A closer analysis was then made of the community plantation component of the Orissa Social Forestry Project using a random sample of villages (with and without plantations) around a natural forest. In brief, the findings of this closer look revealed that (i) while the original intention had been to use the eucalyptus trees as fuelwood, they were instead sold as poles and for pulp which had a much higher market value. The demand for fuel was instead to a large extent met by leaves that were swept regularly and constituted from zero to 80% of fuel consumption in villages with plantations; (ii) the increased accessibility of leaves from the plantations led to higher energy consumption, but also, as reported above, significant time savings, particularly for women. Across communities, the value of this time saving ranged from zero to 455 USD per ha and year (Köhlin and Amacher, 2005); (iii) access to readily available plantations decreased the collection pressure on natural forests, but this impact also ranged from zero to 1.5 tons per household and year, particularly depending on the distance to the natural forest (Köhlin and Parks, 2001); (iv) the willingness to pay for a new plantation, revealed in a contingent valuation study<sup>21</sup> , indicated benefit-cost ratios ranging from 0.2 to 4.3, once again stressing the wide variation in the value of plantations for villages not very far from each other (Köhlin, 2001). These results point to the great variation in welfare impact of plantations – and that there is variation both between households and between villages. There is thus great potential for interventions that increase access to woodfuels, but in order to realize this potential, particularly for women, careful design and targeting is needed taking local conditions into account (Mearns, 1995).

There is no generally agreed upon design and targeting mechanisms for realizing the potential of these interventions. However, the literature review offers some pointers. Various measures of energy scarcity (e.g. time spent collecting fuelwood) can be applied. It is important that the resource is made available to households that are labor constrained for some reason. There might also be great variations in access to land for fuel collection (e.g. due to landlessness, tenure reform, imposed forest management, biofuel plantations, carbon sequestration or conservation).

# **_2.3.2 The potential for policies to induce private tree plantation_**

# **Woodfuels are increasingly coming from private land. Policy reforms, such as increased security in private tenure and reduced access to state-owned forests, are important in further inducing private tree planting, but their gender implications need to be carefully considered.**

Institutional changes and interventions have also affected private incentives. One of the key findings of the literature debunking the fuelwood crisis was that woodfuels were often not collected from forests but rather from what came to be called ―trees outside forests.‖ While this included open access and commons, there were also reports of up to 70% coming from private land (Bhattarai, 2001). In a Nepali sample 86% collected fuelwood from private sources (Webb and Dhakal, 2011). This trend has been accentuated through the reduced access that comes with devolution of forest management as has been found in India (Van‘t Veld et al, 2006), Bolivia (Bluffstone et al., 2008) and Ethiopia (Mekonnen and Bluffstone, 2008). Heltberg et al. (2000) also show that private fuel consumption is affected by availability (scarcity) and management institutions.

Although trees often have multiple uses, a received wisdom from the 1980s was that trees were seldom planted on private land for fuelwood purposes. There are indications that this situation is changing with increased demand for, and reduced access to, woodfuels. Arnold et al. (2006) report on evidence, primarily from East Africa, that tree management by farmers is on the rise resulting in increasing reliance on private fuelwood supplies. In a survey in the Ethiopian highlands, 72% of trees were planted primarily (37%) or partly (35%) to produce fuelwood. In a more recent survey from Ethiopia on the use of trees and forest (EEPFE, 2008), 50% of a sample of 600 households said that they

> 21 Households with fewer men and with more women had greaterWTP for a new plantation, indicating that more accessible fuelwood sources are especially important when less male labor is available.

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