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INSTITUTIONAL RESTRICTIONS FACED BY AMAZONIAN COMMUNITIES FOR MANAGING THEIR FORESTS

By Gabriel Medina, Benno Pokorny and Bruce Campbell

Traditional and indigenous Amazonian communities hold considerable areas of continuous forest which have potential for improving their livelihoods. The advance of development frontiers is increasing the market for forest products, especially timber. Forests would thus seem to have a role in helping to meet the Millennium Development Goals in the Amazon. In transforming the potential of the forest into concrete benefits for livelihoods, communities are forced to deal with external stakeholders: loggers negotiating their timber rights, and government agencies and NGOs supporting community forest management initiatives.

This article is based on research carried out under the ForLive project (http://www.waldbau.uni-freiburg.de/forlive/), which has explored how relationships with external players influence the opportunities for communities: (1) to benefit from the use of their forests and (2) to develop forest management systems on their own, based on their interests and perspectives. Fieldwork was undertaken between 2005 and 2006 in the Bolivian, Brazilian, and Peruvian Amazonian frontiers.

Paternalistic loggers and the depletion of community forests
From the 1960s to the 1980s South American governments implemented policies to promote the economic integration of the Amazon by creating incentives for the expansion of the private sector, including commercial logging companies. As a result, loggers are currently negotiating timber rights with local communities in many of the frontiers across the Amazon. The established logging sector contends that partnerships with logging companies represent a great opportunity for the development of Amazonian communities.

In the study areas, small-scale loggers often negotiated with community members, offering ‘favours' such as access to credit and support in case of emergencies (e.g. sickness). In addition, large-scale loggers offered advance cash payments to community members that they were negotiating with. During these negotiations, community members have often accepted the incentives on offer and chosen to maintain good relationships with the loggers, rather than bargaining for more direct benefits. These relationships can be characterised as paternalistic (Medina and Shanley, 2004).

Based on this paternalistic structure, communities have sold their timber rights without defining any rules for timber extraction. Loggers have decided how the forests are to be managed, identifying species and numbers for extraction and the logging techniques to be used. In all of the case study sites, the species of interest were depleted within a few years, providing only limited benefits to the communities concerned.

Top-down development organizations and ‘sustained' forest management
Since 1990 an alternative model of development through forest conservation by sustainable management has been implemented by international donors, government agencies and NGOs. A number of pilot initiatives have provided technical support to communities for implementing this approach. Support organizations contend that community forestry reconciles development, conservation and poverty reduction.

These initiatives, as observed in the study areas, were generally characterized by top down decision-making processes. The main benefits to communities have often been indirect, such as improved access to information and better legal status. The direct benefits, most notably payments received, have been relatively low and have not offset the large amount of time spent on forest management activities and workshops.

In cases where external support has been provided, and based on donors' perspectives of forest use, some progress has been made in securing improved rights in accordance with national legal norms. However, since these norms have generally been determined and set by external experts their viability has often been tied to ongoing external support. Where support has ended, local communities have abandoned these dysfunctional legal systems and their associated management practices. In Brazil, for example, no more than 46 communities (which receive strong external support) are currently able to comply with the legal norms of forest management (Costa, 2005).

Conclusions
Paternalistic loggers and top-down development organizations have led communities to manage their forests according to external interests and perspectives. Under such conditions, communities have only indirectly benefited from the use of their forests, with limited improvements to their livelihoods.

Local Amazonian groups have been successful in defining their own concepts for working in other fields, such as fishing (Moreira, 2003) and land tenure (Allegretti, 1990). And they have also been successful in advocating their concepts through representative organizations. In the forestry sector, however, the relationships with loggers and development organizations tend to:

1. Prevent communities from developing concepts of forest management based on their own interests and perspectives. Instead, forest management has been defined by loggers, who have bought communities' timber rights or development organizations, who have implemented forest management initiatives based on externally-defined concepts.
2. Bar communities from getting organized and expressing their interests through representative organizations. Instead, families in case study communities that have directly collaborated with loggers and development organisations have found themselves separated from their neighbors as advocators of external interests.
3. Silence the community's voices in the current debate about Amazonian development strategies. Instead, loggers (contending for partnerships with communities) and development organizations (contending for sustainable use of forests) have promoted their interests over those of the community.

This leads us to conclude that the current institutional context for community management of forests in the Amazon is not as promising as it may first appear. Without restructuring existing institutional arrangements, it is unlikely that Amazonian forests can contribute to the MDGs. This would, however, be possible if local groups were able to play a more active role in the ongoing debates on Amazonian development.

References
Allegretti, M. 1990. Extractive Reserves: An alternative for reconciling development and environmental conservation in Amazonia. p. 252-264 in A.B. Anderson, Ed. Alternatives to deforestation : steps toward sustainable use of the Amazon rain forest. Columbia University Press, New York, U. S. A.

Costa, S. 2005. Diagnóstico da Situação dos Planos de Manejo Florestal Comunitário . Brasília: MMA-PNF – Relatório Final de Consultoria Técnica – Projeto FAO TCP-BRA 2902.

Medina, G. and Shanley, P. 2004. Big Trees, Small Favors: Loggers and Communities in Amazônia. Bois & Forêts dês Tropiques. 282 (4) 19-25.

Moreira, E. 2003. Tradição em Tempos de Modernidade : Reprodução Social numa Comunidade Varzeira do rio Xingu-Pa. Belém: EDUFPA

Contact information:
Gabriel Medina and Benno Porkony
Albert-Ludwigs University of Freiburg
Institute of Silviculture, ForLive Project
Tennenbacherstrasse 4
79106 Freiburg
Germany

Email: gabriel.medina@waldbau.uni-freiburg.de
benno.pokorny@waldbau.uni-freiburg.de
Website: http://www.waldbau.uni-freiburg.de/forlive

Bruce Campbell
Charles Darwin University (Australia) and Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR – Indonesia)
Email: bruce.campbell@cdu.edu.au

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