Forest Village Relations

Forest resources provide vital socio-economic contributions especially for local communities, which comprise around 7-8 million people living over 20 000 forest villages. Almost all energy needs of such communities are provided as fuel wood at highly subsidized prices from the state forests. In addition, significant amount of wood volumes are illicitly cut and utilized by the forest village dwellers. Round wood needs of forest villagers are also provided at subsidized prices from the state forests which is around 400 000 m3 annually. NWFPs produced from forest areas also provide some important contributions to family diet and cash income to household budget in forest regions. Fodder provided by free grazing and by cutting and carrying away for winter feeding is by far the most important NWFP for the forest region communities for which livestock is one of the main source of income especially in remote mountainous areas

Based on the Constitution item 170, ORKOY was founded with the aim of contributing to the economic, social and cultural development of rural people who lives within or nearby forest areas to minimize their adverse effects on forests. The ORKOY is financed through the sales of land excluded from forest by 2/B, 3 % of the revenues from wood sales, 3 % of the total amount of the projects of allocations and rentals from forest land, 10 % of the net profit of the forest districts and from other sources such as donations, credit interest returns etc.

The contributions of ORKÖY is generally categorized as 1) donation to village legal entity 2) low interest credits for social needs (841.171 units proposed) 3) low interest credits to individuals for economic investments 4) training services.

In terms of concept and methods applied ORKOY used to be one of the success story of Forestry in Turkey, but contrary to the early times of its foundation, the effects of ORKOY has been gradually been in down trend. For the last decade for example, the annual average budget used for contributions was about 20-25 million US$ which is far from expected amount by villagers.

GDF’s yearly contribution however is around 400 million US$ including the wages and salaries paid for forest villages for employment. In 2003, for example, GDF has paid 150 million $ for harvesting operations, 98 million $ for other type employment, 84 million $ for subventions (wood sales on low price), 75 million $ for forest fire suppression teams (all composed of forest villages).

Besides around 15.000 ton of non-wood forest products are collected by villagers at very low prices (yearly export value of these products is estimated to be over 100 million $).

Contribution of forest sector from other activities such as plantation, nursery, protected areas, wild-life and game (through wages and others means) are not added here because of the lack of data.

For the next 20 years it is expected that the contribution of GDF will continue at the same level, ORKOY is likely to be downsized and integrated to the General Directorate of Rural Development, in either case the contribution of ORKOY is not thought to be less than present level which is already low.

But also there are promising evidences that many innovative schemes will provide income opportunities to forest villagers such as eco-tourism. The general expectations from the EU adaptation process are also signaling some improvements related to rural development.