Stakeholder Perspectives on Prospects for Co-Management of an Old-Growth Forest Watershed Near Valdivia, Chile

Abstract

When human and financial resources are limited, who assumes responsibility for managing a country's protected areas? In Chile, government-owned protected areas lack sufficient management resources while facing extraction pressure from the rural poor. Multi-stakeholder partnerships have been posited as a co-management style alternative to traditional state-managed systems. This strategy is being tested in the Llancahue watershed near Valdivia, Chile. To understand stakeholders’ views toward the formation of this multi-stakeholder partnership, we evaluated stakeholders’ beliefs, positions, interests, and concerns. Results indicated stakeholders believed an adaptive co-management model could improve Llancahue forest and watershed conservation efforts if the partner roles were explicit, stakeholder involvement was inclusive, and appropriate financing mechanisms were determined. Stakeholders were most concerned with the financial, personnel, and legal costs of managing Llancahue. However, our analysis suggests the perceived benefits of halting illegal logging and creating a peri-urban park currently outweighed stakeholder concerns over project financing and institutional design.

Keywords:

• adaptive co-management
• Chile
• decentralized conservation
• protected area management
• public–private partnerships

Acknowledgments

We thank our funders, including a North Carolina State University Hofmann Fellowship, the USDA International Science and Education Program, and a North Carolina State University Zobel Grant. We also acknowledge the support of the Faculty of Forestry Sciences (now Faculty of Forest Sciences and Natural Resources) at the UACh, the Lomas del Sol community for their participation in the community interviews, and our technicians, Paul Szejner, Javier Millar, William Alarcon, and Kenneth Alvaro, who were indispensible in helping us complete our field research. Thanks are also due to Drs. Stacy Nelson and Caitlin Burke for valuable feedback on earlier versions of this article.

Notes

*Additionally, all campesino stakeholders (n = 15) responded yes to this question.

A copy of the agreement (in Spanish) is available from the author.