off of the natural resource base and reduce environmental degradation while also improving livelihoods. In SSA there is a broad range of tree species that are suitable for domestication and commercialization (Leakey, 2001). Yet forests in SSA are typically poorly protected and therefore overexploited, and budgets allocated to develop the agroforestry sector in SSA tend to be small, particularly so in countries with significant tracts of natural forest that are being rapidly exploited, such as in D.R. Congo, Gabon, Cameroon and Congo-Brazzaville.

Many of the institutional challenges for natural forests and capture fisheries in SSA are similar and revolve around the challenges of developing institutions to manage common pool resources. Forests are often over-exploited because property rights have not been allocated, or because these
property rights are not enforced, resulting in the forests being treated as de facto open access resources. But defining, allocating, and enforcing property rights is costly and so governments need to determine the most cost effective approach. They also need to take into account equity considerations, particularly where local communities have relied on these natural resources.

 A typical situation in SSA is that the government owns and controls most of the forested lands and villagers living near these forests do not have legal right to use them or to extract resources from them. The government does not have funds and villagers do not have incentives to protect the forests, and so a classic de facto open access situation arises in which villagers collect from the forests with few institutions in place to ensure sustainable use of them. The forests degrade and villagers must spend more time collecting ever more scarce resources, venturing farther into the forests and causing more environmental damage. Recognizing this reality of poor management and enforcement, a number of countries are introducing participatory forest management (PFM) in which local communities are given some level of control over the forest resources. For example, in Tanzania, depending on the forest classification, villagers might only be responsible for protecting the forest with few direct benefits in return, or might be given full control over a forest, including rights to extract timber and non-timber forest products, and to exclude outsiders from using the resource (Robinson, 2006).

To enable PFM, national laws governing forest ownership and access typically have to be changed. In Tanzania, the 1998 National Forest Policy and the Forest Act of 2002 have enabled PFM to be introduced (MNRT, 1998,
2002ab). The factors that determine whether or not PFM is likely to be successful have not been assessed rigorously. However, PFM is more likely to be successful if the community receives sufficient control over the resources and benefits to make engaging in the process worthwhile. If communities are sufficiently well informed, PFM activities are based on traditional management systems and PFM is seen as a priority by the community, the chances for conservation increase.

5.7.1 Creating market incentives
Certification tends to be seen as appealing because certified timber can attract higher prices and access to premium markets in richer countries. However, certification requires

significant organizational and technical expertise from the producers and direct costs in obtaining certification; there is some evidence that although certified producers gain market access, higher prices are typically not realized (MA, 2005; Belcher and Schreckenberg, 2007). Further, certification is largely document-based, and is predicated on formal, structured means of planning and monitoring, and so is biased against traditional societies and the complex land use systems of indigenous and community groups (Bass et al., 2001; Eba’a and Simula, 2002; MA, 2005). Thus far, less than 1% of certified forests are in SSA, with over 90% in Europe and North America (Schulte-Herbruggen and Davies, 2006). Therefore, although there remains scope for certification, the potential in the short to medium term in SSA remains small.

A number of innovative market-based options for improving the contribution of agriculture to the assessment goals are little tested in SSA. These options, some of which are addressed below, could be important over the next decades, particularly for the forestry sector, though their likely contribution is as yet unknown.

Payment for environmental services (PES) schemes are part of a new and more direct conservation paradigm that explicitly recognizes the need to bridge the interests of landowners and outside beneficiaries through compensation payments. PES schemes exist mainly for four services: carbon- sink functions, hydrological protection, biodiversity, and landscape aesthetics/ecotourism. Conditionality—only to pay if the service is actually delivered—is the most innovative feature of PES when compared with traditional conservation tools, but also the one which real world initiatives struggle hardest to meet. New markets for environmental services and approaches in SSA are few and although there appears to be interest and potential for PES there is little evidence to measure its impact.

Although only afforestation and reforestation projects are eligible for credit under the clean development mechanism (CDM) during the first five-year commitment period of the Kyoto protocol, soil carbon sequestration and broader sink activities could become eligible in the future. The CDM involves African countries in selling or trading project-based carbon credits with more industrialized countries thereby combining increased carbon sequestration in agricultural soils with reducing soil degradation, improving soil quality, and preserving biodiversity. However, as yet there is no data concerning the potential for soil carbon sequestration in Africa, suggesting long-term field experiments and pilot projects are needed.

Agroforestry offers multiple benefits for farmers and the broader landscape that are not always clearly articulated in agricultural initiatives. Three key benefits are improvements in soil fertility, provision of animal fodder, and the supply of poles, timber and fuelwood that both benefit households and reduce the pressure on natural forests (Young, 1998; van Noordwijk et al., 2004). Additional benefits include improvements of microclimates, enhancing water conservation, and the production of non-timber forest products including tree fruits. However, although the high demand for homeconsumed fuelwood can in part be compensated for through tree planting and agroforestry, in many countries in SSA the demand for charcoal comes from urban areas (Ninnin 1994;