Community Forestry Enterprises Research Articles

Changing Trees, Enduring Forests: Institutional Bricolage, Gradual Change and Community Forestry among Yucatec Mayans in Mexico

ABSTRACTThis article seeks to understand why community forestry enterprises in the Mayan rainforest of Mexico are losing ground, while middlemen and manufacturers are regaining control over forestry resources. It focuses on the case of the Ejido San Felipe Oriente where an NGO codesigned a commercialization platform with the objective of bringing together local cooperatives to negotiate in the market from a position of strength. The project was hampered by an internal rupture in the ejido; in investigating this rupture, the authors use the concept of institutional bricolage to understand local power struggles, and the theory of gradual change to search for historical causal mechanisms. They find that the proximate causes of the rupture were family rivalries, suspicions of embezzlement, unfair exclusions, and the disruption of customary practices regarding the distribution of monetary benefits. However, historical continuities lay beneath the power struggle: ejidos in the Yucatan Peninsula have used their function as intermediaries to subordinate local interests rather than promote endogenous development. The authors advocate for an institutional design process that takes account of the unconscious and taken‐for‐granted meanings that influence institutional adaptation; they encourage development practitioners promoting community forestry enterprises in the Mayan rainforest of Mexico to address historical continuities in local institutions as a focal target of development interventions.

Community entrepreneurship: Lessons from Nepal's Chaubas community forestry sawmill

Nepal's community forestry is well studied and widely acknowledged, but its experience of Community Forestry Enterprises (CFEs) as a form of community entrepreneurship has not been part of a robust scholarly debate. While CFEs are considered a means to enhance community livelihoods and reduce poverty, a growing body of literature suggests that it is difficult to establish, grow and sustain economically profitable and socially beneficial CFEs. Across the developing world, many CFEs have emerged, functioned for certain periods of time, and then disappeared. In view of this, several conceptual questions have been raised about the viability and sustainability of CFEs. The aim of this paper is to investigate why CFEs fail and what could make them succeed. By analyzing the Chaubas-Bhumlu Community Sawmill of Nepal (hereafter, Chaubas CFE), this paper demonstrates that CFEs do not necessarily become successful, despite good access to natural resources, reasonable business plans, and significant start-up capital and support from external stakeholders. The Chaubas CFE struggled to sustain the enterprise in the face of changing government policies and politics, persistent conflictual community level dynamics, and the lack of local business capacity. We argue that the confidence on communities to engage in the business of natural resources is not well founded, especially in the context of complex social, political, and environmental realities that underpin business development and operation.

Community-based forestry and community forestry enterprises in quintana roo, mexico and petén, guatemala: how have policies, history, and culture shaped their trajectories?

ABSTRACTThe Mayan Biosphere Reserve in the region of Petén, Guatemala and the state of Quintana Roo, Mexico have well-established experiences of community-based forestry and community forestry enterprises within the area known as the Mayan forest. Context has been a key factor shaping the trajectories of these two cases. Several scholars have highlighted the usefulness of understanding the role of context in the emergence and functioning of common property regimes. However, scholarship has been dominated by the mainstream school of common property, which sees these regimes as arising out of voluntary, rational action with the main intent of conserving a common-pool natural resource. This paper seeks to answer the call for more research on context for common property regimes. The article discusses how policies, history, and culture have shaped the trajectory of community forestry in both countries. Policies present choices, opportunities, and constraints, while history and culture can facilitate or hinder taking advantage of such opportunities. Communities have agency not only to react, but also to adapt. These two cases present overriding themes that strengthen the alternative literature on common property regimes and also offer lessons to policy makers, practitioners, nongovernmental organizations, and communities practicing forestry.

An Analysis of Non-State and State Approaches for Forest Certification in Mexico

Mexico has had a non-state forest certification system under the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) since it was initiated in 1993, and developed a new state-sponsored Mexican Forest Certification System (MFCS) that began in 2008. Several analyses have been made of FSC forest certification in Mexico, but none have summarized the new MFCS system or compared its standards with FSC. We compare the implementation of the non-state FSC market forest certification with the state-sponsored MFCS system in Mexico, and review literature on forest certification, focusing on all studies in Mexico. MFCS has had substantial enrollment of more than 902,802 ha by 2016, compared to 900,388 ha for the more-established FSC program. MFCS can be acceptable for stand-alone forest certification, and might be viewed as a stepwise path to FSC certification. The merits of both systems are analyzed in terms of standard content, likely sustainable forestry practices, access to markets, and community forestry enterprises.

Factors Limiting Formation of Community Forestry Enterprises in the Southern Mixteca Region of Oaxaca, Mexico.

Many studies have considered community-based forestry enterprises to be the best option for development of rural Mexican communities with forests. While some of Mexico's rural communities with forests receive significant economic and social benefits from having a community forestry enterprise, the majority have not formed such enterprises. The purpose of this article is to identify and describe factors limiting the formation of community forestry enterprise in rural communities with temperate forests in the Southern Mixteca region of Oaxaca, Mexico. The study involved fieldwork, surveys applied to Community Board members, and maps developed from satellite images in order to calculate the forested surface area. It was found that the majority of Southern Mixteca communities lack the natural and social conditions necessary for developing community forestry enterprise; in this region, commercial forestry is limited due to insufficient precipitation, scarcity of land or timber species, community members' wariness of commercial timber extraction projects, ineffective local governance, lack of capital, and certain cultural beliefs. Only three of the 25 communities surveyed have a community forestry enterprise; however, several communities have developed other ways of profiting from their forests, including pine resin extraction, payment for environmental services (PES), sale of spring water, and ecotourism. We conclude that community forestry enterprise are not the only option for rural communities to generate income from their forests; in recent years a variety of forest-related economic opportunities have arisen which are less demanding of communities' physical and social resources.

Knowing but not knowing: Systematic conservation planning and community conservation in the Sierra Norte of Oaxaca, Mexico

Systematic conservation planning (SCP) seeks to propose new reserves through a scientifically rigorous process using databases and research selection algorithims. However, SCP exercises have been criticized for “knowing but not doing”, i.e. not implementing the proposed reserve. But there is an additional problem that can be called “knowing but not knowing”, knowing things from databases, but not knowing crucial contextual information about community-based social processes that have supported the high forest cover and biodiversity detected. Examined here is how a common property region of the Sierra Norte of Oaxaca, Mexico has maintained high forest cover in the absence of public protected areas, while multiple SCP exercises have advocated for the creation of public protected areas in communal tropical montane cloud forests and pine forests as strategies for biodiversity conservation and resilience to climate change. Methods included archival research, review of community documents, focus group interviews, semi-structured interviews, participant observation, land use transects, and GIS analysis and remote sensing. Conservation in the region originally occurred because of low population densities, steep slopes and a lack of agricultural subsidies, supported by locally adapted agricultural practices. In the 1990s, a transition from passive to active conservation took place with land use zoning plans, community conservation rules, community forestry enterprises and payments for environmental service programs that consolidated a trend towards high, unthreatened forest cover. Today, the study communities have an average of 88.3% forest cover, with 61% of that in informal conservation based on community land use zoning and rules and another 14% governed by forest management plans approved by the Mexican government. We argue that truly systematic conservation plans would seek to understand how communities in the region are already managing forests for conservation. It is pointless and uninformed to advocate for top-down conservation interventions of forests that are already robustly conserved and resilient to climate change due to community action.

Situating community forestry enterprises within New Institutional Economic theory: What are the implications for their organization?

Community forestry enterprises (CFEs) have gained considerable traction with rural development and forestry practitioners as models for community development, poverty alleviation, and conservation. This paper uses New Institutional Economic theory to identify the key organizational features and potential inherent weaknesses of CFEs. NIE theory focuses on arguments of economic efficiency, specifically transaction cost reductions that serve as incentives for collective action by groups of owners. Examples are given to show how the organization of CFEs reduced transaction costs stemming from interactions with industrial loggers and service providers. However, the creation of these community enterprises goes beyond simple transaction cost reductions and economic justifications. Additional unquantifiable benefits, such as self-determination, control over resources that communities have historically used, application of acquired skills, political representation, and application of acquired skills to name a few, are also secured through community ownership. These benefits however do not come without a cost. As enterprises where ownership rights are incomplete or ill-defined and which do not operate with the incentives of investor-owned firms, CFEs have little to no initial capital pool and experience considerable investment limitations due to limited wealth, horizon problems, and unsolved issues with moral hazard vis-à-vis banks. CFEs also face important management and collective decision-making challenges. In spite of their institutional weaknesses, it is apparent that many societies have decided that the benefits of community ownership far outweigh their ownership costs. State intervention and policy have played an important role in building the necessary supportive framework for the development of these enterprises. NIE as a dominant model for understanding alternative entrepreneurial forms was useful for identifying some important aspects of CFEs that, in a profit-driven economy, can constitute weaknesses that place them at a disadvantage with investor-owned firms. This analysis informs where policy should be targeted if CFEs are to be supported and fostered.

Transaction costs and the organization of CFEs: Experiences from ejidos in Quintana Roo, Mexico

Forest areas owned by indigenous people, families, and communities are increasingly linking to markets and attempting to harness the benefits of timber commercialization by setting up community forestry enterprises (CFEs). The interaction between markets and commonly owned forests is only until now enjoying greater attention from researchers. Common property scholarship has normally been used to study community natural resource management but currently it is deemed insufficient for understanding market interactions. This paper adds to this growing area of scholarship through the application of transaction costs economics (TCE) to the organization of community forest enterprises. TCE proposes that under certain circumstances and depending on the nature of the production process and context of exchange, different forms of organization play a role in reducing transaction costs in market exchange. Through fieldwork carried out in the state of Quintana Roo, Mexico, this paper finds that hierarchical, collective organization is not the only way to reduce transaction costs for CFEs. Although market transactions can expose communities to opportunistic behaviour and hazards in many jurisdictions, capacity-building and skilling will decrease information costs and asymmetries for CFEs of organizational forms that rely on market contracting for production. Additionally, this research found that CFEs and their business partners value relationships that reduce the range of transaction costs even if this represents trade-offs in prices and making concessions such as informal loans. We recommend that policy should not focus on driving specific organizational forms in communities that attempt to eliminate intermediaries, contractors and service providers. Efforts should concentrate primarily on creating enabling environments by reducing transaction costs, particularly information costs and asymmetries that hinder productive relations between CFEs and their exchange partners. Better commercial relationships, social innovation and entrepreneurship can develop in conditions in which both CFEs and trading partners stand on even footing. Transaction cost theory should further investigate the role of learning in reducing transaction costs and its effect on organizational choice. It should consider that transaction costs may be experienced differently by individuals with different skills and abilities.

Agents or stewards in community forestry enterprises? Lessons from the Mayan Biosphere Reserve, Guatemala

Community forestry enterprises are increasing participation in forestry activity and have become a favoured approach for reaching goals of conservation, poverty reduction and community development. Much has been written about the importance of supportive policy frameworks, technical assistance, the broader market in which these enterprises operate and the need for more significant control by communities over forests and their benefits through secure resource rights as key points of action. However, there is still a considerable knowledge gap in terms of understanding their organizational behaviour and how it affects the accomplishment of their goals. This paper takes a first step in filling this gap and analyses managerial behaviour in CFEs through the use of theories on principal–agent relationships. Data collected from CFEs in the Mayan Biosphere Reserve in Petén, Guatemala reveal important insights about managerial behaviour in these firms and how embeddedness of the CFE within the wider community plays a major role in managerial decision-making. Several policy implications are derived from these findings.

Community Forestry Enterprises in Mexico: Sustainability and Competitiveness

Community-based forest management, such as Community Forest Enterprises (CFEs), has the potential to generate positive socioenvironmental and economic outcomes. We performed a detailed survey of financial and production parameters for 30 of the approximately 992 CFEs in Mexico in order to estimate costs, income, profits, and sustainability of harvest levels for forest management, harvest, and sawmilling. Fourteen of the 30 CFEs harvested more timber than they grew in 2011, suggesting issues with sustainability, but only two of these had harvest far above annual growth, and five of those were only a fraction more than annual growth. All of the 30 CFEs except one made profits in forest management and timber growing. For timber harvesting, 22 of 30 CFEs made profits, but the losses were small for the other CFEs. For the 23 CFEs with sawmills, 18 made profits and five had losses; the greatest returns for the CFEs accrued to those with sawmills for lumber production. On average, the CFEs surveyed had high costs of production relative to other countries, but the CFEs were still profitable in national lumber markets. If Mexico were to begin importing large amounts of lumber from lower cost countries, this could pose a threat to CFE profitability.

Promoting Community Forestry Enterprises in National REDD+ Strategies: A Business Approach

Community forestry and related small and medium forest enterprises (SMFEs) can contribute towards the achievement of REDD+ goals, since they can promote sustainable use and conservation of forests and, therefore, a reduction in forest-related carbon emissions. Additionally, they can improve the quality of life of forest-dependant people by generating alternative sources of income and employment. However, SMFEs often face a number of challenges, including non-conducive policy environments, inadequate business skills, and moreover, limited access to financial services. In this paper, we propose to direct a portion of REDD+ readiness efforts towards promoting the generation of an enabling environment for SMFEs that includes: the construction of an adequate Business Environment (BE), the provision of Business Development Services (BDS) and better access to Financial Services (FS). With the application of this framework, SMFEs will be more likely to proliferate and succeed, leading to enhanced community resilience and empowerment, in addition to increasing the likelihood of forest carbon stock permanence and the long term achievement of REDD+ goals. Opportunities and challenges of applying this approach in Latin America are discussed.

When collective action and tenure allocations collide: Outcomes from community forests in Quintana Roo, Mexico and Petén, Guatemala

Based on a comparative case study of four community forestry enterprises in Guatemala and Mexico, we examine the relationship between user group characteristics and state allocation of tenure bundles. Using Schlager and Ostrom's four levels of tenure bundles and collective action theory, we illustrate how tenure bundles and collective action costs interact to either promote or create disincentives for conservation and communal economic benefits. We suggest that in communities with high costs for collective action, a tenure bundle that includes management, withdrawal and exclusion rights yet omits alienation rights may be optimal for community forestry. We also demonstrate how unclear allocation of rights can result in local interpretations of land rights that do support collective action.

Bray, D.B., L. Merino-Perez, and D. Barry 2005 (eds.): The Community Forests of Mexico, Managing for Sustainable Landscapes

Mexico has advanced farther than any other country when it comes to commercially-oriented community forestry. Communities have owned a large share of the country’s forests for over half a century and since 1986 they have been able to manage those forests directly. Mexico’s government has devoted large sums to help community enterprises prepare forest management plans, get independently certified, and finance investments. As a result, hundreds of communities are now able to harvest timber and other products from their forests legally, and a significant number operate their own processing facilities. Many community enterprises seem financially viable and to manage their forests well. Nonetheless, recent international debates about community natural resource management have paid surprisingly little attention to the Mexican example. It is hard to say exactly why that is, but one reason has probably been the lack of any serious studies that provide a good overview of Mexico’s community forestry enterprises. This new volume edited by David Bray, Leticia Merino, and Deborah Barry does an admirable job of filling that gap. The volume brings together research from various disciplines by 21 of the most knowledgeable academics and practitioners from Mexico and the United States. The authors provide the clearest picture to-date of how community forestry has evolved in Mexico, its present characteristics and the impact it has had on rural livelihoods and landscapes; and they compare Mexico’s experience with other countries. The material is mostly well-written and goes directly to the point without too much repetition. Chapters by Leticia Merino, and Gerardo Segura and Christopher Boyer ably track the history of Mexican forestry policy, showing how well-intentioned but misguided technocrats and powerful private interests kept communities from truly controlling their forests between 1940 and 1985. However, beginning in the 1970s procommunity reformists within government, social movements demanding community control of forests, and the broad trend towards less government intervention came together to change that. In the mid-1980s, President Miguel de la Madrid stopped giving concessions to private companies to harvest timber on community-owned lands. The two following Presidents were not particularly supportive of community forestry, but that changed during the administration of President Vicente Fox (2000–2006). Despite Fox’s conservative origins, community forestry progressed greatly during the first few years of his presidency. Several chapters highlight community forestry’s successes. Antinori presents survey data from 42 communities in Oaxaca which shows their forestry enterprises have been relatively profitable. Remote sensing data from parts of Guerrero and Quintana Roo presented by Duran, Mas, and Velazquez demonstrate that community forests have been just as effective at maintaining forest cover in those regions as protected areas. Other chapters document some of Mexico’s better known success stories, such as El Balcon in Guerrero, the forestry ejidos of Southern Quintana Roo, and the Union de Comunidades Zapoteco–Chinanteca (UZACHI) in Oaxaca. Still, the book certainly doesn’t downplay community forestry’s weaknesses or the difficulties going forward. Corrupt leaders, conflicts among villagers, poorly planned initiatives, resistance by outside vested interests, overexploitation of timber resources, and on-going clandestine harvesting all get significant attention, with several case Hum Ecol (2007) 35:511–512 DOI 10.1007/s10745-006-9073-6