Forest Products, Livelihoods and Conservation

Sheona E. Shackleton and Charlie M. Shackleton 209

Home carvers, Bushbuckridge Roadside carver vendors,

neighbouring Nsikazi

• work from home • produce and sell from makeshift
  roadside shelters


• independent entrepreneurs • groups of carvers or individuals


• family-based production, • males, mainly young
  women and children assist
  in finishing


• use hard woods • use softer woods


• produce utilitarian objects • produce animals and figurines (up
  to 2 m tall)


• sell to vendors and retailers • sell directly to tourists


• carving seen as a permanent • transient, carving forms safety net
  livelihood activity in times of unemployment


• better equipment • low technology facilities (home-
  (chain saws, bought tools, made tools)
  power tools)


• access to electricity • no access to electricity


• work in covered workshops • work in the open on the ground
  or shelters


• older industry—since 1970s • younger industry—since 1990s
  and before


• industry stable with • industry has grown rapidly and is
  few new entrants still growing

Table 2. Different woodcarving production strategies found in the region

conservation areas. Seventeen species in total are used (Table 3). P. angolensis

is by far the most important, followed by Spirostachys africana, Dalbergia

melanoxylon, Berchemia zeyheri (Sonder) Grubov and Olea europea L. ssp.

africana (Miller) P.S. Green (Shackleton, S.E. 1993). A few woodworkers obtain

Apodytes dimidiata E. Meyer ex Arn. from private farms in a nearby commercial

farming area. This case study analysis focuses on P. angolensis as the most

favoured and most abundant species in the study area.

Because of scarcity of wood, especially over the last decade, alternative

sources are being sought at the instigation of both craftsmen and support

agencies. Recent work revealed that carvers are now accessing wood from

neighbours’ home plots and fields as well as revisiting previous harvesting

sites to salvage ‘waste’ wood. Furniture makers reported purchasing P.

angolensis planks imported from Mozambique and Zambia from timber

merchants in Johannesburg, Pretoria and Nelspruit. The Danish Cooperation

for Environment and Development Community Forestry Project and the KNP

Socio-Ecology Programme have assisted woodworkers in obtaining wood from

the national Working for Water Programme^5 and from areas cleared for mining

and other developments (Yeatman personal communication). One carver-

furniture maker successfully negotiated with a farmer to harvest the exotic

species jacaranda (Jacaranda mimosifolia D. Don ) and syringa (Melia azedarach

L.) from his farm.

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