Towards the Legal Recognition and Governance of Forest Ecosystem Services in Mozambique

Within the context of Mozambique, this paper examines the state of forest ecosystem services, the dependency of the population on these systems for their well-being, if an adaptive governance regime is being created which will ensure the resilience of the forest ecosystem services including the legal framework, the institutions operating within this framework, the tools available and their functioning, and how cooperative governance is operating.


Introduction
The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Report (the MA) 2 identified that the development of improved governance systems to control and reduce the degradation of all ecosystems services including forests was of key importance. This governance needs to be adaptive, including ensuring that the following components are integrated: 3 (i) it must focus on policy and institutional intersections and cooperation at various levels; (ii) it must be flexible to rapid change, and ensure that policy and legal changes are incremental and adaptive with continuous learning; (iii) it must create mechanisms for sustainable forest management (SFM) and livelihoods by securing the rights to forestry goods and services; and (iv) it must create regulatory mechanisms which control activities, develop compensation mechanisms for those, and develop multi-scalar knowledge and stakeholder sharing, social networks and learning mechanisms.
However, governance systems are rarely adaptive. Instead they tend to be "stuck" in what is called the local minima (or lowest functioning system). These are in many cases dependent on the history of countries, how the governance systems have evolved, and whether or not these systems are open and transparent and able to adapt quickly, but along a gradient of transition and evolution rather than in a "knee-jerk" response that does not build on the best of existing structures. 4 Within the context of Mozambique, this paper examines the state of forest ecosystem services, the dependency of the population on these systems for their well-being, if an adaptive governance regime is being created which will ensure the resilience of the forest ecosystem services including the legal framework, the institutions operating within this framework, the tools available and their functioning, and how cooperative governance is operating.

State of the forest ecosystem services
Marzolli 5   In addition, in developing countries the regulating and buffering services of ecosystems are critical in terms of maintaining and enhancing livelihoods (including biodiversity, soil fertility, flood control, drought mitigation and water regulation).
Since the end of the civil war in 1992 Mozambique has had substantial economic growth. The GDP has varied between 5% in the first decade to as high as 8. A report written for the UNEP by IISD 13 identified the following aspects of human well-being as under increasingly severe stress: the ability to be nourished, the ability to have access to clean water, the ability to earn a livelihood, and the ability to access energy, and identified the population as being particularly vulnerable to natural disasters. Forest ecosystems play a vital role in all of these components of well-being in Mozambique, with over 63.9% of the population living in rural areas, and urban populations relying heavily on the forest for the provision of energy, building materials and food.
Over 80% of Mozambicans rely on subsistence farming for nourishment, even in urban areas, although some cash crops such as sugarcane, tobacco, cashew nuts, and cotton are also grown by small farmers. Forest fruits and plants are critical in 10 UN World Statistics Pocketbook. 11 Wong, Roy and Duraiappah Connecting Poverty and Ecosystem Services. 12 Hanlon Poverty Decreasing in Mozambique? 13 Wong, Roy and Duraiappah Connecting Poverty and Ecosystem Services.
terms of the provision of food during the year, especially during stress periods and for medicinal purposes.
In terms of access to clean water, the majority of the rural population relies on surface waters such as rivers, streams, and lakes. Only 35.7% of the population has access to safe and clean water. On average, women walk 1 to 2km to obtain water, with some women walking over 20km per day to obtain water, especially in the dry season. The ability of forest ecosystems to improve water quality and quantity through the filtration and slow-release functions is not well understood in Mozambique. All provinces except Niassa are exposed to water stresses. These stresses will only increase as the effects of climate change are felt. In the National Institute for the Management of Natural Disasters Report on climate change disaster risk management, 14 it is predicted that by 2025 water scarcity will be a major source of conflict through-out the country, and that the conflict will be exacerbated by the fact that the major rivers are all trans-boundary. Their upper catchments management and conservation are beyond the control of the Mozambican government. Neighbouring countries are also likely to experience even more severe water crises during this period.
The ability to earn a living for the majority of the population is based on the extraction and use of natural resources, and includes crops, fishing, and the use and sale of forest products. Of the 118 species of trees which have been identified in  Firewood and charcoal consumption, which is also a huge driver of change. Sitoe (2007) indicates an average consumption of wood-fuel of 2m 3 /person/year. This is greater than the annual regeneration rates of miombo woodlands per hectare. MICOA (2008) estimates that along key transport corridors, around urban settlements and most of the coastal zone, over 80% of the forest biodiversity could be lost by 2025 if the status quo is maintained, (i.e. population growth to 28 million people, and largely rural with limited economic development and livelihoods alternatives, and a large reliance on subsistence agriculture and forest products for energy).  intensity of rainfall. 20

Drivers of change
The forest landscapes and ecosystem services in Mozambique are rapidly changing.
Between 1990 and 2002 the annual rates of deforestation were 0.58%, and within Maputo Province the rate was 1.67%. 21 Box 2 contains a summary of the state of the ecosystem services and the human-induced drivers of change, including subsistence agriculture, commercial agriculture and forestry, urbanisation, mining, and charcoal and firewood extraction.
With 43.5% of the population below the age of 15 and needing to fulfil their basic needs, and increasing development pressures from extractive industries and commercial agriculture, the pressures on forests will only increase. It is clear that the rapid rate of deforestation occurring in Mozambique will have a major impact on biodiversity and cause a decline in water quality and the regulation of quantities, causing flooding but also longer dry periods. It will also reduce the resilience of ecosystems and people to extreme events related to the climate variability predicted with climate change. The degradation of forest ecosystems is already having a direct impact on the vulnerability of households, resulting in increased poverty, and will continue to do so in future (see Appendix 1).
Governance is a driver of both the supply of ecosystem services and of how they are distributed between different stakeholders, especially the poor. Changes in governance structures and institutions at local or other levels can seriously affect the supply of ecosystem services in quantity, quality, and access. The rest of this paper will examine how governance systems in Mozambique are working to reduce the degradation and decline, as well as allowing access to the use of these resources. The Constitution further requires the state and local authorities to "adopt policies that protect the environment and ensure the responsible use of natural resources". 24 The state must adopt policies that prevent and control pollution and erosion, integrate environmental objectives in sector policies, and promote the integration of environmental values in its education policy and programmes. It is also required to guarantee the sustainable use of natural resources and ecological stability for future generations, and to promote land use planning in order to ensure that activities take place in the correct locations, and that such activities contribute to balanced socioeconomic development. The Land Law 31 and related Regulations 32 are generally viewed as being an appropriate response to the challenges of the current land tenure relationships in Mozambique. Strong statutory protection is provided to the land rights of users, both for the rights awarded for investment purposes and the rights acquired by existing occupiers of land. In general, the land legislation also represents an attempt to address potential conflicts between different user groups, with the state retaining ownership and, therefore, ultimate responsibility (and power) with respect to safeguarding ecosystem services related to land resources. These principles do, however, appear to reveal a distinction between what the government considers as appropriate roles for the various sectors of civil society: whilst communities are to participate in the 'preservation', 'conservation', 'management' and 'utilisation' of resources, it is the private sector that may involve itself in the 'exploitation' of those resources.

/ 212
Taken together, therefore, the laws that set the rules for land and forest use and that seek to establish environmental safeguards and procedures appear to offer a sound basis for the recognition of ecosystem services provided by forest resources.
Applied together and underpinned by the tools provided by the territorial planning legislation, these laws could go some way towards ensuring that the services from forest ecosystems form part of the decision-making process in regard to forest use.
Unfortunately there are a number of problems. Firstly, the drafting of some of the laws did not fulfil the promise of the principles on which they were based. Secondly, the laws are rarely applied together as part of a framework and the crucial contribution of territorial planning has been completely neglected. And thirdly, a number of institutional failings serve to undermine the legal framework.
The rest of this section examines the legal concepts within these laws with respect to the various categories of ecosystem services, and highlights some of the enduring problems.

The approach to provisioning services
Both the Land Law and the Forestry and Wildlife Law go some way towards recognising the importance of forest provisioning services to the livelihoods of the forest populations, including as key sources of income and sustenance, as detailed in section 1. The Land Law recognises acquired rights to land and the Forestry legislation commits the state to practise the conservation, management, and utilisation of forest and wildlife resources without prejudice to customary practices.
Both laws also set out a framework for the commercial exploitation of these resources, but it is in the balancing of these interests with those of conservation and preservation that the real challenge arises.

The question of ownership
Whereas the Land Law recognises certain forms of existing occupation and awards a statutory, exclusive right of use and benefit to land, the Forestry and Wildlife Law indication of who has access and control over the resources:  Protected forests, which comprise 16% of the national territory and are legally under state management. There is increased delegation of management to the private sector, and international conservation organisations have a long history of contributing to the maintenance of these areas.
 Productive forests, which are located mostly in the central and northern parts of the country. These are generally allocated to private operators under long-term concessions or annual licences, but local communities are also eligible to exploit them in this way.
 Multiple-use forests, which are generally subject to competitive uses and users.
A substantial part of the rural population lives in these areas. 36 Resolution 8/97 of 1 April 1997.
As noted, the state owns all resources in the country, but it has the authority to allocate use and improvement rights to different users. Importantly, this includes the right of the state to hold the resources in trust for the people in order to protect the services for society at large (such as biodiversity, water and wetlands maintenance, and other functions). Obviously, this role is critical. In the Mozambique context it is largely mediated through the environmental legislation, and via institutions with an environmental mandate. Sector ministries such as the Department of Land and Forestry remain more concerned with the allocation of use rights and the regulation of the commercial exploitation of resources than with the management and protection of ecological services. 37 The relative lack of ownership rights for local people in the Forestry and Wildlife legislation is redressed slightly by the statutory payment to them of 20% of the royalties and taxes received by the state from the private sector forest operators. A Ministerial Diploma 38 composed of six articles defines the management mechanisms and channelling of this 20% of the forestry and wildlife revenues.
The government, however, has been slow to deliver these benefits to the forest communities. In order to access the 20% contribution the community groups need to fulfil a range of conditions (see later One of the main critiques of the legal framework on forests is that it is overly focused on the use or exploitation of forest resources, rather than on conservation.
This critique holds that a major objective of the legislation was to fix the basic rules of licensing of forest exploitation, and that other issues such as forest protection, forest reserves, reforestation, sustainable forestry and other essential components are poorly dealt with. Certainly, the standards dealing with the protection and conservation of forest resources are poorly articulated in the law and the legal protection of ecosystems in general, and biodiversity in particular, is weak.
There are two different regimes for forest exploitation: a long-term concession and an annual simple licence. Of the two, the simple licence system is the most problematic due to its failure to ensure any sustainability in forest resource exploitation. The simple licensing regime is popular with forest operators because, unlike the forest concession system, it brings no obligation with respect to reforestation, no duties towards local communities, it does not require the Based on own observations as consultants.

Box 3 -Important aspects relating to the COGBEPs
The Regulations (Decree 12/2002) specify the following important points with respect to these councils:  they will be comprised of an 'equal' number of representatives from four groups, identified by the regulations to the Forestry and Wildlife Law as being local communities, the private sector, the NGO sector and the State; 1  the councils are 'collective persons' and have legal personality, independently of their members; 1  within defined territorial or administrative areas the councils have powers to: pronounce upon requests for forest and wildlife exploitation licences; take measures to ensure that the sustainable use of resources contributes to rural development especially of local communities; pronounce upon and propose solutions to conflicts regarding resource use; facilitate and assist State entities responsible for the enforcement of resource use regulations; propose measures for the improvement of policy and legislation regarding forest and wildlife resource use; unlock actions relating to the control of forest fires; pronounce upon proposed management plans for resources within their areas of jurisdiction.
have veto power over 'projects' which are not compatible with rural development and the sustainable use of resources.
government posts with the administration or management of related businesses. As Mourana and Serra 43 note, there is a huge gap between the law and practice.

Inventories and management plans
Two key statutory instruments for ensuring that the commercial exploitation of forest resources does not negatively impact on ecosystem services are the requirements for the completion of an inventory and a comprehensive Forest Management Plan (FMP). Both are legal pre-requisites for the approval of a concession. A detailed forest inventory in a concession area is used to establish the sustainable harvesting quotas which are applied for annually at provincial level.
Guidelines for the FMPs were developed in 2006 and these address ecological, social, and economic sustainability in a comprehensive manner. An FMP should address issues such as regeneration rates, the protection of sensitive areas in the concession, harvesting, the type of utilisation, employment, etc. There are a number of problems with these inventories and plans, including the following:  The inventories are of poor quality and the extent of the forest resource is not accurately known within management areas. As a result, there is no obvious and clearly defined relationship between the quantities of forest resources being removed and sustainable levels of harvesting, especially for simplified licences and where there has been poor preparation of the FMPs.
 The management plans need to be produced by authorised consultants.
Consultants are expensive and many operators cannot afford the development of a management plan. There are also few consultants accredited by the government to carry out these activities.
 In a context of low enforcement capacity, many of the approved management plans are reduced to a mere formality and have no bearing on the actual activities of the concession operators. Annual harvesting blocks are not strictly demarcated, which means that harvesting can still be selective anywhere in the concession areas. Often there is no planned annual cutting cycle of designated cutting blocks and operators merely look for the best and most profitable species from anywhere in their concession area.  The simplified management plans for simple licence holders (SLHs) are also not being implemented as intended in the regulations. Rather than being a guide to best practice and helping to ensure the long-term management of the forest, they simply list marketable species and the quantity to be exploited.

Fuel wood and charcoal
One of the largest negative impacts on the forest resource comes from fuel wood collection and charcoal production. According to the law, any person that makes charcoal for commercial purposes has to be licensed. Only communities and households that extract wood for firewood and making charcoal for household use may do so without a licence. If they sell these resources outside the administrative post where they are resident, they must have either a simple licence or a concession to exploit the timber resources. The law also prohibits the use of hardwoods of certain types to be used for firewood and charcoal, but only if this is for commercial use. Branches and damaged trees of these species can be used, even in commercial exploitation.
In recent years there has been a movement to transfer the charcoal licensing fees from the transporters to the producers, imposing an extra cost per bag upon the producers in some community forest management pilot areas. Unfortunately, the response to this extra cost at producer level has been an increase in the scale of production, rather than an increase in prices. Rights has been drafted but has not yet been enacted. There is no legislation dealing with the introduction of genetically modified organisms (GMO), biotechnology and bio-safety, or regulations for risk assessment or management.

Protecting benefits obtained from the regulation of ecosystem processes
The Environmental Law includes provisions for conducting environmental impact assessments (EIAs) for a range of projects that are likely to have significant impacts on the environment. 47 Proposed developments and activities are categorised according to their perceived potential impact on the environment and this categorisation will then guide the level of rigour with which assessments must be carried out. People are living within the boundaries of most of the protected areas due to historical circumstances including displacement during the civil war and natural disasters 50 , but as they have limited forms of income and derive little financial benefit from tourism and other activities, they therefore exploit the forest resources within these areas. While government officials are encouraging these populations to resettle, either within the protected areas or outside but in concentrated communities, ostensibly to facilitate the provision of basic services such as water, there is large resistance to such efforts, as the resettlement areas are often far from the ecosystem services on which these communities rely, so that accepting such a move would result in increasing impoverishment. 48 See also Norfolk and Cosijn "Development and the balancing of interests in Mozambique" 322-325. 49 The national network of forest reserves is said to over-represent miombo and coastal forest, while under-representing mangrove and mopane. However, areas of these forest types are conserved in national parks and game reserves, as well as occasionally in locally conserved forest areas, such as the Chirindzene Sacred Forest (Müller, Sitoe and Mabunda Assessment of the Forest Reserve Network.). 50 It is estimated that over 120,000 people are living within the national park areas.
Erosion is a major problem, and there is nothing in the sector legislation that deals with this. A major driver of erosion is deforestation, particularly as a consequence of extra-forest sector activities, such as the conversion of forest land to agriculture. The Forestry and Wildlife Regulations prohibit the use of forest fires as a means to clear land, except in very limited and tightly controlled circumstances, but this prohibition has had little impact on behaviour. While command-and-control is necessary, the limited capacity in terms of number and qualifications of government personnel at all levels entails the need for the development of more innovative approaches.
The Environmental Law contains provisions directly related to the conservation of biodiversity, prohibiting all activities that adversely affect the conservation, reproduction, quality, and quantity of biological resources, especially those threatened with extinction. The law also calls for the special protection of plant species threatened with extinction, or those botanical components, isolated or in groups, requiring protection due to their genetic potential or biological, cultural, or scientific value. These concepts remain undefined in the legislation and no concrete actions have yet been taken to put them into effect. The Forestry and Wildlife Law recognises the role of 'local communities' in the preservation and conservation of biodiversity but does little to flesh this role out, and the key instrument for underpinning local management practices, the local management councils (Conselhos Locais de Gestão Participativa -COGEPs), remains unimplemented.

The law and non-material benefits obtained from ecosystems
The Forestry and Wildlife Law establishes the possibility for communities to 'register' the fact that a particular forest area holds cultural and religious significance for them. Article 13 defines such areas as:  The decree also includes the various stages of the process, including the documentation for submission, government timeframes for evaluation, the public participation process, licensing payment requirements and the registration of environmental consultants.

The role and status of environmental impact assessments
There are, however, some fundamental limitations in the process, which in many instances cause ecosystem services to be severely degraded and the well-being of local communities to be ignored, including the following:  There is very limited evaluation of alternatives, as the proponent is often reluctant to discuss these and there is lack of the professional experience that would make it possible to propose these.  There is presently a national drive for sector ministries to approve EIAs and not MICOA, especially in the context of the extraction of oil and gas, and mining.
This may have benefits in terms of better technical understanding, but it is likely to be to the detriment of the environmental services, as forests are undervalued in terms of their economic value.

Mozambique
The In addition, there is high reliance on foreign donors to drive the integration of biodiversity and environmental issues into government activities through budgetary support. 58 This financing is becoming precarious due to increased international financial stresses, but also because of donor reluctance to provide financing if performance proves to be poor.

Mozambique signed the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) on
September 28th  The SADC Protocol on Forestry is a regional policy framework designed to foster cooperation in forestry and to provide a common vision and approach to the management of the region's forest resources. The then SADC Forestry Sector Technical Coordination Unit began work on the protocol in 1998 in collaboration with the World Conservation Union (IUCN). Mozambique was one of three SADC countries (the others were Botswana and Namibia) that did not sign the Protocol in October 2002, and has yet to do so.

Integration and institutional coordination
MICOA is a coordination agency, not an implementation agency, and has the mandate only to coordinate environmental action carried out by other sectoral ministries. 59 The perception is that MICOA experiences serious difficulties in performing this coordinating role effectively. Part of the problem is that the mechanisms for coordination are not spelled out. Another problem is that MICOA has little political leverage over other sectoral ministries and hence limited scope for influencing sector policies. This limited capacity to influence is exacerbated by the fact that MICOA is poorly endowed in terms of human and financial resources.
Examples include the fact that for both the award of simple licences and concession allocations, the MICOA should also have a say in the management plan. This hardly ever takes place. Similarly, an environmental impact assessment is required for forest plantations to establish potential impacts and mitigation measures related to introducing alien species and large areas of monoculture. Again, this seems to take place rarely before the rights to plantations are adjudicated. 59 See also Norfolk and Cosijn "Development and the balancing of interests in Mozambique" 306-308 on the work of MICOA, the Ministries and CONDES.

/ 212
The National Council for Sustainable Development (CONDES) still does not have a strong presence in environment policy debate or sectoral coordination despite reporting directly to the prime minister's office and consisting of a cross-section of ministers. The council is chaired by MICOA and has the potential to influence policy debate, but so far has not promoted dialogue on important environmental issues during the preparation of sector policies.

Cooperative governance and shared decision-making
The links between governance, democracy, and biodiversity conservation are

Compliance and enforcement
The DNTF is responsible for the management and exploitation of forest resources and biodiversity; the management of land and the allocation of rights to use and exploit, supervision and law enforcement, and monitoring infractions and issuing legal penalties. The logging of hardwoods is controlled solely by the DNTF and has increased dramatically in the last 15 years, with the main markets being Asia, and specifically China, with 80% of all logs being sent to this destination. The three provinces of Sofala, Zambézia and Cabo Delgado account for 70% of this log cut.
The charcoal chain has been divided into two main areas in terms of governmental institutional arrangements: and 5% of charcoal production currently registered. 63 The total market value is estimated at US$32 to 44 million, considerably higher than for hardwood logging.
Similar trends are seen with the other non-timber products such as honey, firewood, and handicraft, although to a lesser extent than with charcoal (see Table 3).  These tend to be family-or community-based enterprises. At the lower end of the scale they operate with limited investment. At the higher end they may be organized into associations and some statistical data will be available. areas. This is very difficult to control and results in over-extraction and the depletion of the hardwoods.

Table2 -Trend of licenses for biomass energy and construction materials
In addition, the strong demand from the external market coincides with the poor governance associated with the extraction of hardwoods in particular. There are many vested interests in the exploitation of hardwoods, which is highly politicised.
Corruption is rife 66 throughout the value chain from the misuse of the simple 66 Environmental Investigation Agency First Class Connections: Log Smuggling, Illegal Logging and Corruption in Mozambique; Mackenzie, Smith and Fairfield, 2005 Insight 416-420.
licencing system, to transporting the wood, to exporting the logs, which should be processed in-country according to the law. The net result is in many cases a lack of will to effectively control their extraction. Also, unless the market demand for these resources is controlled, these resources will continue to be over-exploited legally and illegally. With the decentralisation process, it is presently the Governors and District Administrators, who are political appointments, who control the activities that occur at a provincial and district level. There is a sense of unease amongst national-level ministries that the technical aspects of forestry (and other sectors such as agriculture and livestock) are being undervalued and neglected, that essentially there is a loss of effective control of such activities, and that the interests of FRELIMO are being put before those of good management.
District and provincial authorities are increasingly under pressure to generate incomes as part of decentralisation, but also due to the decreasing funding available from international donors. 67 Concern is being expressed in environmental circles that this is resulting in logging licences being issued above sustainable levels, to generate incomes.
In terms of the production of charcoal, unless there are alternative, cheap and effective energy sources this will continue to be one of the main energy sources in Mozambique While the government has a policy to electrify rural areas, the focus is on larger settlements. In remote areas, fires are used for cooking and for light. For cooking purposes, electricity is still an expensive option for most people. Charcoal and firewood are substantially cheaper alternatives. Unless there is a shift in the pattern of pricing, the demand, especially for charcoal, will continue to grow. 67 This is due to the financial crisis in some instances, but also because donors are reducing their budget support.
Finally, the most complex issue related to the limited control over non-timber products is that their harvesting, processing (where applicable) and sale substantially support the livelihoods of many thousands of people, and until there are viable alternative income sources there is a general reluctance to control their exploitation. The law at this stage is unable to deal with customary use rights when they become commercialised.

4
The contribution from planning and research

Strategic environmental assessments (SEAs)
Due to the observed limitations of the EIA process, especially in terms of cumulative and indirect effects and an inability to resolve conflicts between various sector stakeholders, 68 MICOA initiated a strategic environmental impact assessment process in 2008. The focus has been on the coastal zone, due to the rapidly developing oil and gas industry and mining industry, the fact that 70% of the Mozambican population lives within 100km of the coast, and the high sensitivity of many of the ecosystems. A Strategic Environmental Unit was set up within MICOA, funded by the Dutch Government. The coastal area was split into three areas, north, central and south. Climatologically and physically these areas are different, and in addition they experience different pressures. For example, in the south the pressures relate to urbanisation and tourism development along the coast. In the north, the pressures relate to the oil and gas industry and mining. The aim of the SEA process has been to assess existing environmental and socio-economic conditions. The process is focusing on priority development sectors, such as forestry, fisheries, agriculture (including biofuels), transport and energy in areas under great pressure in terms of the demand for land for development initiatives, and attempts to resolve some of the conflicts and understand the potential trade-offs. The long-term objective will be to provide an overall framework for sustainable development and livelihoods generation, including acceptable changes that can occur.
However, the process has been fraught with many difficulties. Trying to undertake an SEA process for a coastal area almost 3000 km long would be regarded as ambitious, even in countries where there is a large body of experienced professionals. In Mozambique, this is the first time SEAs are being implemented, and the lack of experienced professionals has been a huge limitation, both in terms of the consultants who are undertaking the assessment and the capacity in MICOA. At MICOA level, most of the team have no environmental experience and come from a low socio-economic base. There have been many staff changes and SEA training occurred in 2012 only.
To date, the draft documents have been prepared for the three zones and public consultations have been undertaken in the coastal districts. There has been limited analysis on the environmental drivers of change, acceptable trade-offs which could occur, and potential strategies which could be implemented to minimise the degradation. It is unclear how the integrity of the ecosystem systems will be retained and resilience ensured, especially for the forest ecosystem services. It is also unclear how the SEA process will feed into the territorial planning and district planning processes, as no process has yet been defined for this. Doubts are being expressed as to whether this process will also be able to unhinge itself from the political interests in the various sectors, so that environmental resilience will be retained and thresholds not exceeded.

Territorial planning and forest inventories
Territorial planning is a 'new' sector in Mozambique, and has only recently been underpinned by a legislative framework. It is a generally progressive framework, in the sense that it translates into practice most recent international thinking on planning. 69 Beyond the specific legal framework, it is also strongly rooted in a 69 A principle agreed upon by the consensus of delegations from 92 FAO member states, including Mozambique, during the International Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (ICARRD), held in Porto Alegre, March 2006, is that "Land and other natural resources are not only economic assets but also cultural, social and historical assets. Therefore, there is a need to address them in an integrated and territorial way through negotiation, dialogue and participatory number of related processes that embrace a raft of similar basic principles. This underlines the belief of decision makers in its strength as a tool to support the meeting of objectives that go beyond the territorial planning framework.
It is partly the recent character of the framework, combined with a lack of experience in implementation, that has focussed territorial and land-use planning efforts on completing the narrow legislative obligations of the new framework rather than on responding to the bigger picture of economic development and governance expressed in other policies and laws. In common with other sectors, an ambitious policy is not backed up by the resources for its implementation, and there is a notable lack of the strategic thinking necessary to tackle this in the medium to long term. Also in common with other policy development processes, the subsequent development of the detailed regulations falls short of providing practical guidance.
This lacuna is compounded further when bureaucratic actors are left the task of developing guidelines and operating procedures.
The national forest inventories, 70 all of which provide an assessment of forest resources, including total, commercial and conservation volumes, the location and distribution of productive forest, species composition and forest structures, ought to feed into these territorial planning process but have not done so. Forest inventory maps are a tool to prioritise specific areas with good potential for investment in the exploitation of forest resources, whilst identifying those areas where forest ecosystems ought to be protected. Forest inventories are also essential to prioritise areas that can be considered for the promotion of REDD+ -related funding that promotes the conservation of biomass and biodiversity at the community level. Mozambique. The remaining extent of forest was calculated using remote sensing and equalled around 400 sq. km. This is significantly less than had previously been suggested. It is estimated that around 80% of the area has been lost during the past 150 years.
As a result of this initiative, national authorities are attempting to develop a more comprehensive approach to the management and conservation of these areas through the Coastal SEIA process, as well as NGOs such as WWF East African Coastal Forest Eco-region Programme, and other donors. The exact nature of the programme has yet to be seen.

Research institutions and monitoring
The  projects are that trees will be grown for construction material and firewood.
There are major concerns, though, that the exotic plantations will deplete groundwater sources and that their establishment as monocultures will result in large losses of biodiversity in these areas.  Secondly, there is a concern that REDD+ funding will be used to finance exotic tree planting and biofuel projects which will have adverse impacts on indigenous forests, biodiversity, and water regulating systems. If this were to occur, it could result in increased conflict over land and natural resources. 88 Thirdly, while the legislative framework exists which affords substantial use and ownership rights to communities with regards to forestry, and allows communities to participate in sustainable forestry management, there has been limited implementation on the ground of the benefit sharing. This is so, although more than 70 community-based natural resource management (CBNRMs) initiatives have been established since the 1990s. 89 Limitations include the communities' lack of the capacity to access and use the rights which are legally theirs, including the 20% royalties from timber concessions. Lessons need to be learnt from these experiences to ensure that the payments for REDD+ based activities reach the communities and are used to enhance livelihoods. The ability to negotiate trade-offs between stakeholders will also be key to the process. environment. The monitoring of the effectiveness of implementation will be a large challenge as well, in terms of developing access to data at a reasonable cost, due to the lack of technical capacity in the country and the need for transparent data analysis and management. 90 There are concerns that REDD+ will be used fraudulently and that forest systems will not be managed or protected, as communities will not have received the financial benefits promised in the process. As stated by Peter Younger, Interpol environment crimes specialist, in October 2009: 91 Alarm bells are ringing. It is simply too big to monitor. The potential for criminality is vast and has not been taken into account by the people who set it up… Organised crime syndicates are eyeing the nascent forest carbon market. … Fraud could include claiming credits for forests that do not exist or were not protected or by land grabs. It starts with bribery or intimidation of officials, then there's threats and violence against those people. There's forged documents too. Carbon trading transcends borders. I do not see any input from any law enforcement agency in planning REDD.
Due to the governance complexities described in the previous section, as well as those listed in Box 5, there are grave concerns in Mozambique regarding whether or not PES and REDD+ will be effective in a Mozambican context.
Finally, and linked to the present lack of monitoring and systems of accountability, there is a real challenge in terms of leveraging financing for REDD+ initiatives. The lack of the capacity to monitoring activities will be a huge limitation. However, without this capacity, long-term financial investment by donors will be difficult to come by. This difficulty has been exacerbated by the world economic crisis, where donors are increasingly cautious in terms of their financial investments and need to see clear and tangible results and benefits for the money invested.

Other economic instruments
Little has so far been done to examine the potential for other economic instruments in influencing behaviour with respect to the services provided by forests. noted already that the key mechanism for channelling revenue back to local community groups, the payment of the 20% of stumpage fees, has been slow in implementation and remains hampered by overly bureaucratic procedures. In addition, there are no mechanisms, for example, for systematically updating the forest timber royalties based on the market prices of the products or the fluctuation of the exchange rate. This means that not only the government loses revenue, but that communities lose out too. The government's policy and mechanisms for encouraging the competitive processing of higher added-value wood products have also been weak and undermined by the pressure to export logs by both simple licensees and concessionaires. The system of fines and particularly the mechanism for the collection of the money and payment to the local authorities is weak.

Conclusion
Laws and legal recognition can achieve only so much. The legal framework for the protection and management of forest ecosystem services in Mozambique is comprehensive and fully protects the rights of the communities which depend on the forests for their livelihoods. However, governance is relatively weak with respect to the existing institutions and regulations at local and national levels which are meant to mediate access to and the use of these ecosystem services. The high reliance on forest resources for the livelihoods of over 80% of the population means that the government resolve to enforce the legislation is often weakened, as there are limited alternative sources of income generation in the rural areas.
It is clear that the present trend of deforestation is not sustainable in terms of maintaining the forest ecosystem and services it provides. Given the lack of strong governance systems, the capacity to enforce the existing legislation, and a strategic perspective on the use, management and conservation of the country's forests, the pressures on them are likely to increase. The SEAs, territorial planning and REDD+ are still in their infancy, and one must hope that they will prove stronger than indicated in this paper and, with the right political and donor backing, and supported by applied research and monitoring, will provide clear direction to the necessary interventions. In addition, capacity will need to be developed at all levels of society and government, with a focus on the rights of communities to have access to forest resources. Systems of adaptive co-management should be promoted wherever possible. Annexure