Unpredictable Outcomes in Forestry—Governance Institutions in Practice

Abstract

Community forest management in the Amazon has been subject to institutional changes because of a shift from government to governance. Although these changes aim to create opportunities for local communities, the effectiveness of new institutions remains arbitrary. In particular, the unpredictability of legislative outcomes—as one of the institutional changes—evokes discussion on how local people respond to new institutions. This article analyzes the effects of forest institutions at the local level. By using the concept of institutional bricolage, the article argues that institutions in practice work differently than intended.

Keywords:

• Bolivia
• community forestry
• Ecuador
• institutional bricolage
• institutions
• Latin America
• smallholders

Acknowledgments

The author thanks the people from the communities in Bolivia and Ecuador for their voluntary participation in this research. The author also thanks Prof. Dr. B. J. M. Arts and Dr. Ir. K. F. Wiersum of the Forest and Nature Conservation Policy Group, Wageningen University, the Netherlands, for their supervision, comments, and discussion, from which the research and the article benefitted tremendously. Finally, the author thanks Catherine O'Dea for language editing.

Notes

The ForLive project (Forest management by small farmers in the Amazon—An opportunity to enhance forest ecosystem stability and rural livelihoods) selected nearly 150 promising cases of community forestry, of which 16 cases were selected to further investigate.

Although the research itself took place in six communities and multiple examples of bricolage practices were found, only three examples of these practices have been chosen as best reflecting each bricolage practice and most strongly contributing to the argument of the paper. This is not to claim that these three examples are the only suitable ones, as the scope of this research is much wider.