Building local institutions for national conservation programs: lessons for developing Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) programs

Abstract

ABSTRACT. For programs that aim to promote forest conservation and poverty alleviation, such as Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+), the participation of indigenous communities is essential to meet program goals. Using Ostrom's theory of collective action for common pool resource management, we evaluated the institutions governing indigenous participation in the Programa Socio Bosque incentive-based conservation program in Ecuador. We conducted structured interviews with 94 members in 4 communities to assess community institutions for 6 of Ostrom's principles, using 12 measures we developed for the principles. We found substantial variation between communities in terms of their institutional performance. The best-performing community performed well (>50% of interviewees reported successfully meeting the measure) on 8 of the 12 measures. The weakest performed well on only 2 out of 12 measures. Overall, our results indicate that there is stronger performance for constitutional-level institutions, which determine who gets to make the rules, and some collective-choice institutions, which determine how local rules are made. We identified specific challenges with the day-to-day operational institutions that arise from participation in nation statecommunity conservation programs, such as restricted resource appropriation, monitoring and compliance, and conflict resolution. We found that top-down policy making has an important role to play in supporting communities to establish constitutional-level and some collective-choice institutions. However, developing operational institutions may take more time and depend on local families' day-today use of resources, and thus may require a more nuanced policy approach. As some countries and donors find a jurisdictional REDD+ approach increasingly attractive, complementing top-down policy measures with bottom-up institutional development could provide a stronger platform to achieve the shift from current land use driving deforestation to a lower-carbon-emissions land management trajectory.

Seeing the forest for the trees: identifying discursive convergence and dominance in complex REDD+ governance

“…"Capacity to undertake such monitoring [of cobenefits] is very limited at present and so progress will depend on donor support for funding and for building up capacity" (Lao PDR 2010:84). This sparse consideration of community-based management and monitoring in the reports coincides with the realities that several studies found on the ground for these and other countries: the lack of a more nuanced policy approach that facilitates bottom-up institutional development for a stronger community involvement (Danielsen et al 2013, Collen et al 2016.…”

Costs, cobenefits, and community responses to REDD+: a case study from Nepal

“…For effective participation of indigenous communities in REDD+ activities, rules need to be implemented at multiple levels (Collen et al 2016). Constitutional-level and collective choice rules are easier to establish relative to operational rules, which require regular execution and monitoring.…”

The Legacy of Elinor Ostrom on Common Forests Research Assessed Through Bibliometric Analysis

“…The authors found a negative relation between the PCA compliance and the number of forest fires. The authors Loaiza et al (2016) and Collen et al (2016) addressed REDD+ efforts in different contexts. They used Ostrom's Principles (1990) to assess land configuration and institutional arrangements for decision-making on the use of shared resources and their 2 Retrieved publications by the first search classified in case studies (followed by the country/region where the study was conducted) and non-case studies.…”

“…ROMANELLI AND BOSCHI implications for REDD+ implementation. Collen et al (2016) adopted an approach on building local institutions to national conservation programs by highlighting lessons for the development of REDD+ programs. To date, payment schemes for environmental services (PES), aimed at preserving threatened tropical forests (often denoted as "reduced emissions from deforestation" and "forest degradation" -REDD+ schemes) have shown positive impacts on forestry net economy.…”