of externalorigin, have proven of doubtful benefit to forest-dependent communities.This could profitably have been noted by the DNR and the NGOs involvedin the Mhakwe Dam project.One of the means by which policy-makers "box themselves in" isthrough labelling referring particularly to "the way in which people,conceived as objects of policy, are defined in convenient images" (Wood,1985, 1). Labels are put on "target groups" as passive objects of policy(e.g., "the landless", "sharecroppers", "women"), rather than recognisingthem as active subjects with projects and agendas of their own. Thedisarming shorthand of labelling constructs a problem in such a way asto prescribe a predetermined solution, and legitimises the actions ofdevelopment agencies and other public bodies in intervening to bringabout the intended results (cf. Long and Van der Ploeg, 1989). Suchclassifications are "represented as having universal legitimacy, as thoughthey were in fact natural" (Wood, 1985, 9). Wood argues further,Labels misrepresent or more deliberately falsify the situation and roleof the labelled. In that sense, labels... in effect reveal [the] relationshipof power between the giver and the bearer of a label (Wood, 1985,11).More effective intervention in Biriwiri should start from an informedbasis. Purwandono and Karki (1999) put forward a market analysis anddevelopment approach as part of a more effective intervention in naturalresource utilisation, particularly with reference to non-timber forestproducts. This approach aims to expand the skills of facilitating agencies(such as development project personnel in SAFIRE, CAMPF1RE, DNR andthe Chimanimani District Council) to identify and develop products(existing or new) that can be ecologically harvested, processed andP. BONGO AND M.F.C. BOURDILLON 143marketed in order to provide an acceptable income for entrepreneurs.Market analysis and development consist of a number of phases.The first phase involves the assessment of the existing situation interms of production and marketing of bark fibre products. This shouldinvolve a macro-situation analysis, that is, an analysis of the nationalsocio-political context, legislation (e.g., the Forest Act, Natural ResourcesAct) and policies controlling extraction and marketing of non-timberforest products in Zimbabwe. Unfortunately conservation in Africa hasfrequently meant the simple exclusion of rural people from nationalparks and forest reserves, in the interests of the protection of largeanimal species and preservation of habitats (Anderson and Grove, 1987).Particularly important would be an inventory of existing resources andproducts. By observing and directly questioning local people, a broadpicture of the range of existing natural resources and products is obtained.The best informants are the users of forest products in Biriwiri. Aftersuch an exercise, one can come up with a comprehensive list of resources(including trees) or products available at the site by the communitymembers for consumption or cash income. No such analysis has beencarried out in Biriwiri. The DNR has not assessed scientifically the effectsof the craft, and are consequently uncertain about the appropriate modeof intervention.The second stage involves identification of products, markets andmeans of marketing so as to specify the interventions and expensesassociated with making improvements in skills and technology. Ofparticular importance is the social institutional setting. Research hasshown that once a resource becomes a commodity in high demand,conflicts can arise between neighbouring families and communities whohave to share the same resource. In Nepal, communities gathering theHimalayan nettle aloe {Girardina diversifolid) for production of yarn to bewoven into cloth have had to receive assistance in conflict resolutionbecause of the increased demands on the resource in their locality. InBiriwiri, trees have become a source of conflict between firewood traders,women bark fibre workers, DNR and the Forestry Commission.There is an urgent need to assess the adequacy of current stock ofnon-timber forest products and to estimate the potential of long-termextraction of a projected volume. The outcome of such an environmentalstudy is a resource management plan for determining which areas toharvest, how and where to establish access routes and collection centres,and for evaluating costs and benefits of different harvest strategies.Anderson (1999) argues that stocks and flows can be used to determinethe sustainable harvest of a species by calculating appropriate flowlevels. The stock of a resource is the quantity of (brachystegia) treesavailable for exploitation. The flow of a resource is the quantity entering144 INTERVENTION IN NATURAL RESOURCE USE IN BIRIWIRI, ZIMBABWEor leaving a system and depends both on the time needed for extraction(travel and harvesting time) and the demand for the product. Given therequisite technical expertise from ecologists and biologists, adoptingand maintaining a given stock of natural capital (trees) requires that theflow out of the system (harvesting or deaths) is no greater than the flowinto the system (births or seedling recruitment), Flows and the ability ofa species like miombo to replace itself will be strongly influenced byharvesting pressure. This pressure can be understood by analysingdecisions and behaviour of local tree harvesters, information is neededabout who harvests, at what rate and under what conditions. Land usemaps and interviews with people involved in market sales can helpanswer these questions. The sustainability of raw materials is assessedthrough the use of forest inventories or yield studies and only productswhose stock of raw materials is sustainable will be promoted. A detailedknowledge of the social and cultural situation will avoid violation of localtradition, religion or unwritten laws, or the use of property whoseownership is in dispute.People aspire to a range of outcomes. Intervention agents in Biriwirishould use the livelihood approach, which builds on the findings ofparticipatory assessments of poverty (Booth et al., 1998). These havetaught us that we should listen to those with whom we are working andlearn from them about their objectives, their understanding of what itmeans to be poor and to escape from poverty, as well as their beliefsabout the root causes of that poverty. The short-term survival ratherthan the sustainable management of natural capital is often the priorityof people living in poverty. Intervention agencies in Biriwiri must workclosely with rural people to help them understand the contribution(positive or negative) that their bark fibre craft is making to theenvironment and to promote sustainability as a long-term objective.CONCLUSIONThere has been a tendency to single out problems (e.g., deforestation)and ascribe them to people on a global scale or to broad categories ofpeople, like "peasants" or "rural poor". This article advocates for arecognition of the need to determine empirically which of many possibleintervention routes/models have relevance for particular people atparticular times. Adams (1990) says that crisis has become a commonplacemotif of development writing. The perception of dramatic and insolubleenvironmental problems in the countries of the "South" is common topoliticians, aid agencies, academic analysts, extension workers and themedia. 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