Forest Products, Livelihoods and Conservation

Simon Kosgei Choge 157

The distribution of costs was found to be the cost of wood (30%), splitting

and cross-cutting of wood (5%), filing of carvings (8%), sanding (30%), painting

(12%) and polishing (15%) (Choge 2002). Sanding is thus a critical stage that

requires considerable concentration and greatly influences the price of the

finished product. In certain cases, for example, when carvers are carving

individually outside any groups or co-operatives, all the carving stages are

undertaken by one person. However, products made by individuals are often

sold in a less finished state, mostly to more established groups or dealers.

TRADE AND MARKETING

Middlemen or agents dominate the supply of wood to the carvers. The agents,

most of whom are members of the resident Mijikenda, often scout for wood

among local farmers ready to dispose of mature Azadirachta indica or other

carving trees within their farmlands or liaise with wood poachers to deliver

the highly priced Brachylaena huillensis from state forest of Arabuko Sokoke.

Prices at source were observed to range from US$12.5/m^3 to US$37.3/m^3

depending on the species and sizes available, the bargaining power of the

resource owner and a range of other factors (Figure 2). Brachylaena huillensis

and Azadirachta indica, for example, cost about US$12.5/m^3 and are always

negotiable. Harvesting charges were estimated at US$2.5/m^3 , loading charges

at US$2/m^3 , transport charges at US$0.1/km/m^3 and unloading charges at

destination at US$2/m^3 for all the species. At the destination, agents dispose

the consignments at wholesale (US$36/m^3 ) or retail prices (US$66/m^3 for

Brachylaena huillensis wood). Usually there is no wholesale trading of

Azadirachta indica, with retail prices ranging from US$30.5/m^3 to US$50/m^3

(Figure 2).

Carving adds a high value to the wood. For example when medium sized

articles^6 are made, an estimated 600 articles are produced per unit volume (1

m^3 of solid wood), selling as low as US$1 per article (or US$600/m^3 ) in a domestic

market to as much as US$5.6 per article (or US$3,600/m^3 ) or higher in tourists

markets.

POLICY ENVIRONMENT

Despite its economic importance, the woodcarving industry in Kenya has not

received the same government attention as the larger commercial logging

industry. The woodcarving industry is built on a rapidly declining resource

base whose control and management, directly or indirectly, largely falls within

the state mandate. A recent study (Choge 2002) identified easy access to

carving wood from state forests (due to poor management) as one of the main

causes of the observed unsustainable utilisation of these prime carving species

in Kenya. This situation has contributed immensely to the failure of wood

market mechanisms to operate efficiently. As other studies have shown (Repetto

1987; Repetto and Gillis 1988), it acts as a powerful incentive for resource

mining if government leaves all the profits of a resource harvest to exploiters

without seeking appropriate returns. This is the exact situation regarding the

woodcarving industry in Kenya today.

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