Brazil nut forest concessions in the Peruvian Amazon: success or failure?

H.V Willem,M.R Guariguata,V.J Ingram

doi:10.1505/146554819826606540

Abstract

In Peru, concessions for harvesting Brazil nuts (fruits of the Amazon tree Bertholletia excelsa) were launched in the Madre de Dios Department in 2000. This study analyses the extent to which the Brazil nut concession system (which covers about 1 million ha of closed canopy forest) has met its objective of providing a governance model for sustainable and equitable use. Primary and secondary information sources were used to analyse governance outcomes based on 10 indicators, and the performance of Brazil nut concessions in two contrasting land-use types in Madre de Dios were compared (within and outside protected areas). It was found that corresponding institutional arrangements have led, more than a decade later, to different socioeconomic, ecological and legal outcomes. Particularly outside protected areas, where the vast majority of the concessions are located, a paradoxical situation was found of ineffective over-regulation on paper but minimal intervention from state agencies; ineffective state monitoring and sanctions; poor law enforcement with excessive punitive measures; power imbalances in the value chain and illegal timber harvesting; the lack of a multiple forest-use framework; and overlapping, conflictual customary and regulatory governance. This paper argues that at present, the long-term sustainability of the Brazil nut concession system seems compromised. If the Brazil nut concession system is to enter into a new decade, this may only be possible by formally recognizing the multiplicity of land uses, implementing and validating sound silvicultural approaches, minimizing land use and management trade-offs in alignment with local aspirations, and establishing effective negotiation platforms with different productive sectors and government agencies.

Highlights

Successful forest governance can broadly be defined as the exercise of authority and development of institutions to ensure sustainable forest management (SFM) by maintaining forest values, ecosystem structure and function while satisfying human needs
There is no consensus on the particular modes of property right regimes to achieve SFM (Ojanen et al 2017, Tucker 2010), forest concessions have proven a popular land-use model in remote areas with low population densities and limited intervention from forest authorities (Karsenty et al 2008, Singer and Karsenty 2008)
This involves the granting of public forest lands and their resources through a long-term contract, for the exploitation of timber and/or non-timber forest products (NTFPs) to a private firm, community, individual or non-governmental organization and subject to compliance with a specified set of management activities and safeguards (Balbinotto et al 2012, Karsenty 2007)

Summary

Introduction

Successful forest governance can broadly be defined as the exercise of authority and development of institutions to ensure sustainable forest management (SFM) by maintaining forest values, ecosystem structure and function while satisfying human needs. There is no consensus on the particular modes of property right regimes to achieve SFM (Ojanen et al 2017, Tucker 2010), forest concessions have proven a popular land-use model in remote areas with low population densities and limited intervention from forest authorities (Karsenty et al 2008, Singer and Karsenty 2008). For allowing corruption while promoting illegal logging (Finer et al 2014); for being officially regulated by biologically unrealistic timber cutting cycles to maintain sustainable yields (McPherson et al 2012); for lack of proper monitoring to encourage adaptive management (Balbinotto et al 2012, Karsenty et al 2008); for failing to solve overlapping land rights issues (Karsenty 2016); and for disregarding formal recognition of multiple forest uses along with local aspirations (Lescuyer et al 2015)

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Conclusion