Profitable partnerships: smallholders, industry, eucalypts and acacias in Asia

ABSTRACT

Smallholder tree-growers make substantial contributions to commercial wood flows in many countries in Asia. Many of these growers choose eucalypt and/or acacia species, which offer profitable and sustainable land-use options. Smallholder acacia and eucalypt plantings in India, Lao People's Democratic Republic, Sri Lanka, China, Thailand and Viet Nam are discussed, and data are presented to show the magnitude of these resources. In each country, smallholder plantings form critical raw-material inputs for numerous processors, with the collective scale of their wood production exceeding 86 million m³ annually and worth over USD 2.4 billion annually directly to these growers. Such harvests are major contributors to the livelihoods of smallholder families and to the economic viability of numerous local wood-using industries that rely on the raw materials they generate. This paper describes the profitable partnerships in Asia between smallholder tree-growers and their eucalypts and acacias, discusses their species of choice and the consequences of such decisions, and explores how and why these partnerships have developed and endured.

KEYWORDS:

• trees outside forests
• domestication
• silviculture
• sustainable plantations
• wood supply

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Sadanandan Nambiar, Chris Harwood, Khongsak Pinyopusarerk, Piare Lal, Wang Huoran, Prachak Ruenrith, Le Dinh Kha, Ha Huy Thinh and Peter Fogde for sharing countless discussions and insights over many years. We are also grateful to two anonymous reviewers and this journal’s editors for their useful, critical comments that helped significantly improve the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

¹ Some smallholders benefit from using the plantation roads constructed by larger forest-growing companies. In some cases, BAFCO provides seedlings, fertiliser, road construction and technical services at no cost to smallholders living inside or adjacent to their plantation areas.