Peter Cronkleton

Resource Theft in Tropical Forest Communities: Implications for Non- timber Management, Livelihoods, and Conservation

Increased devolution of forest ownership and management rights to local control has the potential to promote both conservation and livelihood development in remote tropical regions. Such shifts in property rights, however, can generate conflicts, particularly when combined with rapidly increasing values of forest resources. We explored the phenomenon of Brazil nut (Bertholletia excelsa) theft in communities in Western Amazonia. Through interviews with 189 Brazil nut collectors in 12 communities in Bolivia and Brazil and participation in the 2006 and 2007 harvests, we quantified relative income derived from Brazil nuts, reported nut thefts, and nut collection and management practices. We found a much greater incidence of reported Brazil nut thefts in Pando, Bolivia than in the adjacent state of Acre, Brazil. Our analyses suggest that three factors may have affected nut thefts in the forest: (1) contrasts in the timing and process of formally recognizing property rights, (2) different historic settlement patterns, and (3) varying degrees of economic dependence on Brazil nuts. Threat of theft influenced Brazil nut harvest regimes, with potentially long-term implications for forest-based livelihoods, and management and conservation of Brazil nut-rich forests in Western Amazonia.

The Recognition of Forest Rights in Latin America: Progress and Shortcomings of Forest Tenure Reforms

Significant tenure reforms have taken place over public forestlands in the past 20 years in Latin America. These reforms differ from previous tenure reforms with respect to their origins and goals. In forest tenure reform, rights have being granted through a diversity of tenure arrangements, mainly to those already living in forests and to collectives rather than individuals, and with the potentially contradictory goals of promoting local well-being while conserving forests. These reforms face several challenges for achieving their goals and have resulted in ambiguous outcomes. We argue that outcomes for people and forests could be improved if, besides the simple recognition of rights to forests, greater attention is placed on aligning broader policy incentives to support community and smallholders efforts to manage their forests. We discuss the characteristics of forest tenure reform based on five cases, representing different tenure arrangements, in four countries in Latin America.

Formalization and Collective Appropriation of Space on Forest Frontiers: Comparing Communal and Individual Property Systems in the Peruvian and Ecuadoran Amazon

This article compares and contrasts communal and individual properties to examine the relationship between state efforts to formalize property rights and tenure security. The article draws on a study of four landscape mosaics in the Peruvian and Ecuadoran Amazon, selected to represent dynamic forest frontiers. Though Hernando de Soto and other theorists from the property rights school emphasize private individual behavior and land allocation in many collective communities, this research also found collective behavior and land allocation in many individualized communities. The importance of the collective and social relations for both types of properties was particularly salient in the sources of tenure security identified. Though title was one important source, this was insufficient, and often formalization was found to be impermanent. Both groups also emphasized social networks and community relations, on the one hand, and demonstrated use, which further establishes the legitimacy of claims with neighbors, on the other.

Participatory Methods for Planning the Future in Forest Communities

Forest devolution and government decentralization have increased community control over forests. Remoteness, low literacy, and lack of formal planning experience often leave forest communities unprepared for their new responsibilities. Forest communities need to develop skills that allow them to establish goals and make decisions transparently and democratically and to negotiate effectively with other local actors if they are to become more proactive participants in local governance processes. In Bolivia and Vietnam we tested four adaptations of scenario-based methods to assist forest communities to develop these skills. This article reflects on the strengths, limitations, and new applications of these methods. The methods encourage participation by members who have little experience with structured planning, including the most marginalized: women, elderly, and illiterate participants. The methods are useful as planning tools, for generating records of decision-making processes, and for preparing for negotiations between communities and local governments.

Secondary level organisations and the democratisation of forest governance: Case studies from Nepal and Guatemala

This paper examines the emerging role of secondary level organisations in the democratisation of forest governance by analysing two cases of forest-based collective action in Nepal and Guatemala. It explores the conditions surrounding the emergence and growth of these secondary level organisations, and examines the nature of their organisational approaches, strategic actions, and the resulting outcomes in terms of democratising forest governance. The organisations discussed in this paper are products of broader decentralisation processes and represent organised and empowered forest people. They are capable of shifting the balance of power in favour of community level institutions, and can compel state agencies to become more accountable to the needs of forest-dependent citizens. As a result, by leading collective action beyond the community to a secondary level, these organisations have influenced forest governance by making it more democratic, equitable and productive.

The data not collected on community forestry.

Abstract Conservation and development practitioners increasingly promote community forestry as a way to conserve ecosystem services, consolidate resource rights, and reduce poverty. However, outcomes of community forestry have been mixed; many initiatives failed to achieve intended objectives. There is a rich literature on institutional arrangements of community forestry, but there has been little effort to examine the role of socioeconomic, market, and biophysical factors in shaping both land‐cover change dynamics and individual and collective livelihood outcomes. We systematically reviewed the peer‐reviewed literature on community forestry to examine and quantify existing knowledge gaps in the community‐forestry literature relative to these factors. In examining 697 cases of community forest management (CFM), extracted from 267 peer‐reviewed publications, we found 3 key trends that limit understanding of community forestry. First, we found substantial data gaps linking population dynamics, market forces, and biophysical characteristics to both environmental and livelihood outcomes. Second, most studies focused on environmental outcomes, and the majority of studies that assessed socioeconomic outcomes relied on qualitative data, making comparisons across cases difficult. Finally, there was a heavy bias toward studies on South Asian forests, indicating that the literature on community forestry may not be representative of decentralization policies and CFM globally.

Timber and Non-timber Forest Product Extraction and Management in the Tropics: Towards Compatibility?

Tropical forests have the potential to satisfy multiple demands for goods and services. Yet integrated management approaches across multiple goods remain elusive. Here we consider selective harvesting of timber and non-timber forest product (NTFP) extraction. We analyze the current status of this combination and speculate on prospects and challenges regarding (1) resource inventory, (2) ecology and silviculture, (3) conflict in the use of multipurpose tree species, (4) wildlife conservation and use, (5) tenure, and (6) product certification. Convincing conclusions are hampered by the relative paucity of comprehensive studies and lessons learned on what has worked and what has not in the context of integrated management for timber and NTFPs. Interventions for enhancing the compatibility of timber and NTFP extraction must be scaled in relation to the size of the area being managed, applied timber harvesting intensities, and the dynamics of multiactor, forest partnerships (e.g., between the private sector and local communities). In addition, training and education issues may have to be recrafted with multiple-use management approaches inserted into tropical forestry curricula.

Revisiting the ‘cornerstone of Amazonian conservation’: a socioecological assessment of Brazil nut exploitation

The Brazil nut (the seeds of the rainforest tree Bertholletia excelsa) is the only globally traded seed collected from the wild by forest-based harvesters across the Amazon basin. The large geographic scale of Brazil nut exploitation and the significant contributions to local livelihoods, national economies, and forest-based development over the last decades, merit a review of the “conservation-through-use” paradigm. We use Elinor Ostrom’s framework for assessing sustainability in socioecological systems: (1) resource unit, (2) users, (3) governance system, and (4) resource system, to determine how different contexts and external developments generate specific conservation and development outcomes. We find that the resource unit reacts robustly to the type and level of extraction currently practiced; that resource users have built on a self-organized system that had defined boundaries and access to the resource; that linked production chains, market networks and informal financing work to supply global markets; and that local harvesters have used supporting alliances with NGOs and conservationists to formalize and secure their endogenous governance system and make it more equitable. As a result, the Brazil nut model represents a socioecological system that may not require major changes to sustain productivity. Yet since long-term Brazil nut production seems inextricably tied to a continuous forest cover, and because planted Brazil nut trees currently provide a minimal contribution to total nut production basin-wide, we call to preserve, diversify and intensify production in Brazil nut-rich forests that will inevitably become ever more integrated within human-modified landscapes over time.

Influence of the Expert Effect on Cultural Models

ABSTRACT We examined hunters’ perceptions of fauna to see if expert hunters and other hunters perceive wildlife abundance similarly. We used cultural consensus analysis (CCA) to assess the knowledge of 25 hunters in the Bolivian Amazon about the abundance of 38 animals. CCA indicated highly shared beliefs among hunters concerning wildlife abundance (average agreement = .62). However, expert hunters (as judged by their reported successful hunts of rare species, having hunted recently, and consuming more game in their diet) perceived more animals as abundant than did non-experts, although they all shared the same model. Since the expert hunters did not always agree on which species was more abundant, they had low cultural knowledge scores in CCA results. These experts may be unwilling to curtail hunting efforts on key species that they perceive to be abundant.