A Forest Concession, Carbon Revenue and Baka Livelihoods

Step 1: convert volume to trees. At 3 cubic metres per tree, 32,000 cubic metres a year represents about 10,667 trees felled annually.

Step 2: convert trees to area. Spread over 46,000 ha, that is roughly 0.23 trees per hectare per year.

Step 3: scale to the full cycle. Over 30 years, 0.23 multiplied by 30 gives about 7 trees per hectare removed.

Step 4: compare with the stock. The inventory records six commercially valuable trees per hectare above 60 cm diameter. The cycle therefore removes about 7 trees per hectare where only 6 exist. The harvest is not sustainable even before growth is counted: the company would be cutting into the stock of smaller trees that have not yet reached the felling limit.

Why the true position is worse.

• Growth is slow. Tropical hardwood diameter growth is typically a few millimetres a year, so a tree below 60 cm may need decades to become merchantable; a 30-year cycle is short for these species.
• Logging damage. Felling and skidding typically damage a substantial share of the remaining trees, so the next harvest has fewer stems than the inventory suggests.
• Collateral loss. The 3.5% canopy loss concentrated along the road indicates that access is opening the forest to hunting and clearance beyond the felled gaps.

Conclusion. A sustainable yield would be about 6 trees per hectare over 30 years, which corresponds to roughly 27,000 cubic metres a year at best, and lower once damage is included. The proposal should be reduced, and the reduction justified on the arithmetic above rather than on general concern.

Timber income. About USD 770,000 a year reaches public and local beneficiaries: 600,000 to the state, 90,000 to the council and 80,000 in wages. But most of it is national, not local, and only about 170,000 stays in the area. Against that, timber provides 40 jobs, a road, and wood products, and it fits an existing industry with known skills.

Carbon income. USD 720,000 a year in total, with 60% (about 432,000) going to communities. That is roughly two and a half times the local timber share, and it reaches households rather than the treasury. But it is conditional: verification, a closed road, and a price that could fall. Verification and monitoring costs come out of the headline figure, and the revenue depends on continued forest cover that the community must police.

Like-for-like comparison. On local benefit, carbon wins clearly. On national revenue and employment, timber wins. Neither is a simple good or bad: the carbon scheme without the road closure delivers nothing, and the timber scheme at the proposed rate depletes the resource.

Conditions I would attach.

• To timber: reduce the harvest to about 27,000 cubic metres a year, apply reduced-impact logging, protect stream buffers and Baka sacred sites, publish the inventory, and use part of the council fee for road drainage and closure after harvest.
• To carbon: independent verification at the project's expense, a published benefit-sharing formula, an escrow arrangement so that money arrives when promised, a grievance mechanism, and guarantees that Baka hunting and gathering rights are not curtailed to protect carbon stocks.

Judgement. A hybrid is defensible: reduced logging on part of the concession and carbon payments on the remainder, with the road closed beyond the harvested area. The choice should be made on verified net local income, not on the headline totals.

Why tenure dominates outcomes. Benefits only reach people who can claim them. In this concession, the state owns the forest, the company holds a concession title, the community holds a community forest, and Baka households hold customary use rights that are rarely written down. Each option reshapes those claims differently.

Under timber. Compensation and wage income tend to go to those with recognised claims: titled farmers, the council, registered employees. Baka families living in the forest may lose hunting territory to the road and to felling gaps without formal recognition or compensation. The road is the decisive change: it opens the area to outside hunters and to clearance, and the 3.5% canopy loss along it is already a warning. If the company and the state share revenue without a written agreement with Baka representatives, poverty can deepen even as total income rises.

Under carbon. Payments reward forest cover, so communities must be able to exclude outsiders and enforce rules. That strengthens collective tenure if the community forest is secure, and it can exclude the poorest if benefits are paid only to registered households. Hunting restrictions can be experienced as a loss of the safety net that Baka households rely on in bad years.

Design implications.

• Map and register customary use areas and sacred sites before any option proceeds.
• Require free, prior and informed consent through representative bodies, with separate meetings for Baka and for settled farmers, so that majority voting does not override minorities.
• Write the benefit-sharing formula into the agreement, with named beneficiaries and an audit.
• Keep a zone where hunting and gathering are permitted, so that conservation does not remove the fallback that makes households resilient.

Conclusion. The revenue figures decide little on their own. Without secure and documented rights and an enforceable sharing rule, both options risk capturing benefits for the already-connected while the forest-dependent poor bear the costs.