Community-based forestry and timber certification in Southeast Bolivia

Abstract

Initiatives promoting community forestry in South America have significantly increased over the past decade. Many of these efforts have concentrated on indigenous lands where a large proportion of commercially valuable forests are located. One such project, among the Chiquitano Indians of Lomerio in southeast Bolivia, is examined here. Interviews with Chiquitano leaders, NGO and development organisation workers, and forest and sawmill workers, as well as ethnographic research in Chiquitano communities, are used to describe problems faced by the project in establishing forest management activities, organizing labour, administration, paying wages and distributing benefits. The author argues that many of the problems that the Lomerio project is experiencing can be traced to fundamental conflicts between Chiquitano culture and the values that necessarily accompany market-based development efforts such as community forestry. The research suggests that the key to success in Lomerio will lie in moulding the organisation of the project in ways that reflect Chiquitano patterns of work and production, and reconciling the demands of market economics with the values of reciprocation that permeate life in Chiquitano communities.