Diverse local regulatory responses to a new forestry regime in forest communities in the Bolivian Amazon

Abstract

Over the last decade, important decentralization processes and agrarian reforms have taken place in many tropical countries, with the purpose of transferring rights and responsibilities to forest communities. These reforms have resulted in an intensive academic debate on governance and management of forests and how actors should be involved. An important but understudied element in this debate is the way in which communities cope with new legislation and responsibilities. Property rights bestowed by the government leave many aspects undecided and require that local forest users devise principles of access and allocation and establish authority to control those processes. We studied 16 communities in the northern Bolivian Amazon to evaluate how forest communities develop and control local rules for resource access and use. We found that the first requirement to community rule design, enforcement, and effective forest management is the opportunity to, and equity of, access to forest resources among members. Under the newly imposed forestry regulations, communities took matters in their own hands, and designed more specific rules rights and obligations of how community members could and should use economically important resources. The cases suggest that communities maintain capacity to prepare their own ownership arrangements and related rules, even if they are strongly conditioned by the regulatory reforms. Very specific local histories, that may differ from community to community, influence strongly how specific ideas are being shaped, which in northern Bolivia resulted in notable local differences. The results suggest that new regulatory regimes should consider options that given the adequate conditions, communities can define adequate or at least convenient forestry institutions that assure an acceptable level of collective coexistence according to each particular communal history.

Learning from the past: Trends and dynamics in livelihoods of Bolivian forest communities

“…Where people have larger plots than can be harvested with family labourers, households will ask the help of relatives or even engage itinerant Brazil nut collectors. Families, therefore, can increase Brazil nut production, but this depends on Brazil nut prices, labour costs, but also on the acquiescence of other members of their resident community (Cano et al, 2014).…”

“…Since then the population centres of barracas have experienced an accelerated transition to officially recognized communities, with schools and a communal government as required by law (de Jong et al, 2006). While these formal administrative changes took place, the previous barraca owners, or their relatives, widely co-opted political powers and commonly continued to exercise control over the resident population of the new legal communities (Cespedes, 2005;Cano et al 2014;Cano, 2012).…”

“…At present, almost 40 % of the region's forest areas are in the hands of forest communities (INRA, 2011), but internal arrangements of the de jure collective ownership is showing considerable variation in the region. Cano et al (2014) observed three typical arrangements: one that emphasized free access of commonly held forest resources, but respecting the principle of equality; respect for pre-reform unequal access rights among village members mostly sanctioned by powerful families in communities; and a reinforcement of de facto private rights that already had established themselves when communities engaged strongly with regional markets previous the reforms.…”

Relevant factors for collective action in the common-pool resources context

“…Several studies of empirical analysis in groups have analyzed the presence or absence of the aspects identified by Ostrom (1990) and present in the successful collective actions of common-pool resources. In general, the results show that these principles do not have a constancy in the collective action groups, that is, each of the principles has different applications according to the type of group studied (BAGGIO et al, 2016;CARDONA et al , 2014;ARNOLD;VILLAMAYOR, 2010;GARI et al, 2017;VOGEL;LIND;LUNDQVIST, 2016;WILSON;COX, 2013).…”

Análisis del relacionamiento de los grupos humanos con el bosque desde los principios de ostrom

“…El principio de arreglos de elección colectiva se evidencia en la participación de los usuarios en la toma de decisiones sobre los recursos y se relaciona con la existencia de instituciones locales que velan por este derecho; sin embargo, cuando se observa desde una escala institucional mayor, la participación resulta baja, dejando a un lado el principio básico de la gobernanza, el cual implica una participación y concertación con los usuarios locales en escalas mayores de decisión. Los arreglos definidos por los usuarios (77 %), se dan en los entornos de las comunidades, donde los usuarios de los recursos suelen reunirse a tomar decisiones sobre la forma en la que se debe usar el recurso (Ayma- Romayab & Castro, 2013;Cardona, de Jong, Zuidema, & Boot, 2014;Gautam & Shivakoti, 2005;Salcedo-Hernández, 2011). Como se indicó en principios anteriores, los grupos de usuarios crean instituciones locales (65 %) que velan por el bienestar de sus comunidades y por el correcto manejo de los recursos; estas instituciones son creadas de acuerdo a las formas y los principios que regulan la relación de los usuarios con sus recursos y la participación de los usuarios es permanente y de forma rotativa sobre los cargos.…”