Socioeconomic Vulnerabilities and Natural Resource Degradation: An Analysis of Rural Households in the Forest Peripheries of the Malakand Division of Pakistan

Abstract

Pakistan, the 6th most populous country in the world, is also classified as the 7th most vulnerable country to climate changes. The pressures on the economy from its rapidly growing population and ever-escalating food and energy demands are dragging the society a remarkable rate of natural resource depletion, mainly due to increasing need for human settlement, agricultural expansion, and fuelwood collection from forests for household consumption and income generation. The objective of present research to study the drivers of deforestation and forest degradation in the Malakand Division of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province of Pakistan and to measure the biomass and carbon loss and CO2 emissions associated with the deforestation process. Based on household-level data collected from the six districts of the region, the study also undertakes profiling of households to understand the socioeconomic vulnerabilities of local population and its impact on natural resource degradation. A two-step approach has been followed in this study. In the first stage, an attempt has been made to study the land use and land cover changes, deforestation, and environmental consequences of changes in forest covers over a period of 17 years (i.e., between 2000 and 2017). This has enabled us to estimate the amount of forest cover that has been acquired by the local population for expansion in agriculture and human settlement. The results confirm that the Malakand Division has lost 207,721.52 hectares (ha) of forest land during the last seventeen years. The average deforestation rate has been observed at 0.74%yr-1, corresponding to an average emission of 1,352,055.64 MgCO2eqyr-1 and a potential emission reduction of 24,337,001.55 MgCO2eq between 2000 and 2017. The study estimates that the deforestation rate has increased from 0.63% during the decade of 2000-10 to 0.84% during the most recent time of 2010-17. Consequently, the loss in total biomass, carbon stock, and associated CO2 has also increased in the second period. The second stage of the study links the incidence of poverty and the associated socioeconomic vulnerabilities of local communities with the degree of natural resource depletion and degradation. For this, a household-level integrated survey has been conducted in the region. It has been observed that the population is growing at a rate of 4.1% in the Malakand region, much higher rate than the national average. This explosive growth is generating extensive pressure on forest cover for a number of obvious reasons, including expansion of land for human settlement, for agricultural extension to meet the ever-increasing demand for food and non-food crops, and to gather firewood for own energy needs and a secondary source of income generation by selling the collected wood in the market. The continuous expansion of agriculture on marginal lands has added further misery to the problem as the productivity and efficiency in the area is too low as compared to the other districts of the KP province. The fact that households residing in the forest peripheries are primarily dependent on agriculture, and any inefficiency in agriculture leads to additional pressure on forest resources to sustain their livelihoods. Using the Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA) and Data Envelopment Analysis xiv (DEA) it has been found that the productivity and efficiency in the marginal lands of the study region is indeed lower than that of the main districts of the KP province. The technical inefficiency (TE) ranges from 0.36% to 0.62% in the six districts of the Malakand region. This low efficiency also raises the forest dependency of the population. Based on the efficiency estimates, it has been found that the increase in agricultural income through an increase in technical efficiency could partially compensate for forest-based income generation. Specifically stating, an improvement in efficiency in the range of 5-30% through policy measures would be needed to protect forests. Beside improvement in efficiency, policy interventions in areas of education, health, and social protection are also required in the Malakand region for the conservation of the already depleting scarce natural resources.