Common Property Resource Institutions and Forest Management in Latin America

This article focuses on how common property resource (CPR) institutions managing forest resources in Latin America have responded to change, a subject relatively ignored in the English-language literature. It examines in particular the evidence surrounding the popular view that CPR institutions must inevitably break down in the face of economic and demographic pressures—an extension of the `tragedy of the commons' thesis. The evidence shows that there have been a number of both positive and negative experiences. The negative experiences include the obvious vulnerability of Amerindian informal institutions to the individualistic incentive structures of market forces. The apparent incompatibility between the market and `gift' economy leads to a questioning of the current donor emphasis on market-orientated natural forest management among indigenous groups that have received little exposure to market forces, and alternative approaches are suggested. However, many indigenous and other groups have responded positively to market pressures and there is ample evidence that, given an appropriate policy environment, community-based natural forest management can still be regarded as a `great white hope' for forest conservation, especially considering the largely negative environmental and equity impacts of individualized resource privatization, as in the Brazilian Amazon. However, CPR institutions have generally faced an unsupportive policy environment; it is therefore over-simplistic for those in favour of privatization of property rights to ascribe their erosion to commercial or demographic pressures per se.     

The Changing Regime: Forest Property and Reformasi in Indonesia

This article explores the dominant explanations of the failure of forest management in Indonesia within the public discourse of the late New Order period. Drawing on a review of salient literature and relevant case studies, the major part of the article discusses the underlying historical, institutional and political causes of the failure of the state property regime. By taking a narrow view of the issues, public discourse during the New Order (1966–98) avoided discussion of the structure of property relations and the power relations that supported them. However, the forest fires of 1997–8 and the ensuing ecological crisis have revealed that the forest policy that allocated property rights over vast areas of the nation’s forests to well-connected conglomerates and politico-business families was inequitable and lacked legitimacy. While new legislative initiatives open up possibilities for co-management, the reforms so far barely engage with the underlying structure of property rights. These issues will need to be more thoroughly addressed if Indonesia is to tackle the bitter legacy of the Suharto period.     

The Indian State in a Liberalizing Landscape

There has been much discussion recently on the ‘great Indian land grab’, that is, the acquisition of productive land by the government, and the handing over of this land to large‐scale industry. What do these ongoing land transfers tell us about the nature of the state? This article builds a picture of the state in a liberalizing landscape based on empirical evidence. It outlines the role of the state in Kutch during a transfer of 30 km² of forest and coastal land to a cement manufacturing and exporting operation ‘Karkhana Ltd.’ (pseudonym). Karkhana's experience does not evince a state in withdrawal. Nor do we witness a regulatory state that watches a changing economy from the legal and coercive sidelines. Instead, the case study is able to reinforce heterodox perspectives that place the state at the centre of India's new economy as a close ally of big capital. Taking these views forward, the author suggests that the state's role in this alliance is that of a normative legitimator of liberalization, a buffer in the contentious politics of land, and an institutional promoter of and manoeuvrer through the new land regime. A multifaceted state is indispensable to India's liberalizing landscape.     

Wildlife Management in Tanzania: State Control,Rent Seeking and Community Resistance

Despite a decade of rhetoric on community conservation, current trends in Tanzania reflect a disturbing process of reconsolidation of state control over wildlife resources and increased rent‐seeking behaviour, combined with dispossession of communities. Whereas the 1998 Wildlife Policy promoted community participation and local benefits, the subsequent policy of 2007 and the Wildlife Conservation Act of 2009 returned control over wildlife and over income from sport hunting and safari tourism to central government. These trends, which sometimes include the use of state violence and often take place in the name of ‘community‐based’ conservation, are not, however, occurring without resistance from communities. This article draws on in‐depth studies of wildlife management practices at three locations in northern Tanzania to illustrate these trends. The authors argue that this outcome is more than just the result of the neoliberalization of conservation. It reflects old patterns of state patrimony and rent seeking, combined with colonial narratives of conservation, all enhanced through neoliberal reforms of the past two decades. At the same time, much of the rhetoric of neoliberal reforms is being pushed back by the state in order to capture rent and interact with villagers in new and oppressive ways.     

The Forest Service Since the National Forest Management Act

There has been considerable recent discussion and debate about change and the need for change in the United States Forest Service. A number of observers have argued that the agency has shifted its emphasis from commodity to non-commodity values of the National Forests, has become more sensitive to environmental and ecological concerns, and has become more responsive to public input. However, to date most articles on the topic of change in the Forest Service have been either theoretical and speculative in nature or have based their conclusions on attitude surveys of agency employees. So far no studies have provided “hard,” empirical evidence of change or have conducted any systematic examination of the presumed causes. This symposium attempts to fill this gap. What follows is the presentation of the analyses of a wide range of important quantitative indicators of agency change. From these analyses, we attempt to answer the following questions: Has the Forest Service indeed been changing? If so, what direction has it taken and how significant has this change been? What are the possible causes of change, and what have been the consequences for National Forest policy? What factors are likely to influence future change in the agency?     

Communal Forest Management: The Honduran Resin Tappers

Natural resource tenure and economic feasibility of resource-based activities are two of the most important issues in the current debate around environmental degradation and rural poverty. While many analyses have blamed the ‘tragedy of the commons’ and government mismanagement for environmental destruction, this paper provides a case study of resin tapping in Honduras which formulates the hypotheses that common property regimes can be successful and that economic liberalization policies may be detrimental to community-level resource schemes. Over half of the 6000 farmer-resin tappers in Honduras are organized into forty-six co-operatives that market the tree sap, wood and other forest products. These activities combine the twin goals of community-based forest preservation and income generation. Established legally in 1974, the tapping groups have expanded to include a variety of organizational and technical arrangements. The two co-operatives of Villa Santa and San Juan de Ojojona demonstrate contrasting histories, ecological endowments and economic outcomes. Currently the Honduran resin tappers are facing problems over their access to forest resources, the fluctuating profitability of extractive activities and the stability of the co-operative organization. These three issues are relevant to a variety of community-based environmental activities, and the lessons of the Honduran experience can be applied to analyse the processes of environmental degradation and community response elsewhere in the Third World.     

Heterogeneity,Group Size and Collective Action: The Role of Institutions in Forest Management

Collective action for sustainable management among resource‐dependent populations has important policy implications. Despite considerable progress in identifying factors that affect the prospects for collective action, no consensus exists about the role played by heterogeneity and size of group. The debate continues in part because of a lack of uniform conceptualization of these factors, the existence of non‐linear relationships, and the mediating role played by institutions. This article draws on research by scholars in the International Forestry Resources and Institutions (IFRI) research network which demonstrates that some forms of heterogeneity do not negatively affect some forms of collective action. More importantly, IFRI research draws out the interrelations among group size, heterogeneity, and institutions. Institutions can affect the level of heterogeneity or compensate for it. Group size appears to have a non‐linear relationship to at least some forms of collective action. Moreover, group size may be as much an indicator of institutional success as a precondition for such success.     

State Collapse as Business: The Role of Conflict Trade and the Emerging Control Agenda

This article examines the role played by conflict trade in the process of state collapse. Conflict trade is defined here as the trade in non–military goods such as diamonds, timber and drugs that finances war. Such trade includes both the export and import of goods to a war zone as well as extra–territorial trade undertaken by supporters of a warring faction. It is argued that the decline of superpower military aid coupled with the broader effects of centre–periphery exploitation mediated through a neo–liberal and western imposed version of globalization has meant such trade has a particular salience both in contemporary conflict and the process of state collapse. Equally, though, the reliance of warring factions on conflict trade means they are also susceptible to changes in the market for their goods, creating a vulnerability that can (and to some extent has been) exploited to promote peace. The emerging control agenda on conflict trade is currently characterized by a number of problems — most notably, the risk that the control of conflict trade might become a substitute for action on arms exports; that international action has largely been undertaken within an inappropriate statist paradigm; that control has sometimes taken second place to economic or strategic interests and that policy has become hostage to a ‘drugs and thugs’ agenda which risks undermining its effectiveness.     

The Indian nation and selective amnesia: representing conflicts and violence in Indian history textbooks

‘Unity is always obtained by means of brutality’ wrote Ernest Renan. Following this idea, this article investigates how social conflicts and violence are included or muted in national history. This is done by comparing the successive series of history textbooks used in India in the postindependence period. The historical narratives contained in the textbooks were influenced by different conceptions of the Indian nation, and these variations allow us to observe and better understand what is remembered or forgotten in the national narrative. We will see that conflicts and violence are referred to when they involve the nation against its ‘other’ but depictions of conflicts within the nation as it is imagined are avoided. Thus, certain violent episodes of the past find a place in the national historical narrative, yet violence in itself is never described.