Partnerships in Sustainable Forest Resource Management: Learning from Latin America [1 ed.] 9789047410768, 9789004153394

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Partnerships in Sustainable Forest Resource Management: Learning from Latin America

Cedla Latin America Studies Editorial Board

Michiel Baud, (Chair) Cedla Pitou van Dijck Cedla Anthony Bebbington, University of Manchester Edward F. Fischer, Vanderbilt University Anthony L. Hall, London School of Economics and Political Science Barbara Potthast, Universität zu Köln Eduardo Silva, University of Missouri at St. Louis Patricio Silva, Universiteit Leiden Rachel Sieder, University of London Cedla Centrum voor Studie en Documentatie van Latijns Amerika Centro de Estudios y Documentación Latinoamericanos Centro de Estudos e Documentação Latino-Americanos Centre for Latin American Research and Documentation The Centre for Latin American Research and Documentation (Cedla) conducts social science and history research, offers university courses, and has a specialised library for the study of the region. The Centre also publishes monographs and a journal on Latin America. Keizersgracht 395-397 1016 EK Amsterdam The Netherlands / Países Bajos www.cedla.uva.nl VOLUME 94

Partnerships in Sustainable Forest Resource Management: Learning from Latin America Edited by

Mirjam A.F. Ros-Tonen in collaboration with Heleen van den Hombergh and Annelies Zoomers

LEIDEN • BOSTON 2007

This book is printed on acid-free paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Partnerships in sustainable forest resource management : learning from Latin America / edited by Mirjam A.F. Ros-Tonen ; in collaboration with Heleen van den Hombergh and Annelies Zoomers. p. cm. — (Cedla Latin America studies ; v. 94) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-90-04-15339-4 ISBN-10: 90-04-15339-X (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Forest management—Latin America 2. Sustainable forestry—Latin America. 3. Forest conservation—Latin America. I Ros-Tonen, Mirjam, 1956- II. Hombergh, Heleen van den. III. Zoomers, E.B. SD153.P37 2006 333.75098—dc22 2006049208

ISSN 1572-6401 ISBN-13: 978 90 04 15339 4 ISBN-10: 90 04 15339 X © Copyright 2007 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Brill provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. printed in the netherlands

CONTENTS List of Figures ................................................................................ ix List of Tables ................................................................................ x List of Acronyms ............................................................................ xi Preface ............................................................................................ xv PART I

EXPLORING POTENTIALS AND OPPORTUNITIES Chapter One Partnerships for Sustainable Forest and Tree Resource Management in Latin America: The New Road towards Successful Forest Governance? .................................. Mirjam A.F. Ros-Tonen, Heleen van den Hombergh and Annelies Zoomers

3

Chapter Two Alliances for Sustainable Forest Management: Lessons from the Ecuadorian Chocó Rain Forest ................ 37 Laura Rival Chapter Three Organising Partnerships for Ecuador’s Emerging Bamboo Sector ........................................................ 63 Herwig M. Cleuren PART II

FRAMING AROUND PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS Chapter Four Partnership on Paper: Power Struggles and Strategic Framing around Industrial Forestry in Southern Costa Rica ................................................................................ Heleen van den Hombergh

85

Chapter Five Partnerships for Sustainable Timber Production in Trinidad: Dealing with Social and Ecological Dynamics ................................................................ 107 James Fairhead and Melissa Leach

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contents PART III

COMPANY-COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIPS Chapter Six artnerships between Forestry Companies and Local Communities: Mechanisms for Efficiency, Equity, Resilience and Accountability .................................................. 127 Sonja Vermeulen and James Mayers Chapter Seven Do Partnerships between Large Corporations and Amazonian Indigenous Groups Help or Hinder Communities and Forests? ...................................................... 147 Carla Morsello and W. Neil Adger Chapter Eight A Company-Community Partnership for FSC-Certified Non-Timber Forest Product Harvesting in Brazilian Amazonia: Requirements for Sustainable Exploitation ................................................................................ 169 Tinde van Andel PART IV

MULTI-SECTOR OR INTERSECTORAL PARTNERSHIPS Chapter Nine Sustainable Forest Management and the Guiana Shield Initiative ............................................................ 189 Pitou van Dijck Chapter Ten Impacts of Multi-Scale Partnerships on Miskitu Forest Governance in Nicaragua ............................................ 207 Mary M. Finley-Brook Chapter Eleven Partnerships across Scales: Lessons from Extractive Reserves in Brazilian Amazonia ............................ 229 Sergio Rosendo Chapter Twelve Partnerships for Ecological Paper Production in the State of Pará, Brazil .................................. 255 Key Otsuki

contents

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PART V

POLITICAL PARTNERSHIPS Chapter Thirteen Negotiating Solutions for Local Sustainable Development and the Prevention of Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon ...................................................................... 279 Imme Scholz Chapter Fourteen Lessons from International Community Forestry Networks .................................................................... 301 Marcus Colchester Index .............................................................................................. 323

LIST OF FIGURES 1.1 2.1 2.2 2.3 4.1 5.1 7.1 8.1 9.1 10.1 11.1 12.1 14.1

Factors favouring the formation of partnerships in forest and tree resource management .......................... The study area in the Cayapas basin in the Chocó rain forest, Ecuador ............................................................ Organisational structure and activities SUBIR Phase I (1991– 1993) .......................................................... Organisational structure and activities SUBIR Phase II (1994–1997) and Phase III (1998–2002) .......................... Costa Rica and the location of Osa Peninsula’s major conservation areas .............................................................. Trinidad with the Victoria Mayaro Forest Reserve ........ The Kayapó area in the state of Pará, Brazil ................ Euterpe oleracea palm ............................................................ The Guiana Shield Region ................................................ Nicaragua and the North Atlantic Autonomous Region ................................................................................ Extractive reserves in Rondônia, Brazil .......................... Actors and agents involved in the Amazon Paper Project ................................................................................ Mapping change: scaling up and scaling down ..............

12 39 45 46 86 110 153 173 191 209 231 269 307

LIST OF TABLES 6.1 6.2 6.3

6.4 6.5

8.1 9.1 9.2 11.1 12.1 13.1 14.1 14.2 14.3

Typology of company-community forestry partnerships by partner .......................................................................... Overview of key country case studies of companycommunity partnerships .................................................... Efficiency and equity in company-community forestry partnerships: examples of key constraints and successful innovations ........................................................ Resilience in company-community forestry partnerships: examples of key constraints and successful innovations .... Accountability in company-community forestry partnerships: examples of key constraints and successful innovations .......................................................................... Production and export value of Euterpe oleracea products from the Guiana Shield .................................... Estimated diversity and endemism of Guiana Shield flora and fauna .................................................................. Estimates of water availability in the Guiana Shield .... Federal Extractive Reserves in Brazil .............................. Commercialised plants (NTFPs) in the Amazon Paper Project ................................................................................ Main characteristics of civil society organisations in Altamira and Santarém .................................................... Summary of the emergence of key international community forestry networks ............................................ Changing visions of ‘community forestry’ ........................ Networking tools ................................................................

129 130

133 137

141 176 192 193 239 266 292 305 309 316

LIST OF ACRONYMS ABC ACICAFOC

AECO BICU CARE CARICOM CBD CDE CDM CEPISA CIFOR CNS COMAFORS CORDELIM

CORPEI

CSD DFID DGIS

ECOPORÉ

Atlantic Biological Corridor (Nicaraguan portion of the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor) Asociación Coordinadora Indígena e Campesina de Agroforestería Comunitaria Centroamericana; Central American Indigenous and Peasant Coordination for Community Agroforestry Asociación Ecologista de Costa Rica; Costa Rican Ecologist Association Bluefields Indian Caribbean University (Nicaragua) Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere Caribbean Community Convention on Biological Diversity Capacity Development in Environment Clean Development Mechanism Compañia Exportadora de Pino SA; Pine Exporting Company, Nicaragua Centre for International Forestry Research (Bogor, Indonesia) Conselho Nacional dos Seringueiros; National Council of Rubber Tappers (Brazil) Corporación de Manejo Forestal Sustentable; Corporation for Sustainable Forest Management (Ecuador) Corporación para la Promoción del Mecanismo de Desarrollo Limpio; Corporation for the Promotion of the Clean Development Mechanism (Ecuador) Corporación de Promoción de Exportaciones e Inversiones; Corporation for Export and Investment Promotion (Ecuador) Commission for Sustainable Development Department for International Development (United Kingdom) Directoraat Generaal voor Internationale Samenwerking; Directorate General for International Development (the Netherlands) Ação Ecológica Guaporé; Guaporé Ecological Action

xii EU FAO FACE FSC FECCHE FoEI FRIM FSC GEF GSI GTZ IAITPTF IBAMA

ICDP IEF IFF INAFOR IIED IIRSA ILO IMAFLORA IMF INAFOR INBAR INCRA

list of acronyms European Union Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Forests Absorbing Carbon dioxide Emissions Foundation (the Netherlands) Forest Stewardship Council Federación de Centros Chachi del Ecuador; Federation of Chachi Centres of Ecuador Friends of the Earth International Forest Resource Inventory and Management section of Trinidad’s Forestry Division Forest Stewardship Council Global Environment Facility Guiana Shield Initiative Geselschaft für Technologische Zusamenarbeit; German Technical Co-operation International Alliance of Indigenous and Tribal Peoples of the Tropical Forests Instituto Brasileiro do Meio Ambiente e dos Recursos Naturais Renováveis; Brazilian Institute for the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources Integrated Conservation and Development Project Instituto Estadual de Florestas; State Institute of Forests (Rondônia, Brazil) International Forum on Forests Instituto Nacional Forestal; National Forestry Institute (Nicaragua) International Institute for Environment and Development (United Kingdom) International Integration of Regional Infrastructure in South America International Labour Organisation Instituto de Manejo e Certificação do Brasil; Management and Certification Institute of Brazil International Monetary Fund Instituto Nacional Forestal; National Forest Institute (Nicaragua) International Network for Bamboo and Rattan Instituto Nacional de Colonização e Reforma Agrária; National Institute for Colonisation and Agrarian Reform (Brazil)

list of acronyms INDIA

INEFAN

ITTO IUCN JICA MAG MBC MDTX

MLTC NC-IUCN

NGO NTFP OECD ORS OSR PBS PLANAFLORO POEMA

POEMAR

POEMATEC

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Instituto de Pesquisa em Defesa da Identidade Amazônica; Research Institute in Defence of the Amazonian Identity Instituto Ecuatoriano Forestal de Áreas Naturales y Vida; Ecuadorian Forestry Institute for Natural Areas and Life. International Tropical Timber Organisation World Conservation Union Japan International Cooperation Agency Ministerio de Agricultura; Ministry of Agriculture (Ecuador) Mesoamerican Biological Corridor (conservation project in Central America) Movimento pelo Desenvolvimento da Transamazônica e do Xingu; Movement for the Development of the Transamazon highway and the Xingu (Brazil) Meadow Lakes Tribal Council (Canada) Netherlands Committee for the World Conservation Union (formerly: International Union for the Conservation of Nature) Non-governmental organisation Non-timber forest product Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development Open Range System (sustainable forest management system) Organização dos Seringueiros de Rondônia; Organisation of Rubber Tappers of Rondônia Periodic Block System (sustainable forest management system) Plano Agropecuário Florestal de Rondônia; Rondônia Natural Resources Management Project (Brazil) Programa Pobreza e Meio Ambiente na Amazônia; Poverty and Environment in the Amazon Programme (Brazil) Núcleo de Ação para o Desenvolvimento Sustentável; Action Centre for Sustainable Development (Brazil) Comércio de Tecnologia Sustentável para a Amazônia, Brazil

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list of acronyms

POLONOROESTE Programa Integrado de Desenvolvimento do Noroeste do Brasil PPG7 Programa Piloto para a Proteção das Florestas Tropicais do Brasil; the G-7 Pilot Programme for the Protection of Brazil’s Tropical Forests RAAN Región Autónoma del Atlántico Norte; North Atlantic Autonomous Region (Nicaragua) RECC Reserva Ecológica Cotacachi-Cayapas; CotacachiCayapas Ecological Reserve (Ecuador) SCA Secretaria de Coordenação da Amazônia; the Coordination of Amazonian affairs Secretariat (Brazil) SEDAM Secretaria de Desenvolvimento Ambiental; State Secretariat for Environmental Development (Rondônia, Brazil) SNV Netherlands Development Organisation SUBIR Sustainable Use of Biological Resources (Ecuador) TNC The Nature Conservancy UN United Nations UNCED United Nations Conference on Environment and Development UNDP United Nations Development Programme UNFCCC United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change UONNE Unión de las Organizaciones Negras del Norte del Ecuador; Union of Black Organisations of North Ecuador USAID United States Agency for International Development VHC Viviendas Hogar de Cristo; Christ’s Home Dwellings (Ecuador) WCS Wildlife Conservation Society WRM World Rainforest Movement WWF World Wide Fund for Nature

PREFACE When I organised the Congress on ‘Globalisation, localisation and tropical forest management in the 21st century’ that was held in Amsterdam on 22–23 October 2003, it became clear that Latin America was a fertile breeding ground for partnerships for sustainable forest (resource) management in Latin America. It was exciting to listen to the many cases in which strong civil society organisations, which had entered into partnerships with international donors, nongovernmental organisations and researchers, had successfully claimed (and in the case of indigenous peoples: re-claimed) a say in forest governance. Simultaneously, it became clear that conflicting interests, severe power imbalances and the structural causes of deforestation were continuing and that the larger-scale application of success stories (‘scaling-up’) was by no means easy. Heleen van den Hombergh of Oxfam Novib and Annelies Zoomers of the Centre for Latin American Research and Documentation (Cedla)—respectively cochair and discussant of the panel on ‘Global-local partnerships for conservation and sustainable forest use: a Latin-American perspective’— strongly supported the idea of taking these issues further and of turning the papers and vivid discussions into a book. In addition to co-authoring the first chapter of this book, they provided invaluable feedback during the editing process. Heleen and Annelies, thanks so much for your input, which I very much appreciated. Some of the papers in this book originated in the session on ‘Opportunities for forest markets to benefit local low-income producers’ convened by Andy White from Forest Trends in Washington. I would like to thank Andy for his comments on the first drafts of some of the papers that are now part of this book. The participants in both sessions were an important source of inspiration. Thanks are also due to the Amsterdam Institute for International Development (AIID), the Board of Governors and the Amsterdam research institute for Global Issues and Development Studies (AGIDS)1

1 After having merged with the Amsterdam research centre for the Metropolitan Environment (AME), AGIDS was renamed AMIDSt (Amsterdam Institute for Metropolitan and International Development Studies.

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of the University of Amsterdam who provided core funding to the event. I am also grateful for the additional financial support provided by the Research School for Resource Studies for Development (CERES), the International Agricultural Centre (IAC) in Wageningen, Oxfam Novib, the Netherlands Organisation for the Advancement of Tropical Research (WOTRO) and the Wageningen-based CTA (Centre Technique de Coopération Agricole et Rural ACP-EU ). Without these sponsors, this book would not have been written. Finally, I would like to thank Christian Smid and Hans de Visser of UvA-Kaartenmakers for drawing the maps and Howard Turner of Turner Translations for language editing. Amsterdam, May 2006 Mirjam A.F. Ros-Tonen

PART I

EXPLORING POTENTIALS AND OPPORTUNITIES

CHAPTER ONE

PARTNERSHIPS FOR SUSTAINABLE FOREST AND TREE RESOURCE MANAGEMENT IN LATIN AMERICA: THE NEW ROAD TOWARDS SUCCESSFUL FOREST GOVERNANCE? Mirjam A.F. Ros-Tonen,* Heleen van den Hombergh** and Annelies Zoomers*** Forest management in Latin America is facing new challenges. Having been claimed as the exclusive domain of central government agencies since colonial times, today the formulation and implementation of forest policies has become a complex interplay of multiple actors. As a result of the decentralisation of management responsibilities by the state (Colfer and Capistrano 2005; Ribot and Larson 2005), local and municipal governments are nowadays playing an increasingly important role in the formulation and implementation of forest policies. Local populations—including indigenous peoples and traditional forest users—are, often successfully, (re-)claiming their rights to forest land and resources. In addition, international organisations, nongovernmental and other civil society organisations are demanding a say in the management of what in their view is a common good or global heritage. The growing complexity of the forest governance arena, combined with the need to deal with competing claims, diverging interests and increasing pressure on forest resources has led to strategic alliances and partnerships between various actors in an attempt to reconcile

* Amsterdam Institute for Metropolitan and International Development Studies (AMIDSt), University of Amsterdam, Nieuwe Prinsengracht 130, 1018 VZ Amsterdam, the Netherlands. E-mail: [email protected]. ** AMIDSt and Oxfam Novib, P.O. Box 30919, 2500 GX Den Haag, the Netherlands. E-mail: [email protected]; hvdhombergh@ yahoo.com. *** The Centre for Latin American Research and Documentation and Radboud University, Keizersgracht 395–397, 1016 EK Amsterdam, the Netherlands. E-mail: [email protected]

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what have previously been conflicting interests. The traditional ‘command and control’ of state-led forest governance seems to be making way for a multi-stakeholder approach to accommodate diverging claims. At local level, numerous partnerships for the protection and co-management of forest resources are emerging between international donors, government agencies, national and international nongovernmental organisations (NGOs), private sector actors, research organisations and community-based organisations. Tropical forest protection and management are increasingly the product of negotiations and joint actions between players at multiple scales—even more in Latin America with its strong civil society than on any other continent.1 This book brings together experiences with a rich variety of such partnerships for sustainable forest and tree resource management from various countries in Latin America—Trinidad, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Guyana, Brazil and Ecuador. The authors reflect on the scopes, objectives and institutional organisation of partnerships, on the actors involved and excluded, on the benefits, and the hindrances to overcoming cultural differences, institutional barriers, power imbalances and diverging interests. The question that runs as a common thread through this book is what can we learn from these cases in Latin America with regard to the conditions under which partnerships for sustainable forest and resource management can reconcile multiple interests and contribute to pro-poor, socially just and environmentally-friendly forest governance. Before summarising these lessons learned, this chapter first defines and classifies various types of partnerships and analyses how partnerships for sustainable forest and tree resource management fit in with mainstream forest management thinking, general development paradigms, Latin American forest policies and the broader academic debate on social movements and multi-spatial interactions.

1 Notwithstanding the trend towards alliances and partnerships, the quest for conservation—now or never!—is also still leading to exclusion or expulsion of local populations without due compensation or dialogue on alternative forms of use and management. The cases presented in this book focus, however, on situations in which cooperation with local population groups is sought.

the new road towards successful forest governance?

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Definition and Types of Partnerships In all honesty, the term partnership is a tricky one to use because it has a warm and positive connotation. It suggests that the parties involved participate and collaborate on equal terms. In this way, partnerships may mask power asymmetries and exploitative relationships and become symbolic power in the hands of the most powerful who, by engaging in them, can demonstrate their good intentions quite easily. We do not, however, opt for a normative definition of partnerships in order to be able to include a broad spectrum of them in our discussion. Instead, we come up with a number of conditions for partnerships to contribute to fair and sustainable forest management agreements at the end of this chapter. From this perspective, we conceive partnerships as more or less formal arrangements between two or more parties from various sectors (government, civil society and/or private sector) around (at least partly) shared goals, in the expectation that each party will gain from the arrangement. The goals of the partnerships that are presented in this book are related to forest conservation, responsible forest use and/or the sustainable production of forest and tree resource products. With respect to the latter, we define forest products in a broad sense as products that originate from natural forests but can also be a part of man-made forest types or farming systems. Depending on the actors involved and the main goal of the partnership, several kinds of partnerships can be identified. 1. Public-private partnerships are arrangements between the state and a company or a group of private sector actors. Examples are the public-private partnership for reforestation with bamboo in Ecuador (Cleuren, Chapter 3) and between the Trinidad government and woodcutters for sustainable timber exploitation (Fairhead and Leach, Chapter 5). 2. Company-community partnerships are oriented towards the production of forest and tree resource products, with mutual benefits being the expected result. Examples in this book are the timber harvesting agreements between logging companies and Chachi communities in the Ecuadorian province Esmeraldas (Rival, Chapter 2), the partnership between The Body Shop and A’Ukre-Kayapó villages in Brazil (Morsello and Adger, Chapter 7) and the partnership between palm heart and açaí fruit juice company Muaná Alimentos

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Ltd and various communities on the Marajó Island in the Brazilian Amazon delta (Van Andel, Chapter 8). If the deal is directly between growers/landholders and the processing industry, in which the first contractually agree to grow bamboo or trees for pulp, wood fibre or timber, such partnerships are usually referred to as out-grower schemes. Examples of out-growing arrangements are those for bamboo production between small farmers and banana producers in Ecuador (one of the options explored by Cleuren in Chapter 3) and between the wood fibre industry and private and community landowners (Vermeulen and Mayers, Chapter 6). As Vermeulen and Mayers show in Chapter 6, various modalities of company-community partnerships exist in the wood fibre industry, involving actors that operate at various scales and various degrees of collectivity. In addition to out-grower schemes, these include product supply contracts, lease agreements, joint ventures, crop share arrangements, corporate social responsibility contracts and co-management schemes. An example of a leasing agreement can be found in Chapter 4 where Van den Hombergh deals with such an agreement between a transnational paper company and farmers in Costa Rica. The latter case in particular raises the question of whether the various types of supply arrangements are rightly categorised as partnerships. This case shows that these kinds of company-community partnerships are actually or potentially exploitative relationships. As an anonymous referee rightly suggested, such arrangements could be better called supply or business agreements as their reconstruction as partnerships may facilitate ‘green wash’ or fake social responsibility. We include them in the discussion, however, as such agreements and their connotation of ‘partnerships’ have become part of the international development discourse as employed, for instance, at the Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002. 3. NGO-community partnerships can be seen as a special variant of the company-community partnership, as in the case of the partnership for sustainable bamboo production in Guayaquil, Ecuador (Cleuren, Chapter 3) which entails one NGO manufacturing low-cost housing for the poor in the slums, while another acts as a broker and watchdog to overcome the farmers’ lack of negotiation skills. 4. Multi-sector or intersectoral partnerships involve actors from multiple sectors (government, business, civil society) who often operate at multiple scales. Examples of such actors are international donors

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and organisations, national and local government agencies, nongovernmental organisations, private corporations, research organisations and community-based organisations. These partnerships bring together political power, donor funding, management capacity, technological skills and local knowledge, as a result of which the actors in the partnership are able, at least in theory, to achieve much more than they would achieve individually. Multi-sector or intersectoral partnerships are generally aimed at the conservation and responsible use of tropical forest areas. Examples in this book are the integrated conservation and development programme Sustainable Use of Biodiversity Resources (SUBIR) in the Chocó area in Ecuador (to which Rival refers in Chapter 2 as a coalition), the Guiana Shield Initiative (Van Dijck, Chapter 9), the forestry initiatives in Nicaragua’s North Atlantic Autonomous Region (FinleyBrook, Chapter 10), and the partnerships related to extractive reserves in Brazil (Rosendo, Chapter 11). Multi-sector partnerships are usually part of what is referred to in natural resource management literature as multi-stakeholder processes (Hemmati 2002).2 5. Research partnerships involve universities and/or private research organisations which explicitly cooperate with multiple actors with a view to generating change towards sustainable and pro-poor forest use. An example is the Amazon Paper project initiated by the University of Pará in Belém, Brazil (Otsuki, Chapter 12). 6. Political partnerships involve various civil society organisations engaged primarily in advocacy for equitable and pro-poor forest management or forestry arrangements. We decided to depart from a broad definition of partnerships, in order to be able to include this type of political cooperation that often involves broader policy goals.

2 Hematti (2002) describes multi-stakeholder processes (MSPs) as ‘processes which aim to bring together all major stakeholders in a new form of communication, decision-finding (and possibly decision-making) on a particular issue. They are also based on recognition of the importance of achieving equity and accountability in communication between stakeholders, involving the equitable representation of three or more stakeholder groups and their views. They are based on democratic principles of transparency and participation, and aim to develop partnerships and strengthened networks between stakeholders. MSPs cover a wide spectrum of structures and levels of engagement. They may consist of dialogues on policy or grow into consensus-building, decision-making and the implementation of practical solutions. The exact nature of any such process will depend on the issues, its objectives, participants, scope, time lines, etc.’ (URL: http://www.earthsummit2002.org/msp/ #Introduction).

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ros-tonen, van den hombergh and zoomers Some authors refer to these political partnerships as alliances, coalitions or networks. Examples at national and sub-national levels include the coalition against the paper giant Stone Container Corporation in Costa Rica (Van den Hombergh, Chapter 4) and the political mobilisation of social movements and NGOs in protest at two large public infrastructure investment projects in the Brazilian Amazon (Scholtz, Chapter 13). Examples at international level are the international community forestry networks presented by Colchester in Chapter 14. This type of partnership is basically different from the formal public-private partnerships and multi-sector partnerships because it does not (officially) involve the corporate sector or government and is mostly oriented towards more fundamental (policy) changes instead of the management of a particular area.

The cases in this book show that the scope of partnerships for sustainable forest and tree resource management is wide-ranging, including (1) sustainable production of forest and tree resources; (2) (community-based) forest management; (3) conservation of biodiversity and/or genetic resources; and (4) lobbying for sound and pro-poor forest policies at national and/or international level. The sub-objectives often include (1) securing communal and other tenure arrangements; (2) strengthening community-based organisations for the management of forest and tree resources; (3) capacity building in sustainable forest and tree resource management; (4) implementing sustainable forestry and agroforestry systems; and (5) income generation. In general, public-private and company-community partnerships evolve around the objective of the sustainable production of forest and tree products, while multi-sector partnerships tend to pursue the objective of integrated sustainable and pro-poor forest management, and political partnerships focus on lobbying for forest policies that meet the interests of specific groups. Partnerships and Mainstream Thinking on Sustainable Forest Management This book deals for a large part with partnerships for sustainable forest (resource) management, which we understand as being deliberate efforts to maintain the forests’ ecological values, production services and their role as source of livelihood for the rural poor. These days, it is commonly acknowledged that forests need to be managed for economic, social and ecological ends. The notion that sustainable

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forest management encompasses ecological, economic and social aspects is, however, a relatively recent one (Wiersum 1995). When German foresters launched the concept of sustainable forest management as the ‘Nachhaltigkeitsprinzip’ in 1804 (Wiersum 1995, 321), the assumption, for a long time, was that it only dealt with sustained timber yields. The primary driving force behind the forest management concept was the need to provide strategic industries with secure supplies of timber (Colchester et al. 2003). Colonial forestry acknowledged the need to maintain the forest’s ecological characteristics, but this was generally interpreted in rather narrow terms of maintaining heterogeneity of ages and species, the capacity for natural regeneration, the forest’s hydrological functions in a watershed and soil protection through continuous forest cover (Schmidt 1987). The function of forests as a productive and cultural asset for forest-dwelling people was neglected until late into the 1970s (and in practice sometimes until well into present), while the preservation of biodiversity and wildlife was considered to be the task of conservation agencies and international environmental NGOs. Conservation, too, has been characterised for a long time by a neglect of human needs and interests, to an extent that can be labelled as ‘ecototalitarian’ (Dietz 1996, 13). The Brundtland Report entitled Our Common Future (WCED 1987) provoked a change in the prevailing forest management and conservation narratives (Campbell and Vainio-Mattila 2003). By promoting ‘a type of development that integrates production with resource conservation and enhancement, and that links both to the provision of an adequate livelihood base and equitable access to resources’ (WCED 1987, 39–40) it was made clear that forest resource management and conservation could no longer overlook peoples’ needs and their rights to a stable livelihood base. Since then, the notion of sustainability as a three-tiered concept encompassing ecological, economic and social aspects has gained wider acceptance. This was further strengthened at the United Nations (UN) Conference on the Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, where the international community reached a broad consensus on the principles, guidelines, criteria and indicators for sustainable forest management. It recognised the cultural and spiritual value of forests, the necessity of stakeholder participation, the vital role of forests in maintaining ecological processes and balance, the need for biodiversity conservation, the protection of indigenous rights and the right of forest dwellers to have an economic stake in forest use

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(UNCED 1992).3 In addition, the forest-related aspects of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, also adopted at UNCED, acknowledge that forests should also be managed on the basis of their role in biodiversity conservation and climate change. Many definitions of sustainable forest management have circulated since then (Wiersum 1995; Higman et al. 1999), all of which share the following features: – It is now being recognised that forests can be managed to different ends—not only for sustained timber production, but also for the preservation of nature and wildlife, for traditional uses or to protect the habitat of indigenous peoples. – All definitions share the conception that sustainable management should be ecologically sound, economically viable and socially acceptable. As a result, the concept of sustainable forest management is now a more dynamic one, aimed at finding and negotiating a balance between various land-use options (Foahom and Jonkers 2005). At international level, these negotiations became institutionalised in 2000, when the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) created the United Nations Forum on Forests (UNFF) as part of a new (legally non-binding) International Arrangement on Forests. The idea behind the UNFF was to create a more permanent home for the international dialogue on forests and exchange experiences among governments and other stakeholders in sustainable forest management (UNFF 2004). Unfortunately, the UNFF process has shown recently that international consensus over the actual implementation of the principles of sustainable forest management is lacking and hampered by diverging interests across the globe. What has become increasingly clear, however, is that there is universal recognition of the fact that sustainable forest management or conservation is impossible without the active participation of local populations and without due consideration for their livelihood needs (Borrini-Feyerabend et al. 2000; Lawrence 2000). In forestry circles, many see the VIIIth Forestry Congress of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), which was held in 1978

3 Relevant forest-related documents adopted at UNCED include the ‘Forest Principles’ and Chapter 11 on Combating Deforestation in Agenda 21.

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under the title ‘Forestry for People’, as a turning point in this respect (Arnold 2001). Social or community forestry was launched as an approach to forest management aimed at increasing community participation in the development and management of forest resources and at providing the rural poor with fuel, food and other products to meet basic needs (Arnold 2001). Although it initially focused on tree planting, attention later shifted to participatory and cooperative management schemes and social forestry became an important supplement to the industrial, timber-oriented approach to forest management. In the context of conservation efforts as well, several approaches have been developed to enhance ‘participation’ and combine conservation and development objectives (Western and Wright 1994; Fisher 1995; Borrini-Feyerabend 1996). Examples of such efforts include transition zone management, Integrated Conservation and Development Projects (ICDPs), community-based conservation, participatory resource management (also known as co-management or joint forest management), adaptive or negotiated forest management, and strategies based on the commercial exploitation of non-timber forest products (Campbell and Vainio-Mattila 2003; Ros-Tonen et al. 2005a). Participation has become a ‘master frame’ (see Van den Hombergh, Chapter 4)—a broadly accepted desired direction of society. These changes in the discourse on forest management and conservation have provided a fertile breeding ground for partnership thinking in forest governance, albeit with mixed consequences in practice. Partnerships in the International Development Discourse In addition to the changes in forest management thinking, several other factors and processes have played a role in the emergence of partnerships for sustainable forest and tree resource management. Some of these are of a global nature, while others refer to local level processes (Figure 1.1). As regards the former, the partnership idea featured in the international ‘good governance’ debate in the 1990s. In its document ‘Local partnerships for better governance’, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) (2001) puts forward that: To improve governance, governments throughout the OECD have recently created and supported networks of area-based partnerships. Through partnerships, agreements on long term priorities involving a

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Global environmental governance

Globalisation

Neoliberalism

CSR1

Partnerships

‘Good governance’ thinking

Decentralisation

Devolution3

SFM2 as the norm

Democratisation & civil society development

1

CSR = Corporate social responsibility SFM = Sustainable forest management Devolution = Transfer of decision-making powers from the central state to local actors, such as indigenous populations, local community organisations or organised groups of forest users 2 3

Figure 1.1 Factors favouring the formation of partnerships in forest and tree resource management wide range of stakeholders may be used as a guide to deliver programmes and services consistent with local conditions and allocate resources in a way that is conducive to sustainable development. These partnerships facilitate consultation, co-operation and co-ordination. They are, in short, a tool to improve governance (OECD 2001, 13).

The Millennium Development Goals, launched in 2000, also embrace the objective to ‘develop strong partnerships with the private sector and with civil society organisations in pursuit of development and poverty eradication’. Two years later ‘partnership’ was the buzz word at the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg, which promoted partnerships for sustainable development as ‘voluntary multi-stakeholder initiatives contributing to the implementation of Agenda 21, Rio+5 and the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation ( JPOI)’.4 Partnerships for sustainable development received an important impulse in the WSSD process, with over 300 partnerships having been registered at the Commission for Sustainable Development (CSD) Secretariat to date.5 4

URL: http://www.un.org/esa/sustdev/partnerships/csd11_partnerships_decision. htm.index. 5 URL: http://www.un.org/esa/sustdev/partnerships/partnerships.htm.

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The philosophy behind partnerships fits in well with neo-liberal reforms through which the role of Latin American states has been reduced and more important roles have been assigned to the private sector and civil society (Kirby 2002). Neo-liberal thinking—that became widespread through Structural Adjustment programmes imposed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank—recommends that tasks which were formerly the responsibility of governments are transferred to private enterprises or are carried out jointly by governments and private sector companies in publicprivate partnerships. Under the denominator of ‘good governance’, the same and other international organisations have forged partnerships with civil society organisations with a view to solving social issues and promoting sustainable development. These neo-liberal policies with regard to governance and partnerships have also had an influence in the field of forest and natural resource management. Another important factor favourable to the creation of partnerships is the increasing awareness of global environmental problems from the 1970s onwards. The depletion of the ozone layer, ocean pollution and climate change due to the emission of greenhouse gases were among the first problems to be recognised as having a global impact (Speth 2002). Moreover, tropical deforestation and the consequent loss of biodiversity and other environmental services like carbon sequestration and watershed protection started to be regarded increasingly as problems of global concern. This led to more and more forest-related conventions and agreements intended to protect these global values, as part of a process referred to as global environmental or forest governance (see Brown 2001 for an overview). Rischard (2002) goes a step further in this respect, arguing that treaties and conventions, intergovernmental conferences, groupings like the G-8 and multilateral organisations are incapable of solving what he calls ‘global issues’. He therefore calls for ‘networked governance’ to solve these issues, through the inception of Global Issues Networks involving representatives of national governments, international civil society and global businesses. Although the need for concerted action with regard to global issues is undisputed, Rischard rather naively expects these individuals to act as global citizens rather than the defenders of their sector’s interests once they have become part of such a network. Finally, there is the pressure of consumers worldwide for environmentally friendly and socially responsible production conditions. More and more often, companies are being held responsible for the

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adverse social and environmental effects of their activities. This pressure led an increasing number of private businesses to operate deliberately under the label of Corporate Social Responsibility (Mayers and Vermeulen 2002). By engaging in partnerships with (indigenous) communities for the sustainable production of forest products and other commodities, some of these enterprises have developed a ‘green’ and socially conscious image that allows them to operate on profitable niche markets. Several examples of companies that have entered into deals with indigenous and other forest-dwelling communities can be found in this book, such as The Body Shop’s involvement in the production of Brazil nut oil (Morsello and Adger, Chapter 7), the export by Munuá Alimentos of certified palm heart and açai fruit (Van Andel, Chapter 8) and Mercedes Benz do Brasil (Daimler Chrysler), which made car products from fibres extracted from coconut husks mixed with natural latex (Otsuki, Chapter 12). All these new global players in the forest management arena have been able to link up more and more with national and local actors, because globalisation is making the world smaller each and every day. Internet, e-mail, and fast means of transportation facilitate communication between actors operating at different levels of scale. This enables them to spread their ideas rapidly, to establish and maintain contacts with distant partners, to negotiate forest policies and undertake joint activities. In contrast to the situation in which forest policies are the mandate of national governments, negotiating and formulating forest policies is now a multi-scale process which integrates three major competing interests. In this process, forests represent a global common resource, a sovereign resource to be used by the state to further national interest, and a local common resource to which local forest dwellers and indigenous peoples have primary property rights (Brown 2001, 896). Local Factors that Encourage Partnerships in Forest Management For a long time, policies aimed at forest areas in most Latin American countries have not been conducive to participatory or partnership approaches. The prevailing perception and attitude towards forests was one of an unproductive ‘green hell’ that should be opened up, developed and integrated into the national economy. Even a country like Costa Rica, now perceived as one of the most progressive in

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terms of environmental policies, implemented an active frontier policy in the 1950s which supported the conversion of forest into farmland and pasture on the basis of favourable credits and granted property titles to those who ‘improved’ (read: cleared) forestland (Pellegrini, n.d.; Carriere 1990). Agricultural colonisation was also the dominant strategy in the Amazon basin (for instance in Brazil), in eastern Paraguay and in the lowland area to the east of the Andes in Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador. It also took place—but to a much lesser extent—in Uruguay, Venezuela, Central America and Mexico (see Kay 1998; Dorner 1992, cited in Zoomers and van der Haar 2000, 19). Even though a lot of governments designed programmes for ‘official colonisation’ (the prior selection of target groups, preestablished criteria for land adjudication, food support, etc.), the majority of the ‘colonists’ settled spontaneously. From the moment a colonisation area was opened up by roads, landless and land-poor people decided to leave minifundia areas and settle in the colonisation areas by occupying the land. As soon as they were recognised as de facto occupants (ocupantes de hecho), they claimed the land. Most governments responded ex post by consolidating the situation in these frontier areas through the provision of infrastructure and the granting of land titles. However, the majority of the ocupantes did not succeed in becoming the legal owners of their land. This policy was considered an easier way of dealing with extremely skewed landownership than implementing land reform. Thus, the prevailing practice was, for a long time, one of highly centralised government interventions geared towards opening up and clearing forests rather than conserving or sustainably using them. This began to change from the mid 1980s onwards, mainly due to international pressure. Since then, policies have shifted in the direction of decentralised and sustainable forestry, in which a balance is sought between conservation and development needs. Decentralisation (or more precisely, de-concentration) transferred decision-making powers, including those in forest management, from central to provincial or district levels, as well as to municipal authorities (see Ferroukhi 2003 and Larson 2003 for a review of the roles of municipal governments in forest management in six Latin American countries). It is generally expected that the involvement of actors living in closer proximity to the forest than the representatives of central government provides, in theory at least, an incentive to preserve the forest and manage it on a sustainable basis, while offering better

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opportunities for local participation and poverty alleviation. Recent studies (Colfer and Capistrano 2005; Ribot and Larson 2005) have shown, however, that this is not always happening due to local elite capture, poor coordination and planning, a lack of local community skills and empowerment, inadequate funding and commitment from higher government officials, plus a tendency to overexploitation. However, decentralisation and the associated entrance of new actors in the forest governance arena provided a stimulus to the formation of sustainable forest management partnerships as actors expect to win from joining power, assets, knowledge and skills with actors at other levels of scale. In addition to the downward extension of state powers, decentralisation also encompasses delegation—the transfer of managerial responsibility to organisations indirectly controlled by the central government such as regional development agencies or parastatal organisations— and devolution (Agrawal and Ribot 1999; Gregersen et al. 2005). In the latter case, decision-making powers are transferred from the central state to local actors, such as indigenous populations, local community organisations or organised groups of forest users. Widespread devolution of forestland to indigenous peoples—with some 100 million hectares set aside for indigenous populations of the Amazon region between 1960 and 1996 (Roldán Ortega 1996, in Assies et al. 2000, 98)—occurred because several conventions advocated an increase in the autonomy and rights of indigenous peoples to manage their own resources. Firstly, the ratification of ILO Convention 169 in 1991, which deals with the rights of indigenous and tribal peoples, led several Latin American governments to adopt new constitutions that recognise the multiethnic and pluricultural character of their countries (Assies et al. 2000). This convention, which has been incorporated into national law in many Latin American countries, facilitated the protection of ‘the total environment of the areas which the peoples occupy or otherwise use’ (Art. 13–2), and focused on ‘safeguarding the rights of the peoples concerned to use lands not exclusively occupied by them but to which they traditionally had access for their subsistence and traditional activities’ (Art. 14–1). In addition, the Convention on Biological Diversity adopted in 1992 recognises the rights of indigenous people to manage their own resources. Another example of devolution of forestland to local communities and forest users can be found in Brazil where, in 1990, the federal government created the possibility of demarcating extractive reserves

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in which forest-dwelling communities can sustainably exploit the forests for rubber, Brazil nuts and other forest products, while being offered protection from encroachment by farmers and loggers. Until 2000, twelve extractive reserves had been created in the Amazon region, covering 3.3 million hectare and involving about 42,000 people6 (see also Rosendo, Chapter 11). This tendency towards the devolution of forestland to indigenous and other traditional peoples has led to a doubling of the share of forest land reserved for, or actually owned by, indigenous or community groups over the past 15 years, to 21.9 percent (White and Martin 2002 on the basis of data on 24 of the 30 countries with the largest forest cover). Scherr et al. (2003) expect this share to increase in the near future because traditional forest users are continuing to reclaim their rights and an increasing number of countries are implementing laws which recognise these rights. An important side-effect of the increased autonomy and rights to land for local groups in terms of partnerships is that these communities turn into interesting partners for forestry companies which aim to secure access to roundwood and pulpwood in situations of increasing scarcity of forest resources (Mayers and Vermeulen 2002; Scherr et al. 2003). The democratisation wave following the collapse of authoritarian regimes since the early 1980s was another factor that stimulated a partnership approach to forest management, as it has paved the way for a stronger participation of civil society organisations in the formulation of forest policies. One of the consequences of the ‘good governance’ debate mentioned above was a massive increase in the sponsorship by international donors of the development of civil society organisations, whose number grew dramatically in Latin America during the last decade of the twentieth century.7 These organisations increasingly form alliances with both national and international actors to shape forest policies and management (see also Chapter 13 by Scholz).

6

URL: http://www.ibama.gov.br. Citing Valencia and Winder (1997), Balbis (2001) mentions 200,000 non-profitmaking agencies in Brazil and 10,000 organisations in Mexico, covering a broad range of social welfare organisations, advocacy groups, groups and associations for the defence of civil rights or specific interests, and groups for the promotion of arts and culture. According to the same author, a census of communal action associations carried out in Colombia in 1993 revealed that there were 42,582 such associations or juntas, 5,437 NGOs, 2,700 sports clubs and over 600 voluntary organisations. 7

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To summarise, the combined effects of trends in mainstream development and forest management thinking, shifts in governance, claims for more democracy and the demand for corporate social responsibility led to new types of actors playing a role in forest management, often alongside central governments. At local level these include provincial and municipal governments, indigenous and other forestdwelling communities and the organisations representing them, and NGOs and civil society organisations. At global level, these include multilateral agencies and environmental organisations like the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) and the World Conservation Union (IUCN), donors, internationally operating companies and research organisations. These actors find each other in a globalised environment and, at the same time, in a decentralised institutional setting in which there is more potential than ever for the formation of partnerships. Partnerships in the Academic Debate Forest and tree management partnerships are not only ‘fashionable’ in policy and forestry circles, but are also a relevant topic for numerous academic debates. Partnerships often combine private with public agencies and agents from global, national and local levels of scale. These actors pursue multiple goals, ranging from conservation to livelihood improvement and the reduction of vulnerability. This complexity requires improved insights into the nature of partnerships, the motivation and cultural values of the actors participating in them, and the power imbalances between them. Political environmental geography (see Dietz 1996), in combination with environmental and rural sociology, environmental economics and social forestry, provides such insights. It does so by studying the foundation for environmental behaviour in people’s varied and often conflicting endowment and entitlement systems, in their contrasting valuations of environmental costs and benefits, and in their different capabilities as regards dealing with adversities and opportunities (Ros-Tonen et al. 2005b, 415). The theoretical stances that are most relevant in this respect are the Sustainable Livelihood Approach (Chambers and Conway 1992; Carney 1998; DFID 1999), the entitlement approach (Dietz 1996; Leach et al. 1999; Njogu 2004); the politics of scale debate (Swyngedouw 1997; Peck 2002; Sheppard 2002; Kurtz 2003)

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and social movement theories (for example Mc Adam et al. 1996; Klandermans et al. 1998, Alvarez et al. 1998). The Sustainable Livelihood Approach, notably the concept of social capital embodied in this approach, offers useful tools with which to analyse the costs and benefits of partnerships. A relevant question in this respect, which is not addressed in any greater detail in this book, is related to whether the partnership forms an essential social asset that increases or decreases access of the poorest sectors of society to natural, human, physical, financial and political-juridical capital, and helps increase the human capability to survive and attain a sustainable livelihood (Chambers and Conway 1992; Bebbington 1999; De Haan 2000; Henkemans 2001; Van den Hombergh 2004). Social and political-juridical capital (including access to financers, decisionmaking and the legal system) are relevant to further studies in the social context of partnerships, as outside actors involved in partnerships can build bridges to local actors’ wider goals, but may also interfere with these in a negative sense (Cleaver 2005). When developing partnerships between local communities and external (development) organisations, particular attention therefore needs to be paid to the ‘interfaces’ or ‘critical points of intersection or linkages’ between social groups (Long and Van der Ploeg 1989). At these interfaces, power imbalances and conflicting interests with respect to forest and tree resources have an important impact on the structuring and functioning of partnerships. Insofar as power imbalances are grounded on diverging rights and access to resources, they can be understood by using the entitlement approach, which deals with the rights to own, the rights to use and the rights to intervene in resource situations (Dietz 1996, 41; see also the endowments and entitlements concepts in Leach et al. 1999). Njogu (2004) combines this entitlement approach with stakeholder theories developed by Borrini-Feyerabend (1996) and Mikalsen and Jentoft (2001), on the basis of which he has drawn up a checklist of actors. Conflicting interests are also based on different ways in which different stakeholders value forest and tree resources. Such a normative pluriformity is particularly strong when the points of view of professional state conservation and management organisations are compared with those of local communities (Long and Long 1992; Wiersum 1999). The fact that the actors involved in partnerships for sustainable forest and tree resource management operate at multiple spatial scales gives rise to ‘politics of scale’ (Swyngedouw 1997; Peck 2002; Kurtz

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2003). This involves such questions as the divergence between the scale at which environmental problems such as deforestation occur and the scale(s) at which they can and should be tackled, how the various governance levels can be linked (a question taken up by Finley-Brook in Chapter 10), how actors can strategically articulate (or ‘jump scale’ in the terms of Smith 1984) with actors at another scale in order to increase leverage (see Sergio Rosendo in Chapter 11) and the use of scale as a means of legitimating the inclusion and exclusion in political debate (Kurtz 2003). The latter is a problem dealt with by Colchester in Chapter 14, where he notes that one of the main challenges international community forestry networks are facing is to link with local communities and prevent their exclusion from the forestry debate due to not being duly represented. Although the ‘politics of scale’ are not the explicit focus of this book, the chapters that deal with them provide useful insights into the human geography debate on how processes at distinct spatial levels interact and influence each other. Finally, social movement theories can provide crucial insights into the construction of public-private and other partnerships and into how they are debated as panaceas for sustainable development. Political partnerships as vehicles for protests against forest destruction and social exclusion and lobbies for pro-poor and sustainable policies can be the outcome of successful struggles of environmental and other movements. Examples in this book are the alliance against the industrial forestry contract between the Costa Rican government and a paper giant (Chapter 4 by Van den Hombergh), social movements against infrastructure investments in the Brazilian Amazon (Chapter 13 by Scholz) and the international community forestry networks which are the subject of Chapter 14 by Colchester. More so than in the case of the other types of partnerships, political partnerships deal with the underlying causes of deforestation rather than easing them through contracts or forest management projects. The conditions under which political partnerships, through alliances, coalitions and social advocacy networks are able to gain both short-term political success and deal with such underlying causes have been addressed by authors like Alvarez et al. (1998), Mc Adam et al. (1996) and Van den Hombergh (2004), while Kaimowitz (1996), Silva (1997), Keck and Sikkink (1998) and Colchester et al. (2003) addressed the extent to which, and under what conditions, such partnerships can enhance environmental and forest management.

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Dangers and Pitfalls Whether in terms of social or symbolic capital, the general assumption behind partnerships is that, by joining assets, funds, political power, skills and knowledge, the parties involved gain from participation in the partnership and engage in the partnership in the expectation of mutual benefits. Often, this assumption is justified. For example, the A’Ukre Indians in the Brazilian state of Pará would not have gained access to a profitable market for Brazil nut oil were it not for the partnership with The Body Shop (Chapter 7 by Morsello and Adger) and the rubber tappers in the western Brazilian Amazon state of Rondônia would never have gained secure access to forest land in the form of extractive reserves if they had not entered into partnerships with international NGOs that had the political power to influence the World Bank (Chapter 11 by Rosendo). The cases assembled in this book teach us, however, that there are numerous dangers and pitfalls. Below we review the major risks which include failure to deal with diverging interests and power asymmetries, the use of discourses or ‘strategic frames’ to obscure such power imbalances, failure to recognise ecological and social dynamics, exclusion of crucial actors (local and regional governments in particular), adverse effects on local governance structures, a disabling policy environment, high transaction costs, limited capacity of partnerships to alleviate poverty and the problem of scaling-up successful initiatives. The Challenge of Diverging Interests Parties involved in a partnership do not necessarily pursue the same objective and may have different reasons for participating. What is most important is that all the partners recognise a common ground which justifies the partnership, that they share the expectation that the partnership will generate benefits and that they recognise each other’s goals in order to create a win-win situation. For instance, by entering into a partnership with a paper company (Van den Hombergh, Chapter 4) the Costa Rican government tried to defend its ‘green image’ of pursuing sustainable development and reforestation, while the paper company sought to secure a cheap supply of pulpwood. Similarly, government actors might be primarily motivated to participate in multi-sector partnerships by the opportunity it offers to attract donor funding, while international environmental organisations

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seek to promote conservation, and local communities participate in the expectation of improved livelihoods. Whether the stakeholders’ end goals are practically compatible is an issue that needs to be considered in any kind of partnership. The examples in this book demonstrate that such multiple objectives can often be reconciled, but that there is also a serious risk that the agenda of the most powerful will dominate. Several authors therefore stress the importance of brokers who act as ‘watchdogs’ (for instance Cleuren, Chapter 3; Vermeulen and Mayers, Chapter 6; Morsello and Adger, Chapter 7). Such a watchdog is an organisation (governmental, non-governmental or international) that defends the interests of the least powerful, both in the stage of negotiating the goals and terms of the partnerships and during their implementation. Failure to Reduce Power Asymmetries Marginal population groups remain dependent on external actors for access to markets and often lack the skills and power to negotiate prices and conditions in their favour. This holds true for most company-community partnerships, particularly those involving indigenous populations living in isolated areas, with poor knowledge of the official language and little experience with outside markets, contracts and marketing arrangements. Although the A’Ukre Indians in Brazil who are involved with The Body Shop benefit from premium prices, the Chachi Indians in Ecuador who are engaging in a company-community and a multi-sector partnership for sustainable community forestry (Chapter 2 by Rival) feel that income and services from trading logs in the partnerships are not any better than in the businessas-usual scenario. Moreover, donor funds can create new dependencies which render the projects unsustainable when donor support comes to an end. Capacity building and empowerment of the least powerful may help to address these power asymmetries. Framing as a Means to Obscure Power Imbalances The risk of framing partnerships as relationships based on shared interests is that power imbalances are neglected. Several authors (Escobar 1995; Fairhead and Leach 2003; Van den Hombergh 2004) have stressed the fact that such notions as ‘partnerships’, ‘sustainable management’, ‘biodiversity conservation’, ‘decentralised governance’ and ‘community participation’ are politically charged and represent

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diverging conceptions by communities, NGOs, international donors and other actors that are part of the partnership. As Van den Hombergh makes clear in Chapter 4, such discourses or strategic frames may obscure actually or potentially conflicting interests. In the case she describes, a paper company was able to create goodwill with the Costa Rican government by using a ‘green’ discourse (‘esta compañia reforestadora’—this re-afforesting company), despite the fact that its primary interest was to secure the supply of pulpwood on cheap terms through leasing arrangements with farmers (who in the end were caught in the ‘partnership’ that prevented them from benefitting from more lucrative land uses). Frames may also obscure power imbalances at community level. For instance, by framing all villagers as ‘poor and marginalised’ (Rival, Chapter 2), partnerships neglect gender, ethnic and generational differences which may lead to the unequal distribution of benefits from the arrangement. In the analysis of partnerships it is important to consider frames or discourses in two respects. Firstly, it is important to reveal how the prevailing discourse is the result of a power play (‘the discursive battlefield’), the winner of which is capable of determining what options are being considered. Silva et al. (2002, 64–66), who adapt the classification by Dryzeck (1997), distinguish four major paradigms as far as the sustainable management of forest resources is concerned. They use these paradigms to explain the ‘political will’ for policy reform in a number of countries, but they can also be used to explain the shape and direction that a partnership takes. The paradigms in question are: – The market paradigm, the proponents of which rely on markets rather than on government interventions. This paradigm is reflected in the company-community partnerships described in this book; – The technocratic planning paradigm which considers forestry issues as technical problems for which government regulation and intervention is needed. This one is reflected in the public-private partnerships, in particular the Trinidad case described by Fairhead and Leach in Chapter 5; – The social forestry paradigm which prefers local communities to be in control of forests and benefit from them. Examples which reflect this paradigm are the multi-actor partnership with Chachi Indians described by Rival in the next chapter and the international community forestry networks described by Colchester in Chapter 14);

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– The conservation paradigm which emphasises environmental services to be conserved either through market mechanisms (for instance the Guiana Initiative described by Van Dijck in Chapter 9), government interventions or community-based approaches (reflected in two of the multi-scale partnerships described by FinleyBrook in Chapter 10). As proposed by Lebel et al. (2004), it is useful to add a fifth perspective to these, namely the ‘Nobody Knows Best’ perspective which recognises multiple actors and mixed interests in forest management. This paradigm prevails in most of the multi-sector partnerships described in this book, for instance in the case of extractive reserves (Chapter 11 by Rosendo) and a multi-sector partnership for ‘ecological’ paper production (Chapter 12 by Otsuki). In many of these cases, however, the discourse of international donors tends to dominate (see also Chapter 14 where Colchester mentions this as one of the bottlenecks in international community forestry networks). A second reason to pay attention to discourse development or framing is that the deconstruction of frames provides insight into the real environmental and socioeconomic effects of partnerships and who are being affected by them. Failure to Recognise Ecological and Social Dynamics One of the framings specific for partnerships for sustainable forest management relates to the desired outcome of the management effort and the assumed stability of the management system—an issue raised by Fairhead and Leach in Chapter 4. Fairhead and Leach argue that the framing of stability—both in ecological and social terms— should be contested for ecological dynamics and social unpredictabilities inherent in the system. Failure to take these into account may lead to tensions between the partners (in this case woodworkers and the Forestry Division of Trinidad), based on a frustration that goals and rules are constantly adapted or that commitments by the Forestry Division are not met due to ‘unexpected’ events such as fires resulting from prolonged droughts. The same applies to social dynamics, such as the power plays of large-scale sawmill operators who, despite the fact that they are not part of the partnership, gain preferential access to timber resources thanks to their political connections and influence. Like Rosendo in Chapter 11, Fairhead and Leach argue for non-equilibrium thinking and the application of adaptive management principles in order to deal with these dynamics.

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The Risk of Exclusion Partnerships may exclude crucial social actors, thus creating new inequalities by preferring some villages or actors to others and by unequally distributing funding, training and resources. The exclusion of whole villages has been observed by Rival with respect to Chachi villages in the multi-sector community forestry partnership in Ecuador described in the next chapter, and by Finley-Brook (Chapter 10) with respect to the multi-scale co-management initiatives with Miskitu Indians in Nicaragua. In both cases, exclusion also occurred in other manners. In the Chachi case, the better-off (leaders and teachers) were the ones who benefited most from capacity building, while the Miskitu Indians were hardly involved in decisions regarding the implementation of the forestry initiatives. A similar situation can also occur involving individual poor farmers who are considered to be the ‘less promising’ partners, as in the case of the leasing arrangement with the paper company in Costa Rica (Chapter 4). Here, the company preferred relatively larger and more fertile tracks of land than those of poor farmers. In Chapter 14, Colchester points to a particular kind of social exclusion, caused by mediating NGOs which do not represent local communities but do replace their voice in multi-scale political partnerships. A Disabling Policy Environment Several pitfalls occur where partnerships are based on neo-liberal ideas about a retreating role of the state. Several authors in this book argue that a strong public actor is needed for several types of partnerships to thrive. This holds true for multi-sector partnerships like the one described in the next chapter by Rival which failed to translate the aim of reconciling conservation and development goals at the regional policy level due to overlooking the regional government as a partner for social reform. It is also observed by Cleuren in Chapter 3 who notes that excessive bureaucracies hamper small producers to successfully engage in public-private partnerships for the sustainable production of bamboo in Ecuador, while the government is a relatively weak partner for such partnerships due to lack of expertise, financial means and vision. Vermeulen and Mayers argue in Chapter 6 that the voluntary arrangements in companycommunity partnerships based on corporate social responsibility are insufficient to guarantee sustainable and socially just practices and that an adequate public policy is needed to set the regulatory

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framework under which the companies are to operate. A combination of these arguments can be found in Chapter 13 by Scholz with respect to political partnerships against the adverse effects of largescale infrastructural investments in the Brazilian Amazon region. She concludes that local governments lack the capacity to be a partner of much better informed civil society actors in the analysis of the risks of such investments and the possible solutions for them, while the legal institutions are too weak to provide adequate protection of the environment. Adverse Effects on Local Governance Structures As Finley-Brook makes it clear in Chapter 10 and Rosendo in Chapter 11, multi-scale partnerships involving external and international actors may erode traditional governance structures by introducing new leaders, or by neglecting or replacing local leadership. This is a serious threat to the sustainability of the partnership as local people might not feel part of the process. Transaction Costs Particularly in multi-sector partnerships, the danger lies in the limits of managing complexity. The involvement of a large number of actors, often operating at different geographical scales, implies high transaction costs, which may prejudice the success of the partnership. As Vermeulen and Mayers note in Chapter 6, this might also be the case in company-community partnerships when a business has to deal with a large number of farmers. Partnerships and Poverty Alleviation It is highly questionable whether poverty can be alleviated through forest conservation and management alone. Various cases presented in this book make it clear that partnerships are not a panacea for lifting people out of poverty. Moreover, the majority of the poor in Latin America live outside the forest and many of those living in the forest try to escape from poverty by moving out. However, be it through conviction or circumstance, others do depend on the forest as a means of livelihood. Ways will have to be found to alleviate poverty among those population groups living inside and outside the forest and those who are and who are not willing to stay there.

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Examples such as the case described by Otsuki in Chapter 12, where a multi-sector partnership aimed at the sustainable production of ‘ecological paper’ in the Brazilian Amazon region deliberately involves the urban poor, are in a minority. Scaling Up Of course there are also success stories in which there only seem to be winners. The partnership between Muaná Alimentos Ltd and poor communities in Brazilian Amazonia exploiting (açaí ) and palm heart of the Euterpe oleracea palm (Chapter 8 by Van Andel) seems to be such a case. However, the up-scaling of successful experiences is a problem. Partnerships should not be romanticised. The political power of large landowners and multinational corporations is strong and the public sector is weak. For the time being, the influence of outsiders such as the Church, NGOs and international donors remains essential. Conditions for Successful Partnerships In the light of the potential dangers and pitfalls highlighted above, the question is raised of what are the conditions for successful partnerships. ‘Success’ is interpreted here primarily in terms of (1) the capacity of partnerships to reconcile multiple interests and power imbalances; and (2) their potential to contribute to ecologically sustainable and socially just forest and tree resource management. We thereby distinguish between success factors related to partnerships as a social process which is unrelated to the specific objective of that partnership, and conditions related to the specific aim of achieving sustainable forest and tree resource management. Power Balancing When constructing partnerships, account should be taken of diverging interests, social inequalities and power imbalances between partners (for example according to gender, ethnicity, resource availability and being rural or urban). In order to deal with them brokers might be needed, as well as empowerment of community-based organisations and producer associations. Traditional governance structures and local knowledge should be integrated into multi-scale initiatives in order to do justice to cultural diversity and legal pluralism.

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The objectives of the partners should be compatible or at least be mutually respected. Partners may participate on the basis of different motivations, but they should at least acknowledge each other’s goals and interests. This requires a fair negotiation process during the formation of a partnership, involving local groups in all stages of planning in order to ensure ownership. Care should also be taken to ensure that all stakeholders are identified, since negotiations will be ineffective if partnerships exclude people or prevent important actors from participating. Security, trust, access to information, feedback mechanisms, a transparent dialogue and preparedness to compromise are other prerequisites for successful negotiations. Rights (for instance to a sustainable livelihood) rather than stakes should be the leading principle in negotiating the aims of the partnership. Realism Objectives and the prospects of benefits should be realistic in order not to raise false expectations—participants should believe and obtain evidence that they benefit from the partnership, that there is ‘something in it’ for them. Local value adding is important in this respect, as well as the inclusion of multiple components in forest and tree resource-related livelihoods (timber and non-timber products, including the provision of environmental services where feasible; natural and domesticated forest products; forest production and farming). Sound business should be combined with broader development goals, which in addition to implementing sustainable forestry and agroforestry, requires lobbying for pro-poor forest policies at national and international level. Furthermore, the number of partners should be limited as dealing with a high number of partners involves high transaction costs. By forming associations and producer groups, these transaction costs can be lowered. In order to generate a realistic view of ecological and socioeconomic impacts, frames like ‘sustainable forest management’ and ‘reforestation’ should be duly deconstructed and their desired conditions made clear. Finally, a realistic and long-term timeframe should be set, but one that is sufficiently flexible to deal with changes. Partnerships require mutual trust between the partners and hence long-term commitment.

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Risk and Conflict Management Agreement should be reached on the responsibilities between the partners (for specific tasks, environmental damage, etc.) in accordance with the scale at which an actor operates and the assigning of complementary rather than overlapping or conflicting tasks. Care needs to be taken to make sure that risks are equally shared and that mechanisms are in place to cope with risk (diversification, insurances, etc.). It should be realised that partnerships cannot act as a substitute for the role of government and that public investments— and hence the participation of public actors in partnerships—remain crucial. Proper monitoring and conflict resolution systems should be created in order to be able to solve conflicts might these arise between the parties in the partnership. An Enabling Institutional Environment With respect to the objective of realising sustainable forest and tree resource management that also contributes to poverty alleviation, the cases in this book make it clear that the following institutional conditions play a crucial role: – Secure tenure and resource-use arrangements; – A clear legal framework for the forest and tree resource products; – An enabling, de-bureaucratised policy environment specifically at regional and local level, which may require ‘environmental capacity’ building of public sector actors through lobbying and exposure to global civil society networks; – Capacity building of small farmers and forest dwellers in sustainable exploitation techniques; – Access to markets, with particular attention for the potential of markets for environmental services and domestic markets, for wellfunctioning marketing channels and the grading of smallholders’ production to the required market standards. The Structure of this Book The cases presented in this book are arranged according to the type of partnership under discussion, with the next two chapters covering several kinds of partnerships. Rival (Chapter 2) and Cleuren (Chapter 3) both deal with Ecuador and compare various types of

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partnerships ranging from public-private and company-community partnerships to multi-sector or intersectoral partnerships (referred to as ‘coalitions’ by Rival) and political partnerships. While focusing respectively on community forest management and sustainable bamboo production, they pay attention to the conditions that make partnerships successful in terms of environmental sustainability, economic feasibility and poverty alleviation. The two chapters that follow focus on public-private partnerships In Chapter 4, Van den Hombergh describes the political discourse relating to a public-private partnership for the sowing of Gmelina arborea trees for pulpwood on farmland between the Costa Rican government and a paper industry, and the political coalition against it. Fairhead and Leach (Chapter 5) focus on a public-private partnership between government foresters and artisanal woodworkers for the sustainable production of timber in Trinidad. In both chapters, the authors argue for the deconstruction of frames like ‘sustainability’, ‘equilibrium’ and ‘stability’. Chapters 6–8 deal with company-community partnerships which combine business goals of corporate social responsibility and ‘green’ marketing with the development goals of poor rural communities. The authors highlight conditions for the success of these partnerships, each from a different perspective. Based on a review of company-community partnerships in the wood fibre industry all over the world, Vermeulen and Mayers (Chapter 6) deal with operational features affecting the efficiency, equity and durability of the partnerships, presenting the lessons learned with respect to transaction costs, power sharing, risk, conflicts and the policy environment. Morsello and Adger (Chapter 7) focus on benefits and drawbacks of a partnership between The Body Shop and a community of A’Ukre Kayapó Indians in the Brazilian Amazon region as far as income distribution, social and cultural disruption, empowerment and conservation are concerned. van Andel (Chapter 8) focuses primarily on the conditions under which fruit (açaí ) and palm heart of the Euterpe oleracea palm can be harvested in a sustainable manner within the framework of a partnership between a Brazilian company and poor communities in Brazilian Amazonia. The four chapters in Part IV present multi-sector or intersectoral partnerships for sustainable forest and tree resource management which involve actors that operate on multiple scales. The case of the Guiana Shield Initiative (GSI), presented by Van Dijck in Chapter 9,

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differs from the other multi-sector partnerships presented in this book because it does not primarily implement sustainable forest management, conservation and/or sustainable livelihood projects, but prioritises the creation of financial mechanisms for the conservation of eco-services such as carbon sequestration and biodiversity conservation as a basis for generating the funds for such projects. The three chapters that follow illustrate the main challenges of multi-sector partnerships, such as dealing with diverging goals and interests, power imbalances and donor dependency. In Chapter 10, Finley-Brook does this on the basis of four multi-sector partnerships in indigenous Miskitu villages in Nicaragua, while Rosendo (Chapter 11) focuses on partnerships relating to the creation, legal implementation and development of extractive reserves in Rondônia, Brazilian Amazonia. Otsuki (Chapter 12) uses an ‘ecological paper’ project in the Brazilian Amazon region to demonstrate how institutionally complex it is to set up multi-sector partnerships for localised production chains. She argues that this complexity is needed in order to be able to link the funds, markets, research capacity, technical skills and institutional support needed to produce the paper in an ecologically sustainable and economically feasible manner to the benefit of both the rural and urban poor. The last two chapters deal with political partnerships, alliances or networks. In Chapter 13, Scholz examines the environmental capacities (the ability to devise solutions for environmental problems) of the actors involved in two such partnerships relating to unsustainable infrastructure investments in Brazilian Amazonia. In the last chapter, Colchester looks at factors that determine advocacy effectiveness, communications, relationships with donors and linking with communities and social movements. He does so on the basis of a review of international community forestry networks, with a focus on networks that are based in, or are particularly relevant to, Latin America. Considering the power imbalances inherent in all types of partnerships reviewed in this book, his main message is of universal value. According to Colchester, all actors involved in partnerships need to reflect on the extent to which the voice of local communities is heard, whether they are adequately represented in decision-making and whether agendas are not imposed on them. Failure to do so may lead to new forms of social exclusion.

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ros-tonen, van den hombergh and zoomers Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank Eduardo Silva, Anthony Hall and Freerk Wiersum for their constructive comments to an earlier draft of this paper. Thanks are also due to the participants in the congress on ‘Globalisation, localisation and tropical forest management in the 21st century’ that was held in Amsterdam on 22–23 October 2003 for their contribution to the discussion on partnerships. References Agrawal, A. and Ribot, J.C. (1999) ‘Accountability in Decentralization. A Framework with South Asian and West African Cases’, Journal of Developing Areas, Vol. 33, pp. 473–502. Alvarez, S.E., Dagnino, E. and Escobar, A. (eds) (1998) Culture of Politics, Politics of Cultures. Re-visioning Latin American Social Movements. Boulder: Westview Press. Arnold, J.E.M. (2001) Forests and People. 25 Years of Community Forestry. Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Assies, W., Haar, G. van der and Hoekema, A. (eds) (2000) The Challenge of Diversity: Indigenous Peoples and Reform of the State in Latin America. Amsterdam: Thela Thesis. Balbis (2001) NGOs, Governance and Development in Latin America and the Caribbean. Management of Social Transformations (MOST) Discussion Paper No. 53. Paris: United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Bebbington, A. (1999) ‘Capitals and Capabilities: A Framework for Analysing Peasant Viability, Rural Livelihood and Poverty’, World Development, Vol. 27, No. 12, pp. 2021–2044. Borrini-Feyerabend, G. (1996) Collaborative Management of Protected Areas: Tailoring the Approach to the Context. Gland: The World Conservation Union (IUCN). Borrini-Feyerabend, G., Taghi Farvar, M., Nguinguiri, J.C. and Ndangang, V. (2000) Co-Management of Natural Resources. Organising, Negotiating and Learning-By-Doing. Heidelberg: Kasparek Verlag. Brown, K. (2001) ‘Cut and Run? Evolving Institutions for Global Forest Governance’, Journal of International Development, No. 13, pp. 893–905. Campbell, L.M. and Vainio-Mattila, A. (2003) ‘Participatory Development and Community-Based Conservation: Opportunities Missed for Lessons Learned?’, Human Ecology, Vol. 31, No. 3, pp. 417–437. Carriere, J. (1990) ‘The Political Economy of Land Degradation in Costa Rica’, New Political Science, No. 18/19 Fall/winter, pp. 147–163. Carney, D. (1998) Sustainable Rural Livelihoods: What Contribution Can We Make? London: Department for International Development (DFID). Chambers, R. and Conway, G. (1992) Sustainable Rural Livelihoods: Practical Concepts for the 21st Century. University of Sussex, IDS Discussion Paper 296. Brighton: Institute for Development Studies (IDS). Cleaver, F. (2005). ‘The Inequality of Social Capital and the Reproduction of Chronic Poverty’, World Development, Vol. 33, No. 6, pp. 893–906. Colchester, M., Apte, T., Laforge, M., Mandondo, A. and Pathak, N. (2003) Bridging the Gap: Communities, Forests and International Networks. Synthesis Report of the Project ‘Learning Lessons from International Community Forestry Networks’. CIFOR Occasional Paper No. 41. Bogor: Centre for International Forestry Research (CIFOR).

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Colfer, C.J.P. and Capistrano, D. (eds) (2005) The Politics of Decentralization. Forests, Power and People. London: Earthscan. Department for International Development (DFID) (1999) Sustainable Livelihood Guidance Sheets. London: Department for International Development (DFID). Dietz, A.J. (1996) Entitlements to Natural Resources. Contours of Political Environmental Geography. Utrecht: International Books. Dorner, P. (1992) Latin American Land Reforms in Theory and Practice: A Retrospective Analysis. Madison-Wiscounsin: The University of Wincounsin Press. Dryzek, J. (1997) The Politics of the Earth: Environmental Discourses. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Escobar, A. (1995) Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third World. Fairhead, J. and Leach, M. (2003) Science, Society and Power: Environmental Knowledge and Policy in West Africa and the Caribbean. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ferroukhi, L. (ed.) (2003) Municipal Forest Management in Latin America. Bogor: Centre for International Forestry Research (CIFOR)/Ottawa: International Development Centre (IDS). Fisher, R.J. (1995) Collaborative Management of Forests for Conservation and Development. Gland: World Conservation Union (IUCN). Foahom, B. and Jonkers, W.B.J. (2005) ‘The Role of Science in Reconciling Multiple Forest Uses: A Multidisciplinary Experience in Cameroon’, pp. 319–341 in M.A.F. Ros-Tonen and T. Dietz (eds) African Forests Between Nature and Livelihood Resources: Interdisciplinary Studies in Conservation and Forest Management. Lewiston NY and Lampeter, Wales: The Edwin Mellen Press. Gregersen, H.M., Contreras-Hermosilla, A., White, A. and Phillips, L. (2005) ‘Forest Governance in Federal Systems: An Overview of Experiences and Implications for Decentralization’, pp. 13–31 in C.J.P. Colfer and D. Capistrano (eds) (2005) The Politics of Decentralization. Forests, Power and People. London: Earthscan. Haan, L. de (2000) ‘Globalization, Localization and Sustainable Livelihood’, Sociologia Ruralis, Vol. 40, No. 3, pp. 339–365. Hemmati, H. (2002) Multi-stakeholder Processes for Governance and Sustainability. London: Earthscan. Henkemans, A. (2001) Tranquilidad and Hardhip in the Forest. Livelihoods and Perceptions of Camba Forest Dwellers in the Northern Bolivian Amazon. PROMAB Scientific Series 5. Riberalta, Bolivia: Programa Manejo de Bosques de la Amazonia Boliviana. Higman, S., Bass, S., Judd, N., Mayers, J. and Nussbaum, R. (1999) The Sustainable Forestry Handbook. London: Earthscan. Hombergh, H. van den (2004) No Stone Unturned: Building Blocks of Environmentalist Power versus Transnational Industrial Forestry in Costa Rica. (PhD Thesis University of Amsterdam). Amsterdam: Dutch University Press. Kaimowitz, D. (1996) ‘Social Pressure for Environmental Reform in Latin America’, pp. 30–32 in H. Collinon (ed.) Green Guerrillas: Environmental Conflicts and Initiatives in Latin America and the Caribbean. London: Latin America Bureau. Kay, C. (1998) ‘Latin American Agrarian Reform: Lights and Shadows’, Land Reform—Reforme Agraire—Reforma Agraria, Vol. 2, pp. 9–31. Keck, M.E. and Sikkink, K. (1998) ‘Transnational Advocacy Networks in the Movement Society’, pp. 217–238 in D.S. Meyer and S. Tarrow (eds) The Social Movement Society. Oxford: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers. Kirby, P. (2002) Resituating the Latin American State. Working Papers in International Studies 2002/3. Dublin: Centre for International Studies, Dublin City University. Klandermans, B., Kriesi, H. and Tarrow, S. (eds) (1998) From Structure to Action: Comparing Movements across Cultures, International Social Movement Research Vol. 1. Greenwich: JAI Press. Kurtz, H.E. (2003) ‘Scale Frames and Counter-Scale Frames: Constructing the Problem of Environmental Justice’, Political Geography, Vol. 22, pp. 887–916.

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Larson, A.M. (2003) ‘Decentralisation and Forest Management in Latin America: Towards a Working Model’, Public Administration and Development, Vol. 23, pp. 211–26. Lawrence, A. (ed.) (2000) Forestry, Forest Users and Research: New Ways of Learning. Wageningen: European Tropical Forest Research Network. Leach, M., Mearns, R. and Scoones, I. (1999) ‘Environmental Entitlements: Dynamics and Institutions in Community-Based Natural Resource Management’, World Development, Vol. 27, No. 2, pp. 225–247. Lebel, L., Contreras, A., Pasong, S. and Garden, P. (2004) ‘Nobody Knows Best: Alternative Perspectives on Forest Management and Governance in Southeast Asia’, International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, Vol. 4, pp. 11–127. Long, N. and Long, A. (1992). Battlefields of Knowledge: The Interlocking of Theory and Practice in Social Research and Development. London: Routledge. Long, N. and Ploeg, J.D. van der (1989) ‘Demythologizing Planned Intervention: An Actor Perspective’, Sociologia Ruralis, Vol. 29, No. 3/4, pp. 226–249. Mayers, J. and Vermeulen, S. (2002) Company-Community Forestry Partnerships: From Raw Deals to Mutual Gains? London: International Institute for Environment and Development. McAdam, D., McCarthy, J. and Zald, M. (1996) Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements. Political Opportunities, Mobilizing Resources and Cultural Framings. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. Mikalsen, K.H. and Jentoft, S. (2001) ‘From User-Group to Stakeholders? The Public Interest in Fisheries Management’, Journal of Marine Policy, Vol. 25, pp. 281–292. Njogu, J.G. (2004) Community-Based Conservation in an Entitlement Perspective: Wildlife and Forest Biodiversity Conservation in Taita, Kenya. (PhD thesis University of Amsterdam). Leiden: African Studies Centre. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) (2001) Local Partnerships for Better Governance. Paris: OECD. Peck, J. (2002) ‘Political Economies of Scale: Fast Policy, Interscalar Relations and Neoliberal Workfare’, Economic Geography, Vol. 78, No. 3, pp. 331–360. Pellegrini, L. (n.d.) ‘A Forest Policy Analysis of Costa Rica, Mexico and Brazil: from the Outcomes to the Hypothesis. Amsterdam: IVM Institute for Environmental Studies (URL: http:/www.unisi.it/santachiara/aree/conf_phd_econ2003/conference_siena/papers/pellegrini.doc). Ribot, J.C. and Larson, A.M. (eds) (2005) Democratic Decentralization through a Natural Resource Lens. Oxon: Routledge. Rischard, J.-F. (2002) ‘Global Issue Networks: Desperate Times Deserve Innovative Measures’, The Washington Quarterly, Vol. 26, No.1, pp. 17–33. Roldán Ortega, R. (1996) ‘Notes on the Legal Status and Recognition of Indigenous Land Rights in the Amazonian Countries’. Background Paper of the Expert Seminar on Practical Experiences Regarding Indigenous Land Rights and Claims, Whitehorse, Canada, 24 –28 March 1996, UN-ECOSOC, E/CN.4/Sub.2/ AC.4/1996/6/Add.1. Ros-Tonen, M.A.F., Zaal, F. and Dietz, T. (2005a) ‘Reconciling Conservation Goals and Livelihood Needs: New Forest Management Perspectives in the 21st Century’, pp. 3–29 in M.A.F. Ros-Tonen and T. Dietz (eds) African Forests Between Nature and Livelihood Resources: Interdisciplinary Studies in Conservation and Forest Management. Lewiston NY and Lampeter, Wales: The Edwin Mellen Press. Ros-Tonen, M.A.F., Dietz, T., Adano, W.R. and Njogu, J.G. (2005b) ‘Sustainable Forests and Livelihoods: Romantic Illusion or Environmental and Social Necessity?’, pp. 393–419 in M.A.F. Ros-Tonen and T. Dietz (eds) African Forests Between Nature and Livelihood Resources: Interdisciplinary Studies in Conservation and Forest Management. Lewiston NY and Lampeter, Wales: The Edwin Mellen Press.

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Scherr, S., White, A. and Kaimowitz, D. (2003) A New Agenda for Achieving Forest Conservation and Poverty Alleviation: Making Markets Work for Low-Income Producers. Washington: Forest Trends/Bogor: Centre for International Forestry Research (CIFOR). Schmidt, R. (1987) ‘Tropical Rain Forest Management: A Status Report’, Unasylva, No. 39, pp. 2–17. Sheppard, E. (2002) ‘The Spaces and Times of Globalization: Place, Scale, Networks and Positionality’, Economic Geography, Vol. 78, No. 3, pp. 307–330. Silva, E. (1997) ‘The Politics of Sustainable Development: Native Forest policy in Chile, Venezuela, Costa Rica and Mexico’, Journal of Latin America Studies, Vol. 29, pp. 457–493. Silva, E., Kaimowitz, D., Bojanic, A., Ekoko, F., Manurung, T. and Pavez, I. (2002) ‘Making the Law of the Jungle: The Reform of Forest Legislation in Bolivia, Cameroon, Costa Rica, and Indonesia’, Global Environmental Politics, Vol. 2, No. 3, pp. 63–97. Smith, N. (1984) Uneven Development: Nature, Capital and the Production of Space. Oxford: Blackwell. Speth, J.G. (2002) ‘The Global Environmental Agenda: Origins and Prospects’, pp. 11–30 in D.C. Esty and M.H. Ivanova (eds) Global Environmental Governance: Options and Opportunities. New Haven, CT: Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. Swyngedouw, E. (1997) ‘Neither Global nor Local: “Glocalization” and the Politics of Scale’, pp. 137–166 in K.R. Cox (ed.) Spaces of Globalization: Reasserting the Power of the Local. New York: Guilford Press. United Nations Conference on the Environment and Development (UNCED) (1992) Agenda 21: Programme of Action for Sustainable Development: Rio Declaration on Environment and Development. Washington DC: United Nations. United Nations Forum on Forests (UNFF) (2004) ‘United Nations Forum on Forests. Global Partnership for Forests for People’. Fact Sheet 1. URL: http://www.un.org/ esa/forests/pdf/factsheet.pdf. Valencia, E. and Winder, D. (1997) El Desarrollo una Tarea en Común. México DF: The Synergos Institute/Red Observatorio Social Idea. Western, D. and Wright, M. (1994) ‘The Background to Community-Based Conservation’, pp. 1–12 in D. Western, M. Wright and S. Strun (eds) Natural Connections. Perspectives in Community-Based Conservation. Washington: Island Press. Wiersum, K.F. (1999) ‘Normative Pluriformity in Forest Management: Professional and Community Perspectives’, pp. 365–379 in FAO (ed.) Pluralism and Sustainable Forestry and Rural Development. Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. —— (1995) ‘200 Years of Sustainability in Forestry: Lessons from History. Environmental Management,” Vol. 19, No. 3, pp. 321–329. White, A. and Martin, A. (2002) Who Owns the World’s Forests? Forest Tenure and Public Forests in Transition. Washington: Forest Trends. World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) (1987) Our Common Future. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Zoomers, A. and Haar, G. van der (eds) (2000) Current Land Policy in Latin America. Regulating Land Tenure under Neoliberalism. Amsterdam: KIT Publishers/Vervuert.

CHAPTER TWO

ALLIANCES FOR SUSTAINABLE FOREST MANAGEMENT: LESSONS FROM THE ECUADORIAN CHOCÓ RAIN FOREST Laura Rival* This chapter compares and contrasts two alliances that were formed and have developed over the last fifteen years in one of the most endangered ‘hotspots of biodiversity’, the Ecuadorian Chocó rain forest. Both have actively promoted the sustainable forest management of remaining portions of the Chocó forest owned by indigenous communities. One alliance, a coalition of environmental non-governmental organisations (NGOs), promotes the cooperative commercialisation of community timber and puts pressure on timber merchants to raise the price they pay to producers. The other refers to a companycommunity partnership, comprising a large forestry and wood-processing group which has joint ventures with a number of indigenous communities and which is now seeking green certification for its logging operations. Both alliances operate locally by promoting and implementing community forestry projects, and nationally by participating in the elaboration of Ecuador’s new forest law. This chapter analyses their sustained effort to reform unsustainable logging practices by comparing their intervention in four domains: land titling, the implementation of sustainable forestry and agroforestry), social development (including capacity building and the creation of new community institutions) and national policy reform. In accordance with Vermeulen and Mayers (see Chapter 6 of this volume) we define partnership in this chapter as an arrangement between two or more parties (in this case a business and indigenous communities) with the expectation of mutual benefit (in this case: income from harvesting timber for the community and secure timber supplies for the company) (compare Vermeulen and Mayers, this

* International Development Centre, Queen Elizabeth House, Mansfield Rd, Oxford OX1 3TB, United Kingdom. E-mail: [email protected].

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volume). We distinguish partnerships from coalitions (or multi-sector partnerships as they were called in Chapter 1) because the latter involve various additional actors, not as direct stakeholders but as facilitators. The term alliance is used as a general term that covers all kinds of formal and informal interactions between multiple stakeholders aimed at achieving a common goal. Finally, the term network is used here for loosely related individuals and organisations which exchange information, knowledge, and (as in the case of networks of Afro-Ecuadorians) sometimes resources. In the case of NGO networks (for instance a community forestry network) or a company network (for example the Corporación de Manejo Forestal Sustentable (COMAFORS; Corporation for Sustainable Forest Management) discussed later in this chapter), joint actions around a common goal might also be undertaken. In this case the network corresponds with what was called a policy-oriented or political partnership in Chapter 1. This analysis is based on ethnographic research in various Chachi villages in the River Cayapas basin (Map 2.1). Several focus-group discussions were also carried out with villagers and NGO staff. Ethnographic fieldwork was complemented with an extensive review of project documents. The last section presents the views of Chachi forest dwellers, who feel that their basic economic needs, values and development aspirations have not been fully understood or attended to by either of the alliances. Whereas indigenous communities have benefited to some extent from land legalisation and training programmes, they are bitterly disappointed that, far from improving, the price they obtain for their logs has continued to fluctuate and even fall. The chapter ends with some of the lessons learned from this case study, in the hope that they will contribute to the successful building of pro-poor alliances. The Ecuadorian Chocó Rain Forest and its Traditional Inhabitants As can be seen in Figure 2.1, the Ecuadorian portion of the Chocó rain forest lies in the province of Esmeraldas, which produces over 60 per cent of the country’s timber and plywood. Esmeraldas, which is one of the poorest and most marginal regions of Ecuador, has had a long history of being cut off from the country’s main poles of development, Guayaquil on the Pacific coast and Quito in the Highlands. Similarly to the rest of Ecuador, its economic development

Figure 2.1 The study area in the Cayapas basin in the Chocó rain forest, Ecuador

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was triggered by the oil boom.1 The trans-Andean pipeline terminates near Esmeraldas city, where the country’s main refinery and modern port facilities were built in the early 1970s. The oil boom triggered a construction boom2 which gave rise to industrial logging. Until the early 1960s, logging in the dense forests of the Ecuadorian Chocó region was restricted to areas around natural harbours and the banks of larger rivers, where loggers exclusively extracted precious hardwood species such as guayacán (Minquartia guianensis or Tabebuya guayacán) and chanul (Humiriastrum procerum). Large veneer and plywoodproducing firms were created in the late 1970s (Salazar et al. 1998), approximately a decade after the opening up of the agricultural frontier in Northwest Esmeraldas (Redclift 1978; Little 2001). Logging companies opportunistically followed colonists that grabbed public forest land along new roads and deforested their newly acquired properties (Southgate and Whitaker 1994, 24–26; Little 2001, 107–109). Industrial logging also triggered a unique deforestation dynamic in the region under study, where it encouraged wide-spread logging with chainsaws to supply its under-utilised sawmills,3 built a complete road infrastructure and self-financed the maintenance of state roads (Sierra 2001, 332). With one quarter of its biodiversity lost in the last twenty-five years, the province has, according to some sources (for example Sierra and Stallings 1998), become one of South America’s most rapidly deforested areas. The forest cover has been reduced to 6 per cent of its original range due to commercial logging and agricultural activities, in particular African palm plantations and cattle ranching (Sierra and Stallings 1998). Most of the remaining forest cover lies around and within the 204,420 hectare Reserva Ecológica CotacachiCayapas (RECC; Cotacachi-Cayapas Ecological Reserve). The RECC was the first protected area to be created on mainland Ecuador in 1968. Because it was designed to represent a maximum number of

1 Until the oil boom in the mid-1970s, Ecuador was one of the poorest countries in Latin America, largely dependent on agricultural exports and with very little industry. 2 According to Sierra (2001, 331), the Ecuadorian construction sector consumes 60 per cent of the sawnwood produced from natural forests in Ecuador, one-third of which comes from Northwest Ecuador. 3 According to Sierra (2001, 337), sawmills currently work at 60 to 77 per cent of their capacity. He also mentions that veneer exports increased by 268 per cent between 1982 and 1993.

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life zones (eleven) from the Cotacachi volcano (at 4,939 m above sea level) all the way down to the lowest tropical rain forests of the River Cayapas watershed (at 30 m above sea level), the RECC protects only a small portion of the Chocó forest, the bulk of which actually lies outside the reserve, in what has become the RECC’s buffer zone, a region relatively densely populated with Afro-Ecuadorian and indigenous communities (see Map 2.1). The rural population of the province of Esmeraldas, which is distributed along the main rivers, has developed a mixed economy relying on a combination of extractive activities, shifting cultivation, cattle ranching and trade, in which forest products have come to occupy a central role. For the past twenty years, selling timber has constituted the principal—if not the exclusive—source of cash income for a majority of households. Forest resources were not traditionally perceived as limited and access to forested land was subject to little regulation or control. Land was not owned as such, but was under the control of those who cultivated or used it. This situation is completely different today since permanent settlements with legal status have been created and communal lands titled. Whereas most communities close to markets have exhausted their forest reserves, the least accessible ones are still in possession of valuable natural resources. Although both the Chachi Indians (or Cayapas) and Afro-Ecuadorians are very poor and marginalised, and although their adaptation to the environment and to the regional market economy is broadly similar, there are some notable differences between them. For historical reasons that fall beyond the scope of this chapter, the Afro-American population is varied and highly mobile. Afro-Ecuadorians travel extensively between the Colombian and Ecuadorian Chocó regions, as well as between urban centres and remote rural communities. Each adult depends on a vast network of relatives, fictive kin, trade partners and friends. These networks extend from the upper course of the numerous rivers that criss-cross the tropical forest to their lower course and to the coast, where the main towns are located, both in Ecuador and in Colombia. In addition to connecting rural folks with urban dwellers, these networks connect better-off people with less well-off people and play an essential role in the mobilisation of resources. It is through them that Black people gain access to labour, goods and services. Since their historical participation as slave labour in gold mining, Chocoan Afro-Americans have formed an ethnic identity based on extractivism and trade. In Northwest Esmeraldas,

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logs are today the principal forest product they extract and trade. Having steadily moved upriver in the aftermath of the banana boom (in the 1960s) to settle in what the Chachi Indians consider their homeland, Afro-Ecuadorians greatly outnumber the latter. Being fluent speakers of the national language (Spanish) and being much more integrated into the regional economy than native Indians, they feel racially, socially and culturally superior to the Chachi. The Chachi feel dominated and exploited by the Afro-Ecuadorian population, which despise them as backward, poor and ignorant. This is particularly true in the context of the timber trade, where patron-client relationships tie Chachi forest owners and log producers to Afro-Ecuadorian traders and intermediaries. The Chachi have tried to protect their ethnic identity with strict rules against mixed marriages and a series of institutions aimed at preserving ethnic endogamy. The research findings also suggest that Chachi and AfroEcuadorian families differ in terms of their development aspirations. Whereas Afro-Ecuadorian families tend to see their remote river dwellings as safety homes to return to when things go wrong in the cities where they work, Chachi people continue to be attached to their traditional subsistence economy. They are extremely proud of their system of bilingual, inter-cultural education and their main concern today is to secure sufficient financial resources to maintain an adequate level of health and education provision, as well as to finance the schooling and professional training of their own teachers, doctors and foresters. Environmental degradation in the region is directly related to the fact that cash is, on the whole, generated by selling wood from the forest.4 It is also related to the fact that the wood commodity chain is strikingly asymmetrical. Those located at the beginning of the chain (typically Chachi Indians) massively exploit natural resources and their own labour force. Sierra (2001, 334) has found that excessive waste during felling and sawing amounts to up to 60 per cent of the original timber volume, an estimate corroborated by this research. The introduction of chainsaws in the later 1960s considerably changed labour arrangements. Chainsaws are rented, lent or given in exchange

4 Chocoan rural dwellers participate in both hardwood and softwood markets, each with its own challenges and advantages.

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for timber, and this with a mix of cash and goods and services between wood producers and intermediary traders. Typically, groups of Chachi extract wood from forested land they own as a family or as a community and sell it to an intermediary who has capital, for example a shop, a small sawmill and/or a party with close links with large timber companies. Women participate indirectly in this activity by cooking for the men and by ensuring the family’s subsistence when the men are away cutting or transporting wood. Traders and intermediaries, who are located closer to the end of the commodity chain, realise substantial profits. However, maximum profits are realised in the processing plants owned by white urban industrialists.5 Implementing Sustainable Forest Management through Alliances Community forestry was introduced in Ecuador by various actors (bilateral aid agencies, timber companies, conservation NGOs and others), who sent government officials, foresters and indigenous leaders to Quintana Roo in the Yucatán Peninsula of Southeast Mexico. Mayan foresters were also invited to visit Northwest Ecuador. Both the voluntary and the industrial sectors used the Quintana Roo model in the mid 1990s to develop social forestry programmes. The significant ecological, geographic, institutional, economic, social and cultural differences existing between the two regions and their forests were largely ignored or overlooked. However, the heraldic reference to Quintana Roo allowed antagonistic alliances to define a common— albeit implicit—objective. They would both work at implementing community forestry as the most efficient way to raise local living standards and protect the environment, while competing acrimoniously on the issue of who is the best partner for local communities and the most legitimate agent of sustainability (Rival 2003). The general features of the two alliances are presented in more detail below, after which their characterisation as respectively a partnership and a coalition is discussed.

5 Several people interviewed estimate that logging companies make a profit of over 200 per cent by purchasing standing trees from poor farmers and indigenous peoples.

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Sustainable Use of Biological Resources (SUBIR) SUBIR (1991–2002) was the largest United States Agency for International Development (USAID)-financed integrated conservation and development programme (ICDP) in the world. Launched in 1991, after two years of negotiation and preparation, SUBIR was USAIDEcuador’s response to the country’s unsustainable use of natural resources. In a 1986 USAID document, worries were expressed that natural resources were not being developed as long-term economic resources: Ecuador has more biological diversity per unit area than any other country in Latin America and, perhaps, the world. More importantly, much of this diversity is endemic to Ecuador. Ecuador has already sacrificed substantial future economic opportunities as a result of careless and short-sighted management of natural resources. The mismanagement of natural resources makes poor sense for the environment and for development. Efforts must be made to ensure that Ecuador’s remaining valuable soil, water, forests and coastal resources are managed rather than destroyed, as they are developed in the coming years (USAID 1986, 3).

SUBIR, which was allocated US$ 15 million over a ten-year period, proposed to identify, test and develop economically, ecologically and socially sustainable resource management models in selected conservation units and their buffer zones in order to preserve the biodiversity and improve the economic well-being of communities through their participation in the management of renewable natural resources (USAID 1986, 4).

As Figure 2.2 shows, this ambitious pro-conservationist programme was implemented for the first four years (Phase I) by a consortium comprising The Nature Conservancy (TNC), the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and the Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere (CARE), under the directive of USAID in partnership with the Ministry of Agriculture (MAG). Phase I combined five areas of activity carried out in five different regions of Ecuador: regional organisational strengthening, protected area management, ecotourism, sustainable land use, forestry and agroforestry, and research and monitoring. This was far too ambitious. The scale of intervention (five major protected areas and their buffer zones) and the number of partner organisations (three major international environmental NGOs, two important Ecuadorian environmental NGOs, twelve government agencies and at least forty regional and local indigenous and peasant organisations) were far too big for efficient management and field

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Project directorate Ministry of Agriculture – USAID SUBIR Consortium – CARE, TNC, WCS

Regional Coordination Borbón office

Regional Coordination Ibarra office

Regional Coordination Borja office

Regional Coordination Coca office

NGOs, Second level organisations (SLOs) and government agencies working in partnership with SUBIR on the five components

Organisational strengthening

Ecotourism Sustainable Protected land use, area forestry and management agroforestry

Research & monitoring

Counterpart organisations (recipients of aid) SLOs and communities

Figure 2.2 Organisational structure and activities SUBIR Phase I (1991–1993)

implementation. Besides, there were serious tensions between CARE, which gave priority to social development, and TNC and WCS, which gave priority to biodiversity conservation. There was no consensus within the consortium on objectives, priorities, roles or responsibilities, and expectations were unrealistic. Moreover, planned activities for protected areas overlapped—when they did not openly conflict— with parallel government activities funded under the Global Environment Facility (GEF). Fundación Natura, the main Ecuadorian NGO involved in SUBIR for Phase I left the consortium to work with the government on strengthening the national protected area system. It was then decided that SUBIR would focus exclusively on the buffer zones of two protected areas, the RECC in Northwest Ecuador (the Chocó region) and the Yasuní National Park in eastern Ecuador (the Amazonian region). Phase II (1994–1997) saw a complete reorganisation of the coalition in charge of implementing the ICDP (see Figure 2.3). The project

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Funding Agencies – USAID and others Sector Manager USAID (monitoring & evaluation) SUBIR project CARE

Social & human development

National NGO partners

Ecociencia Commercialisation Land (fair trade) legalisation & • Biodiversity research environmental • GIS policies mapping • Data management • Ecotourism

Jatun Sacha • Land zoning • Community forestry • Agroforestry

Partners (aid recipients): RECC buffer zone communities, SLOs & Ministry of the Environment

Figure 2.3 Organisational structure and activities SUBIR Phase II (1994–1997) and Phase III (1998–2002)

was also reoriented, both geographically and in terms of priorities. CARE, which became the coalition’s leader, was in charge of the project’s overall management, as well as of the social and human development components (such as legal and social work training and local participation), fair trade, land legalisation and environmental policies. CARE selected two newly-formed Ecuadorian conservation NGOs, namely Ecociencia and Jatún Sacha, to replace Fundación Natura. The former was responsible for biodiversity research, GIS mapping, data management and ecotourism and the latter for implementing natural resource management and biodiversity protection and, more specifically, for promoting sustainable land use through community forestry and agroforestry. With operations now taking place via Ecociencia and Jatún Sacha, the Ecuadorian partners developed one of the first large-scale biodiversity monitoring initiatives in Ecuador. Forest cover was monitored through the comparative analysis of satellite imagery. Between 1999 and 2002, various parts of the ecosystem were measured bi-annually, namely birds, amphibians, scarab

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beetles and aquatic vertebrates. Ecociencia developed a rigorous experimental design to measure and compare the impacts of different forest use intensities with the scientific assistance of WCS. Thus, after reorganisation, ICDP activities around the RECC comprised five components: (1) social and human development, including institutional strengthening and organisational development; (2) commercialisation and marketing of sustainably produced wood and non-wood products through fair trade mechanisms; (3) policy and legal intervention; (4) biodiversity research and monitoring; and (5) improved land use through land zoning, community forestry and agroforesty. Phase II put special emphasis on the legalisation of traditional communal lands (particularly for the benefit of Afro-Ecuadorian communities) and on the training of community ‘paralegals’. The latter are elected community members who have received formal training and a diploma in law in Quito and who are involved in conflict resolution. Phase III (1998–2002), which involved the same basic set of partners, shifted the emphasis from land titling to agroforestry and sustainable forest management. Two commercial networks were organised, one for agricultural products, and one for wood products. In the last two years of the project, efforts were geared towards strengthening local participation and people’s sense of ownership over the project, and SUBIR collaborated more closely with regional organisations, particularly the Unión de las Organizaciones Negras del Norte del Ecuador (UONNE; Union of Black Organisations of Northern Ecuador). Harvest Agreements between Logging Companies and Chachi Communities A leading Ecuadorian wood-processing group anxious to secure its long-term wood supply forms the core of the company-community partnership discussed here. A large part of the wood it processes comes from Esmeraldas Province. The commercial group’s long-term objective is to rely exclusively on timber from its own plantations and from privately-owned natural forests which are managed sustainably. To this effect, it developed an ambitious plan of plantation, afforestation and reforestation in the early 1990s, but failed to secure World Bank funding to implement it, due to the international political hostility towards logging companies operating in tropical rain forest areas (Rival 2003). As explained elsewhere (Rival 2003), this leading commercial group took advantage of government schemes intelligently, investing capital

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in technological improvements and making the most of tax relief and other measures aimed at promoting afforestation. It also benefited from a government ban on log exports, which kept the price of unprocessed wood artificially low (Salazar et al. 1998). More recently, the group’s major productive constraint has been to secure regular and cheap supplies of wood in a region where the most accessible timber has already been cut and where the agricultural frontier has been stabilised. Although the group would prefer, if given the choice, to acquire more private land or operate in forest concessions owned by the state, it finds the signing of long-term agreements with indigenous communities to be a satisfactory solution, mainly because these communities are made up of a relatively small number of families (twenty to thirty) owning sizeable extensions of primary forest (between 2,000 and 12,000 hectares). This for-profit commercial organisation designed a sustainable forestry project based on the Quintana Roo participatory community forest management model, which led to the signing of twentyyear harvest agreements with several Chachi communities. Its main actions have been (1) to obtain the legalisation of Chachi communal forest land; (2) to strengthen local and regional Chachi organisations; (3) to implement agroforestry programmes; (4) to encourage community-based forest management; and (5) to rationalise land use in each community through ‘zoning’ plans. The wood-processing group has also played a major role in the creation of the COMAFORS, which represents the industrial and commercial interests of the Ecuadorian forestry sector in national and international forums and lobbies the national government on forestry issues. The group is now seeking green certification for its wood products from the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). In order to understand the nature of the three harvest agreements signed between the wood-processing group and three Chachi communities in 1993, one must take into consideration the particular structure of the wood-processing group, which constitutes a holding. The holding comprises a complex and vertically integrated set of companies engaged in logging, timber processing, veneer and plywood production, furniture-making, retailing, and more. In addition to sharing commercial interests, these companies are also linked through close family ties. Despite being an integral part of the holding, the private foundation in charge of silviculture, plantation development

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and sustainable forest management must work hard to convince the other parts of the holding that its activities are essential to the group’s overall economic growth and business prosperity. Whereas environmental NGOs, particularly militant NGOs such as Acción Ecológica (close to Greenpeace), refuse to regard the private foundation as an NGO because of its obvious links with the private sector which finances it, the wood-processing group’s direct competitors remain highly suspicious of its professed green and ethical business position. To gain trust nationally and acceptance internationally, the woodprocessing group has thus involved a third, ‘civil society’ party—a leading Ecuadorian environmental NGO in one case, and an international development agency in another one. Alliances, Partnerships or Coalitions? Although they both try to find solutions to forest destruction and short-term profit seeking, and although they both involve the building of trading relations with primary producers in economically vulnerable communities, the two alliances under discussion differ markedly. One gives priority to human development and conservation values, the other to business. For SUBIR, the development of ethical trading is part of a wider set of actions aimed at creating social and economic incentives to enrich human capital and protect the environmental integrity of a region rich in biodiversity over the long term. For the commercial group, managing forests sustainably in partnership with local owners and producers is a business imperative and economic performance has to be the driving force. Unsurprisingly, therefore, the structure of the two alliances is markedly different and they do not involve the same number of partners. While SUBIR comprises a great number of NGOs and local communities, the company-community partnerships essentially involve one of the companies belonging to the commercial group, its private foundation responsible for sustainable forestry and a Chachi village. Various additional actors are involved in SUBIR, not as direct stakeholders but as facilitators, such as the Federación de Centros Chachi del Ecuador (FECCHE; Federation of Chachi Centres of Ecuador), foresters and consultants from aid agencies, who offer their technical and financial support, and a national environmental NGO. Therefore, we propose to use the term ‘coalition’ for the SUBIR alliance (for which multi-sector partnership

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was used in Chapter 1) and reserve the term ‘partnership’ to describe the development of timber-harvesting operations between the private sector and forest dwellers.6 Comparative Analysis of the Two Sustainable Forest Management Projects Sustainable forest management is a highly contested concept (see for example Lele et al. 2000; Putz et al. 1999; Lugo, 1999; Bawa and Seidler 1998). The wood-processing group uses the criteria and indicators of the International Tropical Timber Organisation (ITTO) for sustainable forest management in natural tropical forests, which it applies exclusively to species producing roundwood. SUBIR, in contrast, has adapted internationally recognised protocols to develop simplified management plans for harvesting all marketable wood in community and family-owned native forests. However, the stated objectives (decelerate deforestation and reduce poverty by setting up community forestry schemes) of both alliances have much in common. Below, some common issues that both alliances are dealing with are discussed, namely land tenure, the implementation of sustainable forestry and agroforestry programmes, social and human development (including institutional strengthening) and efforts to influence national and international level forest policies. Land Tenure Ecuador ratified ILO Convention 169 on indigenous and tribal peoples in 1998, the year when it also adopted a new constitution which formally recognises the multi-ethnic and inter-cultural character of the Ecuadorian state and gives special land rights to indigenous and Afro-Ecuadorian peoples.7 These changes have led both alliances to focus greatly on communal land titling as part of their sustainable forest management initiatives. This is entirely consistent with current policy thinking, which calls for the massive devolution 6 Lewis (2000), Landell-Mills and Ford (1999) and Mayers and Vermeulen (2002) all offer similar definitions of business partnerships between private companies and communities, to be differentiated from alliances between cooperating civil society associations. 7 The controversial notion of ‘indigenous territorial circumscription’, which links territorial affiliation to ethnic identity has yet to be approved by the National Congress.

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of ownership and access rights from national governments to local communities (White and Martin 2002). It is during Phase II that SUBIR focused on communal land rights. Its support went primarily to communities in the RECC buffer zone, but it also intervened on behalf of Afro-Ecuadorian communities living close to the Colombian border, in a desperate attempt to stop oil palm culturists from transforming 20,000 hectares of Chocó primary forest into African oil palm plantations. SUBIR has been instrumental in helping Afro-Ecuadorians transform their status from poor landless settlers encroaching on state forests to traditional communities with exactly the same legal rights as indigenous people. SUBIR’s original aim was to obtain from the Ecuadorian government the legalisation of an ethnic reserve (territorial circumscription) around the RECC, but this plan proved very controversial and was abandoned. SUBIR’s land titling programme was highly participatory. Over sixty Chachi and Afro-Ecuadorian legal paratechnicians ( paralegales in Spanish) were formally trained in law. Working collaboratively with partner NGO Ecociencia, the communities were actively involved in drawing local maps and establishing community boundaries. The business-community partnership also managed to bring about the legalisation of indigenous communal lands, but exclusively for the three Chachi communities that signed a harvest agreement with the wood-processing group. The group’s private foundation views the uncontrolled colonisation of public forests as a major threat to sustainable forest management. It has used its political influence to get the army to expel land invaders from the natural forests and the plantations it owns, as well as from the Chachi forests it plans to log over the next twenty years. Finally, the foundation has also been involved in a complex and lengthy process of land purchase, allowing for sustainable forest management activities on its own land. Forestry and Agroforestry Both alliances have been very active in designing and implementing forestry and agroforestry programmes as part of their general sustainable forest management strategy. Both ensure that the forest is inventoried and that the community land is divided into different use zones. Areas for agriculture are clearly demarcated from areas for timber harvesting and reforestation, and communal forests are separated from family-owned parcels. Protected forest reserves are also created.

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SUBIR started to experiment with sustainable logging during Phase II, when other NGOs active in the RECC buffer zone intensified their fight against the low stumpage prices paid to producers (see below). Forestry came to the fore during Phase III, but not as an independent activity. For SUBIR, community forestry (sustainable timber extraction) and agroforestry and agro-silvo-pastoralism (improved agriculture and animal husbandry for family consumption and commercialisation) were two sides of the same coin—improved land management. Improved land management, the responsibility of the NGO Jatún Sacha (with technical assistance from WCS) was conceived as a conservation priority. As a result, SUBIR community forest and family farm management plans were far more pro-conservation than government legislation required them to be. SUBIR was pursuing in parallel a programme promoting the commercial development of wood, nonwood and farm products, a problematic undertaking in an area with few comparative marketing advantages and high transport costs. The coalition found it very difficult to integrate forestry, agroforestry and marketing activities coherently, and soon realised that local villagers did not have the capacity to participate in the three areas simultaneously. The private foundation in charge of sustainable forest management on behalf of the business-community partnership has developed detailed forest management plans for each of the Chachi communities which signed a harvest agreement. These plans, which are extremely detailed, technical and costly, have not been written with, or for, the villagers. As such, they clearly illustrate the more technocratic approach to competence and management found in the private sector. Forestry, reforestation and afforestation activities have varied a great deal from case to case and from year to year. On the whole, the private foundation tends to be pragmatic, responding to specific local demands or government regulations, rather than taking initiatives. As forestry operations are highly specialised and mechanised, minimal skill transfer has taken place. For a few years, substantial resources were allocated to develop forestry and agroforestry experiments in one particular community, and the programmes developed were as impressive and as successful as those implemented by SUBIR in terms of community participation and land-use improvements.

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Social and Human Development Both the SUBIR coalition and the company-community partnership consider social and human development as being an intrinsic part of sustainable forest management. Both have included local participation, capacity building and skill transfer in their programmes, and both have worked at fostering new community organisations to support sustainable forest management and conservation actions. Social development has often meant offering economic incentives and subsidies. SUBIR rationalised the use of incentives and subsidies on the ground that poverty causes environmental degradation. Subsidies in the company-community partnership were justified more pragmatically. Although for the logging company, social investments are more costly than direct payments, it prefers to pay for logs with services as this is the most efficient way of motivating local populations to trade their timber and of securing exclusive access to particular tracts of forest. From the villagers’ perspective these services allow for the acquisition of public goods of greater value than the direct distribution of—relatively meagre—profits for timber sales. Social investments and services also have the great advantage of lessening the risk of the corrupting influence of money or market integration of indigenous people. However, villagers have criticised both the SUBIR and company’s approaches. SUBIR was criticised for introducing unwanted economic activities (such as the husbandry of goats or chickens) supported with the wrong economic incentives (such as the gift of unnecessary community buildings), while the logging partners have been criticised for keeping timber prices extremely low, not generating higher community benefits than those obtained without sustainable forest management and not offering valued investments such as medical attention, scholarships and access roads on a continued basis. Villagers are well aware that companies are paying for the wood with services that the government should provide, and that this is the main reason why prices are low. However, they feel they have no other alternative to obtain badly needed roads, medical attention and support for education. Both alliances have also included capacity building and skill transfer in their programmes. The level of literacy and numeracy is low in Esmeraldas Province, where a significant proportion of rural dwellers have only a few years of primary schooling. The task of communicating highly technical and legalistic bodies of knowledge

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is therefore daunting, and so is that of strengthening local organisations, starting local producer networks and building community forestry committees. This is especially the case with the Chachi population, which uses the vernacular Chapalaa’chi in all its public meetings. SUBIR provided excellent training in very specialised fields (law, social planning, accountancy, forestry, botany, biology, marketing, and others), both for its Ecuadorian NGO partners and for the buffer zone communities, where more than 200 para-technicians were trained. SUBIR initiated the documentation of Chachi indigenous ecological knowledge during Phase I and II. A significant number of NGO workers and community members participated in workshops and conferences held in Ecuador, the USA or Central America, and visited other Latin American ICDP project sites. The main criticism heard in the communities is that, whereas the training programme benefited students and young professionals (foresters, ecologists and agronomists employed by the NGOs), it did not benefit the local population to the same extent. There was resentment that the best qualified jobs went to ‘nationals’ and not to ‘Esmeraldeños’, while unskilled positions invariably went to villagers. People were also disappointed that the training certificates issued by SUBIR were not recognised by employers. However, the depth and scope of the knowledge acquired by indigenous para-biologists, as well as their evident passion for their newly acquired science, represent real achievements. The timber company’s pragmatic response to the community’s demand for mainstream education has in many ways satisfied the Chachi population more than SUBIR’s more long-term approach to human development and capacity building. The company routinely pays the wages of primary school teachers and offers scholarships in the communities that control forest tracts it wishes to exploit. As part of the more formal, legally-binding harvest agreements with Chachi villages, this practice has been expanded to include paying for the upgrading of school buildings, for the training of teachers and other professional development activities and for college studentships (which have benefited primarily the children of teachers and leaders). The company even helped one community to obtain help from the government for the creation of a new technical college specialising in agroforestry. Teaming with various NGOs, the company has also organised capacity building workshops in its partner Chachi villages to strengthen their level of socio-political organisation and develop their awareness of the links between development

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and the environment. Finally, whereas SUBIR ‘specialised’ in AfroEcuadorian culture and supported numerous artistic events, the woodprocessing group took the survival of Chachi culture as its cause célèbre and employed a young Ecuadorian anthropologist to document Chachi lore, ethnobotany and shamanism. Both alliances have also worked at fostering new community organisations to support sustainable forest management and conservation actions. SUBIR’s activities in this field did not last long enough to help communities capture some of the potential value added in exploiting timber for higher value markets. CARE produced a number of illustrated booklets written in Spanish and Chapalaa’chi on various aspects of forestry. Ecociencia published a number of oral traditions and folkloric tales. During Phase III, CARE focused its efforts on Afro-Ecuadorian Second Level Organisations which are regional organisations created by federate black villages and communities to defend their common ethnic interests and their shared interests in relation to government authorities and private companies. However, given that these organisations depended almost entirely on SUBIR’s financial and technical aid, they found it difficult to continue to function when the project ended. National Level Sustainable Forest Management Policies Like many countries that are rich in biodiversity, Ecuador went through an intense period of legal and institutional reform in the 1990s. Both alliances actively participated in the debate on the governance of biodiversity, and both contributed to the design of new national policies involving land tenure and forestry. What started as a fierce, regional market dispute ended up as a national policy-reform dialogue. It was not until the late 1990s, when Fundación Natura began to promote the introduction of FSC standards in Ecuador, that environmental NGOs gradually relaxed their hostility towards the private sector, seen as the main culprit for the destruction of the Ecuadorian Chocó rain forest. For almost ten years (1988–1997), environmental NGOs active in Esmeraldas Province combined efforts to help Chachi and Afro-Ecuadorian log producers strengthen their bargaining power, and to force the logging companies to raise their prices. There were several attempts to form a local producer cooperative, break the monopoly of the few large companies operating

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in the region and find niche markets abroad. A range of obstacles prevented the success of these initiatives. SUBIR’s strong disagreement with other NGOs on the commercialisation of timber from private family plots was a major obstacle. SUBIR objected to the ethical trading of logs produced with no management plan and proceeding from forest lands earmarked for agriculture. Whereas SUBIR could not support the community forestry network proposed by other campaigning NGOs, the latter could not help local producers receive a higher share of the final product value. Although, by the end of the 1990s, SUBIR had failed to reform the wood market, it had nevertheless acquired considerable knowledge of the timber trade in Ecuador, and had come to realise that the powerful plywood and veneer companies were there to stay. It had also realised that alternative economic activities, such as non-timber forest product commercialisation and ecotourism, had very limited prospects. Wood remained the most valuable product of the Chocó forest, and prices would remain below international levels for a long time to come. SUBIR therefore concentrated all its efforts on influencing national forestry policies. SUBIR used its local forestry activities to foster policy change at national level. Without being multi-scalar in the true sense, SUBIR intervened on multiple fronts at various scales, with a view to defending the biodiversity of one specific region, namely the Ecuadorian Chocó. Land titling, forestry policies, forest management plans or economic incentives were not ‘spatialised’ interventions. Rather, they formed a combined set of actions, all directed towards one objective: influence the design and the implementation of the policy framework that was to govern the sustainable management of Ecuador’s native forests. Sustainable forest management was therefore a political campaign for SUBIR, which adopted a wide range of strategies to bring policy issues to the forefront of the national debate. Ecuadorian foresters who led Jatún Sacha’s community forestry programmes were instrumental in re-writing the Forest Law. In (often uneasy) collaboration with the private sector, they also wrote a number of law enforcement decrees that permit the application of the sustainable forest management principles found in the new law, before its actual ratification by Congress.8 These norms, which in many 8 Given the industrial sector’s hostility to the proposed forest law, the law is still under review by the Ministry of the Environment and has yet to be passed by Congress.

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ways represent a compromise between the industrial and the conservation NGO sector, were agreed after many heated discussions and were then adopted by the Ministry of the Environment. Known as ‘Norm 32’, they govern the preparation of forest management plans and timber licenses. SUBIR foresters also proposed the regencias forestales (forest engineers who are granted the authority to supervise the implementation of forest management plans) and vigilencia verde (the monitoring of timber shipments at key road sites by NGO members), which are now fully incorporated into the proposed forest law and associated operative norms. These two concepts are derived from Chilean and Costa Rican pilot projects carried out jointly by the government, the private sector and environmental NGOs. If SUBIR can be said to have been proactive on multiple policy fronts, the community-company partnership has had a more reactive role in the national forest policy debate. It has basically opposed or amended the proposals coming from SUBIR. Both alliances include highly qualified and competent foresters with a wealth of experience in community forestry, and both have collaborated closely with the Ministry for the Environment. If the private sector’s input in the policy debate regarding the new forest law has been more reactive than proactive, this is changing with the new debate on environmental services and carbon trade, in which COMAFORS is taking the lead (Barantes et al. 2001). It will be interesting to see what types of alliances will arise in the future to implement the provision of environmental services, and what the involvement of local partners will be. Local governments were almost entirely absent from the two alliances analysed here, despite the fact that indigenous and AfroEcuadorian leaders highly value this form of political representation. Conclusions This chapter compared two alliances in the Ecuadorian Chocó rain forest which both aim to promote sustainable community-based forest management. Both alliances emerged in response to global campaigns to save the world’s remaining tropical rain forests. With a biodiversity conservation agenda, SUBIR (the multi-sector partnership) moved from leading the planning of a national, protected area management system to implementing an integrated conservation and

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development programme in one buffer zone. In a response to growing wood scarcity, international pressure, the impossibility of securing financial aid for plantation development and new market opportunities, the wood-processing group implemented company-community business partnerships with several indigenous communities, from which it initially acquired timber through intermediaries. The two alliances differ considerably with regard to the number of actors involved. Whereas the coalition encompasses a wide variety of direct and indirect stakeholders and facilitators, the company-community partnership involves just the direct partners needed to harvest, process and commercialise the wood. Notwithstanding this difference, their scope of action shows a remarkable similarity, as they are both engaged in securing land tenure arrangements, implementing sustainable forestry and agroforestry, investing in social and human development (including capacity building and organisational strengthening), and efforts to influence national and international forest policies. However, the company engaged in the wood harvesting agreements with Chachi indigenous communities adopted a more pragmatic approach in these respects, as the company’s activities were geared towards securing a sustainable supply of wood for the plywood industry. The coalition, in contrast, had a broader scope of action, in accordance with its objective of combining biodiversity conservation with development objectives and income generation on a sustainable basis. The achievements in terms of securing communal property rights, implementing sustainable community forestry and capacity building of both initiatives were, however, not necessarily more impressive or satisfactory. Both initiatives succeeded in securing communal property rights for traditional forest dwellers, but neither of the alliances was able to alter the power imbalances between the partners involved in the coalition or partnership. This partial success corresponds to the overlap between global consensus (the devolution of state-owned land is a good thing in itself, and even more so when the new proprietors are indigenous or traditional communities) and local aspirations (communal land is perceived as an important local asset). However, one should not overlook a whole range of complex rights issues that are emerging, which involve gender and generational inequalities, as well as new tensions between individual, family and collective rights. This is particularly true of Afro-Ecuadorian communities, where wealthier families and successful urban migrants prefer the market freedom afforded by individualised land titles to the constraints and limits of

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inalienable collective rights. As a result, it is most likely that the land issue, far from being resolved, will become explosive in the near future. The Chachi Indians continue to be dependent on external actors for the price and services they receive for the logs without much power to influence the situation. They realise that the benefits of sustainable forest operations are not better or longer lasting than in the business-as-usual scenario. Benefits from capacity building are also unequally distributed, favouring the teachers and leaders, urban dwellers and NGO staff more than the rural poor. In neither of the initiatives have the poor been equal parties in the partnerships. Both initiatives helped promote sustainable community forestry in a region experiencing rapid and wasteful deforestation, but it has proven very difficult to institutionalise change without reforming regional wood markets and price structures since this requires a more comprehensive regional effort. This was attempted in 1996, when the provincial government of Esmeraldas, the national forest and parks government agency Instituto Ecuatoriano Forestal de Areas Naturales y Vida (INEFAN; Ecuadorian Forest Institute of Natural Areas and Life) and the German agency for development cooperation (Geselschaft für Technologische Zusamenarbeit; GTZ) signed a cooperation agreement to promote a multi-stakeholder debate, define a regional strategy for the sustainable development of Esmeraldas, and agree an emergency action plan. In addition to representatives from the pro-conservation coalition and the business partnership, many other actors were invited to participate in this initiative. These included members from other NGOs active in the province, government institutions, local universities, international aid agencies, indigenous organisations and professional organisations representing the timber industry. A dialogue on prices was initiated between these various actors and a fledgling community forestry movement comprising villages that had elected forest committees and had formed a commercial association.9 Lively discussions took place on the development priorities for Esmeraldas, the creation and strengthening of a system of public administration and control, and the generalisation of community forest development schemes as a means to improve social welfare. However, actors soon disagreed on priorities. While some advocated the design of a rational 9 This short-lived network called ‘red de manejo forestal comunitario and frente de comercialización de productos forestales’ made various attempts to improve logging techniques and commercialise community wood at better prices in the late 1990s.

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road system financed in partnership by the Ministry of Public Works, the Prefecture of Esmeraldas, the private sector and local communities through their harvest funds, others defended low-impact technology and the self-management of natural resources by small communities. The latter were opposed to large companies managing natural resources on the communities’ behalf (Rival 1997). The political views were too divergent to result in any meaningful consensus and local communities were too under-represented for the process to be really democratic. However, this initiative was a positive first attempt to widen the debate on the sustainable economic development of Esmeraldas. It showed that solutions to conflicts between conservation and development priorities, and between business and social priorities, require the setting up of a more comprehensive region-focused coalition and a more decisive effort to involve local and regional government agencies, particularly those involved in socioeconomic welfare. Whereas local governments should play a key role in pro-poor coalitions, the two alliances discussed here did not consider Esmeraldas’ regional government as a partner for social reform. They processed land rights for communities with the national land titling agency and lobbied various ministries for legal reforms in the forestry sector. However, neither addressed the regional development of the province of Esmeraldas in its entirety. Their priorities for action were framed by the assumption that Chachi and Afro-Ecuadorian villagers are equally poor and marginalised, a condition assumed to cause environmental degradation, hence requiring intervention. SUBIR, in particular, tended to offer ready-made solutions based on assumptions, preconceptions and predetermined social categorisations, instead of carrying out preliminary research on actual household budgeting and other basic local economic conditions, or on local needs, views, values and aspirations. Local people were often treated as project recipients or targets rather than as true partners in research, development and conservation. The challenges faced by producer associations in remote and marginal areas such as the River Cayapas basin are daunting. The poor forest dwellers of Esmeraldas know that their communal forests are relatively small and that the volumes of remaining timber are dwindling rapidly. They produce primarily for their own subsistence10 and use wood sale revenues to cover large, unexpected costs. Many families 10 A large number of families are still producing for their own consumption and subsist on less than US$ 12 per month.

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depend heavily on government benefits paid directly to mothers and on the material aid received through state schools. Many Chachi people think that if education and health were entirely free, and if transport was cheaper, their worst economic difficulties would be solved. They would like to have access to basic services (health, education, road infrastructure and public transport) provided by government agencies, rather than by NGOs or the private sector. Only the latter has so far benefited from protected market conditions, through subsidies, tax breaks, soft loans, and guaranteed international niche markets (see Hall 2000, and Angelsen and Wunder 2003). This trend can perhaps be curbed if the initiative for the sustainable development of Esmeraldas gathers fresh momentum. Acknowledgements This chapter is based on a research project carried out between 2000 and 2003. I gratefully acknowledge the funding provided by the Economic and Social Research Council (ROOO238375). Field research included thirty-two weeks in Chachi villages along the Cayapas, Santiago and Onzole rivers and twenty weeks in the offices of NGO, private companies and government agencies. I am very grateful for the research contribution of Dr Nathalie Walker, who studied the biodiversity of the Ecuadorian Chocó rain forest and its representation by international conservation NGOs. Our research objective was to document empirically the processes by which actors understand change and modify their practices, build better institutions and challenge previous structures of power. References Angelsen, A. and Wunder, S. (2003) Exploring the Forest-Poverty Link: Key Concepts, Issues and Research Implications. CIFOR Occasional Paper 40. Bogor: Centre for International Forestry Research (CIFOR). Barrantes, G., Chaves, H. and Vinueza, M. (2001) El Bosque en el Ecuador. Una Visión Transformada para el Desarrollo y la Conservación. Quito: COMAFORS, IPS, GTZ. Bawa, K.S. and Seidler, R. (1998) ‘Natural Forest Management and Conservation of Biodiversity in Tropical Forests’, Conservation Biology, Vol. 12, No. 1, pp. 46–55. Hall, A. (ed.) (2000) Amazonia at the Crossroads. The Challenge of Sustainable Development. London: Institute of Latin American Studies. Landell-Mills, N. and Ford, J. (1999) Privatising Sustainable Forestry. A Global Review of Trends and Challenges. Instruments for Sustainable Private Sector Forestry Series. London: International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED).

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Lele, U., Kumar, N., Husain, S.A. and Kelly, L. (2000) The World Bank Forest Strategy: Striking the Right Balance. Washington DC: The World Bank. Lewis, D. (2000) Promoting Socially Responsible Business, Ethical Trade and Acceptable Labour Standards. Report for DFID, Social Development Department. Electronic document available at URL: http://62.189.42.51/DFIDstage/Pubs/files/sdd_lewis.pdf. Little, P. (2001) Amazonia. Territorial Struggles on Perennial Frontiers. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Lugo, A. (1999) ‘Will Concern for Biodiversity Spell Doom to Tropical Forest Management?’, The Science of the Total Environment, Vol. 240, pp. 123–131. Mayers, J. and Vermeulen, S. (2002) Company-Community Forestry Partnerships. From Raw Deals to Mutual Gains? Instruments for Sustainable Private Sector Forestry Series. London: International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED). Putz, F.E., Dykstra, D. and Heinrich, R. (2000) ‘Why Poor Logging Practices Persist in the Tropics’, Conservation Biology, Vol. 14, No. 4, pp. 951–956. Redclift, M. (1978) Agrarian Reform and Peasant Organisation on the Ecuadorian Coast. London: The Athlone Press. Rival, L. (2003) ‘The Meaning of Forest Governance in Esmeraldas, Ecuador’, Oxford Journal of Development Studies, Vol. 31, No. 4, pp. 479–501. —— (1997) Evaluation of Assistance to Durini’s Participatory Forest Management with Chachi Communities in the Province of Esmeraldas, Ecuador. Unpublished Report for Department For International Development (DFID). Salazar, P., Southgate, D., Camacho, C., Stewart, R., Barreto, P. and Arguello, M. (1998) Distorciones en el Mercado Forestal del Ecuador. Quito: USAID. Sierra, R. (2001) ‘The Role of Domestic Timber Markets in Tropical Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Ecuador: Implications for Conservation Planning and Policy’, Ecological Economics Vol. 36, pp. 327–340. Sierra, R. and Stallings, J. (1998) ‘The Dynamics and Social Organization of Tropical Deforestation in Northwest Ecuador, 1983–1995’, Human Ecology, Vol. 26, No. 1, pp. 135–61. Southgate, D. and Whitaker, M. (1994) Economic Progress and the Environment: One Developing Country’s Policy Crisis. New York: Oxford University Press. USAID (1986) ‘Natural Resource Management and Conservation of Biodiversity and Tropical Forests in Ecuador. A Strategy for USAID.’ May 26, 1986. Mimeo. White, A. and Martin, A. (2001) Who Owns the World’s Forests? Forest Tenure and Public Forests in Transition. Washington DC: Forest Trends.

CHAPTER THREE

ORGANISING PARTNERSHIPS FOR ECUADOR’S EMERGING BAMBOO SECTOR Herwig M. Cleuren* In Ecuador, bamboo is gradually evolving from a natural forest product into a crop growing in patches of forested land. The bamboo species with the largest potential is Guadua (Guadua spp.) and this species is at the centre of debate today in Ecuador. The main question is how to harness a promising forest product in a sustainable way and reconcile the different needs of smallholders and the industry. It is also necessary to identify how growers and consumers are going to find each other and under which conditions a balanced bamboo market can develop. In Ecuador, various types of partnerships for the sustainable production and marketing of bamboo are becoming operational, involving small-scale producers, bamboo-processing or consuming industries, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and/or international organisations such as the International Network for Bamboo and Rattan (INBAR). This chapter analyses under which conditions the parties involved are willing to participate, what the opportunities are for developing the production of bamboo in Ecuador and under which conditions partnerships can generate an income for smallholders. We will highlight several bottlenecks and pitfalls that hamper the development of the bamboo sector and how the situation is exacerbated by a lack of sound governmental policies. We will argue for a type of partnership that incorporates plantations into a mosaic of land use, of which small-scale farming, the provision of environmental services and other livelihood components form a part. However, a number of bottlenecks should be removed before such multi-scale and multi-sector bamboo partnerships can become successful and offer a win-win scenario for all the parties involved.

* Department of Latin American Studies, Leiden University, P.O. Box 9515, 2300 RA Leiden, the Netherlands. E-mail: [email protected].

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herwig m. cleuren Approach and Research Questions

This chapter analyses experiences with the production of bamboo in Ecuador that the author gathered between 2000 and 2003 as an INBAR collaborator. The INBAR established a regional office in Guayaquil in 2000 in order to stimulate bamboo sector development in South America. INBAR has a pro-poor focus and stimulates lowincome farmers in the first place, but it also considers the collaboration with industrial partners essential for the sector’s development. Ecuador has been chosen as the focal point because Ecuador’s coastal region still possesses large areas of bamboo combined with a rural tradition of its utilisation and a strong urban construction sector that uses bamboo poles. This situation offers a variety of entry points for further sector development. The central research question of this chapter is whether multisector bamboo partnerships are viable in Ecuador and what kind of partnerships are likely to be the most successful. A crucial issue in this respect is whether stakeholders are willing to collaborate and which partnership format is the most suitable for the delivery, processing and marketing of raw or semi-processed bamboo. An additional question concerns the conditions under which partnerships should operate in order to meet the goals of environmental sustainability, poverty alleviation and economic viability. The fact that the bamboo sector is slowly emerging as one that has only recently been recognised as a part of the formal economy of Ecuador gives this chapter an exploratory and hypothetical character. This chapter first presents the particular biological, processing and marketing characteristics of bamboo that determine the product range and processing opportunities. Secondly, it investigates the pros and cons of applying bamboo in construction, furnishing and handicraft. Thirdly, it indicates what environmental services bamboo can perform as a forest product and what opportunities this offers as regards linking up with the currently developing markets for carbon credits. Subsequently, the focus is on various experiences with partnerships that are aimed at sustainable and pro-poor bamboo production and the segments of the economy in which the development of such partnerships looks particularly promising.

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The Domestication of Bamboo Bamboo in its wild form originates from tropical forests. However, farmers often reshape the natural forest into small agroforestry plots with managed bamboo stands. This process of integrating wild forest species into agro-ecosystems is referred to as domestication. In Ecuador, the domestication of bamboo seldom means that new plantations arise in agricultural zones, but rather that farmers plant and manage bamboo on small dispersed patches of unused, marginal parts of their land along riverbanks and slopes. Researchers and development agencies consider small farmers living in forested areas to be the main beneficiaries of bamboo domestication and commercialisation, and assume that planting and managing bamboo could enable them to become crucial agents in forest protection, sustainable resource management and rural livelihood development. Bamboo domestication as such is nothing new and has already been going on for centuries. However, the difference is that it is now being promoted as an economic strategy for smallholders in developing countries with (legal or illegal) access to forested land that contains bamboo stands. Such a strategy is complex due to the incongruence that often exists between policies relating to crops and forest products, the barriers that hamper opportunities for smallholder farmers and the different actors controlling the resource, the various aspects of domestication, and commercialisation. Today, the interest in bamboo commercialisation and the related market, policy and institutional aspects have become a policy issue in Ecuador, but a number of failures and disillusions have also generated scepticism about the economic viability and ecological sustainability of bamboo production. The current debate focuses on domestication and possible multi-sector partnerships that may enhance the value of bamboo through improved harvesting, utilisation, trade and marketing. Major goals are sustainable utilisation, combined with an equitable distribution of the benefits by closely involving local people. Income generation and the contribution of bamboo to poverty alleviation and livelihood security of rural people are as important as product development, industrial output and export.

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herwig m. cleuren Bamboo: A Worldwide Potential that Fails to Take Off

Bamboo is recognised as one of the most versatile non-wood forest products, supplying raw material for a wide range of applications and contributing to the livelihood of forest-adjacent people (Vantomme et al. 2002). It is typically an auto-regenerative grass and harvestable every four years, allowing low-income farmers and women to be involved in harvesting and processing. A crucial difference exists between woody bamboo, with diameters between ten to thirty centimetres that can be grown commercially, and grass-like herbaceous species, with thinner diameters and less economic value. Woody species are abundantly present in all tropical forests worldwide. Resource management and recent technical improvements mean that woody bamboo can now be converted into a durable raw material for construction purposes and a wide range of semi-industrialised products such as paper, bamboo board, flooring, furniture, furnishes, activated carbon and edible shoots. However, a sector-wide take-off of a thriving bamboo sector has been reported only for China (Zhu et al. 1998), while in other countries the strategy has failed. In China’s Southeast provinces it is now a multi-billion dollar industry where the state government and local authorities stimulate, control and monitor out-grower partnerships in which smallholders supply large industrial companies with semi-processed poles. These factories manufacture industrialised products for China’s domestic market as well as for export (Zhu et al. 1998; Ruiz Pérez et al. 1999). In India and Costa Rica integrated bamboo development projects based on multi-scale partnerships have ended in failure. In India, several states had a thriving bamboo paper industry that functioned under partnerships between private companies and forestry departments, employing thousand of rural workers in bamboo harvesting. The rigidity and stubborn attitude of the state institutions that supervised the deal were important reasons for the collapse (Vasundhara 2001; Sharma 2002). In Costa Rica, the Dutch development agency DGIS initiated a community-based bamboo housing project that was a showcase of a multi-sector partnership involving farmers’ organisations, NGOs, the private sector and the Ministry of Housing. The project covered the entire process from cultivation to the allocation of the houses ( Janssen 2000). When the donor money stopped in the early 1990s, the project went bankrupt soon afterwards and two of the main reasons of the failure were the large bureaucratic structure and high overhead costs of the coordinating agency.

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Guadua Bamboo as a Much Used but Ill-Managed Resource in Ecuador’s Lowlands Guadua (or gadua) is a genus of tropical, clumping bamboo with approximately thirty species native to Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela and has been introduced in various other Latin American and Caribbean countries. Guadua or caña Guadua is most abundant in the upper Cauca valley in Central Colombia and the Pacific lowlands of Ecuador. The economically most developed species, Guadua angustifolia, is characterised by erect, green culms that reach a height of thirty metres and attain twenty centimetres in diameter after five years ( Judziewicz et al. 1999; Kirkby 2001). Guadua poles have physical and mechanical properties that make it one of the strongest existing bamboos and thus suitable for construction purposes (Giraldo Herrera and Sabogal Ospina 1999; Moran Ubidia 2001). Since pre-Colombian times, forest dwellers and rural people have used Guadua for fencing, construction and a range of other utensils at farm and household level. Guadua is still part of today’s rural and urban culture in Ecuador’s lowlands and poles are used for houses, scaffolding and shacks in the coastal slums. It is a cheap and easily available material in the countryside and can be further processed by hand. The use of Guadua for furniture making and small handicrafts is limited to the Pacific coast, where local artisans and small workshops offer low-quality products. Culms are rarely preserved and consequently untreated bamboo exposed to the elements is prone to insect attacks and rotting (Parsons 1991; Moran Ubidia 2001). Guadua is exploited on a sustained-yield basis and has a harvesting cycle of five years with one hectare of mature Guadua perhaps yielding up to 1,200 poles annually. Conservative figures calculate that, under current market conditions in Ecuador, a mature pole with an average height of eighteen metres has a farm-gate price of approximately US$ 1,50, bringing the total yield per ha to US$ 1,800/ha per year.1 The total investment costs amount to US$ 1,200/ha for the first four unproductive years of a plantation. These figures show potentially interesting benefits, especially because the annual natural

1 On average, a mature Guadua pole can be commercialised as two pieces measuring six metres in length, each with a farm gate value of approximately US$ 0.60 and a top that is used as banana prop with a farm gate value of US$ 0.20 (F. Botero, personal communication).

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regeneration of bamboo guarantees constant production (Cleuren and Henkemans 2003). Despite these favourable characteristics, Guadua is in a critical condition in Ecuador and is struggling to gain recognition. The fundamental reason is that there is a stigma locally which associates bamboo with poverty, marginality and low-class status. Traditional rural houses and shacks in the shantytowns use Guadua to cover walls. Occupants, however, consider it as a material for temporary shelters, designed to last until the resources are acquired to replace it with cement blocks (Gutierrez 2000; Parsons 1991). A more practical reason for bamboo’s critical condition is the depletion of the resource base. The last natural stands of Guadua in Ecuador are gradually disappearing. A national inventory in 1985 reported 15,000 hectares of small, dispersed stands of Guadua in the coastal provinces. Of the 75,000 plots counted, only six hundred were larger than six hectares (Mantilla 1985). In 1999, an inventory of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) calculated approximately 10,000 ha for the whole country, including patches in Ecuador’s Amazon region (Moran Ubidia 2001). In 2003, a national inventory by the Netherlands Development Organisation (SNV) calculated an estimated 3,000 ha plantations and 5,000 ha of natural stands, of which 3,500 ha is economically accessible (SNV 2003). This decline of the natural stands is a consequence of over-harvesting, poor management and unabated exploitation and is also due to a more general problem of uncontrolled cutting and conversion of forested land into arable land. The latter is related to the attitude of farmers and landowners who consider Guadua a weed that occupies fertile patches of land that need to be cleared. This attitude is not surprising considering the fact that bamboo has traditionally had a very low market value that did not weigh up against the costs of harvesting and transport. Nevertheless, farmers are aware that bamboo thrives in humid areas and maintains the water table and the humidity of the soil. Consequently, the majority of the last patches are situated along riverbanks and in humid valleys. Bamboo in Another Light: Fulfilling a Range of Environmental Services In the case of most forest-based raw materials, donor agencies and forestry agencies in Ecuador have often adopted a limited approach

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to forest management. The focus was on preventing illegal timber extraction and large-scale reforestation programmes with exotic tree species such as Eucalyptus in the Andean highlands. In recent years, authorities have started to show an interest in using bamboo in reforestation schemes and in cooperating with smallholders as partners in the maintenance of the planted seedlings. Managed or planted bamboo at critical locations can fulfil a number of environmental functions such as erosion control, protection of riverbanks and regulation of water tables. Bamboo helps control soil erosion through its intricate root network that fixes soils on hillsides and slopes. This is particularly valuable for Ecuador’s coastal area that gets hit hard by large-scale flooding and landslides every time the weather phenomenon El Niño reaches the Pacific coastline area of South America. At municipal level, there are examples of smallscale partnerships between landowners and the local authorities aimed at planting bamboo seedlings to protect riverbanks and increase the water retaining capacity of the soil. In most cases, the municipality offers free bamboo seedlings and farmers organise the planting on their own land and receive training in maintenance and proper harvesting. The next severe El Niño and the related flooding will be the litmus test for the success of these public-private partnerships. The use of bamboo species for the rehabilitation of degraded lands has generated good results in Asia (Basri Hamzah 2002; Kutty and Narayanan 2003). Bamboo complies with the necessary characteristics of a species suitable for rehabilitation: a high survival rate, productivity and soil-stabilising abilities, multiple-use potential, local acceptance and quick growth. In theory, cultivating bamboo in wastelands and along denuded forest fringes could offer a quick solution for degradation. However, governmental agencies and international projects in Ecuador have not yet explored this opportunity because marketing mechanisms for bamboo are poorly developed and farmers are unable to reach potential buyers. The same lack of a market outlet exists as regards incorporating bamboo into existing carbon sequestration programmes within the framework of the Kyoto Protocol. Bamboo sequesters atmospheric carbon faster than many fast-growing trees due to its low rotation period of four to six years. It is estimated that a mature Guadua plantation fixes between fifty and one hundred tons per hectare (F. Botero, personal communication). These figures have not yet been scientifically verified and biomass production can vary largely depending

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on the species, site quality and climate conditions. A negative factor for worldwide acceptance is that bamboo culms degenerate and decompose in the forest much faster than trees, and unpreserved bamboo used in utensils starts to decay much more rapidly than timber. Thus the carbon sink is for a short period of time only, reducing the utility to CO2 credit purchasers who take the time of sequestration into account. The technical solution to this problem lies in prompt harvesting when the culms are mature and in applying preservation techniques in order to prolong the utility time of the bamboo material. However, the real challenge is to establish an organisational framework that creates a partnership between growers, buyers of Guadua culms and CO2 credit purchasers. Several coordinating agencies, such as the Dutch FACE (Forest Absorbing Carbon dioxide Emissions), are active in Ecuador but they have focused on trees rather than on bamboo ( Jara 2002). Ecuador’s semi-public organisation Corporación para la Promoción del Mecanismo de Desarrollo Limpio (CORDELIM; Corporation for the Promotion of the Clean Development Mechanism) is interested in exploring the use of bamboo plantations for carbon sequestration, but lacks solid scientific data and funding to convince interested parties to set up a pilot project (D. Valenzuela, personal communication). Finally, it is highly likely that the first beneficiaries of the trading of carbon emission credits will be a few agri-businesses that run large plantations and not the dozens of poor smallholders who own a mosaic of agroforestry plantations. Exploring Possible Partnerships for Sustainable and Pro-Poor Bamboo Production in Ecuador Several types of partnerships seem to be promising in the Ecuadorian context or have already been set up. They respectively involve the banana industry, the construction industry, a bamboo flooring industry and a combination with handicrafts. The potentials and bottlenecks of these partnerships are reviewed below. Corporate-Community Partnerships The banana industry, with around 180,000 ha of plantations in the coastal region (INEC 2001), is Ecuador’s largest export sector and the major consumer of bamboo in the country. The upper part of

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the bamboo pole (cuje) is used to prop up banana bunches. An SNV report (2003) estimates the present annual demand to be 20 million cujes in Ecuador and, although that may be an overestimation, it is evident that several million cujes are produced annually to satisfy the needs of the banana plantations. Half of the producers use bamboo to support bunches and a number of them have planted sufficient bamboo to supply their own demand, while the rest buys cujes through intermediaries. The other half of the producers use polyethylene rope and would be interested in converting to bamboo if there was a sufficient and stable supply of cujes near their plantations. For them using rope is less expensive than transporting cujes over large distances (Quelal 2001; SNV 2003). It seems, therefore, an interesting option for smallholders, who live near banana plantations, to start planting bamboo and sell props to the banana producers. In theory, corporate-community partnerships in the form of outgrower schemes between banana producers and small landowners can potentially be beneficial and offer a win-win scenario for both players. Firstly, growing bamboo and cutting it into cujes may fit well into the livelihood strategy of smallholders because it does not require any sophisticated processing or investment. Secondly, banana producers are interested in adopting bamboo because it involves lower labour costs per hectare than rope and because it meets environmental requirements for green certificates that prefer bamboo to the biologically undegradable rope. In this respect, the introduction of the European Good Agriculture Practice Certification Programme (EUREGAP), which will become the norm for the import of fruits into the EU market in the near future, may give an impulse to accelerated conversion from rope to cuje in the coming years (Estrada 2003). A crucial factor hindering the emergence of partnerships between bamboo growers and banana producers is the high costs that intermediaries charge for their services. The intermediaries—usually the owners of trucks—fulfil a broker role between growers and banana producers as they are able to connect banana plantations situated in Ecuador’s southern provinces of Azuay and El Oro with the major supply areas of bamboo located several hours drive away in the central provinces of Pichincha and Los Ríos. The intermediaries can also provide the plantations with the large amounts of poles which they need on a regular basis and which individual or small farmers’ associations are unable to supply. However, the substantial commissions for these services limit the benefits for smallholders. In order

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to solve this problem, development NGOs are now investigating the viability of plans by which farmers’ cooperatives would organise the transport themselves with leased trucks. NGO-Community Partnerships The second largest outlet market for Guadua poles is the construction industry in the coastal provinces. Bamboo is the favourite building material for traditional rural houses and dwellings in the shantytowns of Ecuador’ coastal cities. In the coastal port town of Guayaquil with its 2.5 million inhabitants, half of the population lives in bamboo shacks in the shantytowns. The accumulated housing deficit in Guayaquil is more than 100,000 houses and this is continuing to grow by 10,000 annually, due a continuous rural-urban migration (Diacon 1998). People build their houses with flattened bamboo (caña picada) which has not been preserved and which originates from immature bamboo poles. This leads to rapid rotting and the need to replace the dwelling within a period of five years (Gutiérrez 2000). The largest single buyer of Guadua for construction is Viviendas Hogar de Cristo (VHC; Christ’s Home Dwellings), a Christian NGO based in Guayaquil that manufactures pre-fabricated houses for the poorest. The houses are made of a wooden frame and walls of caña picada and require flattened Guadua at the lowest cost to keep the price of the units down. VHC is inclined to buy low-quality Guadua and applies it in its wall panels without any further preservation. Each year the factory needs around 300,000 flattened six metres long bamboo poles and 600,000 1.5 m laths (latillas) and has always relied on a number of intermediaries for sufficient supply (VHC 2000). These traders buy the standing culms from small landowners as far away as 400 km from Guayaquil. Their dominant market position has important consequences. Firstly, their harvesting teams clearcut the entire bamboo stand resulting in the destruction of the subterranean clump’s regenerative capacity because they have a cutand-run mentality with no concern for sustainability. Secondly, because these intermediaries are the owners of the trucks, they have a monopsonistic market position and are price makers in the market of bamboo poles. Typically, they pay farmers low stumpage values of US$ 0.10 to 0.70 depending on the distance to the market and the quality of the poles and then organise the cutting, flattening and transport. Predatory harvesting is leading to depletion around the major cities and transporters have to travel further every year to find sufficient

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bamboo stands. This inflates transport prices. Consequently, the VHC is finding it increasingly difficult to find a sufficient supply at an affordable price. Since 2004, the VHC has negotiated a partnership deal with farmers’ associations around Santo Domingo de los Colorados for the supply of latillas. Individual farmers grow bamboo on their land and after cutting they transport it to a collection centre where the farmers’ association manages a simple splitting machine and organises the transport by hired truck to the VHC in Guayaquil. The deal entails a fixed minimum price per bundle of 50 latillas that can increase according to market prices and a guaranteed supply per month. It is a win-win situation because farmers have higher profits because they bypass the intermediaries and the VHC is offered a regular and sustainable supply. Since smallholders have an interest in avoiding clearcutting bamboo stands, they apply sustainable harvesting techniques. The partnership has been brokered by a development NGO that operates within the framework of a bamboo development project funded by INBAR and the European Union. The NGO’s brokering role was necessary to overcome the farmers’ weak negotiation skills and to fulfil a crucial watchdog role. The partnership is still new and negotiated volumes are small in this first stage, in which all parties are still cautious. Neither farmers nor the VHC want to be at loggerheads with the intermediaries who remain the main buyers and suppliers of the bulky flattened bamboos. Industrial Bamboo Development and Out-Grower Schemes Ecuador’s bamboo development is presently in a stage of speculative planting without rational planning. Since 2001, a few agro-industrial consortia have planted a total area of 5,000 hectares. Half of this is currently harvestable, while the rest is to become available in the next three years (SNV 2003). These large players plant Guadua on abandoned pastures and agricultural land, while a number of private landowners are planting as an investment. The large majority of them are planting Guadua without thorough cost-benefit analyses, market information or business plans and speculate that a ‘bamboo boom’ is going to take off once their plantations become productive. The risks involved became dramatically clear when Ecuador’s first industrial bamboo flooring factory went bankrupt in 2003 after two years of operation, destroying a US$ 2 million investment. The main reasons for the failure were hasty planning, a lack of research and

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insufficient high quality bamboo poles. Because it was the first bambooflooring factory in Latin America, the management had a tendency towards secrecy and concealed planning activities and thus avoided collaboration and partnerships (Cleuren and Henkemans 2003). Policymakers who promote bamboo as a promising export product have intensified the bamboo hype. Ecuador’s institute for export promotion, Corporación de Promoción de Exportaciones e Inversiones (CORPEI; Corporation for the Promotion of Exports and Investments) and the Ministry of Agriculture have declared bamboo one of ten to fifteen non-traditional export products that will be promoted with the objective being to generate an extra export income for the country of US$ 1 billion within a period of ten years (MAG 2003; Estrada 2003; CORPEI 2002). Ecuador’s policymakers and businessmen want to target niche export markets with high-value products such as flooring. They still underestimate the enormous potential of the domestic market for banana props and housing. Their strategy is a highly ambitious and risky one that ignores small, but sustainable rural development and is blinded by windfalls on international markets. In reality, Ecuador’s chances are weak abroad because Ecuador’s dollarised economy and its leeway in productivity, quality and marketing make it hard to compete with cheap Asian bamboo products. Nevertheless, the planting boom is crucial and a blessing for the future development of Ecuador’s bamboo sector. It is expected that, from 2005, sufficient mature Guadua plantations will be coming into production, offering a standardised source of raw material, which is the necessary condition for whatever kind of industrialisation stage. It can solve the classic chicken-and-egg problem of newly emerging sectors being confronted with insufficient supply of raw material to justify industrial investment while nobody is interested in investing in the supply because there is no industry. The present trend raises the question of whether Guadua development in Ecuador is a speculative planting hype for large landowners or perhaps also a new sustainable income-generating option for smallholders. The majority of the farmers have sufficient land available and if they can organise the propagation of the seedlings in community nurseries they can reduce direct investment costs considerably and obtain a low-risk crop that yields cash every year. Out-grower schemes involving smallholders who plant Guadua in agroforestry systems could offer an interesting partnership model for

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low-income farmers and industrial consumers. In that case, farmers could become interested in managing existing bamboo stands on their land and in planting new ones. Several factors hinder the development of out-grower schemes. On the one hand, farmers do not manage the small stands left on their land and prefer short-term benefits. Major obstacles to altering this destructive attitude are a lack of knowledge, a lack of investment capital for proper management and the rural poverty of the people which makes them require instant cash. Moreover, most smallholders have a tendency to spread their risks and prefer to plant small dispersed patches of land and land covered with secondary vegetation rather than arable plots for larger areas of bamboo. These marginal plots limit the productivity up to a point that the efforts and investments never reach an economical break-even point. On the other hand, companies so far have been reluctant to engage in contracts with farmers and prefer to buy bamboo poles on an open market or leave it to intermediaries who bear the risks of dealing with smallholders. A second tendency is that companies that really intend to establish a bamboo factory follow a strategy of vertical integration in which the plantation management is an integrated part of the industrial development. The vulnerability of the collaboration between out-growers and the industry became clear in 2002 when the aforementioned bamboo-flooring factory set up several collection centres in Ecuador’s main bamboo production area and started to buy bamboo poles from landowners. The company wanted to increase its supply of raw material and to educate landowners about proper bamboo management in order to gradually increase quality. However, progress was minimal and quality problems meant that the majority of the poles had to be rejected because of defects, lack of maturity and fungi. The absence of clear grading standards complicated the negotiations between the parties and led to disputes and finally to a collapse in the deals. Landowners were confronted with transport costs for poles that were finally rejected and the company lost money grading large quantities of poles that did not meet its standards of raw material for its flooring plant. It is arguable that problems could have been solved if a mediating agency had stepped in to settle disputes and mitigate the intrinsic irritation between poor and illiterate smallholders and representatives of the business elite in four-wheel drives.

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A Multi-Sector Partnership of Panama Hats and Bamboo Craftsmen in Ecuador’s coastal area are the main producers of the world famous Panama hats. The weaving is entirely done by hand using a palm fibre (toquilla) and the cottage industry in the coastal district of Manabí exports most of its production to the US and Europe. The palm species is widely available and hundreds of households have specialised in the growing and harvesting of the palms and, especially, the labour-intensive splitting in order to obtain very thin fibres. The weaving itself is the exclusive domain of a few dozen family enterprises concentrated around the town of Montecristi (Chandrasekharan et al. 1996). Although the product has a brand name that is known worldwide, the sector has always had a marketing problem illustrated by the fact that, historically, the name has erroneously been linked to neighbouring Panama, where no hats are woven. Traditionalism is high in the sector, as witnessed by the fact that the hat’s design has not changed since the Inca era. As a consequence, the sector has not evolved. This has resulted in low productivity, obsolete tools, poor working conditions and a lack of youngsters to rejuvenate the industry. The most striking problem is the absence of an effective structure to organise marketing and stimulate collaboration between craftsmen and general sector development. Bamboo handicraft is also a typical product of the same region along Ecuador’s Pacific coast, but is much less developed than the hat-weaving industry. The artisans lack the skills and refinement to work the bamboo although local bamboo species have similar fibre lengths to toquilla. In 2001, the INBAR set up a plan to harness the exclusive skills of these hat weavers and bring them into contact with bamboo craftsmen. In collaboration with several municipalities, workshops where set up at which Chinese bamboo-weaving artisans showed their techniques to Ecuadorian toquilla weavers and bamboo craftsmen. The project goal was to improve the marketing of regional handicrafts, diversify the weaving products, increase the skills of bamboo and toquilla weavers, and improve working conditions. All the participants appreciated the cross-cultural and sector exchange and confirmed the importance of promoting the regional handicraft sector in an integrated way. However, in the end there was no followup to the collaboration. The main reason was that there is no one agency that is trusted by all parties to take charge of disseminating new techniques, exploring the use of other fibres or presenting the

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sector as an integrated regional sector with cultural value. The workshop participants preferred their family-based structure without collaborating or giving responsibilities to an overarching structure. It is an indication of the fact that cultural preferences and sticking to tradition can become serious constraints to multi-sector partnerships. Production Constraints and Legal Bottlenecks Some of the constraints on properly functioning partnerships for sustainable and pro-poor bamboo management have nothing to do with the partnerships as such, but are related to the product. In the case of bamboo, the main production constraints relate to restrictions in the production chain and to the unclear legal status of bamboo as a natural resource. Both these issues are addressed below. Constraints in the Bamboo Production Chain There is a lack of basic biological knowledge about bamboo species in Ecuador and there are no experts at universities or governmental level with the required expertise. At this stage, no concluding taxonomic identification of the main Guadua species is possible. This is resulting in confusion and suspicion about the nature of the bamboo planting material sold and used in the plantations. The present method of vegetative reproduction results in a cheap and rapid multiplication of the seedlings, but can cause serious economic losses in the future because there is no certainty about the authenticity and genetic quality of the Guadua mother plants. The Guadua production chain has several deficiencies from harvesting level onwards. The present unsustainable harvesting floods the market with bamboo that is too young, making it susceptible to decay and insect attack, thereby lowering the average performance of bamboo in many applications and further degrading bamboo’s image in the country. There is no grading system for bamboo culms, so farmers and harvesters have no incentive to improve the quality of the culms because such a move would not be rewarded by being able to obtain increased prices. Consequently, culms with defects and irregularities are all sold for the same price as normal culms (Cleuren and Henkemans 2003). Currently, most bamboo in Ecuador is neither preserved nor dried according to specific procedures. As with the sale of young bamboo

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these poor raw material handling practices are degrading the properties and commercial reputation of bamboo as a raw material. The development and adoption of bamboo pole standards and certification could help ensure that the steps taken to provide a higher quality raw material are indeed rewarded through increased selling prices. In the processing stage, many of the constraints of the bamboo craft sector are related to the isolated conditions under which forestdwelling communities live and the many stages of intermediate sales and processes that have to be passed through until the finished products are available. In remote areas, marketing is dominated by middlemen and the low productivity results in low margins for producers. There are many small groups that are producing rustic furniture and other handicrafts, but little appears to be exported. In general, product quality varies enormously and many products are marked by amateurism, low quality and design and there are few economies of scale, processing advances or product standardisation. While these businesses are slowly growing, they have limited export potential due to the small production volumes and relatively high prices (Dagilis and de Wit 2003). The Deficient Legal Status of Bamboo in Ecuador Ecuadorian regulations are unclear as to whether bamboo is an agriultural or forest resource. According to law, bamboo is not a wood product, despite the factual evidence of the woody (lignocellulosic) nature of tropical bamboos. Natural bamboo is considered wild in contrast to planted bamboo and is therefore subject to forestry laws. Bamboo in its wild state is therefore a non-wood forest product which cannot be harvested freely in Ecuador. The exploitation of natural stands is illegal without a registered forest management plan, harvesting licenses and transport permits. Even the managed natural stands on the land of smallholders are subject to the same rules and require a detailed (and costly) forest management plan. Of special interest is the fact that planted bamboo is not subject to the forestry regulations outlined above because it is not a wood product and has been planted (Dagilis and de Wit 2003). Clearly, the majority of natural bamboo harvesting in Ecuador is currently conducted illegally, as forest management plans are rarely (if ever) prepared for bamboo management. The police demand transport permits for all bamboo because there is no way to distinguish between plantation bamboo and wild bamboo. Therefore, transporters

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must obtain the transport permits or pay bribes at the checkpoints, thereby adding to the already high transport costs. The control of the transport permits is a mere cashing of bribes without stopping the indiscriminate clearcutting of natural stands, because the authorities do not monitor or control the forest management plans from which the transported bamboo culms originate. In this situation, smallholders are confronted with high transaction costs due to the hassle of the forestry department demanding management plans and transport permits for all naturally grown bamboo. This results in a low bargaining power for the bamboo growers relative to the intermediaries who take advantage of their monopoly on transport and their contacts with the forestry department to depress commodity prices. Ecuador’s legal framework relating to bamboo has not yet been properly established or clarified and requires reclassification. Plantations appear to fall into a grey area at this moment and a possible solution would be for bamboo plantation to be registered with the Ministerio de Agricultura (MAG; Ministry of Agriculture) as an agricultural activity free of charge. The MAG is showing an interest in helping the sector advance and has already supported the establishment of a National Bamboo Council that assists and organises the sector (CORPEI 2002; MAG 2003). Notwithstanding this positive initiative, the general line is that most government involvement in the sector is one of confused interference that hinders rather than helps the protection of the natural resource and the development of new bamboo plantations. Conclusions This chapter has painted a mixed picture of the viability of multisector partnerships in the Ecuadorian bamboo sector and has highlighted the crucial role of intermediary agencies as regards stimulating and monitoring deals. New developments in Ecuador’s bamboo sector show a number of opportunities but also drawbacks for partnerships. Especially partnerships that incorporate bamboo plantations into a mosaic of land use, including small-scale farming, could become a window of opportunity. They may offer economic benefits and increase livelihood security for smallholders and, at the same time, safeguard crucial environmental services. This guarantees sustainable utilisation of natural resources, combined with an equitable distribution

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of the benefits by closely involving local people. Out-growing schemes, where local people grow bamboo under contract to sell to processing plants based on a profit-sharing agreement also have potential. The most promising market outlets are the banana industry that requires millions of supporting poles, the construction sector in urban centres and industries that manufacture bamboo floors. Smallholders can work on the low-end products and are interesting partners when it comes to supplying raw and semi-processed bamboo poles for further processing. However, this would require a conversion of the current system which is dominated by intermediaries who clearcut at low stumpage values and discourage smallholders from entering this business. A different kind of intermediary should step in with more equitable and sustainable motives than the cut-and-run strategy of the present group of traders. However, even with an ideal new broker in place, the out-growing schemes are not without risks for smallholders. The reason is that vertical integration is the final goal of private companies that invest in bamboo and they consider the supply by smallholders as a temporary risk-avoiding strategy for the time until they invest in plantations themselves. Contrastingly, the new partnership between farmers’ cooperatives and an NGO in Guayaquil that constructs houses for the urban poor is more balanced because both partners have an interest in maintaining the collaboration in order to guarantee a stable supply at fixed prices. An NGO also monitors the deal and trains and advises the partners with a view to strengthening the deal and to building up confidence. The volumes and profit sharing are perhaps not yet spectacular at this stage, but more durability and stability can be expected in the long run. The partnerships involving governmental institutions and individual farmers aimed at fulfilling environmental services such as carbon sequestration, riverbank protection and watershed management show considerable potential, but often lack concretisation and elaboration. The largest constraints are at Ecuador’s national governmental level where there is no funding or expertise and no proactive approach. As long as governmental agencies do not take their responsibility as regards creating an enabling policy and a clear legal framework, the time and energy required for rural people to engage in partnerships will be much too costly. It is therefore likely that large landowners rather than smallholders will obtain certificates and will be able to negotiate carbon emission credits.

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The policy level is, in general, a bottleneck for a smooth development of partnership initiatives and the bamboo sector as a whole. Forest protection regulations and a lack of flexibility regarding the trade of non-wood forest products cause obstacles for bamboo development. The plethora of rules, fees and restrictions related to harvesting, the transportation and marketing of bamboo represent a hassle, especially for the small producers, and this results in high transaction costs. Policy changes that improve the unclear legal status of bamboo would be the first important step to take, so that irregular taxes and prohibitive regulations can be ended. All the existing and potential partnerships discussed in this chapter suggest that, in the initial stage, a crucial role should be played by a governmental, non-governmental or international agency that fulfils the role of a broker and combines multiple capabilities. Firstly, such an agency is crucial with regard to building trust and should impart basic negotiation skills in order to overcome existing power imbalances. Secondly, the agency should be the first source of information with expertise about bamboo and the market, and have enough authority and legal means to settle internal disputes. Thirdly, a brokering agency requires political leverage to protect partnerships against outside attacks based on bureaucratic rules and competitors. A final thing to say is that bamboo production partnerships in Ecuador could grow as quickly as the bamboo itself. However, just as this giant grass requires a caring landowner, a broker is needed to take care of the deal. References Basri Hamzah, M. (2002) ‘Enrichment and Rehabilitation in the Permanent Forest Estate’, ITTO Tropical Forest Update, Vol. 4, No. 2, pp. 22–24. Chandrasekharan, C. Frisk, T. and Roasio, J.C. (1996) Desarrollo de Productos Forestales No Madereros en América Latina y el Caribe. Serie Forestal No. 10, FAO Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean. Santiago: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Cleuren, H. and Henkemans, A. (2003) ‘Development of the Bamboo Sector in Ecuador, Harvesting the Potential of Guadua angustifolia’, Journal of Bamboo and Rattan, Vol. 2, No. 2, pp. 179–188. Corporación de Promoción de Exportaciones e Inversiones (CORPEI) (2002) ‘Perfil de Producto de Caña Brava, Proyecto CORPEI-CBI, Expansión de la Oferta Exportable del Ecuador. Mimeo. Dagilis, D. and Wit, H. de (2003) Bamboo Value-Added Export Development: Opportunities for Ecuador. Guayaquil: Corporación de Promoción de Exportaciones e Inversiones (CORPEI).

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Diacon, D. (1998) Housing the Homeless in Ecuador, Affordable Housing for the Poorest of the Poor. Leicestershire: Building and Social Housing Foundation. Estrada, R. (2003) Request for International Assistance in Export Development of Bamboo Added Value Products. Quito: Corporación de Promoción de Exportaciones e Inversiones (CORPEI). Giraldo Herrera, E. and Sabogal Ospina, A. (1999) Una Alternativa Sostenible: La Gadua. Armenia: Corporación Autonoma Regional del Quindío. Gutierrez, J.A. (2000) Structural Adequacy of Traditional Bamboo Housing in Latin America. INBAR Technical Report No. 19. Beijing: International Network for Bamboo and Rattan (INBAR). Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Censos (INEC) (2001) Censo Agropecuario del Ecuador. Quito: INEC. Janssen, J.A. (2000) Designing and Building with Bamboo. INBAR Technical Report No. 20. Beijing: International Network for Bamboo and Rattan (INBAR). Jara, L.F. (2002) La Certificación de Carbono de Plantaciones Forestales: El Caso de PROFAFOR S.A. Memorias II Congreso Latinoamericano, Julio 31–Agosto 2, 2002. Ciudad de Guatemala. Judziewicz, E., Clark, L.G., Londoño, X. and Stern, M. (1999) American Bamboos. Washington: Smithsonian Institution. Kirkby, C. (2001) The Distribution, Abundance, Clump Characteristics and Techniques for Managing Guadua angustifolia, Bambuseae, a Potential Non-Wood Forest Product in Madre de Dios, Peru’. PhD Thesis, The University of York. Kutty, V. and Narayanan, C. (2003) Greening Red Earth—Bamboo’s Role in the Environmental and Socio-Economic Rehabilitation of Villages Devastated by Brick Mining. Technical Report No. 22, Beijing: International Network for Bamboo and Rattan (INBAR). Mantilla, O. (1985) ‘Inventorio de la Caña Guadua en la Región Litoral del Ecuador’. Ministerio de Agricultura (MAG), Programa Nacional Forestal, Proyecto AID518–0023. Mimeo. Ministerio de Agricultura (MAG) (2003) ‘Fibras Naturales y Información sobre BambuGuadua’ URL: http://www.sica.gov.ec/agronegocios/productos para invertir/bambu. Moran Ubidia, J. (2001) Traditional and Current Uses of Bamboo in Latin America with Emphasis on Colombia and Ecuador. Quito: Escuela Politécnica Litoral. Parsons, J.J. (1991) ‘Giant American Bamboo in the Vernacular Architecture of Colombia and Ecuador’, Geographical Review, Vol. 18, pp. 131–133. Ruiz Pérez, M., Zhong Maogong, Belcher, B., Xie Chen; Fu Maoyi and Xie Jinzhong (1999) ‘The Role of Bamboo Plantations in Rural Development: The Case of Anji County, Zhejiang, China’, World Development, Vol. 27, No. 1, pp. 101–114. Quelal, F. (2001) ‘Necesidad de Guadua en la Agroindustria Bananera Ecuatoriana’. Paper presented at the International Bamboo Congress, July 2002, Guayaquil. Sharma, D. (2002) The Kalahandi Syndrome: Starvation in Spite of Plenty, URL: http://www. mindfully.org/Food/Kalahandi-Syndrome-Sharma19apr02.htm. SNV (2003) ‘State of the Art Report on Bamboo in Ecuador’. Quito: Netherlands Development Organisation. Mimeo. Vantomme, P., Markkula, A. and Leslie, R.N. (eds) (2002) Non-Wood Forest Products in 15 Countries of Tropical Asia, An Overview. Bangkok: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Vasundhara, T. (2001) ‘Development Policies and Rural Poverty in Orissa. Report Prepared for the State Planning Commission’. Bhubaneswar. Mimeo. Viviendas del Hogar de Cristo (VHC) (2002) ‘Estadísticas y Perfil de los Usuarios de las Casas de Bambú’. Internal report. Mimeo. Zhu, Z., Jiang C., Zhong M. and Wang, H. (1998) Asia-Pacific Forestry Sector Outlook Study: Status, Trends and Prospects for Non-Wood and Recycled Fibre in China. FAO Working Paper No. APFSOS/WP/35. Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

PART II

FRAMING AROUND PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS

CHAPTER FOUR

PARTNERSHIP ON PAPER: POWER STRUGGLES AND STRATEGIC FRAMING AROUND INDUSTRIAL FORESTRY IN SOUTHERN COSTA RICA Heleen van den Hombergh* In recent decades, the paper industry has been extending its influence further around the globe than ever before with a view not only to finding natural forests to exploit, but increasingly to using agricultural (or forest) lands to produce fast-growing pulpwood for their mills. Cheap land and labour, as well as climatic conditions which permit fast tree growth, lead paper companies to sign agreements with governments in the South to ‘reforest’ the rural landscape. One of these countries is Costa Rica, which is well-known for its protected areas but which, in the meantime, is being plagued by deforestation and is facing problems in remote rural areas. These problems are due to the impacts of structural adjustment and the crises in livestock and rice production which formed two very important commercial sectors of Costa Rican agriculture. The Osa Peninsula (Figure 4.1) is just such a remote area, in need of employment and agricultural alternatives. Stone Container Corporation (now part of Smurfit Stone Container) was one of the largest paper producers in the world and was in need of new sources of raw material when it entered this zone. A public-private partnership was created in 1989: Stone Container agreed to create a subsidiary, Ston Forestal S.A., and to sow 24,000 hectares of fast-growing Gmelina arborea pulpwood on farmlands. In return, the Costa Rican government agreed to facilitate the investment, among other things through infrastructure support and Free Trade Zone conditions for the company’s harbour and chip mill which were planned in Punta Estrella in the Osa Peninsula to process and transport the wood. The company acquired

* Oxfam-Novib and University of Amsterdam, P.O. Box 30919, 2500 GX The Hague, the Netherlands. E-mail: [email protected]; [email protected].

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Figure 4.1 Costa Rica and the location of Osa Peninsula’s major conservation areas

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extensive land resources at very low prices through leasing agreements with farmers (a form of what were called company-community partnerships in Chapter 1). Not only did the leasing agreements affect the owners of the land, they also had an impact on their neighbours and further stimulated an already ongoing rural exodus. In addition, the planned infrastructure was expected to affect forest and marine biodiversity in and around the Golfo Dulce and Corcovado National Park, important tourism areas in southern Costa Rica. In order to stop this and with a view to demanding better conditions for the ‘partnership’ that the paper giant and Costa Rican government had established, farmers, tourism entrepreneurs, environmental organisations, lawyers and politicians joined forces and managed (to a certain extent) to negotiate a better nation-wide agreement with the company. The term ‘re(af )forestation’ proved to be a strong political concept in hands of the company to defend the establishment of pulpwood plantations on farmers’ lands. In contrast, biodiversity protection as a political concept helped the coalition oppose certain aspects of Stone’s investment. This chapter analyses the political processes involved in the conflict in the Osa Peninsula, focusing in particular on strategic framing or ‘selling the message’ by both the company and its opponents. It deals with issues of power struggle for agricultural resources and looks at how they interact with deliberate processes of strategic framing and attempts to resist and provoke change in the Stone Container project. Scientific framing plays a specific role in obtaining ‘strategic neutrality’ in this respect. Theory and Methodology The observations outlined below were gathered during the course of a PhD project1 which included several fieldwork periods in Costa Rica between 1995 and 1999. The research centred around the questions of why and how coalitions were built to oppose the Ston Forestal industrial forestry project on the Osa Peninsula and also analysed the factors that contributed to the successes and failures of this opposition. The conceptual framework developed and used for this research,

1

Supported by NWO/WOTRO and carried out for the University of Amsterdam.

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which we came to call a ‘transdisciplinary conceptual network’ (Van den Hombergh 2004), is derived from various strands of social movement theory on the one hand and land use and environmental science on the other. Being inspired primarily by Tarrow (1994, 1996) and McAdam et al. (1996), and on the basis of improvisations of their concepts, the study employs five major building blocks of movement or campaigning power, being (1) collective identity formation; (2) strategic framing or discourse development; (3) collective action; (4) the use and sustenance of mobilising webs; and (5) the creation and use of political opportunities (Van den Hombergh 2004). Political land-use science was applied to analyse the ground on which skilful leadership can build a bridge between these blocks, between aspirations and between outcomes of social struggle. Like political ecology-inspired researchers such as Blaikie and Brookfield (1987), Carrière (1990) and Redclift and Goodman (1991), this study’s explicit point of departure was the notion that a power struggle is both an undeniable and indispensable ingredient on the road to more egalitarian land use in Latin America and beyond. In this chapter, the focus is on discourse development or ‘strategic framing’ among both proponents and opponents to the Stone Container reforestation scheme in Costa Rica. In this respect it is relevant to distinguish between the terms partnership, coalition and alliance. Partnership is used in this chapter to indicate the official agreements or public-private partnership between the Costa Rican state and Stone Container Corporation (resulting in Ston Forestal S.A.) and the leasing agreements or company-community partnership between the Ston Forestal company and the farmers. Coalition as a term refers to the ad-hoc campaigning community with the common goal of opposing the industrial forestry project or the political chain of actors supporting it. Alliance is a term used for longer-term cooperation based on common ideologies and political projects.2 The latter two fall under what were called political partnerships in Chapter 1. Background to the ‘Reforestation Partnerships’ Many protagonists of the global environmental movement(s) and the movements striving for egalitarian, democratic development are quite sceptical about ‘partnerships’, such as the public-private partnerships 2

Note differences with Scholtz’ contribution to this volume (Chapter 13).

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that the UN approved during the Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002. The increased powers of multinational corporations, which often transcend the reach of nation states, and the discourse of sustainable development they apply to gain the support of governments in developing countries, have made environmentalists alert to their moves. Partnership as a term masks the fact that, according to the critics, gaining access to cheap means of production and expanding their markets are the main driving forces of the companies involved. During the Earth Summit, Friends of the Earth International (FoEI) therefore awarded Greenwash Academy Awards or Green Oscars to the corporations that most elegantly masked their operations in ‘green’ discourse. In the 1990s, one of FoEI’s members, FoE Costa Rica, organised protests against the Chicago-based paper giant Stone Container Corporation that had come to do business in the country under the slogan ‘sow progress, harvest well-being’. As one of the largest paper producers in the world, Stone Container Corporation had provoked opposition because of its environmental impacts and the lack of measures being taken to alleviate them. As far as the company was concerned, the project in Costa Rica would not only provide cheap and fast raw material production for their pulp mills, but also prove its ‘environmental leadership’ to the shareholders and critics (see, for instance, Stone Container Corporation 1995 annual report). Costa Rican politicians had welcomed Stone’s initiative because they regarded its industrial forestry project as an attempt to diversify the country’s export and as an investment in the creation of employment in the poor area, and they argued that it was meant to support the reforestation of abandoned and unproductive agricultural lands. Because of this, the State saw the Ston Forestal project as a welcome investment in sustainable development and a potential source of political gain. Costa Rica has been praised for its conservation policies, but criticised for its deforestation outside the boundaries of protected areas. The improving of tree cover figures has indeed become an issue for decision-makers, especially in view of international attention (and finances) for their rich biological resources. What arguments were developed for and against the partnerships of Stone Container with the State and with the farmers, and how were they politically employed?

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‘Esta compañía reforestadora’ (this re-afforesting company): the Minister of Environment of Costa Rica kept using this expression when talking about Stone Container’s subsidiary Ston Forestal S.A. and its pulpwood project. ‘A pretentious transnational and its exotic monocultures’, reacted the ecologists. The development of discourse, or strategic frames, is a very important tool in conflict creation, transformation and campaigning. Framing and counter-framing, action and reaction, shape the discursive battlefield of sustainable development. Some frames are so well spread out and approved that they can be called a master frame (Snow and Benford 1992) or a master narrative (Harper 2001)—a well-known, frequently used (set of ) expression(s) to indicate a desired direction of society. Sustainable development may be referred to as such a master frame. Its vagueness is its strength and its weakness at the same time (Adams 1990); it allows for a diversity of ideological interpretations but does not provide for clarity and does not challenge the status quo of power relations as such. Reforestation may also be referred to as a master frame: apparently nobody can possibly be against it because of the logic ‘it means trees, trees mean nature, and nature is necessary’. Using this frame to describe and defend the pulpwood plantations of paper companies on farmlands in developing countries has proven to be a strong political tool to back the interests of the investors in many parts of the world (Lohmann and Carrere 1996; Kerski 1995). Even though these plantations, from a social or environmental point of view, may have detrimental aspects for the poor, for the general public and politicians they have an appeal that is hard to question. Gmelina as a Symbol of Progress or Poverty? The Ground for Local Resistance In southern Costa Rica, the pulpwood plantations were a catalyst for a rural exodus of medium-sized farmers in particular. This exodus had already been initiated by increasing orientation towards export markets for cattle and rice which provide relatively little employment and which suffered from declining productivity and disappointing returns. The cutting of subsidies on basic grain production that had earlier kept the producers of rice and beans in the countryside for so long also contributed to increasing out-migration. The exodus

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was, however, also stimulated by the occupation of a substantial part of the most fertile lands with pulpwood plantations. When Ston Forestal offered to farmers in the South of Costa Rica to lease their land to sow it with Gmelina arborea, many of them felt tempted to do so. Latin American land banks, such as the Costa Rican Instituto de Desarrollo Agraria (IDA; Institute of Agrarian Development), have had limited success with land reform and redistribution, particularly because access to land alone is insufficient and must be accompanied by access to other forms of capital, skills, infrastructure and markets (Gordillo de Anda and Boening 1999). This has led to a Central American trend in which farmers who lack capital to invest— including former beneficiaries of land reform—lease their land to agribusiness. What happened with the Stone Container project may be seen as a case in point. The company presented its project under the banner of ‘progress and welfare’ as a serious new land-use opportunity. It was, however, rather the crisis situation and the lack of alternatives that drove many farmers to lease their land to the Stone company. The most important push factors included indebtedness to the banks (due to failures in harvests and/or marketing), lack of capital, problems related to age, health and/or education (driving the population to migration/urbanisation), and the conditions of the land, including declining fertility and weeds (Van den Hombergh 1999). Leasing contracts were entered into for some 13,000 hectares, for a period of 6–18 years, allowing for one to three harvesting cycles of pulpwood. In the longer term in particular, Ston Forestal preferred flat terrain—often near the road and the industrial plant— with deep high quality soils and a potential for highly productive agriculture. These were offered to them on a silver platter for several years by out-migrating, indebted, or discouraged rice and cattle farmers. Ston Forestal acquired more than 16 per cent of the most fertile and arable lands on the Osa Peninsula to sow Gmelina and obtained the actual management of between 25–30 per cent of the farms (including forested and ill-drained lands) in this area. It was felt by many that the Company and the government which backed its investment with lucrative ‘partnership’ or investment agreement(s), abused the precarious situation of farmers in the area. For some farmers, especially larger ones with multiple livelihood strategies involving the urban sphere, this ‘partnership’ was a means of keeping part of their land out of the hands of the banks, or of suddenly having an amount of money to invest elsewhere. For others,

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however, the emergency exit from agriculture that the lease to Ston Forestal had meant, left them with no other choice than to move to the city and/or seek wage labour elsewhere. Many of the farmers who leased out their lands to the company regretted their decision and its long-term implications when they found out that no economic alternatives were available. This became painfully clear when rice prices started to increase and they were unable to re-cultivate their land. For many poorer farmers leasing out was not an option because they had only very small plots of bad quality land, but they did feel the effects of the out-migration of their larger neighbours who had previously offered them wage labour, machinery, land to work and rent, informal credits, transport to the city and linkages with politicians in the capital San José. In other words, for those who stayed behind, the project meant a certain loss of economic, financial and political capital (see Bebbington 1999), informal contacts and means of production. This informal economy had become increasingly important, precisely because of the withdrawal of state support from the countryside since 1985 because of Structural Adjustment. The farmers who stayed behind also feared a loss of natural capital because of the effects the plantations and their harvesting would have on the soils (fertility and structure), on the rivers (contamination and obstruction by waste wood) and even on their cattle (because of a fly they feared would proliferate on the waste wood). When squatters were forcibly removed from a piece of land that was to be sown with Gmelina, and a tractor destroyed their harvests and ranches, local organised resistance began to grow. Framing the Anger The quote below reveals some of the indignation that was felt because of the company’s strategies. There was something that no Costa Rican could approve of, because the Guardia Civil, the Costa Rican police, helped Ston Forestal! I don’t see how they could do that against humildes campesinos, squatters! They didn’t care! They burned the houses of very poor people who had their pieces of land sown with plantain, vegetables and maize, and the like. And there was a small child that was burnt by the fire, you see, and his father started proceedings against Ston Forestal. He was about to win but then they visited him at his house and offered him money to withdraw his complaint. (. . .) These things hurt, while we receive tourists here with kindness, respect and love, foreign investors simply

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come to Costa Rica and exploit us. Well, although we are humble people, in a group we were strong enough to defend ourselves and we were able to win some victories over them (communal leader in Osa Peninsula, March 1996).

Several frames are employed in this expression of anger: the policy and politicians are supposed to protect Costa Ricans and not foreign investors. Humildes campesinos (humble peasants) needed that land for food and they—and certainly one of the children—should not have been dealt with violently. Humildes, or humble, is a very positive Costa Rican value, indicating somebody as being non-elitist, not arrogant and dignified. In this case it means above all uneducated. Thus, according to the communal leader, a foreign company and the State abused the uneducated and dignified citizens while backing a foreign company. State violence is not easily accepted in Costa Rica at all, especially not against people in need of land resources. Southern Costa Rica had been the scene of huge resistance against land speculations and the expelling of gold seekers from the forest before—conflicts in which foreign companies also played a role (Camacho 1993; Christen 1994; Van den Hombergh 1999). A structural scarcity of resources (Homer-Dixon 1999) is an important factor that contributes to conflict. It refers not only to land scarcity, but also involves limited access to various sources of capital, infrastructure, markets and information, all of which affect rural livelihood security. Structural adjustment measures, even more than the availability of arable land, constituted the major obstacles to agricultural production in southern Costa Rica. This is in line with the picture sketched by Thiesenhusen (1995), who argued that capital has become a much more limiting production factor than land throughout the Latin American region. This led to one of the protesters arguing: If you can’t produce anything, the bus can stop in front of your house to take your children to the university, but they don’t have any shoes to wear (. . .) We have to find an agricultural alternative, development that starts at the base, through a production system that would permit the people to produce enough for self-sufficiency and have money for their community (. . .) I think what is going to happen is that the land is given to large-scale companies that produce whatever they want, while the rest of us will be their paid wage workers. And I don’t know what will happen next . . . Democracy without ownership is no democracy (deputy and activist from the Osa Penisula against Stone Container until 1994, February 1996).

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The lack of state support for farmers, the aspiration of many of them to work their own fields and the vision that agriculture should be at the base of sustainable development in the region and in the country as a whole, were important motives for agricultural and communal leaders to oppose the Ston Forestal project and important ingredients of the local strategic framings against it. In fact, capital assets to guarantee sustainable agriculture in the area are very limited, but not only because of state policies. Some ‘endogenous’ problems experienced by producers in Osa also contributed to this, such as institutional weaknesses and lack of social coherence and cooperation—factors that were partly a result of various immigration waves into the Osa Peninsula from other Costa Rican areas and Central American countries. In order to stimulate the integration of the farmers into nonagricultural production, the ‘partnership’ agreement signed between the government and Stone Container Corporation in 1989 included the intention to transfer the technology of Gmelina production to farmers. This failed to materialise, however. What also failed to occur was the creation of significant employment. While the sowing required quite a lot of low-skilled labour from the area, the plantations required very little tending once they had been established. Compared to (even) cattle ranching and mechanised rice cultivation, the net loss of labour caused by the plantation establishment was considerable (Van den Hombergh 1999). Evolving Framing Orientations Against the Project In the years of the open protest (1992–1995) the coalition of Stone’s opponents developed a broad-based critique against the plantations on the Osa Peninsula, encompassing three framing orientations or discursive tools: a social one (‘Ston Forestal doesn’t treat people with respect’), an economic one (‘The plantations displace agriculture from a place where it is needed’) and an ecological one (‘The plantations are harmful for the natural resources’). These frames, to which the ecologist organisation Asociación Ecologista Costarricense (AECO; Costa Rican Ecologist Association) and their colleagues from the Rainforest Action Network and Greenpeace added several elements, were suitable for the creation of a broadening base of resistance against the plantations on the Osa Peninsula, and to some extent to find allies among socialist politicians and decision makers in San José. However, in general, most politicians from both major parties tended to embrace the new types of investments in forestry rather

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than keep to their old promise of protecting the campesinos to help them carry on producing in the countryside. During the campaigning years, the Gmelina plantations proved to have a high resistance to any sort of criticism, despite there being grounds to question their impact on soil fertility, soil structure, surrounding biodiversity and socioeconomic conditions of the farming population. Most scientific material about Gmelina arborea, at least until 1996,3 focuses on growth figures and environmental influences on these, and not on their own environmental impact. However, a number of forestry and soil scientists who were interviewed (Van den Hombergh 2004) were able to mention a number of risks involved in the production system Ston Forestal employed. These included soil exhaustion because of the fast growth and limited fertility measures taken, splash erosion because of the big leaves and lack of undergrowth, compaction because of the mechanised harvesting system, and invasion of the species in Osa’s natural ecosystems because of the proximity of biologically very rich areas. Despite this, the frames ‘sustainable development’ and ‘reforestation of the forest cover’ proved sufficient ammunition in the hands of the company and their supportive politicians to almost force the protest coalition to deny their criticism of the plantations, in order for them not to lose political credibility and the opportunity to request changes to the project. The company and its proponents were able to use the ambiguity and conceptual confusion over the term re(af )forestation, and the old connotation of ‘restoring the forest cover’ that the word reforestation has, to convince policymakers that the plantations would even help combat deforestation and should by no means be questioned. The fact that tropical deforestation and the harvesting of pulpwood are performed by different actors and concern other product chains, and are therefore hardly connected, did not influence the strength of the reforestation frame at all. Lohmann and Carrere (1996) demonstrate in their book with case studies of pulp plantations from all over the world that this was no exception and that the same ‘discourse of defence’ is applied by coalitions of industrialists and their supporters everywhere. In the case of Stone, the major actors in this coalition were the industrialists seeking cheap wood fibre, tax exemptions and symbolic green

3 In that year we performed a review on the basis of bibliographical sources of CATIE, Turrialba, Costa Rica and Wageningen University.

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capital, and Costa Rican policymakers seeking foreign investment, political gain and donor attention by improving the reforestation figures in their country. However, there was another issue that was suitable for the development of a discourse to oppose the Stone Container project on a national and international scale, namely the potentially harmful effects of industrialisation on the rich and unique biological diversity of the area. Strategic Neutrality: Science as an Asset in Conservationist Framing The ‘struggle over scientific territory’ as Blaikie (2000) rightly argues, is directly related to the struggle for natural resources. Scientific argumentation has always been an important driver behind biodiversity conservation, and biodiversity an important political asset in Costa Rica as regards keeping its donor countries interested despite its relatively high income per capita. The threat of a negative impact of industrialisation on the biodiversity of Osa Penisula’s forests and marine resources therefore proved a science-based discursive tool with political appeal. This meant arms for the protest coalition in their quest for change, albeit not without fierce resistance of many policymakers. During the campaign, AECO had to frame their message more and more in legal, technical and conservation language to be able to create and seize political opportunity for a change in the design of the Ston Forestal project. Science as Common Ground for Argument Science plays a very important role in environmental campaigning because much of the information about ecological processes is regarded by decision-makers as ‘not knowable’ without science. Science is the key to a successful representation of nature in the event of conflict because it cannot speak for itself (Yearly 1994, 1996; Dobson 1990). In this, employing ‘strategic neutrality’ has the highest political impact. Strategic neutrality of course is a contradiction in terms, but was introduced to illustrate the fact that, for strategic reasons, apparently neutral scientific arguments are often needed to give political weight to environmental campaigning. This applies equally to many other conflict situations where arguments are needed that are, or seem, sufficiently neutral for decision-makers to be used for the framing of

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their choices, without them running the risk of being accused of making unfounded choices or of making choices under pressure from certain groups. In order to ensure they had a political impact, AECO and their coalition partners had to run to the media, politicians and legal institutions and in all cases scientific evidence against the industrial forestry project was demanded. Generally speaking, two themes were under discussion in scientific terms: first, the benefits and threats to be expected from the Gmelina plantations and second, the benefits and threats to be expected from the industrial infrastructure on the shore of the Golfo Dulce (a plant and harbour installations meant to chip and transport the wood respectively). One could say that the first discursive territory was won by the Stone Container coalition, having ‘reforestation’ on their side as a winning frame to defend the Gmelina plantations, while their opponents could not get hold of sufficient scientific material to prove their harm. The second territory became occupied by the ecologists who successfully applied the ‘biodiversity protection frame’ to defend Osa’s nature against industrialisation. There were specific grounds to argue that the rain forest and the Gulf should be protected. These grounds included their uniqueness as ecosystems and habitats of a high species diversity, but also their peaceful scenery which had a high potential for sustainable longer-term income generation through tourism most of all. An important reason for the protest coalition to focus on the frame of biodiversity conservation, and not on the criticism of neo-liberal agrarian and forestry policies, were the increasing international political opportunities related to biodiversity conservation for Costa Rica as a donor-dependent country (Silva 1994) and the decreasing opportunities for national protectionist agrarian and social development for Costa Rica as an IMF-dependent country (Carrière 1990). The fact that AECO and its allies increasingly concentrated on the biodiversity frame was also influenced by the dominance of conservation pur sang as a strategy within the Northern/US environmental movement. The most conservationist strands of this movement influenced Costa Rican environmental policy considerably until the early 1990s (Rains Wallace 1992; Rodríguez Cervantes 1993). Thus, in order to find national and international allies to defend Osa’s resources against the pulpwood project, conservationist discourse had to be applied. However, if biodiversity conservation was necessary to mobilise national and international pressure to change the Stone

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Container project, it was not free of controversy from a social point of view. The lack of land-use opportunities was the local ground for resistance, and in addition to declining state support for agriculture, the establishment of National Parks had also played a role in this. There is a real historical opposition between the interests of smallscale producers and the in situ conservation of biodiversity in Corcovado National Park and the adjacent Forest Reserve. Scientific arguments— specifically from US biologists—played an important role in the argumentation to shut down the Park for all local use (Christen 1994). Moreover, the restrictions to forest cutting and other local use in the Golfo Dulce Forest Reserve—which serves as a buffer zone between the National Park and the agricultural zone—met with fierce local resistance. The way the Park and the Reserve were established reflects the widespread top-down approach to biodiversity conservation: fencing it off from local people who hardly participated at all in its management and benefits (Utting 1993; Douma et al. 1993). Conservation has severely limited agricultural use, forest use and hunting and has directly threatened the livelihoods of gold seekers. However, as is increasingly recognised by local residents, the forests do fulfil a soil and water conservation function which is crucial to agricultural activities. Deforestation in the Forest Reserve has already led to floods in the rainy season. Furthermore, as regards their involvement in tourism as guides, cabina holders and the like, local dwellers are dependent on the forests and the diversity of ecosystems, habitats and species. In other words, despite the historical clashes, there was sufficient discursive space to integrate the conservation frame in local concerns and create the collective identity of defenders of the natural resources among inhabitants of Osa. Moreover, the emotional, affective attachment to Osa’s beauties among longterm local residents should not be denied. Strategically, however, as regards expressing their worries about the Ston Forestal project in general, local actors were dependent on the science-based biodiversity frame for the government to listen to their plea. The Biodiversity Frames and their Political Impact Various conservationist frames were used by the protesters against Stone’s industrial work. The spills of oil from boats and other wastes from the industry in the most ecologically vulnerable spot of the

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Golfo Dulce would harm its unique pristine character, its biodiversity, local fishery and the scenery. The spoiling of the scenery, in turn, would harm tourism development in the area. The intense truck traffic involved would cut off a biological corridor between Corcovado National Park and its Esquinas sector, and thus threaten the survival of biodiversity of the last remnant of tropical rain forest of the Pacific side of Central America. Last but not least, the Free Trade conditions under which the Stone Container project was to operate would attract more industry, and therefore increase the level of environmental disturbance in the area. The destruction of biodiversity would also affect the future livelihoods of Osa’s inhabitants and the future of biological research in the area (Greenpeace Centro America 1994). The Golfo Dulce had a pristine character, not only in biological terms, but also in discursive terms. Its biodiversity had hardly been studied and debated before. This resulted in the fact that there was no authority available in the pro-Stone coalition which was able to deny the recent scientific findings on the Gulf ’s unique fjord-like ecosystem characteristics and biological wealth. These recent scientific findings were, in part, gathered and produced especially for the sake of the campaign, in order to obtain material for the strategic neutrality needed in the debate while also serving to strengthen the campaigners’ position. A respected oceanographic researcher from Europe (Hartmann 1993, 1995) was able to convince the evaluators and the decision-making institutions involved in the assessment of Ston Forestal’s industrial plans, such as the General Comptroller (1994) and a specially installed Government Committee (1994), that the Gulf was a unique (fjord-like) ecosystem, of which there were only four in the world and that it was so vulnerable it could not cope with disturbance or contamination. This led the committee to recommend that Stone Container should move their industrial infrastructure to another location. Moreover, the oceanographic and biologist knowledge was ‘democratised’ among the local protest coalition, which echoed elements of it in their frames during interviews in the years afterwards (Van den Hombergh 1999, 2004). Only one of the main arguments of the environmentalists, that the traffic and industrial plant involved in the operation of the Ston Forestal project would harm the biological corridor between two National Parks, was contested with some success by the pro-Stone coalition. While the ecologists and scientists insisted on the actual natural function of the biological corridor,

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policymakers in pro of the company denied its existence because no legal measures had been implemented to make the corridor official. The directions in which the State sought solutions to control the environmental risks involved in the Stone Container project show a similarity with a worldwide tendency. In the 1980s, a strong belief prevailed in Environmental Impact Studies and in this context the Costa Rican government created institutional means of having such studies carried out and evaluated. Stone Container also had to submit such a study before being able to construct their industrial and harbour facilities in Punta Estrella on the Osa Peninsula. As a result of international pressure and the scientific arguments of the protesters, this Environmental Impact Assessment was, however, severely criticised by the General Comptroller in the end for its failure to provide insights into the ecological harms of the plant. In the 1990s, it became clear on a worldwide scale that control over the execution of the promises made after such impact assessments was often lacking. This increased the quest for environmental auditing which featured more regular controls. In line with this, as part of a marketing and political strategy, Stone Container thus voluntarily asked a scientific institution to study its project in order to obtain a ‘green certificate’ for the sustainable management of its plantations. The doubts about the ecological impact of the industrial infrastructure among the projects’ certifiers, who had been convinced by the protesters, was an extra incentive for the company to let go of their idea of an industrial plant on the Osa Peninsula, in exchange for the desired green seal. A new partnership between Stone and the Costa Rican government was created in 1995. The industrial plant was to be constructed in a less vulnerable spot. Moreover, it was also laid down in black and white that if any environmental harm occurred, Stone Container as the mother company would be fully responsible to pay for the costs. As an extra condition, it was decided that a monitoring commission should be installed, in which citizens from the environmental movement in the area would participate.

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Reflections on the Conditions of Partnerships Public-Private Partnerships What would be the conditions for partnerships between Latin American states and land-use related companies to contribute to egalitarian development, poverty reduction and nature conservation? Below we present some elements for discussion, which would also apply to partnerships between companies and local land users—most of them nothing new in the thinking about conditions for development, but nevertheless important principles that need to be underlined. Partnerships can be clear tools for goal alignment of a variety of stakeholders, if the following issues are taken into account: 1. In the design of such agreements, rights, not stakes, should be the first guiding principle when seeking solutions. The most important principle is the basic right to a sustainable livelihood, which means that not only respect for the country’s legal system, but also the socioeconomic rights of the poor should serve as a basis. Threatening survival in the countryside of the poorer categories among the ‘beneficiaries’, without alternative livelihood options being available, should not be the effect of a partnership for sustainable development. Therefore, not only the environmental but also the socioeconomic benefits of interventions for a variety of rights and stakeholders (especially the poorest) should be properly thought through and not taken for granted. 2. Frames such as ‘partnership for sustainable development’, ‘reforestation of wastelands’, ‘socioeconomic benefits for the local communities’ and ‘biodiversity conservation’ should be duly deconstructed. What are the real environmental and socioeconomic consequences involved? To whose benefit and detriment? Both with regard to the State and land users, ‘partnerships’ should not be a cover for the emergency sale (or lease) of their natural resources. Partnerships only have legitimacy if resource use can be sustainable and lucrative for the poor countries or land users in the long run. 3. Differential interests and responsibilities between so-called ‘beneficiaries’, such as those according to gender, qualitative and quantitative resource availability, resource-use strategies and ethnicity, should be addressed in the problem analysis and design of the partnership-project. The analysis should include the scale of (potential) impact of the project interventions (be it forest exploitation

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or conservation) on environmental and social conditions of these different categories. 4. The responsibility for environmental and social (health) damage should be arranged in the partnership agreement. Meaningful project monitoring mechanisms should be in place with real participation of the most vulnerable categories to monitor such processes. Civil Society Coalitions Critical watchdog groups will always be needed to monitor publicprivate partnerships. They may confront States and companies with their own political slogans or frames to make sure they keep their promises, making use of social (and) scientific arguments and the political opportunities available to address the concerns of nature conservation and egalitarian development. Conclusions In principle, the frames of ecologist movement builders or social movement organisations contain elements of the master frames of environmental and social justice. However, the kind of framing orientations developed and whether these are radical or reformist in nature depends on the political opportunities and the specific structures and webs where coalition partners are to be found. Different framing orientations were employed and developed by the protesters on the Osa Peninsula and on a national and international scale. 1. On a national scale, legalistic, reformist frames prevailed which demanded changes to the conditions of the partnership agreement, without the protesters being able to question its neo-liberal assumptions, and its assumptions concerning ‘reforestation’. 2. On a local scale, a holistic critique of neo-liberal development and its adverse socioeconomic and ecological effects was dominant. 3. Conservationist framing of rain forest and biodiversity protection evolved to create opportunity for gaining political ground and allies on an international scale. The ecologists’ holistic criticism of the Ston Forestal project, primarily concerning the inequality inherent in the neo-liberal agricultural policy and its potentially devastating consequences (supporting monocultures instead of conservation), led mainly to political closure.

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In contrast to the issue of the industrial harbour infrastructure, the issue of the pulp plantations was not suitable as a focus for strategic framing and coalition-building in the environmental campaign on a Costa Rican national scale. Most scientists, including those specialised in forestry issues, left out the issue of potentially adverse environmental and social effects of the Gmelina plantations in their final position about the project. This was not necessarily because they agreed with them but because—as discussed—they did not have the scientific material to sustain a position against it, or because they did not want to have their fingers burnt scientifically, economically or politically. Ston Forestal’s project would probably not have suffered any political harm from the local protests of farmers in Osa—whether or not defended by AECO and their international coalition partners—if it had not included an industrial plant close to high value conservation areas in its design. AECO’s loyalty to the inhabitants of Osa and their concerns did not cease and was mainly expressed by a continuously intensive cooperation and educational work in Osa. However, their ‘bargaining’ with a view to reaching a political objective also had its price in that they were forced into public compliance with the Gmelina plantations to which they seriously opposed, thus losing out the more radical wings and (only discursively) ‘betraying’ the farmers’ critique. This was said to have been an issue of serious debate within AECO itself and at the international coordinators’ meetings. After the campaign was closed down in 1995, because a new partnership agreement had been signed arranging the replacement of the chip mill, many former activists in Osa, especially farmer and community leaders said that they felt the struggle was ‘only half ’ completed. This was because, even though their extension had been slowed down, the Gmelina plantations were still in place and the company was a direct competitor for fertile arable land. Although it was certainly an improvement on the previous agreement dating from 1989, the final agreement between Stone and the Costa Rican State of 1995 still did not meet most of the conditions outlined here and in the introductory chapter for equitable, povertyeradicating and nature-conserving partnerships. However, the protest coalition had, without doubt, made land users more conscious of the potential effects of their land-use choices in the longer run and had made politicians more aware of their countervailing power versus foreign investors.

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In the end, the industrial plant was not built at all. The backlog the project had suffered from the protest, the new responsibility it had to bear, the economic crisis in the paper sector which forced Stone Container to merge with Jefferson Smurfit (a company which had less of a need for such a showpiece project) meant that Ston Forestal was sold to Costa Rican and Honduran entrepreneurs in the early 2000s. They changed its objective and from then on the Gmelina wood was used for pallets, pencils and furniture. Only a small part of it seems to have been exported as raw material for pulp. Thus, in the end, the campaign, that had focused on halting the harbour and industrial plant, had also slowed down and (unexpectedly) transformed the plantations. References Adams, W.M. (1990) Green Development. Environment and Sustainability in the Third World. London: Routledge. Bebbington, A. (1999) ‘Capitals and Capabilities: A Framework for Analyzing Peasant Viability, Rural Livelihoods and Poverty’, World Development, Vol. 27, No. 12, pp. 2021–2044. Blaikie, P. (2000) ‘Geography, Environment and Conflict’. Speech given at the Conference Geography 2000, 3 November 2000, University of Amsterdam. Blaikie, P. and Brookfield, H. (1987) Land Degradation and Society. London and New York: Routledge. Camacho, M.A. (1993) ‘Regional Planning and People’s Participation in Costa Rica: A Case Study at the Natural Protected Area of the Osa Peninsula, Brunca Region’. Unpublished dissertation University of East Anglia. Carrière, J. (1990) ‘The Political Economy of Land Degradation in Costa Rica’, New Political Science, No. 18/19 Fall-Winter. Christen, C. (1994) ‘Development and Conservation in Costa Rica’s Osa Peninsula 1937–1977. Unpublished PhD Thesis John Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland. Dobson, A. (1990) Green Political Thought. London: Unwin Hyman. Douma, W., Hombergh, H. van den and Wieberdink. A. (1994) ‘The Politics of Research on Gender, Environment and Development’, pp. 176–186 in W. Harcourt (ed.) Feminist Perspectives on Sustainable Development. London and Rome: Zed Books/Society for International Development. General Comptroller (1994) ‘Posición de la Contraloría General de la República ante el Contrato Suscrito por la Corporación Zona Franca de Exportación, el Ministerio de Obras Publicas y Transportes y la Empresa Ston Forestal S.A. Oficio 10904 de 7 septiembre 1994, suscrito por Lic. Roberto Gamboa Chaverri y Ricardo Chavarria Espinoza (San José, Costa Rica). Gordillo de Anda G. and Boening, F. ( 1999) ‘Latin American Land Reforms in the 1990s’. Paper presented at the CEDLA-WAU-CERES Workshop on Land in Latin America: New Context, New Claims, New Concepts. Amsterdam, 26–27 May 1999. Government Committee (Comité de Replanteamiento) (1994) ‘Informe Final de Comité de Análisis y Replanteamiento de la Autorización Concedida a Stone Container y sus Subsidiarias. Ministerio de Recursos Naturales, Energía y Minas

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(MIRENEM)-Ministerio de Obras Públicas y Transportes (MOPT)-Ministerio de Comercio Exterior, 16 de agosto. Greenpeace Centro América (1994) ‘Un Puerto Astillero en el Golfo Dulce. Las Consecuencias de Largo Plazo y la Posición de Greenpeace (Unpublished document). Harper, K.M. (2001) ‘The Environment as Master Narrative: Discourse and Identity in Environmental Problems’, Anthropological Quarterly, Vol. 74, No. 3, pp. 101–103. Hartmann, H. (1995) ‘The Golfo Dulce Marine Environment: Review and Assessment’. Unpublished paper Université Blaise Pascal, Clermont Ferrand, France. —— (1993) ‘The Golfo Dulce Marine Environment’. Unpublished paper. Hombergh, H. van den (1999) Guerreros del Golfo Dulce. Industria Forestal y Conflicto en la Península de Osa, Costa Rica. San José/Amsterdam: Departamento Ecuménico de Investigaciones (DEI) (Colección Universitaria) and University of Amsterdam. —— (2004) No Stone Unturned: Building Blocks of Environmentalist Power versus Transnational Industrial Forestry in Costa Rica. (PhD Thesis University of Amsterdam) Amsterdam: Dutch University Press. Homer-Dixon, T.F. (1999) Environment, Scarcity and Violence. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Kerski, A. (1995) ‘Pulp, Paper and Power. How an Industry Reshapes its Social Environment’, The Ecologist, Vol. 25, No. 4, July/August 1995, pp. 142–49. Lohmann, L. and Carrere, R. (1996) Pulping the South. Industrial Tree Plantations and the World Paper Economy. London and New Jersey: Zed Books. McAdam, D., McCarthy, J. and Zald, M. (1996) Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements. Political Opportunities, Mobilizing Structures and Cultural Framings. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. Rains Wallace, D. (1992) The Quetzal and the Macaw. The Story of Costa Rica’s National Parks. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books. Redclift, M. and Goodman, D. (eds) (1991) Environment and Development in Latin America: The Politics of Sustainability. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Rodríguez Cervantes, S. (1993) ‘Conservation, Contradiction and Sovereignty Erosion: The Costa Rican State and the Natural Protected Areas (1970– 1992)’. PhD thesis University of Wisconsin-Madison. Silva, E. (1994) ‘Thinking Politically about Sustainable Development in the Tropical Forests of Latin America’, Development and Change, Vol. 25, pp. 697–721. Snow, D.E. and Benford, R. (1992) ‘Master Frames and Cycles of Protest’, pp. 133–155 in A. Morris and C. McClurg Mueller (eds) Frontiers in Social Movement Theory. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. Stone Container Corporation (1995) Annual Report. Chicago: Stone Container Corporation. Tarrow, S. (1994) Power in Movement. Social Movements, Collective Action and Politics. New York and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. —— (1996) ‘Social Movements in Contentious Politics: A Review Article’, American Political Science Review, Vol. 90, No. 4, December 1996, pp. 874–883. Thiesenhusen, W.C. (1995) Broken Promises: Agrarian Reform and the Latin American Campesino. Boulder (CO): Westview Press. Utting, P. (1993) Trees, People and Power. London: Earthscan. Yearly, S. (1996) ‘Nature’s Advocates: Putting Science to Work in Environmental Organisations’, pp. 172–190 in A. Irwin and B. Wynne (eds) Misunderstanding Science? The Public Reconstruction of Science and Technology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. —— (1994) ‘Social Movements and Environmental Change’, pp. 150–168 in M. Redclift and T. Benton (eds) Social Theory and the Global Environment. London and New York: Routledge/Global Environmental Change Programme.

CHAPTER FIVE

PARTNERSHIPS FOR SUSTAINABLE TIMBER PRODUCTION IN TRINIDAD: DEALING WITH SOCIAL AND ECOLOGICAL DYNAMICS James Fairhead* and Melissa Leach** Trinidad, part of the twin-island Republic of Trinidad and Tobago in the eastern Caribbean, has extensive areas of tropical humid forest, most of which lie in government-held reserves. While small island states have received relatively little attention in international and Latin American regional debates about sustainable forestry, Trinidad is something of an exception, having acquired a rare international reputation for the sustainability of its natural forest management (Synnott 1989). The systems developed by the government Forestry Division in partnership with international organisations since colonial times are the oldest in the region. Their apparent success would appear to support international proponents of natural forest management as a viable way to reconcile timber production with other forest values (see, for example, Harcharik 1997), as against those who would argue for setting aside natural forest for conservation, focusing timber production on plantations. They have attracted the attention of international organisations interested in developing and testing criteria and indicators for sustainable forest management (Guenter 1998). Trinidad’s natural forest management systems are also held up— by government foresters at least—as examples of important, productive partnerships between communities and the state. Local participation is claimed to be integral to the success of forest management that might thus be expected to fulfil the social, as well as ecological, criteria and indicators that have become so central to

* Department of Antropology, Arts C128, University of Sussex, Falmer, BN1 9SJ Brighton, UK. E-mail: [email protected]. ** Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, Falmer, BN1 9RE Brighton, UK. E-mail: [email protected].

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global discourses about sustainable forest management (for instance, Simmula and Oy 1999). In both ecological and social respects, national and international attention focuses particularly on Trinidad’s ‘Periodic Block System’ PBS); a ‘blueprint’ system for selective logging in demarcated forest blocks in cycles of 25–30 years in the forests to the South and East of the island. The operation of the system depends on partnerships between government foresters and small-scale artisanal operators known locally as ‘woodworkers’, who purchase timber under licence, fell the trees, deliver them to the roadside and sell them from there to sawmillers. Woodworkers are amongst the few people in Trinidad still to have forest-based livelihoods, given the island’s recent history of collapsing plantation agriculture and rapid industrialisation and urbanisation associated with the oil boom of the 1970s. Reliant on their timber-felling revenues for family subsistence and cash income, yet living in rural settlements and towns where people have diverse rural and urban occupations, the woodworkers hardly represent a typical ‘forest-dependent community’. Yet they have, since 1964, been organised within a Woodworkers’ Association, which acts both as a union to represent their rights and interests, and works with the state to regulate timber exploitation. This chapter, which draws from our larger work on science and policy around forest and environment in Trinidad (Fairhead and Leach 2003), traces the development of Trinidad’s PBS both as a system for managing forest ecology, and as a system of social relationships. However, in doing so, it questions some of these claims about its success as an exemplar of sustainable forest management— or rather re-casts how ‘sustainability’ should be conceived. In particular, definitions, criteria and indicators of sustainability used both internationally and in the PBS assume stability and predictability in ecological and social systems and that forests and people will respond to rational management in rational, predictable and known ways. Yet management practices have been responding continually to unpredicted ecological developments such as failures of regeneration and fire events, as well as to socioeconomic and political instabilities. As woodworkers have borne the brunt of these, tensions have emerged in their relationships with government foresters. Despite Trinidad’s international and professional reputation for sustainable forest management, many Trinidadians have become deeply concerned by the state of the forest and the degradation which seems to have accom-

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panied so called ‘sustainable’ practices. Recent perspectives in forest ecology and climate history cast new light on these dynamics and unpredictable responses, and help explain these contradictions. However, national foresters and their international sponsors who, not surprisingly, are frustrated when things do not work out as planned, have not taken this up. This case suggests, more broadly, that if sustainable forest management and effective partnerships for it are not to remain an illusory goal, it is time for non-equilibrium dynamics to be taken more seriously within national and global debates. The Emergence of Trinidad’s Periodic Block System Timber in Trinidad currently derives from a range of sources and land types: state forest reserves, plantations on reserved and unreserved state land, forest re-growth on abandoned private agricultural land, private areas of natural forest and new planting on private land. The PBS has developed and been applied within state forest reserves in the Southeast, a highly forested region dominated in parts by an astonishingly gregarious natural forest tree, Mora excelsa. This species accounts for 60–80 per cent of all plants and still more of the upper canopy. Mora is a high quality timber, used for shipbuilding in the 1800s and subsequently in house building, bridge construction and as railway sleepers (Forest Department 1933). In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Trinidad imported much of its timber. While the original impetus to establish forest reserves derived from concerns over climate and soils, discussions in the 1920s instigated a shift towards managing state forests for timber production to offset imports and generate exports (Marshall 1925; Troup 1926; Robinson 1926). The greatest timber resources lay in the two large Mora forests of Mayaro and Matura (Figure 5.1). These were hardly used until the establishment of Trinidad’s first major sawmill in the Southeast, whereupon it became the most heavily cut timber in the colony (Trinidad and Tobago 1934, 58)—although nothing approaching the estimated potential annual production. From 1918 the colonial Forest Department developed and applied a succession of management systems. First ‘selection felling’ was introduced, which prescribed that trees under a certain girth could not be felled without authorisation, and trees meeting the girth requirement could be felled only if another tree of its species over 3 foot in girth

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Figure 5.1 Trinidad with the Victoria Mayaro Forest Reserve

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was growing within 300 feet—to ensure future seed (Marshall 1925, 12). Then the ‘Open Range System (ORS)’ followed, in which ‘Individual licensed loggers are licensed to cut a specified volume or number of trees and may select them anywhere in the reserve or range as defined and approved by the Forest Department’ (Synnott 1989). Both systems proved unsatisfactory. It was difficult for foresters to police felling over scattered areas, so in practice loggers creamed the best trees with little regard to regeneration (Marshall 1925, 11; Synnott 1989, 93). While the ORS remains operational to this day in certain reserves, foresters have also been proposing improved systems, frequently adapting practices in use elsewhere in the tropics. Marshall (1925), for instance, suggested a ‘Periodic system’ similar to those long in use in India and Burma (Troup 1926, 3), through which a mixed wood of uneven-aged trees would be converted into even-aged woods of a pure crop. To achieve this, felling by licensees would be limited to annual coupes within a given block for a twenty year period, with all timber disposed of. In theory, a block of even-aged timber would regenerate (Marshall 1925, 11). A variant of this system was introduced in 1929 into Trinidad’s Arena forest reserve. The cutting cycle was also reduced from an expected sixty year monocycle to a thirty year polycycle.1 It is the ‘polycyclic’ selection system which became referred to locally as the Periodic Block System (PBS). It was not until the 1960s—following a series of internationallyinfluenced, and ultimately unsuccessful, experiments with clear felling and pine plantation (Chalmers 1981, citing Bell 1969/71)—that the PBS was applied to Trinidad’s Mora forests. In the Southeastern Victoria Mayaro Reserve where it was first introduced, timber management is now almost completely under the PBS—although only 20 per cent of the land there is managed for production, with the rest set aside within on-shore oil concessions, a wildlife sanctuary (Trinity Hills) or as a strategic timber reserve.

1 Most sustainable forest management systems employ polycyclic felling; the term polycyclic referring to the fact that only larger trees are cut during the initial harvest so that smaller trees may provide another crop in 25–40 years.

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james fairhead and melissa leach Forest Management Practices in the PBS

The PBS emerged as a set of practices attempting to integrate the control of Mora forest ecology with the regulation of timber users. At first it was not such a radical departure from the Open Range System, involving a similar practice of maintaining ‘replacement’ trees (‘take one, seize one’), although felling was confined to and monitored within annually-demarcated blocks. In the early 1970s, an important innovation occurred in the introduction of ‘silvicultural marking’. In theory: . . . . stems are selected for sale by a team of highly skilled markers who go through the block systematically and physically mark trees that should be removed. In principle, the trees that are marked are those which in the next thirty years would not do as well as others that they are shading, or competing with. They may either be mature, or faulty or likely to become so (Clubbe and Jhilmit 1992, 5).

Within a few years, silvicultural marking became an established part of the PBS and was taken over by a separate specialist branch of the Forestry Division—the Forest Resource Inventory and Management section (FRIM). Marked trees were sold to licensed woodworkers, who had to buy licences permitting them to fell 500 cubic feet of timber over a two-year period, after which the block would be closed from sales and allowed to regenerate for the cutting cycle of thirty years. In principle, one or two blocks (each of 200 ha) would be opened each year. With the shift to silvicultural marking, the PBS became directed not only towards sustainable extraction from the Mora forest, but also to more active ecological management. The Mora tree is often so dominant as to constitute an almost-pure stand. The intent is to harvest the increment from each twenty-five year period and to increase quality up to about 80 per cent sound trees. To achieve this, when each block is opened the FRIM would first conduct an inventory of all species above 20 cm diameter, and commercial species above 10 cm, recording basal area2 and estimated volume of timber in each block. The block is then compartmentalised, and trees

2

The basal area is a measure of tree density, defined as the area, expressed in m /ha, of the cross section of the stem of a tree at breast height (1.4 m above ground level) inclusive of its bark. 2

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marked for felling by two FRIM officers, each accompanied by a daily paid worker. After marking, the FRIM makes a logging operation plan detailing vehicle routes and collection points, recalling those from earlier cutting cycles. The FRIM then hands over a master list of the marked trees to the local forestry staff who work as sales officers, allocating and selling trees to licensees. Trees are marked on the basis of whether they would be better felled now or in twenty-five years time. ‘Better’ refers to the balance of a number of criteria in a process that FRIM officers describe more as an art than a strict science: one where personal judgement and experience count.3 Criteria include crown form and position, tree size in relation to the officer’s knowledge of the species, indicators of decay (for instance, hollow echo when tapped or active low branching), location (even an unsound or mature tree may be left standing on a river bank or steep slope), form of bole, species rarity and diversity of valuable timber species. Further selection criteria balance timber production with wildlife conservation: trees that are sheltering burrows or nests, certain fruit trees for food, and vines for animal shelter are left unmarked. A key aim is to avoid opening up the forest too much to let in pioneer species which would impoverish the forest. The knowledge and skills involved in silvicultural marking and in balancing these criteria are seen by forest officers as able to be acquired only through experience and practice, although they would like to create a handbook to ensure maintenance of these accumulated skills. Social Relationships in the PBS The PBS also developed through, and now depends on, a range of social relationships, especially between foresters, woodworkers and sawmillers. While the PBS and its system of licences was originally intended to control and regulate timber extraction, from the earliest it involved relationships of support between the Forestry Division and woodworkers.4 By selling timber to them at a low price, the state in effect subsidises the woodworkers who find purchasing wood

3 Group discussion with FRIM staff and local forest officers, Victoria Mayaro Reserve, 30 June 1999. 4 Interview, President of Woodworker’s Association, Rio Claro, 29 June 1999.

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under licence from the Forestry Division more profitable than obtaining it from other sources. The Forestry Division staff describe this as a deliberate form of social policy, contributing to the social sustainability of the PBS in this economically impoverished area. Through the PBS, the Forestry Division also, at least in theory, protects the rights of woodworkers to access timber in relation to larger lumber operators. The Woodworkers’ Association now also works directly in partnership with the Forestry Division to determine the allocation of timber to woodworkers, in a context in which woodworkers’ demands usually exceed timber availability. There are currently seventy-two licensed woodworkers. The order in which licensees feature on the list—strictly by length of licenseeship—is crucial, dictating which woodworkers can enter the block first to choose the trees they will fell. Frequently, those after about twentieth on the list will obtain little wood of value. Because of these aspects of partnership and social support, as well as appreciation of the forest protection involved, representatives of the Woodworkers’ Association have a generally positive view of the PBS, with which their organisation has co-evolved. As the Association’s President put it: ‘Without the PBS the whole area would become savannah and our children would not see forest. The PBS is good for both the small man and the state.’ Nevertheless woodworkers critique the actual practice of the PBS, at least in recent years, on several grounds. Woodworkers have developed their perspectives and critiques not only in relation to the Forestry Division, but also to sawmillers, within a changing politicaleconomic context. Sawmillers in Southeast Trinidad range from small operators working niche markets (for instance sawing lowest grade timber for disposable pallets) to large-scale lumber industrialists who import timber from Guyana and distribute it throughout the country. First, woodworkers critique the ways that foresters balance what to fell and what to leave, complaining that the quality of timber made available to them is very low. This is accentuated by instances where—despite the Forestry Division’s formal policy of protecting woodworkers’ rights—certain sawmillers have gained priority access to blocks, ‘creaming’ the best timber before the block is opened to woodworkers. Worse, once sawmillers have the wood they require, woodworkers have no market for theirs. Sawmillers frequently gain such access through direct orders from government departments for

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construction timber, allowing sawmillers to purchase timber directly from the state, without having to buy it from the licensees. Woodworkers see these ‘government orders’ as a mechanism by which certain sawmillers with high-level political connections can subvert the authority and market control of the Woodworkers’ Association.5 Moreover, while woodworkers once enjoyed good relations with smaller sawmillers, these have increasingly been pushed out of business by a handful of lumber industrialists, which are the main beneficiaries of privileged state timber access. These ‘big boys’, as woodworkers understand it, are also close to the powers of the present government, which is relatively unsympathetic to woodworkers. The government, in turn, is supported by international consultants who have recommended a rationalisation of sawmillers for economic efficiency, and to reduce overcapacity (Chalmers and Faizool 1992). Second, woodworkers complain about delays and time lags in Forestry Division bureaucracy. Licensees are required to pay their license fees up-front, but the Division is then frequently slow to open the block. Woodworkers sometimes have to provide free labour to ensure that blocks are opened. Even once the trees are felled, it can take a year before paperwork and measuring by forest officers is complete and the woodworkers are free to remove the trees. During delays such as these, woodworkers’ money is tied up, and they are frequently left indebted. Furthermore felled trees become hard to find as they have become buried in undergrowth. A third area of complaint refers to radical changes in procedure following forest fires. The major ramifications of these for woodworkers and their livelihoods will be discussed after considering the broader questions of sustainability raised by these fires, and their implications for how Mora ecological dynamics might be understood. Ecological Dynamics and Unpredictabilities The management of Mora forest under the PBS is geared towards maintaining a stable state of productive forest: a kind of equilibrium. Yet a major shock—in the form of extensive forest fires in 1987— forced system adaptation. The fires, linked to a particularly deep and 5

Group discussion, Woodworker’s Association, Rio Claro, 5 July 1999.

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prolonged dry season, burnt about 20,000 ha of good forest, 10,000 ha of which under the PBS.6 In response, the Forestry Division replanned block rotations, promoting the productive use of the fireburned blocks through ‘salvage cuts’ and holding back the opening of what came to be called ‘green’ blocks. When explaining the fire event, foresters image it as a one-off external variable to an otherwise stable system over the longer term. Such explanations and management practices accord with the equilibrial perspectives which have long dominated work on forest ecology in the Latin American region and internationally. Yet Trinidad experiences very high inter-annual variability of rainfall and dry season length, and in this context one could expect major fire risks to occur several times in the course of a century—as indeed forestry records reveal. Moreover recent scientific perspectives—embracing non-equilibrial dynamics (for instance Sprugel 1991) and increased attention to climate variation and the legacy of historic land use—would question such equilibrial views. In contextualising fire events as part of a pathdependent history of forest disturbance, in effect as part of the system, they question both the premise of stability in Mora forests and the conceptualisation of sustainability and management implications which flow from this. The studies of early ecological scientists in Trinidad themselves suggested that over a long timescale, Trinidad’s vegetation was not usefully understood in relation to equilibrium. Marshall (1934, 1939), for example, noted that Mora was an invasive tree, while the failure of Mora boundaries to correspond to obvious soil or physical features and the presence of saplings in neighbouring associations suggested its progressive march into these (Beard 1946, 181). Beard deduced from present distribution and rates of natural advance that Mora arrived 30–50,000 years ago. Studies of climate history and palaeo-archaeology in mainland tropical America, however, suggest that non-equilibrium conditions may also apply over much shorter timescales, linked to a major dry phase 4–6,000 years ago, recovery since 2,000 BP, and unstable climatic conditions since then (Tardy 1998). Furthermore, recent research on Amerindian population history and land use—minimised in earlier studies of Trinidad, where Carib and Arawak Indians were all .

6

Interview, FRIM forest officer, Rio Claro, 28 June 1999.

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but eliminated following fifteenth century European conquest—suggests that this may have influenced the evolution of vegetation significantly. Historical studies now suggest that relatively large Amerindian populations were shifting cultivators of bitter cassava, sweet potatoes, cotton and a great variety of other crops, in an economy locked into wide reaching water-borne trade networks which stimulated the settlement of major river valleys, as well as the coast (Boomert pers. comm.). These recent perspectives might lead to an interpretation of Trinidad’s forest vegetation as a scar tissue, two or three generations of trees old, following sixteenth century Amerindian depopulation, building on a pre-Columbian vegetation history of a complex of anthropogenic management and vegetation response to climate rehumidification from about 2,000 years ago. The formations found today may not be as long-lived and stable as assumed, and—more importantly—may respond very unpredictably to major disturbance. Quite plausibly, the apparent difficulty Mora has in regenerating following fire could be interpreted as a manifestation of this. Notably, though, the archaeological studies which would be required to verify population estimates and the anecdotal evidence of dense inland settlements have not been carried out (Newson 1976, see also Boomert 1984, 144–5), nor have the vegetation histories and paleoecological studies which would provide actual data on pre-Columbian vegetation. The absence of focused study of long-term vegetation patterns in Trinidad, and the related absence (or minimisation) of non-equilibrial perspectives on ecology, in turn relates—at least in part—to the powerful co-production of science, policy and management around views of stability. In the meantime, ad hoc management changes to cope with unpredictability have been among the factors provoking tension between woodworkers and the Forestry Division. Socio-Political Dynamics and Tensions Between Woodworkers and the Forestry Division Woodworkers argue that they have borne the brunt of changes in PBS management in response to ecological dynamics—geared ever more towards restoration and improvement following the fires. They complain that the Forestry Division has not kept to its stated policy of opening up two blocks per year. Moreover, long delays of up to

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twelve years have occurred between the burning (in 1987) and the opening of fire-burned blocks. As a result, much of the timber is rotten, with larger trunk-hollows. FRIM officers are well aware of these critiques.7 They acknowledge that more ‘virgin’ blocks could be brought into the system, but argue that the licensees cannot be satisfied; to give them a little more would be the thin end of a wedge of expanding, insatiable demand. Given this perception, forest officers feel that it would be inappropriate to attempt to close the gap between demand and supply. This in turn allows them to operate on the precautionary principle in forest management and conservation, taking a highly cautious approach to the release of new blocks and guarding large areas of Mora forest unexploited. Unpredictable ecological events also affect the course of the forester’s work, and in interaction with the exigencies of labour and resource availability this places further demands on woodworkers. Demands to perform unexpected timely operations, such as surveying fireburned areas and substituting for absent labourers, interrupts the normal flow of forestry work. Foresters’ performance varies with the weather and the equally fickle availability of workmen and surveyors. In this context, forest officers see the current Forestry Division system of performance-related salaries and promotions linked to a pre-agreed work programme as invidious. It fails to acknowledge the day-to-day and year-to-year flexibility required to respond to ecological and social contingencies, and the initiative foresters must frequently take to cope with unpredictable field conditions. Foresters’ responses frequently create extra delays and place extra calls on the labour of woodworkers who must assist forest officers in their own work. At the same time, there is a sense of common purpose between local representatives of the Forestry Division and the woodworkers. This is partly because local forestry staff, too, feel vulnerable to many of the political-economic processes of which woodworkers complain. As one forest officer explained, the government originally aimed to provide employment for rural people, and woodworkers are justified in their claims that sawmillers are now taking their rights.8 This 7

Group discussion with FRIM staff and local forest officers, Victoria Mayaro Reserve, 30 June 1999. 8 Interview, Forester I, Rio Claro, 29 June 1999.

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officer is due to speak for the Forestry Division in a court case brought by licensees against the Division’s priority allocation of felling rights to sawmillers. He finds himself highly sympathetic to the woodworkers’ plight. Furthermore, large sawmillers are now pushing to be granted forestry concessions of around 400 ha. Local forest officers are concerned about the sustainability of timber production under such conditions, given the profit orientation of big business. In this way they see support to the woodworkers and their unionisation as important for maintaining the integrity of the forest and the PBS. Forestry field staff, moreover, frequently feel threatened by large operators. As one put it: ‘A small forest officer may take them to court, but because of their [political] connections, you find yourself in difficulty and you get a transfer.’9 Policing the activities of wellconnected large sawmillers only magnifies the more general difficulties foresters now face in policing timber theft. Following a recent Ministerial ruling, officers are required to take all forest offences to court: ‘But unfortunately they find that if they do not have all the evidence and know all the rules, the prosecution case will fail. Moreover, magistrates do not value the environment, consider forests to be wasteland and might impose a trivial US$ 50 fine and a reprimand.’10

Conservancy forest officers are thus vulnerable and powerless in relation to processes operating at higher levels and in the capital, Port of Spain. In some respects it is better for them to work with those less powerful than they, such as licensees. Woodworkers, to a certain extent, acknowledge these conditions, seeing local forest officers as conduits for orders and ‘political interference’ from above. Indeed their major calls for change are to higher-level policymakers. Yet other remarks and instances suggest persistent tensions between woodworkers and forest officers. Foresters are suspicious that woodworkers set the 1987 fires, for example. Woodworkers question the motives of foresters: for example the Forestry Division had planned to open a block near the Trinity Hills Wildlife Sanctuary, and went as far as silviculturally marking the trees. The Director of Forestry forbade the extraction, erring on the side of wildlife conservation. Woodworkers reinterpret this, claiming that the Forestry Division 9 10

Interview, FRIM officer, Rio Claro, 30 June 1999. Interview, FRIM officer, Rio Claro, 30 June 1999.

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wanted to give sawmillers half and woodworkers half of this block and that when the woodworkers successfully objected to this allocation, the national Forestry Division withdrew the block to ‘get back at them’. This instance, and others like it, illustrate a general perception that the Forestry Division uses arguments about conservation and sustainability as a ‘greenwash’ to hide their real political-economic interests; interests which both local and national forest officials are seen to have in developing good relationships with large sawmill operators, and from which they benefit economically or politically. For example the slow opening of blocks, justified on the grounds of fire damage and sustainability, is seen by woodworkers as an excuse for foresters who want to ‘weed the licensees out of the system’ and build up their relationships with the ‘big boys’.11 The sense of woodworkers being squeezed out is easily understood given that a decade ago there were ten Woodworkers’ Associations in the country, but now there are only one or two in the Southeast; and whereas the Nariva-Mayaro Woodworkers’ Association now has only seventy-two members, it once had 600. ‘The forest used to provide bread in this region, but now this is only for a few’.12 Woodworkers who cannot make a livelihood from timber are forced to turn to other occupations: to temporary construction work, hunting, squatting or semi-legal activities. In the Woodworkers’ Association-Forestry Division relationship, then, some degree of alliance coexists with considerable and mutual lack of trust. To a certain extent, each side blames problems in the operation of the PBS on the other side’s supposed links with politicians, and sees its claims about inappropriate PBS scientific practice as masks for ‘unreasonable’, individualistic profit-seeking behaviour. While at one level, then, the PBS can appear as a ‘blueprint’ system of sustainable forest management, it is at the same time a field of social and political struggle. In this, actual management practices (which trees are marked, when and how; which blocks are opened, when and how) may be responses to the more day-to-day dilemmas forest officers face in their social relationships with woodworkers, sawmillers and politicians, and in dealing with ecological 11 12

Interview, President of Woodworker’s Association, Rio Claro, 5 July 1999. Interview, President of Woodworker’s Association, Rio Claro, 5 July 1999.

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unpredictabilities. The ‘system’ as it emerges on the ground is partially an unintended product of these socio-political practices, even while national foresters continue to portray it as a pre-designed, rational blueprint. Conclusions The development of Trinidad’s PBS has drawn on and reproduced framings of stability in social and ecological systems. The premise of stability is important to the institutions involved in forest policy in a number of ways. First, it iconises a form of scientific professionalism in forestry which has long been central to the Forestry Division’s image and claims to institutional authority within Trinidad, and is increasingly so as multiplying conservation-focused institutions compete for national and international funds and attention. Second, the system is a means to justify the continued use of state forest reserves for timber production against critical NGOs and others who would prefer them devoted to other uses—such as biodiversity protection. Third, casting the relationship with woodworkers as a form of community forestry and state-community partnership is useful to the Forestry Division’s image with NGOs and international donors. In short, in a world of multiplying local, national and international actors and partnerships in the forestry field, the image of stability in the PBS has acquired major institutional importance, both within Trinidad, and in placing Trinidad as an exemplar on the international stage. In contrast, both foresters working at field-level and the woodworkers acknowledge the ecological and social unpredictabilities of the system. They make flexible adaptations to felling practices and agreements that continually subvert the system’s ‘rules’, yet are necessary for it to work. These practices of adaptive management remain unformalised and unacknowledged within the larger forestry bureaucracy, with its image of scientific professionalism and its strong hierarchies. The economic dependence of the woodworkers also places them in a weak position to challenge the reality that they absorb much of the work and cost of coping with unforeseen events. These issues of unpredictability compound broader questions about the actual sustainability of Trinidad’s natural forest management system. First, while woodworkers continue to value their relative autonomy,

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studies suggest that their incomes are lower—as well as more variable—than those of waged workers in teak plantations, Trinidad’s other major timber production system (Guenter 1998). Squeezing out the woodworkers may break down the sustainability of the system. International consultants have proposed that an increase in profitability and efficiency would be possible if there was a rationalisation of sawmillers (to five), enabling improved capacity for state regulation of sawmillers, and to proceed with this regardless of implications for livelihoods—for example those of woodworkers who may be undermined. But if it is the case that (a) they are self-exploiting at present; (b) have borne the brunt of improvement; and (c) have been cooperative with the PBS, will their eradication help sustainable practice? There must be serious doubts about this. Larger, more powerful millers may easily be able to apply political pressure to gain concessions—as they have been attempting—and may not be prepared to bear the costs of improvements. This might lead to increased profitability at the loss of such sustainability as there is. Moreover, in as much as woodworkers have contributed to the present quality of PBS forest through their own work, there must surely be a serious ethical question that they should be its beneficiaries. Second, there must be real questions as to whether the PBS, if properly costed, would be economically sustainable. The Forestry Division depends on heavy state subsidisation from Trinidad’s oil and gas-rich revenue base, and has arguably been able to develop natural forest management systems such as the PBS—rather than focusing on economic forestry—only because it has not had to be financially autonomous, enabling its science and practice to continue in particular ways. One of them has been to invest heavily in PBS management over a relatively small area where management requirements are large (although costings do not appear to have been conducted). Moreover, revenues to the forest service, which is effectively subsidising woodworkers, are low. Third, there is pressure in Trinidad from environmental lobbies to stop logging all state forested land due to the impact that it has had on national forests. The argument is to shift all timber production to plantations and private land. In response, foresters have drawn on the PBS to suggest that natural forest management can balance timber and other (conservation) objectives on state land. Indeed the PBS serves as icon of scientific professionalism (and indeed

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of participation, in co-evolution with woodworkers), in an otherwise vulnerable forest division, saddled with an embarrassing history of poorly performing plantation forestry and a less than participatory ethos. Yet the extent to which the PBS in Mora forests, even as presently operating, can really ensure ‘maintenance of the ecological functions and integrity of the forest’ can still be questioned, despite the clear advantages of the system and its capacity to endure to date. The recent history of the PBS suggests that the more chaotic aspects of ecological dynamics may disturb not only the ecological integrity of the system, but also—as managers adapt—its socio-political integrity. As we have argued here, tensions between the Forest Division and the Woodworkers are in part the result of such disturbance, as woodworkers interpret management adaptations as working against their favour. The socio-political struggles so generated may further compromise the sustainability of this dynamic socio-technical system, at least in so far as sustainability is understood in equilibrial terms. Such interlocked dynamics also make it clear that issues of ecological and of social sustainability should not be considered apart. International debates and attempts to harmonise criteria and indicators for sustainable forest management do incorporate attention to issues of social and economic sustainability, along with ecological sustainability (Simmula and Oy 1999; WCFSD 1999). To date, however, they have included very little recognition of non-equilibrium perspectives and their implications for forest management. If sustainable forestry is not to be an illusory goal, or if the costs of dealing with unpredictabilities are not to create persistent tensions in forestry partnerships, then non-equilibrial ecological and socio-political dynamics need to be addressed and accounted for more fully in international, as well as national, forestry debates. References Beard, J.S. (1946) ‘The Mora Forest of Trinidad, British West Indies’, Journal of Ecology, Vol. 33, No. 2, pp. 1946. Bell, T.I.W. (1971) Management of the Trinidad Mora Forests with Special Reference to the Matura Forest Reserve. Port of Spain (Trinidad): Trinidad Forestry Division/Government Printers. Boomert, A. (1984) ‘The Arawak Indians of Trinidad and Coastal Guiana, ca. 1500– 1650’, Journal of Caribbean History, Vol. 19, No. 2, pp. 123–188. Chalmers, W.S. (1981) ‘Forests’, pp. 78–104 in St. G.C. Cooper and P.R. Bacon (eds) The Natural Resources of Trinidad and Tobago. London: Edward Arnold.

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Chalmers, W.S. and Faizool, S. (1992) ‘FAO/CARICOM Tropical Forestry Action Programme: Trinidad and Tobago National Forestry Action Programme’. Report of the Country Mission Team. GCP/RLA/O98/UK. Clubbe, C. and Jhilmit, S. (1992) ‘A Case Study of Natural Forest Management in Trinidad’, Unpublished paper presented to ‘Wise Management of Tropical Forests’ Oxford Forestry Institute, 1 March 1992. Fairhead, J. and Leach, M. (2003) Science, Society and Power: Environmental Knowledge and Policy in West Africa and the Caribbean. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Forest Department (1933) Trinidad Mora. Port of Spain (Trinidad): Government Printing Office. Guenter, M. (1998) Report on the Implementation and Testing of Social Criteria and Indicators for Sustainable Forest Management and Development in Small Island States. Port of Spain Trinidad): UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean. Harcharik, D.A. (1997) ‘The Future of World Forestry: Sustainable Forest Management’, Unasylva, Vol. 48, No. 190/191, pp. 4–8. Marshall, R.C. (1939) Silviculture of the Trees of Trinidad and Tobago, British West Indies. Oxford: Oxford University Press. —— (1934) The Physiography and Vegetation of Trinidad and Tobago: A Study in Plant Ecology. Oxford Forestry Memoirs 17. Oxford: Clarendon Press. —— (1925) Report on Forestry in Trinidad and Tobago. Port of Spain, Trinidad: Government Printing Office. Newson, L. (1976) Aboriginal and Spanish Colonial Trinidad: A Study in Culture Contact. London: Academic Press. Robinson, R.L. (1926) ‘Report on Forestry in Trinidad and Tobago by Captain R. C. Marshall’, pp. 5–6 in Forests: Despatch from the Secretary of State for the Colonies, 22/12/1925, relating to the Report on Forestry in Trinidad and Tobago by the Conservator of Forests. Trinidad and Tobago Council Paper 8, 1926. Port of Spain, Trinidad: Government Printing Office. Simmula, M. and Oy, I. (1999) ‘Certification of Forest Management and Labelling of Forest Products: Discussion Note on Main Issues’, Paper prepared for the World Bank Group Forest Policy Implementation Review and Strategy Development: Analytical Studies. Sprugel, D.G. (1991) ‘Disturbance, Equilibrium and Environmental Variability: What is ‘Natural’ Vegetation in a Changing Environment?’ Biological Conservation, No. 58, pp. 1–18. Synnott, T. (1989) ‘South America and the Caribbean’, pp. 75–116 in D. Poore (ed.) No Timber without Trees: Sustainability in the Tropical Forest. London: Earthscan. Tardy, C. (1998) Paleoincendies Naturels, Feux Anthropiques et Environnements Forestiers de Guyane Française du Tardiglaciaire a l’Holocène Récent: Approches Chronologique et Anthracologique. Thèse, Université de Montpellier II. Trinidad and Tobago (1934) ‘Report of the Committee Appointed to Consider and Report on the Report of the Conservator of Forests on Forestry in Trinidad and Tobago’, Trinidad and Tobago Council Paper, No. 56, 1924. Port of Spain, Trinidad: Government Printing Office. Troup, R.S. (1926) ‘Note on Captain R.C. Marshall’s Report on Forestry in Trinidad and Tobago’, pp. 3–5 in Forests: Despatch from the Secretary of State for the Colonies, 22/12/1925, relating to the Report on Forestry in Trinidad and Tobago by the Conservator of Forests. Trinidad and Tobago Council Paper, No. 8, 1926. World Commission on Forests and Sustainable Development (WCFSD) (1999) Our Forests: Our Future, Summary Report of the World Commission on Forests and Sustainable Development. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

PART III

COMPANY-COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIPS

CHAPTER SIX

PARTNERSHIPS BETWEEN FORESTRY COMPANIES AND LOCAL COMMUNITIES: MECHANISMS FOR EFFICIENCY, EQUITY, RESILIENCE AND ACCOUNTABILITY Sonja Vermeulen and James Mayers* The international wood fibre industry is increasingly global in character. Forest products form the third largest category in international trade and the ten largest companies produce forty per cent of global turnover. But globalisation of markets, capital flows and technology is countered in some places by increasing ‘localisation’ brought on by demands for greater decentralisation and democratic local governance. Twenty-five per cent of the global forest estate is now owned or controlled by indigenous and rural communities (White and Martin 2001). One response to the simultaneous pulls of globalisation and localisation is the emergence of partnerships for the production of wood fibre between multi-national forestry companies and local community groups or individuals. At least twenty-two countries around the world now have one of more examples of company-community forestry partnerships for wood fibre production1 (Mayers and Vermeulen 2002). These kinds of partnerships are being promoted through international development discourse, such as the 2002 Earth Summit, as a key mechanism for making progress towards sustainable development on a global scale. Globalisation has brought greater international mobility of trade, investment and information—but not labour or land. For communities with forest resources, a globalising economy increases opportunities for local groups to exploit their particular comparative advantages (for instance proximity to the resource, competitive labour costs and * Forestry and Land Use Programme, International Institute for Environment and Development, 3 Endsleigh Street, London WC1H 0DD, United Kingdom. E-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]. 1 This chapter is restricted to forestry partnerships in which the core business is wood fibre production, mainly for the pulp and paper industry. Company-community partnerships in other forest market sectors, such as NTFPs, ecotourism and environmental services, are not explored.

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integration within local economies; Scherr et al. 2003) and to gain technology and market access. At the same time, it creates pressure to produce forest products at the lowest possible cost, often rewarding management that lacks adequate social and environmental investments. A political economy view characterises multi-national agribusiness as subject to two contradictory aims: appropriation of local land and labour and substitution of more profitable secondary processing and distribution activities for less profitable primary production (Singh 2002). Forestry, with a long-cycle crop, should be less vulnerable than agriculture to hit-and-run tactics by large companies and thus may offer better chances of developing working partnerships. At best, company-community forestry partnerships hold promise of new and equitable livelihood opportunities for local residents along with secure, cost-effective primary production for industries with commitment to social and environmental outcomes. Achievement of these ideals will depend to a large extent on how far the partners are able to overcome the practical difficulties of establishing and maintaining multi-scale arrangements. This chapter reviews the operational features affecting the immediate efficiency, equity and durability of a broad typology of company-community forestry partnerships, with a focus on key practical challenges and solutions from actual experience, based on a global review of forestry partnerships coordinated by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) (Mayers and Vermeulen 2002), which builds on key earlier publications on this topic (Roberts and Dubois 1996; Arnold 1997; Desmond and Race 2000). Research Methods and Terminology This chapter draws primarily from a three-year research project on company-community forestry partnerships coordinated by the IIED. For clarity, ‘partnerships’ here refer to the range of relationships and agreements that are actively entered into, on the expectation of benefit, by two or more parties. This chapter uses the term partnership to describe a very wide spectrum of deals, contracts and informal arrangements between companies and communities, with third parties playing important supportive roles (Table 6.1). ‘Companies’ are defined here as formal organisations set up to make profit. ‘Communities’ include individual small-scale tree-growers or landholders, but also other local residents and institutions. ‘Forestry’ refers

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Table 6.1 Typology of company-community forestry partnerships by partner COMMUNITY PARTNERS

C O M P A N Y

Forest product buyer, processor (large-scale)

Individual land owners/tree growers

Individual tree users

Group of land owners/tree growers

Group of tree users

Out-grower schemes for timber, pulp, commodity wood or NTFPsa

Product supply contracts

Out-grower schemes

Product supply contracts

Farmer outprocessing

Joint venture for timber or pulp

Community processing or farmer outprocessing

Farm forestry support and crop share arrangements

P A R T N E R S

Corporate social responsibility project Contracts by communities: commodity wood Group/ community certification with company support

Forestry concession or plantation owner (large-scale)

Land leased from farmers

Co-management for NTFPs

Small local production/ processing enterprise

Credit/product Product supply supply agreements agreements

Concessions leased from communities

Co-management for NTFPs

Corporate social responsibility project Credit/product supply agreements

Product supply agreements

Joint ventures Environmental service company a

Forest environmental service agreements

Non-timber forest products. Source: adapted from Mayers 2000.

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to the management of trees and forests for goods and services, with a focus in this chapter on the management of planted and natural forest for the production of wood fibre. The purpose of the research on partnerships was to examine ways in which large- and small-scale private sector wood fibre enterprises can work together with communities, so that both get what they need out of forest resources. The research aimed to test two main linked hypotheses: 1. Partnerships between companies and communities can produce environmental and social forest goods and services as well as fibre. 2. The conditions can be identified under which partnerships are, and are not, efficient, equitable and sustainable. This chapter focuses on the second of these hypotheses, in particular the operational conditions that bring desired outcomes to both companies and community partners. It seeks to identify the key operational constraints to company-community forestry partnerships in achieving efficiency, equity and sustainability, and the operational innovations that may overcome these constraints. Two facets of the complex concept of sustainability are explored: resilience, taken to mean capacity to mitigate risk and withstand shocks, and accountability, taken to mean capacity to respond to legitimised systems of recourse and control. The research investigated partnerships in a wide range of countries selected in three ways. First, a review of literature and undocumented experience was garnered from companies and collaborating organisations in Australia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Philippines, Portugal, Solomon Islands, Thailand, the USA, Vanuatu and Zimbabwe. Second, longterm country studies were carried out by partners in four countries— China, India, Papua New Guinea and South Africa—chosen to represent a range in policy environment, community rights and structure, company profiles, forest resource value and prevailing types of forestry for fibre production. Finally, three case studies were conducted in countries hosting particularly educative contexts and partnership types: Canada, where indigenous communities have been able to operate as companies themselves and to form joint venture arrangements with other investors in forest management; Ghana, where legally obliging social responsibility agreements have been successfully developed as part of timber utilisation contracts; and Indonesia, where a long history of company-community relationships reveal much about

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Table 6.2 Overview of key country case studies of company-community partnerships Country

Land tenure context

South Africa

Some community land; some large private plantations; many smallholdings: land redistribution is taking trend away from large-scale towards smaller-scale

• Out-grower schemes for non-timber forest products and pulp • Corporate social responsibility projects • Joint ventures: pulp

Big companies run schemes providing significant local livelihood benefits; scheme management in part contracted out to NGOs; cooperatives and unions also established as alternatives to big company partners; and communities forming trusts to enter into joint ventures

India

Many smallholdings and some commons; by law companies do not have any access to large tracts of land for plantations so they must source raw materials from smallscale growers

• Farm forestry support: commodity wood and pulp • Farm forestry cropshare: pulp

Rapid evolution of partnership schemes from free seed supplies, through bank loan contracts to looser buyer arrangements with companies concentrating on developing high quality tree clones

Indonesia

About 75 per cent of land is classified as state forest and under government control though most is contested; otherwise smallholdings

• Out-grower scheme: commodity wood • Co-management for non-timber forest products and service contracting

Schemes dependent on high levels of government support which is not always forthcoming; some progress now towards revenue sharing in the long-established tenant farmer (taungya) schemes

Papua New Guinea

97 per cent of land is held under customary ownership: companies must negotiate with communities to operate logging concessions or plantations

• Concessions leased from communities • Potential joint ventures • Contracts from communities: commodity wood and out-grower scheme

Communities are able to register as companies but there are problems with accountability; novel legal mechanisms exist to foster forestry development on customary land

Ghana

Most land is under customary tenure: companies must reach government-sanctioned arrangements with local owners 80 per cent of forest reserves are under customary tenure with varying splits of rights between customary groups and central government: companies often have to negotiate with both

• Corporate social responsibility policy

Workable system for participatory planning of company (and community) social responsibility built into tender process for logging permits Communities are able to register as companies; wide-ranging deals have allowed business diversification for both partners

Canada

Types of schemes reviewed

• Joint ventures, cooperative business arrangements and forest services contracting

Notable features

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the contexts under which conflict and cooperation arise. For an overview of the main characteristics of these case studies see Table 6.2. Efficiency and Equity: Transaction Costs and Power Sharing One of the major challenges for companies is how to deal with a large number of scattered farmers or groups—not only how to collect or distribute raw materials and products efficiently, but also how to negotiate, determine roles, reach agreements, establish cost-benefit sharing mechanisms (with groups and within groups) and continually review the arrangements. Communities of course suffer from similar problems of scale that beset companies. As individuals, they have limited ability to negotiate efficiently and effectively, or to access affordable services such as transport. Companies tend to favour simple, replicable models for dealing with transaction costs, based on standardised contracts and a clearly delimited set of extension services and channels for communication (Table 6.3). The simplicity in itself may be an asset in attracting farmers and communities but may also be at the expense of the flexibility required to make deals suit local circumstances and bring benefits to local livelihoods. More effective company strategies devolve power and budgets to local staff, particularly those field staff who take most responsibility for outreach and operational management, while maintaining core principles of partnerships (a ‘loose-tight’ model of management). Third parties can also be crucial in spreading the costs of transaction. In China, government forest bureaux play a useful brokerage role between groups of farmers and multinational forestry companies (Wenming et al. 2000). For communities, the key solution is to create economies of scale by joining or forming farmers’ groups, cooperatives and other associations. Even small associations can improve efficiency significantly, as cooperatives of women out-growers have discovered in South Africa (Cairns 2000). Locally based, smaller organisations may offer better services to communities: Indian out-growers have found that cooperative banks process loans much more quickly than the bigger commercial banks (Saigal and Kashyap 2000). Potential solutions that have not yet been widely tested centre on taking advantage of existing systems such as government extension services, rural development NGOs, agricultural market channels and agribusiness out-grower schemes.

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Table 6.3 Efficiency and equity in company-community forestry partnerships: examples of key constraints and successful innovations Constraints

Innovations

High transaction costs for growers/ communities In the Picop pulp out-grower scheme in the Philippines, those with smaller land holdings could not afford to invest their time.

Cooperatives and working groups In India, local cooperatives help with small-scale loans and affordable transport. The Jant Limited wood chipping operation in Papua New Guinea sub-contracts reforestation to local small enterprises.

High transaction costs for companies Pioneer Tobacco, Ghana, invests in an unprofitable teak out-grower scheme and in equally unprofitable social responsibility projects to mitigate the negative image of the tobacco industry. Forestry contracts with First Nations (native aboriginal clans) in Canada stumble due to high demands on company staff time.

Contract out/establish models In joint ventures for pulp plantations in China the government forestry bureaus take on a brokering role between foreign companies and farmers, while in out-grower schemes, joint ventures and corporate social responsibility with two pulp-processing companies in South Africa management is sub-contracted to NGOs. Model joint ventures can subsequently be more cheaply replicated, as in the case of Australian Newsprint Mills’ risk-sharing joint venture for plantation forestry with farmers.

Too many site-specific factors to replicate model schemes Single model approaches have limited widespread uptake of pulp out-grower schemes in Thailand.

‘Loose-tight’ management approaches Aracruz Cellulose in Brazil offers three types of flexible contract to pulpwood out-growers; Border Timbers in Zimbabwe offers individually negotiated contracts and local comanagement between company and landholders for the production of poles from eucalypt woodlots

Poor bargaining position and policy influence by small tree-growers In spite of strong community land rights, national policy in Papua New Guinea reflects the interests of elites only.

Formal groupings and organisation South African small growers are now represented alongside big companies in national-level private sector forestry associations.

Source: Mayers and Vermeulen 2002.

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Similarly, existing farmer associations could work as a starting point, such as local sellers’ groups and cooperatives, or integrated pest management groups and national networks. Experience across a range of partnerships suggests that shared decision-making, based on differentiated but comparable sets of powers and responsibilities for each partner, will increase not only equity but also efficiency (Mayers and Vermeulen 2002). Dealing with a more equal partner reduces conflict and allows access to acknowledged systems of recourse such as company law. A recent review of partnerships between civil society organisations and industry concluded that sharing of power was critical not only for equity but for the resilience of the partnerships (Ashman 2001). In spite of the clear advantages of equity within partnerships, forestry companies continue to resist power sharing and the onus rests on community partners to raise their own bargaining power (Cairns 2000; Gunawan and Muhtaman 2000). Alliances2, ranging from small-scale growers and sellers groups to national-level federations and trade unions, are fundamental not only to lowering operating costs but also to amalgamating the bargaining power of community partners in deals with large companies. Unfortunately, to date there is little evidence that farmers’ groups in either forestry or contract farming (Baumann 2000) have become platforms for collective action, either to negotiate with companies or to organise around other issues. Well-organised representation of the interests of community partners has occasionally emerged in deals, but it does not appear that the existence of deals is what promotes development of bargaining power among community groups. The best progress has been made in countries that already have strong traditions of political and labour organisation, such as Canada and Mexico (Bray et al. 2003). Another good basis for bargaining power is effective control over resources of importance to the company. A pertinent example comes from Indonesia, where the tourism cooperative Kompepar in Kuningan used this power to negotiate a management deal with the company Perhutani, effecting a win-win outcome in which revenues increased for both sides (Gunawan and Muhtaman 2000). 2 The term ‘alliances’ refers here to institutions for collective action (by timber producers), whereas ‘partnerships’ refers to describe arrangements between companies and timber producers.

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Successful partnerships can go on to use their cooperation as a foundation for bargaining with third parties. For instance, the pulp and paper companies Sappi and Mondi in South Africa have used their out-grower schemes to lobby government for more rural roads (Cairns 2000), and the Canadian Babine Forest Products—a joint venture between two private companies and the Burns Lake Native Development Corporation, owned by five local First Nations—won a substantial government research grant on the basis of its partnership (Babine 2001). In the USA, as in Japan and Europe, farmers’ associations have successfully used tactics such as petitions to governments and development of alternative markets to improve their own policy influence (Welsh 1997). In South African forestry, there is a convincing argument that growers’ associations may achieve greater equity within partnerships and better market standing through lobbying of government than through direct bargaining with industry (Cairns 2000). Resilience: Coping with Risk Forestry is a long-term and uncertain business, and dependence on a partner adds another element of risk. Paradoxically, a primary motive for both company and community partners to enter into forestry partnerships is mitigation and sharing of risk (World Bank 2001). Large-scale wood fibre companies favour out-grower schemes as a means of avoiding production risks. Small-scale tree-growers, who bear the risks of production, are attracted to contractual deals to pass market risk onto the company. In the agricultural sector, Warning and Soo Hoo (2000) observe a tension between large agribusinesses’ preference to reduce transaction costs by dealing with larger scale farmers versus the more stable arrangements that are possible with smaller scale farmers who tend to be more risk-averse. Resilience in the face of risk and shocks can be built into the contractual arrangements between company and community. Capability to resolve uncertainty and cope with risks may be improved where schemes are introduced and modified in mutually reviewed phases, with both sides keeping ambitions simple at first, according to a ‘learning cycle’ philosophy. Out-grower schemes in Indonesia and Australia have benefited from renegotiation of contracts as market conditions

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have changed. Similar flexibility can be built into the more technical aspects of tree-growing partnerships in order to reduce associated risks. A persistent problem in South Africa has been out-growers harvesting immature trees and thus losing out on profits, simply because they panic about mounting debts to the partner company. A solution to this is to design farming systems to include early revenues from trimming trees, partial harvesting or intercropping (Table 6.4). Third parties in company-community partnerships also face considerable uncertainty. Civil society organisations that play important roles as representatives, managers or mediators are in practice often financially vulnerable due to an over-dependence on a single source of funding (Ashman 2001), rendering the partnership itself vulnerable. Government may take on a share of financial risk by underwriting investment or offering soft loans, as seen in Indonesia and Canada, but this can render partnerships overly dependent on external funding rather than internally generated revenues. An alternative governmental investment could be to improve business services such as access to market information (Scherr et al. 2003). Risks will also be mitigated if company-community deals consider and take advantage of the trade-offs and compatibilities between forest goods and services, and between forestry and other land uses. Local groups seek multiple benefits from forests for different purposes. Emphasis on single commodities in forest areas has historically been associated with community disenfranchisement and poverty after a short boom. Simple forestry models, as opposed to accommodating mixed land use, may prejudice against local livelihoods by encouraging broad-scale transformation of rural landscapes to forestry, and a type of forestry based on single species and single products. When markets are dominated by economies of scale, farm-forest landscapes are unlikely to be condoned or profitable. Under pressure from community partners, some companies have conceded better terms for multi-purpose forest management in agreements with out-growers and tenant farmers. For example, allowing agroforestry in teak and pine plantations has long been a labour strategy for commercial forestry operations in Indonesia. More recently the state-owned company, Perhutani (presently in the process of privatisation), which manages the forests of Java for maximum production of teak (Tectona grandis) and a small number of other species, has allowed wider spacing of timber trees and a greater variety of both tree and crop species to suit local preferences (A. Aliadi, personal communication). In South Africa, companies have found that intercropping with legumes

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Table 6.4 Resilience in company-community forestry partnerships: examples of key constraints and successful innovations Constraints

Innovations

Poor predictions of yields/markets Farmers’ loans outweigh their eventual profits so they remain in debt to the company, for instance in the crop-sharing deal with paper manufacturer Ballarpur Industries Ltd, India. Farmers enter into land lease contracts for timber with companies with little information as to whether pine plantations are the best use of land in Georgia, USA.

Flexible contracts and shared learning philosophy Renegotiable arrangements are key to durability for Australian Newsprint Mills and wood-fibre producer Wirakarya Sakti, Indonesia. Westvaco, a large pulp and papercompany in the USA, offers joint planning and monitoring to landowners with whom it has entered into a purchase agreement.

Over-dependence on a single product with a volatile market Spectacular market crashes led to the demise of Eucalyptus growing for wood fibre in parts of India. Poor prices led to demise of pioneering Picop pulp out-grower scheme in Philippines.

Multi-cropping and multi harvesting Best practice schemes encourage intercropping, for instance with fruit and vegetables in the informal sawlogs growing scheme of Kolombangara Forest Products, Solomon Islands, or multi-stage harvesting, for instance the Jant Limited wood chipping operation in Papua New Guinea.

Absence of non-forestry alternatives in the local economy Landholders in China are stuck in low profit wood fibre production due to lack of non-forestry options locally.

Entry into secondary processing, service industries, or environmental service markets First Nation companies in Canada have branched into wood processing, haulage, road building, NTFP production, ecotourism, mapping and managerial services.

Lack of access to insurance for small-scale tree growers South African pulp out-growers harvest early and lose profit due to lack of security; arson has been a problem.

Group insurance packages or contractual insurance Insurance cover or minimum price assurance can be provided by insurance companies, the company, or government, for instance in the case of Andhra Pradesh, a former pulp out-growing scheme in India.

Source: Mayers and Vermeulen, 2002.

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in the first two years not only gives growers early income, but also improves soil fertility (Cairns 2000). Where markets for raw materials are more competitive, as in India, small-scale producers of wood fibre are not controlled by minimum hectarages under trees and are able to divide land among multiple uses, sometimes confining trees to small strips along field boundaries (Saigal and Kashyap 2000). Adaptability and increased diversity of production systems can be enhanced where both companies and communities consider activities other than tree growing. Large corporations tend to favour secondary processing, distribution and marketing over production, which is less profitable. Community partners have increased their returns where they have been able to break into secondary processing, on either a revenue-sharing basis (for instance South Africa, Indonesia) or through direct participation (for instance Canada). Service industries, non-timber forest products and ecotourism have also proved profitable in various contexts, but particularly where community partners are able to establish a formal business entity, such as cooperatives in Indonesia (Gunawan and Muhtaman 2000) or small-scale share-based companies in Canada (Institute on Governance 1998). Emerging markets for the management of forests for environmental services such as watershed protection, carbon storage, biodiversity conservation and landscape amenity offer promising future options (Landell-Mills and Porras 2002). The typical business approach of coping with risk through financial insurance is a missing ingredient from company-community deals because small-scale farmers are unable to secure insurance policies (Table 6.4). Like the banking sector, where smaller scale cooperative banks have turned out to offer more reliable and efficient services to communities than larger banks have been able to provide (Saigal and Kashyap 2000), small local insurance services may find a niche as a service provider to company-community forestry collaborations. Small-scale farmers and community groups could also benefit from using growers’ associations or other groups to provide an attractive business option for agricultural insurance companies. Accountability: Conflict, Recourse and Public Policy Defaulting on contractual agreements can bring considerable costs to both company and community partners over and beyond the

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immediate financial losses or gains that accrue from taking business elsewhere. In India, small-scale tree growers filed 550 court cases against the Western India Match Company (Wimco) Limited, based either on dissatisfaction with the technical assistance or on attempts to make the company responsible for the loan default proceedings. Meanwhile, the company got involved in 2,332 arbitration cases in an attempt to recover its dues for seedlings and technical services from the farmers (Saigal and Kashyap 2000). More flexible contracts and payment at actual market prices can reduce the likelihood of broken contracts (Table 6.5). Other solutions include agreement within the contract itself on conditions for arbitration and pre-defined penalties for defaulting for both sides. However, contracts cannot be the only or entire means of coping with defaulters. Contracts are interpreted very differently by different contractees (Singh 2002) and can hold inherent disadvantages. In Papua New Guinea, for example, the contract process in the ‘lease, lease back’ system3 that has been developed in the oil palm industry as a legal mechanism to allow foreign companies more secure long-term access to customary land was long and expensive (Hunt 2002). Even the most productive of partnerships incorporate some conflict, and as relationships move forward new sources of conflict arise and need to be managed. Conflict can arise from many issues; often the basic problems of limited resources and differences in outlook are the underlying problem, exacerbated by perceptions of inequitable treatment or violations of rights. Usually these tensions have deep historical roots, often long-standing conflicts over land, as in Canada and Indonesia. Furthermore, both sides make mistakes. For instance, inaccurate price forecasting at the beginning of out-grower schemes is more likely to be an optimistic error than a deliberate ploy by companies to lure farmers into unsound land uses (Nawir et al. 2002). Dispute resolution mechanisms need ideally to be built in from the start of any arrangement between companies and community partners. In practice, finding a mediator legitimised as ‘neutral’ by both 3 Under the ‘lease, lease-back arrangement’ the government leases land from customary owners and then leases it back to a legal entity formed by members of the same clan. This provides the customary owners with a negotiable title over the land that can be negotiated with a third party (for instance a bank, company or individual) to arrange finance for development, or to sub-lease on whatever terms and conditions are agreed upon. At the expiry of the term of the lease by the state, the land reverts back to the customary landowners.

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parties can be prohibitively expensive, for example where local third parties are already too involved in partnership dynamics (Table 6.5). Central government taking on a leading role in setting overall terms for conflict resolution and providing mediation services has been a solution in China and South Africa. In cases of violent conflict, the governments of the USA and the UK have developed a set of voluntary principles on security and human rights, which has been adopted widely by multi-national companies domiciled in those countries (US State Department 2001). The desire of companies to demonstrate corporate social responsibility, because it is good for business, is among the primary reasons for many companies to pursue forestry partnerships with local communities in the first instance. However, internationally the forest industry is divided by competition, pricing power and the processes of acquisition and merger. Corporate responsibility initiatives are inadequate for two major reasons, because they allow corporations to win at the expense of smaller livelihood-oriented enterprises, and because they cannot address the deeper systemic problems of corporate power. Voluntary corporate approaches are insufficient to provide the incentives for business to adopt more socially and environmentally positive practices (Christian Aid 2004). Where the market is unable to deliver an acceptable balance between costs and benefits, or distributes the costs and benefits unfairly, efforts should be focused on generating sufficient strength in public policy to set effective frameworks (Table 6.5). In reality, many partnerships continue to encounter problems with the public policy environment. Devolution of responsibility to communities without corresponding building of capacity to make informed decisions and trade-offs between long-term sustainability and shortterm gain is not likely to foster sustainable forest management. Much enabling governmental policy, such as mechanisms for small-scale company registration, remains opaque or difficult to access by community partners, while they may bear a disproportionate load of regulation relative to large companies (Bass et al. 2003), particularly multinationals that are able to avoid compliance to national laws. Well intentioned but overcomplicated bureaucracies have stymied development of forest ecotourism projects in South Africa (Ashley and Ntshona 2003). These ongoing concerns are countered by evidence of a wide range of successful, innovative policy initiatives. Several governments around

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Table 6.5 Accountability in company-community forestry partnerships: examples of key constraints and successful innovations Constraints

Innovations

Farmers renege on agreement to sell to company Major losses to company when farmers sell trees elsewhere, as occurred for instance to the Western India Match Company (Wimco), India, and the Phoenix Pulp and Paper Company, Thailand.

More flexible contracts/Pay market price Companies respond to competition by paying the market price to keep growers loyal, for instance Aracruz Cellulose, Brazil, and Swiss Lumber, Ghana, or even over the market price to guarantee supplies, such as in the case of Wanda Bamboo Products, China.

Companies renege on agreements with farmers/communities US timber giant Boise Cascade abandoned a five year forestry revenue-sharing and capacitybuilding deal with land-owning ejidos communities in Mexico after pressure from environmental groups in USA.

Increase community investment security Smurfit Cartón de Colombia—an established company with a reputation it cannot afford to lose— makes long-term contracts with out-growers who receive all plantation rights and benefits if the company pulls out.

Dispute resolution mechanisms too expensive Hundreds of small claims by and against Wimco in India went to court. RAPP-APRIL Fibre Supplies in Indonesia was unable to find neutral mediation at an affordable price.

Avoid dispute through ‘marriage guidance’ South African government set up the Forest Enterprise Development Office as a pilot to act as a broker, adviser and firewall between communities and potential private sector investors.

Corporations not answerable to local grievances Voluntary ‘corporate responsibility’ is inadequate to address environmental and social concerns, as shown by the Iisaak joint venture logging operation between the Nuu-chahnulth Tribal Council and the Macmillan Bloedel forestry company at Clayoquot Sound, Canada, and the taungya scheme between Perhutani and local farmers, Indonesia.

Government policy incentives in addition to corporate and civil action Canada has kick-started partnerships but avoided over-reliance on government funding. Novel landleasing policy in Papua New Guinea stimulates new forestry land uses.

Source: Mayers and Vermeulen, 2002.

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the world have developed specific policies to encourage companycommunity deals. Social responsibility agreements in Ghana are enshrined in legislation governing timber utilisation contracts (Yeboah 2001). In South Africa the rules set to govern the process of privatising publicly owned plantations require successful bids to demonstrate that communities have some stake in ownership (Cairns 2000). Canada has a programme to develop First Nation business initiatives through partnerships with better-established companies (Institute on Governance 1998). These kinds of policy changes have been fundamental to creating an appropriate climate for deals to develop. They do not entail forestry policy alone, but much broader considerations such as land distribution and titling, domestic and international trade and national agendas for food versus cash crop production. Conclusions and Recommendations An initial hypothesis proposed that the conditions under which partnerships are, and are not, effective in terms of efficiency, equity and sustainability can be identified. Certainly, for the operational factors that form the subject of this chapter, it is possible to identify sets of conditions that militate against effectiveness—constraints—and conditions that overcome these constraints to favour effectiveness—innovations. But these conditions based within the structures and processes of partnerships are insufficient to predict the full suite of outcomes from any one multi-scale forestry partnership. Historical and cultural factors, both within and around any company-community partnership can be overriding determinants of outcomes (Singh 2002) and partnerships are always strongly subject to prevailing public policy and market contexts. Analysis of conditionalities and success factors for multi-scale partnerships is more likely to be useful if designed to address the form, function, history, culture and context of each partnership. Such holism makes generalisation across contexts difficult, but general lessons are useful to prospective partners and the third parties who support them. With this in mind, a set of possible principles for developing company-community partnerships can be derived from the lessons learned about failure and success:

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1. Mutual respect of each partner’s legitimate aims. 2. Fair negotiation process where partners can engage and make informed, transparent and free decisions. 3. Learning approach —allowing room for disagreement and experimentation, treating deals as learning processes. 4. Realistic prospects of mutual profits—requires work to accurately predict and secure partner benefits commensurate with their contributions. 5. Long-term commitment to optimise the returns from deals—as strategic commercial, as well as socio-cultural and environmental, ventures (for instance overcoming short term risk aversion caused by rises and falls in pulp markets)—since both trees and trust take a long time to develop. 6. Equitably shared risks—accurate calculation and sharing of risks in production, market, social and environmental terms, planning for a mix of short, medium and long term benefits and a range of low, medium and high risk investment opportunities, to attract both cautious and bold partners. 7. Sound business—practical business development principles at the core, not exploitative relationships, not public relations exercises. 8. Sound livelihoods—relationships focused on increasing capital assets of the poor, securing local rights and responsibilities, developing the capacities and comparative advantage of local institutions, and incorporating flexible and dynamic implementation paths. 9. Contribution to broader development strategies and programmes of community empowerment, and integration of partnerships within wider national and local land use and development frameworks. 10. Independent scrutiny and evaluation of partnership proposals and monitoring of progress. Generalised and voluntary principles are not enough to secure efficient, equitable and sustainable company-community forestry partnerships. Nonetheless, they can provide guidance and set standards for partners and third parties. In operational terms, ways forward for all parties hinge to a great extent on their ability to use one another’s languages: to express business objectives in terms of local development and poverty reduction outcomes, or livelihood objectives in terms of enterprise opportunities and impacts. The anticipated future of company-community forestry partnerships is a greater diversity of more sophisticated deals and a better balance between the partners.

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Arnold, J.E.M. (1997) Trees as Out-Grower Crops for Forest Industries: Experience from the Philippines and South Africa. Rural Development Forestry Network, Network Paper 22a (Winter 1997/98). London: Overseas Development Institute (ODI). Ashley, C. and Ntshona, Z. (2003) Transforming Roles but not Reality? Private Sector and Community Involvement in Tourism and Forestry Development on the Wild Coast. London: Overseas Development Institute and Cape Town: University of Western Cape. Ashman, D. (2001) ‘Civil Society Collaboration with Business: Bringing Empowerment Back’, World Development, Vol. 29, pp. 1097–1113. Babine. (2001). ‘About Babine First Nations Participation’.URL: http://www.babineefmpp.com/babine/index.html. Bass, S., Mayers, J. and Vermeulen, S. (2003) ‘Forest Policy and Practice since the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development’, pp. 227–246 in T. Bigg (ed.) Survival for a Small Planet: The Sustainable Development Agenda. London: Earthscan. Baumann, P. (2000) Equity and Efficiency in Contract Farming Schemes: The Experience of Agricultural Tree Crops. ODI Working Paper 139. London: Overseas Development Institute (ODI). Bray, D.B., Merino-Perez, L., Negreros-Castillo, P., Segura-Warnholtz, G., TorresRojo, J.M. and Vester, H.F.M. (2003) ‘Mexico’s Community-Managed Forests as a Global Model for Sustainable Landscapes’, Conservation Biology, Vol. 17, pp. 672–677. Cairns, R. (2000) Outgrower Timber Schemes in KwaZulu-Natal: Do They Build Sustainable Rural Livelihoods and What Interventions Should Be Made? Pretoria: Council for Scientific and Industrial Research and London: International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED). Christian Aid (2004) Behind the Mask: The Real Face of Corporate Social Responsibility. London: Christian Aid. Desmond, H. and Race, D. (2000) Global Survey and Analytical Framework for Forestry Out-Grower Arrangements. Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Gunawan, G. and Muhtaman, D.R. (2000) A Case Study on a Forestry-Based Corporate Community Partnership in KPH Kuningan, West Java, Indonesia. Bogor: Lembaga Alam Tropika Indonesia and London: International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED). Hunt, C. (ed.) (2002) Production, Privatisation and Preservation in Papua New Guinea Forestry. Port Moresby: National Research Institute and London: International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED). Institute on Governance (1998) Exploring the Relationship between Aboriginal Peoples and the Canadian Forest Industry: Some Industry Perspectives. Ontario: Institute of Governance. Landell-Mills, N. and Porras, I.T. (2002) Silver Bullet or Fools’ Gold? A Global Review of Markets for Forest Environmental Services and their Impacts on the Poor. London: International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED). Mayers, J. (2000) ‘Company-Community Forestry Partnerships: A Growing Phenomenon’. Unasylva, Vol. 51, pp. 33–41. Mayers, J. and Vermeulen, S. (2002) Company-Community Forestry Partnerships: From Raw Deals to Mutual Gains? London: International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED). Nawir, A.A., Santoso, L. and Mudhofar, I. (2002) Towards Mutually Beneficial CompanyCommunity Partnership in Plantation: Lessons Learnt from Indonesia. Bogor: Centre for International Forestry Research (CIFOR). Roberts, S. and Dubois, O. (1996) The Role of Social/Farm Forestry Schemes in Supplying

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Fibre to the Pulp and Paper Industry. London: International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED). Saigal, S. and Kashyap, D. (2000) Review of Company-Farmer Partnerships for the Supply of Raw Material to the Wood-Based Industry. Delhi: Ecotech Services and London: International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED). Scherr, S., White, A. and Kaimowitz, D. (2003) A New Agenda for Achieving Forest Conservation and Poverty Alleviation: Making Markets Work for Low-Income Producers. Washington: Forest Trends and Bogor: Centre for International Forestry Research (CIFOR). Singh, S. (2002) ‘Contracting Out Solutions: Political Economy of Contract Farming’, World Development, Vol. 30, No. 9, pp. 1621–1638. US State Department (2001) Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights. Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor. Washington DC: US Department of State. URL: http://www/state.gov/g/drl/rls/2931pf.htm. Warning, M. and Soo Hoo, W. (2000) ‘The Impact of Contract Farming on Income Distribution: Theory and Evidence’, Paper presented at the Western Economic Association International Annual Meeting, 30 June 2000. Welsh, R. (1997) ‘Vertical Coordination, Producer Response and the Locus of Control over Agricultural Production Decisions’, Rural Sociology, Vol. 62, No. 4 pp. 491–507. Wenming, L., Caihong, Z., Shuai, Y., Yuanzhu, W., Fawen, Y. and Xiufeng, T. (2000) Company-Community Deals—Some Emerging Experiences. London: International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED). White, A. and Martin, A. (2001) Who Owns the World’s Forests? Forest Tenure and Public Forests in Transition. Washington DC: Forest Trends. World Bank (2001) A Globalised Market—Opportunities and Risks for the Poor. Global Poverty Report 2001. Washington DC: World Bank. Yeboah, R. (2001) ‘Short Report on Social Responsibility Agreements in Ghana’. London: International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED).

CHAPTER SEVEN

DO PARTNERSHIPS BETWEEN LARGE CORPORATIONS AND AMAZONIAN INDIGENOUS GROUPS HELP OR HINDER COMMUNITIES AND FORESTS? Carla Morsello* and W. Neil Adger** Brazilian Amazonia is rich in multi-scale company-community partnerships, particularly those related to the commercialisation of nontimber forest products. But who gains most and who loses from such partnerships? Empirical evaluations of changes in livelihoods and forest conservation are still scarce. This chapter presents results of research on the effects of the integration of the indigenous A’UkreKayapó community into fair trade markets through the production of Brazil nut oil. It examines cash income and its distribution from such agreements, impacts on traditional practices, power imbalances within partnerships and forest conservation. The chapter concludes that partnerships imply both benefits and problems, while information is needed on institutions that may guarantee successful outcomes. New Company-Community Partnerships Globalisation is changing the landscape of trade and resource use. Companies increasingly respond to a complex set of stakeholders and geographies. New pressures from these diverse stakeholders have, for example, encouraged corporations in several sectors to develop niche markets and implement voluntary corporate social responsibility practices. Globalisation has, nonetheless, been accompanied by the contrary force of localisation. Localisation is a society-based response to * School of Environmental Sciences and CSERGE, University of East Anglia, Norwich NR4 7TJ, United Kingdom; Escola de Artes, Ciências e Humanidades da Universidade de São Paulo (EACH-USP) and Programa de Pós-graduação em Ciência Ambiental, Universidade de São Paulo (PROCAM-USP). E-mail: [email protected]. ** School of Environmental Sciences, CSERGE and Tyndall Centre, University of East Anglia, Norwich NR4 7TJ, United Kingdom. E-mail: [email protected].

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increasingly distant decision-making and encompasses several mechanisms that attempt to empower civil society and to return control to local groups (Mayers and Vermeulen 2002). In forestry markets, civil society influence is demonstrated by a portfolio of actions that operate through exercising individuals’ discriminatory purchasing power, such as certification schemes, buyers’ groups or boycotting. Yet, alongside forces operating in production and consumption markets, we also observed even stronger political pressure to transfer forest control to local communities. Presently, a quarter of the world’s forests are controlled by indigenous and rural communities (White and Martin 2002). The combination of these apparently contrary forces has resulted in the development of new forestry schemes, such as the establishment of trade agreements between forest communities and corporations, often portrayed as partnerships (Vermeulen et al. 2006; see also Vermeulen and Mayers, Chapter 6). Partnerships are broadly referred to as the variety of formal or informal relations between two or more partners (Vermeulen et al. 2006; Warner 2003). In this chapter they are defined as the informal or formal relations established between medium to large companies and forest communities, whose stated minimum aim is to benefit both partners. Although still comprising a minor percentage of markets in forest products, the number of corporate-community partnerships is growing, in particular in the pulpwood trade (Mayers and Vermeulen 2002) and, in some regions, in the trade in non-timber forest products (NTFPs) (Anderson and Clay 2002). In Brazilian Amazonia, in particular, partnerships for NTFP trade are becoming common, while timber exploitation through corporate-community deals is still rare (Vidal and Donini 2004). In Brazilian Amazonia, corporate-community agreements on NTFP trade are a result of the combination of globalisation and localisation forces, stimulated by a local context that promotes the conservation of biological and cultural diversity. In this regard, trade in NTFPs has been promoted and implemented in several settings as a strategy that may allow forest conservation while improving the livelihoods of forest communities (Clay 1992; Counsell and Rice 1992). While, initially, commercialisation was primarily promoted by non-governmental organisations (NGOs), corporations now dominate the scene, having been encouraged by increased demand for environmentally and socially responsible products. Ongoing initiatives in Amazonia involve

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local, national and international companies which deal with a variety of products such as essential oils, medicinal plants, fibres and resins and various sectors, including the automobile industry (see Otsuki, Chapter 12). These corporate-community deals have attracted the attention of local and international NGOs, as well as national and regional government departments, which are all engaged in promoting them as an alternative to reconciling forest conservation and as a way of improving local well-being. It is not difficult to see why the win-win nature of partnerships has attracted so much attention. However, while the concept is appealing, there is scant empirical evidence on whether these initiatives help or hinder either the communities or the forests in which they live. Most studies in recent literature focus on wood fibre production (for instance Mayers 2000; Mayers and Vermeulen 2002; Vermeulen et al. 2006; Nawir et al. 2003; Vermeulen and Mayers, Chapter 6 of this volume). Far fewer studies focus at least partially on NTFP extraction (Anderson and Clay 2002). Hence, this chapter explores the least studied segment of corporate-communities agreements relating to NTFP trade and evaluates the likely benefits and problems that can be derived from them. We examine one of the most famous and probably oldest examples of partnerships in the Brazilian Amazon, namely the agreement between a UK-based cosmetics company, The Body Shop, and an indigenous community, the A’Ukre-Kayapó. After briefly explaining the methodology for data gathering in the following section, we examine the underlying forces in the establishment of corporate-community agreements in Brazilian Amazonia. Thereafter, we present the case of the A’Ukre-Kayapó and The Body Shop agreement. We then evaluate whether such an agreement can improve the livelihoods of indigenous communities in terms of cash incomes, impacts on traditional activities and power imbalances. After that, we explore the assertion that such agreements are an appropriate mechanism for reducing deforestation. We end by discussing the approaches and actions that may guarantee successful outcomes and present the main conclusions. Methodology Evaluation of the impacts of the trade agreement at A’Ukre relies on quantitative and qualitative data collected over 14 months of

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fieldwork (2000–2001). For the impacts on social differentiation, data was gathered via a survey of all households (N = 23) and individuals (N = 230) in the village. For the evaluation of labour tradeoffs, data was gathered from the household survey, from time allocation observations (123 observation days; 4,385 observations) and from an evaluation of agricultural plots (42 plots over two years). In addition, qualitative data came from 30 unstructured interviews with A’Ukre residents, four semi-structured interviews with two cosmetic company representatives and two Kayapó leaders involved in managing the trade. The data analysis is based on a series of bivariate and multivariate statistical techniques. Detailed explanation of the techniques and statistical results are presented elsewhere (Morsello 2002). Here we discuss the main findings and conclusions with a view to illuminating the policy implications in the light of inevitable trade-offs between corporate needs and the resilience of indigenous societies and resource-use strategies. Partnering Up In the last decade, forestry partnerships have spread in developed and emerging economies (Mayers and Vermeulen 2002). Brazilian Amazonia is being influenced by global trends and yet is also subject to local forces which determine a peculiar configuration in the establishment of partnerships. Similarly to global trends, a large proportion of the region is under the control of indigenous and extractive communities. One fifth of Brazilian Amazonia is enclosed within indigenous lands, another 4 per cent consists of protected areas where some forms of resource use are permitted (Lentini et al. 2003) and an even larger percentage is subject to informal regimes of forest communities’ management and land ownership. Brazilian Amazonia is also undergoing a process of growing social identity, arising from a broad social movement which started in the late 1980s with the emergence of the rubber tappers’ movement whose objective was to create extractive reserves (Allegretti 2002; see also Rosendo, Chapter 11) and social movements in support of indigenous rights (Fisher 1994). The proliferation of small-scale commercialisation is in many cases a result of a novel model of socioenvironmentalism brought about by social struggles, which put local communities, their knowledge and traditional resource use at the forefront of development strategies. Current initiatives to foster community

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commercialisation are supported by international initiatives, the Brazilian state and federal governments and especially by the actions of local and international NGOs (Becker and Léna 2002). The expansion of company-community partnerships is also a product of trends in specific corporate sectors. Chief among these is the cosmetics industry which is progressively shifting from industrial to natural sourcing, from animal to vegetable-based products and which is increasingly adopting corporate social responsibility practices. High rates of growth in the sector—phytotherapics markets in Amazonia are growing by 12 per cent a year—also attract Brazilian and international cosmetics companies such as The Body Shop, Aveda and Ives Rocher. The pharmaceutical and food industry’s interest in the Brazilian Amazon is also increasing. While none of the 250 most important pharmaceutical industries were engaged in either research or commercialisation activities in the area fifteen years ago, this is now the case for half of them (Enríquez 2001). The Amazonian appeal to the global society is another important driving force behind the establishment of corporate-community agreements. As announced in the best selling Brazilian magazine Veja, the Amazon is now ‘chic’ and therefore sells well (Cavalcanti and Eichenberg 1998). Companies are therefore benefiting from Amazonian appeal and are using the region as their chief trademark. The situation regarding NTFPs nonetheless contrasts with the timber sector. Community forest management of timber is still rare in Brazilian Amazonia and corporate-community agreements are even rarer (Vidal and Donini 2004). The reasons for this are unclear land rights associated with a lengthy and complicated process to secure land tenure (Lentini et al. 2003), the time it takes the Instituto Brasileiro do Meio Ambiente e dos Recursos Naturais Renováveis (IBAMA; Brazilian Institute for the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources) or the Fundação Nacional do Índio (FUNAI; National Foundation for Indigenous Affairs) to approve management plans (partly due to a lack of expertise) and, last but not least, competition with illegal logging (Vidal and Donini 2004). The A’Ukre-Kayapó and the Trade Agreement The Kayapó are a group of about 4,000 indigenous peoples from southeastern Brazilian Amazonia. The social organisation is based on nuclear and extended families, besides age sets which structure

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society, subsistence duties, ritual and currently market activities (Turner 1979). The Kayapó are considered semi-nomadic due to their traditional involvement in treks for considerable periods of the year (Werner 1983). Trekking, however, is a shrinking practice in most villages. The study site, A’Ukre village (Figure 7.1), is one of the two out of eighteen Kayapó villages that engaged in Brazil nut oil trade with the UK cosmetics’ company, The Body Shop. It is also the only village to be still involved in the trading activities (Morsello 2002). The trade agreement was signed in 1991, following an invitation by A’Ukre village leaders to the company founder during the Altamira protest of 1989 (Turner 1995). With a population of about 230 people, A’Ukre controls approximately 310,000 ha within the 3.3 million ha of the indigenous territory Área Indígena Kayapó, which encompasses another five Kayapó villages comprising an overall population of 2,000 people (Figure 7.1) (Zimmerman et al. 2001). The village is very isolated—it can only be reached by small planes—and is 220 km, or an hour’s flight away, from the nearest town of Redenção. No permanent roads lead to the village and rapids make fluvial transport to local towns very difficult. Local conditions explain why the community is still only at the early stages of market integration and why new market activities may have a significant impact. Having adopted policies of social responsibility, the Body Shop created a specific department to organise trade with socially and economically marginalised producers. In effect, the company became a pioneer and icon of the revitalised fair trade movement, which progressively included more and more corporations. The agreement with the A’Ukre-Kayapó relates to the trade in Brazil nut oil, which is used to produce cosmetics. Cash Income and its Distribution The Body Shop pays US$ 35/kg for the oil produced in A’Ukre, a considerable premium price. When the agreement was established in 1991, there was no commercial price for the oil. In spite of this, the price was undeniably a substantial amount by local standards and far above the revenue the community could receive from selling nuts. After a decade, standard oil prices became available. For instance, the only industrial producer in Brazil by then, Brasmazon, sold Brazil nut oil at an average price of US$ 8/kg in 2001 (Enríquez

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Figure 7.1 The Kayapó area in the state of Pará, Brazil

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et al. 2003). In another fair trade project in Peru, the Brazil nut oil price was US$ 4/kg (Collinson et al. 2000). The amount paid in A’Ukre was maintained even when prices for unshelled Brazil nuts dropped by about 40 per cent in 2001 (Enríquez et al. 2003). When the Brazilian Real was devalued in 1999, the company tried to convert the payment into Brazilian currency, but dropped the idea at Kayapó’s insistence. Consequently, the purchase power of the Kayapó with the same amount of Brazil nut oil sold has increased. Incomes received from producing Brazil nut oil are therefore substantial if local conditions are taken into account. The amount of oil sold is, however, too small to increase incomes radically. In A’Ukre, The Body Shop arranged to purchase a maximum of 2,000 kg of oil per year. Although rather small, in practice the yearly production has averaged 1,500 kg and surpassed the 2,000 kg mark only once (in 1998), a year of both high Brazil nut productivity and access to temporary logging roads. The company purchased the excess production itself. With regard to impacts at village level, an often-criticised aspect regarding trade deals with isolated indigenous communities is that new activities can contribute to local inequalities amongst individuals and households. This is an extremely important attribute since the surviving lowland Amazonian societies often exhibit pluralistic and egalitarian characteristics. In general, however, this is not the case with the Brazil nut oil agreement in A’Ukre. In the village, the majority (70 per cent) of adults over 15 years old received income from oil production in 2000–2001. The breadth of access to incomes derives mainly from the characteristics of both stages of oil production—collecting and processing—which rely on skills widely distributed and traditional to the Kayapó society and therefore allow a high rate of engagement. Despite widespread access, Brazil nut oil incomes do vary (mean = US$ 277; sd = 317; range = 0–1,388). These differences are a consequence of (i) how revenues are accounted for at different phases of oil production (collecting, shelling and processing); (ii) which subgroups are allowed to work in each phase; and (iii) differences in payments according to age and sex. The community itself is responsible for these decisions. Women and youngsters are particularly disadvantaged. Fewer women receive income from collecting or processing than men (around 50 per cent of the women and over 85 per cent of the men) and their mean annual income of US$ 110 (sd = 122;

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n = 60) is US$ 350 lower than that of men (US$ 467; sd = 350; n = 60) (t-test = –7.4; d.f. = 117; p < 0.001). Gender differences derive from women being paid less per hour worked in some years, because payments during the collecting phase (US$ 37 for a bag of collected nuts) are accounted for in the name of the male household head, or because men do not allow women to take part in the processing phase (grinding and pressing). In the case of distribution of incomes by age, one of the reasons for differentiation is the fact that teenagers tend to work less. However, the main reason is that they receive lower pay per hour worked. Age differentiation follows traditional local hierarchies since extra prestige and influence is granted to elders in the Kayapó society (Werner 1981). Despite slight differences, oil incomes are even able to reduce local income inequities produced by other income sources in A’Ukre (Morsello 2002). Impacts on Traditional Activities Cash incomes and their distribution are only one livelihood aspect related to trading with indigenous communities. Another important feature is whether and how trade interferes with other activities, particularly subsistence duties. This is especially important in the Brazilian Amazonian context because cash incomes from NTFP trade are usually seasonal and not high enough to allow for the abandonment of traditional subsistence practices, such as small-scale agriculture, hunting, fishing and gathering. The A’Ukre-The Body Shop partnership, as well as other similar agreements under fair trade schemes, have been established in remote locations, where the distance to markets and the transport costs are too high for people to rely on industrial or imported food. Cash income is used for several purposes, including for the purchase of a certain amount of food that usually lasts only a few weeks, or for the purchase of other items such as clothes, guns, stoves, solar panels and glass beads. However, there is no real need to purchase food since the A’Ukre-Kayapó produce enough food and there are even food surpluses. They nevertheless became used to some industrialised or imported food products when introduced to them earlier by loggers and miners and they purchase them now mainly as ‘treats’ (Morsello 2002). The Kayapó, like most other forest communities in Brazilian Amazonia, are therefore still subsistence-reliant and local conditions

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mean this situation is unlikely to change. Engagement in new market activities can therefore produce changes that, besides altering traditional practices which are closely linked to cultural aspects, may put livelihoods at risk. In A’Ukre, despite the low levels of oil production, some indirect transformations in subsistence practices already appear to be working. For instance, it appears that households which put more effort into Brazil nut oil production, or which earn higher incomes from the activity are also those which clear larger agricultural plots (Morsello 2002). In this context, greater inputs into subsistence agriculture by some households come about most probably through abandoning the practice of gathering NTFPs for own consumption and increasing the time and energy spent on agriculture. At present levels of oil production, agriculture is not being harmed and may even become more important. However, there are indications that the situation may be different in years of high Brazil nut harvests. For instance in 1998, a year of very high Brazil nut productivity, involvement in oil production resulted in the abandonment of agricultural plot clearing by some households which lacked sufficient male labour to pursue both tasks. These families experienced problems later in the year, since the food they had purchased lasted for a short period and they had no access to sufficient agricultural products. Even when they do not inhibit plot preparation, delays in clearing or planting plots may represent a risk because the productivity of home gardens in tropical forests is largely dependent on plots being cleared well in advance of burning (Conklin 1954). There are indications that delays in clearing and planting may already occur in A’Ukre, as inferred by comparison with other Kayapó groups in the same region (Sousa 2000) or historical accounts (Dreyfus 1972). This problem therefore shows how particularly important the overlap in time is between the new market activity and the preparation (clearing or planting) of agricultural plots, with the latter being a seasonally dependent task in tropical forests. In addition to transformations in subsistence practices, there are other cultural aspects that may be transformed by incorporating isolated indigenous communities in new market activities. In A’Ukre, another aspect which is apparently changing in households which put more effort into oil production is the amount of time dedicated to rituals, socialisation and leisure (Morsello 2002). These activities, particularly rituals and socialisation, are essential for the maintenance

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of culture and social bonds in indigenous communities. Hence, the impacts of market activities on subsistence and culture depend on labour-time requirements, seasonality and how the very nature of the work differs from traditional practices. For instance, the phases of Brazil nut oil production differ in their impacts. Collecting nuts partially mirrors traditional treks undertaken by some South American indigenous groups, which are considered important for the maintenance of social structure and culture (Werner 1983), but which are a shrinking activity in most Kayapó villages. The collecting phase, therefore, tends to reinforce social bonds and strengthen Kayapó social structures and culture. The oil-processing phase, by contrast, is a more solitary and individualistic task in return for hourly payment and hence deviates from traditional practices and structures. It is nonetheless the phase that allows a value-added product—namely the oil—to be sold and therefore an increase in local incomes. Partnerships and Power Imbalances Corporate-community partnerships are being promoted as a mechanism that may overcome power imbalances between trade partners, as well as improve community organisation and trade skills (Clay 1992; Tallontire 2000). Some empirical studies have indeed shown that conditions for empowerment may be created (Mayers 2000; Goulart 2003; Vermeulen et al. 2006). On the other hand, the Brazil nut oil case allows us to highlight some problems and contradictions in this regard, when dealing with Amazonian indigenous groups. In the Kayapó agreement, the company’s top-down approach and excessive involvement and control has been widely criticised (for instance Entine 1994). In A’Ukre, responsibility for all the necessary inputs, equipment, transport and management duties was indeed initially controlled by the company. However, following criticism by indigenous peoples’ advocacy groups, the control of the operation was progressively passed on to the villagers, although without any greater effort being made as regards local training. Presently, the A’Ukre community is part of a multi-ethnic indigenous peoples’ cooperative based in Altamira town which helps conclude the deal with the company and arranges the acquisition of inputs and transport. This cooperative is, however, controlled largely by the government foundation for indigenous affairs, FUNAI. Control has therefore in

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effect been transferred from the company to a third party, rather than to the community itself. The Kayapó are famous for their self-organising capacity. They were, for example, able to influence the drawing up of the 1988 Brazilian Constitution. One may well ask what makes them less empowered in their relationship with a corporation? Clearly part of the answer is the uniqueness of the interaction: indigenous groups in remote areas are not accustomed to markets and the law of contract and have little experience in operating within them. They lack previous experience and organisational skills, but more importantly differ culturally from mainstream society and are located in remote areas, which further complicates the task. Furthermore, the Brazilian government has been treating indigenous communities paternalistically for decades, ever since the initial contacts were established. Consequently, several groups often demand a similar approach from outsiders and resist transformations which are only feasible in the long term. For instance, the Kayapó insistently ask outsiders to help them in an assistencialist way, which is detrimental to raising local levels of social capital. The implementation of capacity building programmes may be important in recasting the power relationships. Capacity building programmes are often considered to be one of the great benefits generated by partnerships because they can represent a more secure and sustainable route to local development (Clay 1992; Vermeulen et al. 2006). Such programmes are, however, quite rare or inadequate within Amazonian partnerships. In the Kayapó case, for instance, capacity building was initially limited to teaching the phases of oil production and ignored managerial skills. When administration was passed on to the group, capacity building was restricted to teaching basic bookkeeping to only two community members. Consequently, the group did not acquire expertise that would allow them to enter into other trade agreements or to consolidate the production process. There are two main challenges in delivering capacity building programmes in this context. The first challenge is to design programmes for diverse communities with unique forms of social organisation and culture. Special community characteristics, such as systems of collective production, sharing and risk avoidance are usually difficult to incorporate into capacity building programmes which focus on trading. In many cases, such programmes may produce cultural disruption

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because they try to force indigenous groups to adapt to the logic of markets and mainstream society. In that case, some groups, such as the Kayapó, often resist. Second, corporations are unable and often unwilling to deliver capacity building programmes beyond the scope of their usual operations and NGOs or other organisations able to perform the role of brokers in such activities are scarce. Even experienced NGOs face similar challenges, since remoteness and local politics have hindered the development of representative organisations for several Kayapó communities, although they are increasingly important in other regions of Brazilian Amazonia. Another aspect of trade deals with corporations which may lead to power imbalances concerns premium prices and single buyers, a common feature in partnerships. Premium prices are considered to be both a great partnership benefit (Clay 1997) and a potential cause of over-dependency because they are not conducive to attracting new buyers (Corry 1993). Single buyers are in turn seen as a threat because they can set prices and production levels, thereby increasing dependency and instability (Turner 1995). Indeed, in some Amazonian partnerships for NTFP, trade exclusivity (Goulart 2003) or rights of purchasing preference are common and these increase power imbalances between communities and companies. In the Kayapó case, for instance, there is no formal agreement of exclusivity, though after a decade no new buyers were incorporated. This is also the case in other settings, such as the Yawanawa (Waddington 2002) or the Médio Juruá Extractive Reserve. Exclusivity in this case is, however, more a result of reduced markets for NTFP-based products rather than of premium prices paid. Reducing premium prices would thus have little consequence in terms of multiplying potential buyers, while they bear the risk of producing greater cultural or subsistence impacts and eventually increasing market dependence and food security risks. Forest Conservation Outcomes The promotion of forest conservation is a driving force behind corporate-community agreements. However, contradictory and often offsetting results occur when establishing enterprises in order to foster conservation (Salafsky et al. 2001). Three factors are particularly relevant in the context of Amazonian forests and indigenous groups.

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First, although NTFP extraction is generally more benign than timber extraction, it has its own set of ecological dynamics and impacts. Fruit and seed harvesting, in general, and Brazil nut gathering, in particular, are frequently presented as sustainable by definition or as generally being exploited below sustainable yields. There are, however, several indications that harvesting may undermine the regeneration dynamics of natural populations, in particular of Brazil nut populations (Peres et al. 2003). Yet corporate-community agreements for NTFP trade in the Amazon generally lack monitoring programmes, as well as management practices that mitigate adverse ecological impacts. In the A’Ukre-Kayapó case, for instance, harvesting impacts are low at the spatial scale, since only a few Brazil nut groves are accessible and thus exploited by the community. However, the most exploited Brazil nut grove is already generating signs of alteration in Brazil nut population dynamics ( J. Solorzano, pers. comm.), which may undermine harvesting in the long term. Similar trends have been reported elsewhere (Belcher et al. 2005). A second commonly neglected aspect is the indirect transformation of traditional forms of resource use that are brought about by increased market integration. This aspect is important in the context of indigenous and other subsistence-reliant forest-based communities because markets are reported to reduce the sustainability of traditional practices (Godoy 2001). The A’Ukre-Kayapó case is a good example to examine in more detail. As mentioned above, there are indications that families putting more effort into oil production are clearing larger areas for agricultural plots. Those families receiving higher incomes from oil production tend to focus more of their time and energy on hunting and less on fishing (Morsello 2002). Although these transformations are rather unimportant in view of the very low human densities in the Kayapó area, they could reduce the sustainability of indigenous peoples’ natural resource use practices in other localities or in the long run. A last and more important point refers to the ability of NTFP agreements to function as an alternative to more deleterious activities. Fair trade with indigenous groups was initially proposed as a means to provide an alternative income able to halt unsustainable activities (Clay 1992). In particular, the Kayapó deal with The Body Shop was promoted as being targeted at substituting logging and gold panning which were by then common in Kayapó lands. The initiative did not, however, accomplish this aim. Previous commentators

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(Corry 1993; Turner 1995) criticised this potential and the company now recognises its failure (Roddick 2001). Mahogany logging has not ceased in A’Ukre and gold mining is not pursued only because gold is not found in the area in exploitable quantities, despite repeated experimental prospecting by invited gold miners. Three main reasons account for the failure. First, NTFP profits cannot come close to those obtained from mahogany logging or mining concessions (Corry 1993). Increasing oil production is furthermore not feasible since it would be achieved at the expense of subsistence activities. Furthermore, logging and mining concessions are not based on direct work and that is one of the reasons why indigenous communities appreciate them. Second, implementing economic alternatives ignores the fact that people might take up new activities as complements rather than substitutes. This is particularly important when dealing with activities based on royalty payments or concessions, since they do not implicate labour trade-offs. Thirdly, alternatives may fail to work because they benefit different subgroups within society. In the Kayapó case, for instance, logging mainly benefits leaders, while the poorer segments are the main beneficiaries of Brazil nut oil production. Lessons Learned and Information Gaps As Bray and Merino (2003) argued, globalisation has both winners and losers, who may sometimes be found within the same levels of society. The case of the A’Ukre-Kayapó presented here shows there is a positive aspect to globalisation in creating niche markets for NTFPs, which may induce sustainable forest management, while creating new opportunities for low-income producers. Similar conclusions have been reached elsewhere (Anderson and Clay 2002; Brondizio 2004). Prospects are, however, not all positive and there are both benefits and problems. Amazonian NTFP markets are growing and are attracting a great deal of interest from multiple stakeholders, such as civil society, corporate sectors, governments and international organisations. Stakeholders are enmeshed in creating a new model of local development, involving not only local communities, but also the urban middleclass within and outside Brazil. Hence, the most important benefit observed is the creation of new income sources for communities, including remote Amazonian groups. A transformation in market logic

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is making commercialisation possible, despite unfavourable local conditions, because a high symbolic and aesthetic content or the entire ‘way of life’ of communities is becoming part of what is being marketed (Nigh 1997). New income sources from NTFP trade are, however, unable to raise livelihood conditions significantly (Neumann and Hirsch 2000). Income benefits are nevertheless higher than in the absence of partnerships with companies, similar to findings in partnerships for pulpwood (Mayers and Vermeulen 2002; Vermeulen et al. 2006). In order to raise incomes, a possible option is to scale up NTFP trading. However, this strategy does not appear to be feasible because increasing commercialisation brings about several problems. It may provoke increased dependence of indigenous communities on markets by impairing subsistence agriculture, but also occur at the expense of some cultural practices. A number of promising solutions may be adopted at village or landscape level. At village level, product diversification within sector specialisation (for instance cosmetic oils) has been adopted with success in some settings (Anderson and Clay 2002). The association of several NTFPs or, in some instances, NTFPs and timber may enable labour trade-off problems to be overcome, while increasing income opportunities. In addition, paying premium prices rather than increasing dependency may act as a buffer against cultural and subsistence disruption associated with increased labour demands. Nevertheless, it remains to be seen how sustainable premium prices are. The cosmetics industry, for instance, which is the leading sector in markets for Amazonian NTFPs (Enríquez 2001), is based on permanent innovation and appeal. Amazonian biodiversity is an asset in this context, allowing for continuous diversification, while limiting environmental impacts to certain species. Yet, if the Amazonian appeal fades or if niche markets go mainstream, premium prices are more likely to be abandoned and the resilience of forest-community systems may be threatened. At landscape level, the horizontal integration of several communities may be the key to gaining access to other markets and to increase production volumes. The organisation of indigenous communities in remote locations is, however, made difficult by distance, as well as by internal politics of indigenous groups. Newly created income opportunities may produce inequalities at local level which, in turn, threaten rather egalitarian indigenous

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structures. Usually, however, evaluations treat communities as homogenous entities, neglecting their inter and intra-household differences (O’Faircheallaigh 1998). Commercialisation can nonetheless be a source of local inequities and thus disrupt community cohesion, although NTFP trade has been shown to provide relatively wideranging opportunities. To realise income opportunities, several problems and constraints associated with the Amazonian indigenous context must be overcome. Location is the first barrier. Even substantive premium prices may not allow incomes to be raised to a level at which dependence on subsistence practices is avoided and this could therefore threaten a community’s food security. NTFP production is in this context closely linked to the domestic economy, which is mainly aimed at subsistence. The domestic unit faces several challenges in the transition to more intensive production forms (Bray et al. 2002). In the remote conditions in which Amazonian indigenous groups live, labour demands for NTFP commercialisation are particularly detrimental when they overlap with labour requirements for subsistence agriculture. Cultural barriers are also particularly important for Amazonian indigenous groups. Globalisation puts remote indigenous communities in contact with markets, while they lack not only the skills, but also the markets’ logical frame of mind, which contrasts with their traditional economies of use. Problems are encountered particularly when combining the hierarchies required in an enterprise with some community notions of equality (Bray and Merino 2003). Another major constraint is related to increasing community control over the trade operation and the establishment of a more equal relationship with companies. Taking over the production is difficult for illiterate communities and even more challenging for indigenous communities in the early phases of market integration, as the Kayapó case has shown. In other examples from the Brazilian Amazon, NGOs or even universities started out as intermediaries, but adopted a paternalistic attitude and also failed to empower communities or professionalise them. In other settings, forest communities adopted a different approach that proved successful in the long run. Professionalism was acquired in a transitional period by hiring professional managers, in association with new community structures to oversee management and guarantee the fulfilment of community aims (Bray and Merino 2003).

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There are several challenges that need to be overcome in order to increase successful outcomes of corporate-community deals. Firstly, in relation to community control, it has been found that social capital accumulation is key to the success of operations and the empowerment of local communities (Bray et al. 2002). The role of third parties appears to be important, although we still need information on that aspect. Specifically, we need to study the transitional and end approaches that have proven to be successful in reverting paternalistic behaviours and in allowing the empowerment of communities and not only of third parties. A second main challenge is to devise institutional requirements that are better suited to oversee corporate-community deals, while allowing for successful and sustainable relationships without putting an extra burden that may limit operations. Mayers and Vermeulen (2002), for instance, have shown the importance of endorsed formal contracts defining rules, responsibilities and rights of each partner, as well as structures of negotiation between companies and communities. These contracts and structures are, however, rather rare in the Amazonian context (but see Waddington 2002). It is argued that impartial brokers have a pivotal role to play while signing formal contracts (Warner 2003), though it remains to be seen who are the most appropriate brokers in the context of indigenous groups. Structures that overlook deals are also important, but the appropriateness of government or voluntary institutions must be evaluated. Brazilian government structures dealing with environmental and indigenous affairs have proven to have limitations to fulfil the role. Third party certification may provide an alternative, although it is necessary to evaluate whether environmental certification or fair trade certification provide the best framework in the case of Amazonian indigenous communities. In relation to forest conservation institutions, NTFPs are typically ignored by policy or are covered by forest regulations designed for timber management. No basic biophysical research has been done for most NTFPs, nor for the joint production of timber and NTFPs (Neumann and Hirsch 2000). Research is therefore needed on a number of products that are already being traded, as well as on which aspects forestry plans for NTFP extraction should focus.

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References Allegretti, M.H. (2002) A Construção Social de Políticas Ambientais: Chico Mendes e o Movimento dos Seringueiros. PhD Thesis. Brasília DF: Centro de Desenvolvimento Sustentável, Universidade de Brasília. Anderson, A. and Clay, J. (2002) Esverdeando a Amazônia. Brasília: Instituto Internacional de Educação do Brasil and São Paulo: Peirópolis. Becker, B.K. and Léna, P. (2002) Pequenos Empreendimentos Alternativos na Amazônia. Rio de Janeiro: UFRJ, Rede de Sistemas Produtivos e Inovativos Locais. Belcher, B.M., Ruiz-Pérez, M. and Achdiawan, R. (2005) ‘Global Patterns and Trends in the Use and Management of Commercial NTFPs: Implications for Livelihoods and Conservation’, World Development, Vol. 33, No. 9, pp. 1435–1452. Bray, D.B. and Merino, L. (2003) ‘El Balcón Guerrero, A Case Study of Globalization: Benefiting a Forest Community’, pp. 65–80 in T.A. Wise, H. Salazar and L. Carlsen (eds) Confronting Globalization: Economic Integration and Popular Resistance in Mexico. Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press Inc. Bray, D.B., Sanchez, J.L.P. and Murphy, E.C. (2002) ‘Social Dimensions of Organic Coffee Production in Mexico: Lessons for Eco-Labeling Initiatives,’ Society and Natural Resources, Vol. 15, pp. 429–446. Brondizio, E.S. (2004) ‘From Staple to Fashion Food: Shifting Cycles and Shifting Opportunities in the Development of Açaí Fruit (Euterpe oleracea Mart.) Economy in the Amazon Estuary’, pp. 339–365 in D.J. Zarin, J. Alavalapati, F.E. Putz and M. Schmink (eds) Working Forests in the American Tropics: Conservation through Sustainable Management? New York: Columbia University Press. Cavalcanti, K. and Eichenberg, F. (1998) ‘A Selva é Chique,’ Veja, Vol. 1571, 4 November, p. 70. Clay, J. (1997) ‘Business and Biodiversity: Rainforest Marketing and Beyond’, pp. 122–145 in N.C. Vance and J. Thomas (eds) Special Forest Products-Biodiversity Meets the Marketplace: Sustainable Forestry-Seminar Series, Vol. Gen. Tech. Report GTR-WO63. Washington DC: United States Development Agency (USDA) Forest Service. —— (1992) ‘Why Rainforest Crunch?,’ Cultural Survival Quarterly, Vol. 16, pp. 31–46. Collinson, C., Burnett, D. and Agreda, V. (2000) Economic Viability of Brazil Nut Trading in Peru. Chathan Maritime, Kent: University of Greenwich. Conklin, H.C. (1954) ‘An Ethnological Approach to Shifting Agriculture,’ Transactions, Vol. 2, pp. 133–142. Corry, S. (1993) ‘The Rainforest Harvest: Who Reaps the Benefit?,’ The Ecologist, Vol. 23, pp. 148–153. Counsell, S. and Rice, R.E. (1992) The Rainforest Harvest. London: Friends of the Earth. Dreyfus, S. (1972) Los Kayapó del Norte, Mexico DF: Instituto Indigenista Interamericano. Enríquez, G., Silva, M.A. and Cabral, E. (2003) Biodiversidade da Amazônia: Usos e Potencialidades dos Mais Importantes Produtos Naturais do Pará. Belém: Núcleo do Meio Ambiente/Universidade Federal do Pará (NUMA/UFPA). Enríquez, G.V. (2001) A Trajetória Tecnológica dos Produtos Naturais e Biotecnológicos Derivados na Amazônia, Belém: Núcleo do Meio Ambiente/Universidade Federal do Pará (NUMA/UFPA). Entine, J. (1994) ‘Shattered Image,’ Business Ethics, Vol. 8, pp. 23–28. Fisher, W.H. (1994) ‘Megadevelopment, Environmentalism and Resistance: The Institutional Context of Kayapó Indigenous Politics in Central Brazil,’ Human Organization, Vol. 53, pp. 220–232. Godoy, R.A. (2001) Indians, Markets and Rainforests. New York: Columbia University Press.

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Goulart (2003) Artesãos da Floresta. População Tradicional e Inovação Tecnológica: O Caso do ‘Couro Vegetal’ na Reserva Extrativista do Alto Juruá, Acre. MSc Thesis, Instituto de Economia, Universidade Estadual de Campinas. Lentini, M., Veríssimo, A. and Sobral, L. (2003) Fatos Florestais da Amazônia 2003. Belém: Instituto do Homem e Meio Ambiente da Amazônia (IMAZON). Mayers, J. (2000) ‘Company-Community Forestry Partnerships: A Growing Phenomenon’, Unasylva, Vol. 51, pp. 33–41. Mayers, J. and Vermeulen, S. (2002) Company-Community Forestry Partnerships: From Raw Deals to Mutual Gains? London: International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED). Morsello, C. (2002) Market Integration and Sustainability in Amazonian Indigenous Lilvelihoods: The Case of the Kayapó. PhD Thesis. Norwich: School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia. Nawir, A.A., Santoso, L. and Mudhofar, I. (2003) Towards Mutually-Beneficial CompanyCommunity Partnerships in Timber Plantation: Lessons learnt from Indonesia. Bogor: Centre for International Forestry Research (CIFOR). Neumann, R.P. and Hirsch, E. (2000) Commercialisation of Non-Timber Forest Products: Review and Analysis of Research. Bogor: Centre for International Forestry Research (CIFOR). Nigh, R. (1997) ‘Organic Agriculture and Globalization: A Maya Associative Corporation in Chiapas, Mexico,’ Human Organization, Vol. 56, pp. 427–435. O’Faircheallaigh, C. (1998) ‘Resource Development and Inequality in Indigenous Societies,’ World Development, Vol. 26, No. 3, pp. 381–394. Peres, C.A., Baider, C., Zuidema, P.A., Wadt, L.H.O., Kainer, K.A., Gomes-Silva, D.A.P., Salomão, R.P., Simões, L.L., Franciosi, E.R.N., Valverde, F.C., Gribel, R., Shepard Jr., G.H., Kanashiro, M., Coventry, P., Yu, D.W., Watkinson, A.R. and Freckleton, R.P. (2003) ‘Demographic Threats to the Sustainability of Brazil Nut Exploitation’, Science, Vol. 302, pp. 2112–2114. Roddick, A. (2001) Business as Unusual. London: Thorsons Publishers. Salafsky, N., Cauley, H., Balachander, G., Cordes, B., Parks, J., Margoluis, C., Bhatt, S., Encarnacion, C., Russell, D. and Margoluis, R. (2001) ‘A Systematic Test of an Enterprise Strategy for Community-Based Biodiversity Conservation,’ Conservation Biology, Vol. 15, pp. 1585–1595. Sousa, C.N.I. (2000) Vantagens, Vícios e Desafios: Os Kayapó Gorotire em Tempos de Desenvolvimento. MSc Thesis, Programa de Pós-graduação em Antropologia Social, Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas. São Paulo: Universidade de São Paulo. Tallontire, A. (2000) ‘Partnerships in Fair Trade: Reflections from a Case Study of Cafédirect,’ Development in Practice, Vol. 10, pp. 166–175. Turner, T. (1995) ‘Neoliberal Ecopolitics and Indigenous Peoples: The Kayapó, the ‘Rainforest Harvest’ and The Body Shop,’ Yale F and ES Bulletin, Vol. 98, pp. 113–127. —— (1979) ‘The Gê and Bororo Societies as Dialectical Systems: A General Model’, pp. 147–178 in D. Maybury-Lewis (ed.) Dialectical Societies: The Gê and Bororo of Central Brazil. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press. Vermeulen, S., Nawir, A.A. and Mayers, J. (2006) ‘Rural Poverty Reduction through Business Partnerships? Examples of Experience from the Forestry Sector’, Accepted by Environment, Development and Sustainability. DOI: 10.1007/S10668–006–9035–6. Issue: Online first. Vidal, N.G. and Donini, G. (2004) ‘Promising Business Models for CommunityCompany Collaboration in Brazil and Mexico’ p. 29 in Proceedings of the Tenth Biennial Conference of the International Association for the Study of Common Property (IASCP), The Commons in an Age of Global Transition: Challenges, Risks and Opportunities. International Association for the Study of Common Property, Oaxaca, Mexico.

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Waddington, M. (2002) ‘Incorporação de uma Nova Atividade Comercial em uma Comunidade Indígena Yawanawá’. pp. 53–66 in A. Anderson and J. Clay (eds) Esverdeando a Amazônia. Brasília: Instituto Internacional de Educação do Brasil and São Paulo: Peirópolis. Warner, M. (2003) Partnerships for Sustainable Development: Do We Need Partnership Brokers? London: Overseas Development Institute (ODI). Werner, D. (1983) ‘Why Do the Mekranoti Trek?’, pp. 225–238 in R. Hames and W. Vickers (eds) Adaptive Responses of Native Amazonians. New York: Academic Press. —— (1981) ‘Gerontocracy among the Mekranoti of Central Brazil,’ Anthropological Quarterly, Vol. 54, pp. 15–27. White, A. and Martin, A. (2002) Who Owns the World’s Forests? Washington DC: Forest Trends. Zimmerman, B., Peres, C.A., Malcolm, J.R. and Turner, T. (2001) ‘Conservation and Development Alliances with the Kayapó of Southeastern Amazonia, a Tropical Forest Indigenous People,’ Environmental Conservation, Vol. 28, pp. 10–22.

CHAPTER EIGHT

A COMPANY-COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIP FOR FSC-CERTIFIED NON-TIMBER FOREST PRODUCT HARVESTING IN BRAZILIAN AMAZONIA: REQUIREMENTS FOR SUSTAINABLE EXPLOITATION Tinde van Andel* In 1996, the Netherlands Committee for the IUCN (World Conservation Union) established the Guiana Shield Initiative (GSI) with a view to creating sustainable financial mechanisms to conserve and sustainably manage the unique tropical rain forests of the Guiana Shield. The initiative focuses on cooperation with local stakeholders, intergovernmental and international organisations and the private sector (see Chapter 10 by Van Dijck for more details). The development of commercial non-timber forest product (NTFP) extraction— defined here as all wild plant and animal products that can be harvested from forests or other types of natural and human-modified ecosystems (Ros-Tonen et al. 1995; De Beer and McDermott 1996; van Andel 2000)—is one of the means by which the GSI seeks to promote ecologically, socially and economically sustainable management in the region.1 Over the past few years, an increase in the participation of rural producers’ families and their economic and representative organisations has been noted in activities relating to the management and conservation of natural resources in the Brazilian Amazon (Oliveira 2002; see also the contributions of Morsello and Adger, Rosendo, Otsuki and Scholz to this volume). This paper discusses a case in point, namely a company-community partnership in the Brazilian Amazon region in which local harvesters and commercial producers agreed on the sustainable and certified extraction and management of two of the main commercial non-timber forest products of South America: the palm heart and fruit juice (açaí ) of

* Nationaal Herbarium Nederland, Utrecht University branch, Heidelberglaan 2, 3584 CS Utrecht, the Netherlands. E-mail: [email protected]. 1 URL:http://www.guianashield.org.

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Euterpe oleracea. This chapter addresses the question as to the conditions under which such a partnership is able to produce these products in an ecologically sustainable, economically feasible and socially equitable manner. The chapter is based on a desk-top feasibility study on commercial NTFPs of the Guiana Shield carried out for the GSI in 2002 (van Andel et al. 2003), additional literature and information from the internet and the Brazilian company in question, earlier field research on palm heart harvesting in Northwest Guyana (van Andel et al. 1998) and personal comments from NTFP experts active in the Guiana Shield. After a brief description of the partnership, this chapter deals with the nature and economic importance of E. oleracea products. Next, attention is paid to conventional exploitation techniques and how Euterpe can be managed sustainably. The last part of this chapter discusses the actions to be taken, barriers to be overcome and research to be carried out to ensure that açaí and palm heart are produced on a sustainable basis. Partnering for Certified NTFP Production in the Brazilian Amazon On Marajó Island in the Amazon Delta, the canning company Muaná Alimentos Ltd. entered into a partnership with a labour cooperative for the sustainable management of 4,000 hectares of Euterpe swamp. The firm also deals with riverside communities outside this area for the purchase of palm hearts and açaí on a sustainable and socially equitable basis. In 2000, the company produced 540 tonnes of palm heart with a value of US$ 4 million. In the same year, seven tonnes of frozen and sweetened açaí pulp were exported to the US (Buia 2001). After meeting the numerous preconditions resulting from the first assessment of the Smartwood NTFP guidelines in 1999, the Brazilian certifier Instituto de Manejo e Certificação Florestal e Agrícola (IMAFLORA; Institute for Forest and Agricultural Management and Certification) and the Smartwood network of the Rainforest Alliance certified the company’s Euterpe forests in 2000. Muaná Alimentos is the first company in South America to sell non-timber forest products with an FSC forest management certificate. The certified products were first launched onto the domestic market, after which the first six tonnes of frozen fruit pulp were shipped to the US in 2000. Muaná Alimentos now profitably exports its product to Europe. The Brazilian Terra Capital fund, which directs money from the World

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Bank, the Swiss government and other ‘green’ sponsors, invested a total of US$ 1.5 million, but the company has already paid off its bank loans (Buia 2001; Hirsch 2002). The potential certified volume of product will include 184 tonnes of palm hearts and 132 tonnes of açaí fruit per year. Muaná has an ultimate goal of certifying 40,000 hectares of natural forest for açaí production in five years, 400 ha of which is set aside for permanent forest conservation.2 Certification of NTFPs is important because the commercialisation of these products is often one of the few ways in which forestdwelling people can generate income from the biodiversity surrounding them. Several millions of people in South America, including many indigenous groups, earn a living by collecting and marketing NTFPs. However, uncontrolled extraction and low prices often cause severe overharvesting of several products, which may lead to forest degradation and even local species extinction (Nepstad and Schwartzman 1992; Richards 1993; Shanley et al. 2002). Certification of NTFPs is one of the market tools available to promote sound ecological and social practices (Clay 1996; Maas and Ros-Tonen 2001; Mallet and Karmann 2001). Forest product certification seeks to link the trade in forest products, particularly the international trade, to the sustainable management of forest resources by enabling producers and consumers to recognise products coming from sustainably managed forests (Pierce 1999). Consumers are willing to pay a higher price for products from wellmanaged forests, where environmental and social impacts are reduced to a minimum, laws are respected and employment conditions are fair (Browder 1992; Clay 1992). The most appropriate certification programme seems to be that of the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), which focuses on sustainable forest management and biodiversity conservation. Until recently, the FSC had mainly focused on timber harvesting and certifying forest management plans. Although the certification of NTFPs has received a lot of international attention in recent years, few products have been incorporated into existing certification programmes to date (Pierce 1999; Mallet 2000; Maas and Ros-Tonen 2001; Mallet and Karmann 2001). At the moment, the FSC approves NTFPs on a case-by-case basis only, based on

2

URL: http://www.smartwood.org/new/observations.html.

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preliminary guidelines (Forest Stewardship Council 2000; Brown et al. 2002). Muaná Alimentos was among the first to be certified. In order to promote sustainable exploitation practices, the company periodically provides training courses in responsible forest management to the employees and other technical courses to the community as a whole, with a special focus on cultivating Euterpe palms3 and maximising yields of fruit and palm hearts. (Buia 2001). In an industry in which exploitation of the environment and workers is the norm, Muaná stands out by refusing to employ children. It pays its workers and suppliers at least 28 per cent above the US$ 78 a month minimum wage (Buia 2001). New harvesting methods have been developed that enable extractors to gather the fruits in a safer way than before. Children now go to school and the newly founded producers’ association provides boats and fuel for school transport. The state government continues to provide support as well, since the eradication of child labour is high on its agenda. The school curriculum includes forest management and the basic concepts of nature conservation (Renström and Rainey 2001). According to the Brazilian Friends of the Earth director Roberto Smeraldi, this case is a historical step towards the sustainable production of NTFPs. He strongly recommends that Brazilian funds be invested in this business. The innovative partnership between Muaná and local communities serves as an example of how companies can effectively work to the benefit of social and environmental aspects.4 The case suggests that sustainable harvesting of palm heart, while improving the living and working conditions of local harvesters, can certainly be successful, even in an area where the overharvesting of resources was previously standard practice (Pollak et al. 1995; Hirsch 2002). For the long-term success of such a partnership, it is however necessary to review the conditions under which palm heart and açaí can be harvested sustainably.

3 The employees are encouraged to plant Euterpe near their houses for home consumption. The products for commercial use are extracted from natural forest. 4 URL: http://www.forests.org/archive/brazil/mantherf.htm.

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palm heart

inflorescence

aerial root (r = 10cm) Figure 8.1 Euterpe oleracea palm. Drawing by H. Rypkema.

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tinde van andel Palm Heart and Açaí

The multi-stemmed Euterpe oleracea palm (Figure 8.1) is widely distributed in the swamplands of northern South America, with the highest concentrations in the brackish estuaries of the Amazon and Orinoco Rivers (Huber 1995; Henderson and Galeano 1996; Ponce et al. 2000). The fruit juice and hearts of this palm are major commercial NTFPs of the Amazon region (Padoch 1987; Pollak et al. 1995; Mallet 2000; Van Andel et al. 2003). People generally harvest the fruits by climbing the palms, cutting the inflorescences and extracting the purple fruit pulp mechanically or by hand. This highly nutritious liquid, known as açaí in Brazil, assaí in Colombia and podosiri in Suriname, is processed into a beverage, ice cream, pastries and other food items. Mixed with cassava flour, rice or sugar, açaí is consumed in huge quantities by the poor section of the Amazonian population. In some parts of Brazil, people consume over two litres a day (Strudwick and Sobel 1988; de Castro 1993). The soft edible heart of the Euterpe palm consists of the young, rolled leaves in the crown shaft that have not yet been exposed to sunlight (see Figure 8.1). Palm heart or palmito can be consumed raw or cooked and is considered a delicacy in Europe and the United States. Palm hearts are only occasionally consumed by local people, but restaurants in the larger Brazilian cities commonly serve them in salads. To harvest a palm heart, an entire stem is cut down and its crown shaft removed. The palm hearts, which are protected by a few layers of older leaf sheaths, are transported to a factory, where they are cooked and canned. Although several palm species have edible hearts, E. oleracea is the world’s main supplier of canned palm hearts (Shanley et al. 2002). The harvesting of açaí and palm heart is a major source of income for indigenous and other river-dwelling people who inhabit the coastal wetlands and river banks of northern South America. In fact, many villages depend almost entirely on this industry for their cash income and food supply, as few other economic opportunities exist in the area (Anderson and Jardim 1989; Van Andel 2000; Shanley et al. 2002). The Economic Importance of Euterpe oleracea Although açaí supports the domestic economy in the Brazilian Amazon region substantially (Table 8.1), until recently it was hardly exported

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(Broekhoven 1996; Van Andel et al. 2003; Bellos 2004). The bulk (92 per cent) of açaí fruits are collected and processed in the Brazilian state of Pará (Richards 1993). The main marketing constraint of açaí is that the perishable fruits must reach the market place within 24 hours. Commercial extraction is therefore limited to areas near market centres (Padoch 1987). However, the short distances, the ease of processing and the absence of complex wholesale and export market structures result in a high proportion of the sale accruing to the producers. Most harvesters bring the fruits to the processing plants themselves, which means that few middlemen are involved. The growing popularity of health stores in South American cities, Europe and the US has stimulated the market for indigenous Amazon fruits (Bellos 2004). When frozen at –18° C, açaí pulp can be transported over long distances. Açaí is now becoming popular among Brazilian immigrants in Europe and the US and is offered for sale as frozen pulp and bottled drinks on the internet.5 In Suriname, the Euterpe fruit juice is known as podosiri and is probably the most important vegetal NTFP in the country. The palms are very abundant in the coastal swamps (Wessels-Boer 1965). Maroons and Amerindians sell large bags of ripe fruits to merchants passing by car along the Paramaribo-Moengo road. In the capital, both entire fruits and processed podosiri drinks are being commercialised. Recently, a small factory in the capital started bottling podosiri (de Dijn pers. comm.) and it is exported on a small scale to the Netherlands. Podosiri vendors in French Guiana are often Surinamese immigrants (Boven pers. comm.). Unfortunately, no quantitative data exists on the scale of podosiri harvesting and marketing in Suriname. Oddly enough, people in Guyana and Venezuela do not like Euterpe juice and the fruits are seldom harvested. A product with such a huge economic potential remains unexploited because it lacks opportunities on the domestic market. Because of its frequency and clonal, self-regenerative habit, E. oleracea is able to support a large palm heart industry in the Guiana Shield. Venezuela, Guyana and Brazil, in particular, export large quantities of palm heart to Europe and the US (Table 8.1). Brazil is the only country with a significant domestic market for palm heart, absorbing some 85 per cent of the national production (Shanley et al.

5

URL: http://www.sambazon.com or www.zolaacai.com.

US$ 19,3 million (1990)

US$ 3 million (1990) 0 US$ 2.3 million (1997) 0

$ 1 million (1997)

Brazil

Colombia

French Guiana Guyana

Venezuela

no data

subsistence use only

subsistence use only Few

US$ 100 million (1990) 138,900 tonnes (1987) 20,635 tonnes (1995) no data

Palm heart domestic market (volume in tonnes and value in US$)

0

no data available

0 0

no data

6 tonnes (2000) (Muaná only)

Açai export (volume in tonnes)

Sources: Strudwick and Sobel 1988; Richards 1993; Broekhoven 1996; Van Andel 2000; Johnson 2002.

Suriname

Palm heart export value (US$) per year

Country

substantial, but no data available 0

no data 0

no data

124,600 tonnes (1992) US$ 40 million

Açai domestic production (volume and value)

Table 8.1 Production and export value of Euterpe oleracea products from the Guiana Shield

176 tinde van andel

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2002). Palm hearts are processed and canned in factories on the banks of the major Amazonian and Orinoco tributaries. There is no palm heart-processing industry present in Suriname and French Guiana, although Euterpe oleracea does occur in harvestable quantities here. The wages in French Guiana are probably too high to compete with neighbouring countries, but in Suriname a canning industry could provide a much-needed source of income. However, palm heart is not a commercial product in Suriname and podosiri harvesters mentioned that they do not consume the product. According to Playfair (pers. comm.), some palm heart from the coastal and riverside swamps was once exported, but there is no documentation on processing factories and export figures available. Overharvesting of Euterpe Resources An individual clump of Euterpe oleracea palms may consist of up to 25 stems of different ages (see Figure 8.1). When one or more mature stems are felled for palm heart, the clump will survive and basal suckers eventually grow into harvestable stems in about four years. Since the species is locally abundant and regenerates quickly after harvesting, it is relatively easy to extract palm heart in an ecologically sustainable way (Anderson 1988; Strudwick 1990). However, when promoting açaí or palm heart harvesting as community or household-based forest production, some environmental risks need to be taken into account. Ecological research on Euterpe populations in Brazil (Anderson and Jardim 1989; Pollak et al. 1995) and Guyana (Van Andel et al. 1998; Peña-Claros and Zuidema 2001) has revealed that repeated harvesting with short rotation periods (1–2 years) causes clump mortality, slower regeneration and a steady decline in production. Overharvesting and the extraction of small-sized (immature) palm hearts have already weakened Brazil’s position on the world market, causing many riverside factories to close down (Richards 1993; Pollak et al. 1995) and national production to decline. The canning company in Guyana shifted elements of its extraction activities to the Southeast of the country after depleting large parts of its concession in the Northwest District (Van Andel et al. 1998). There are indications of unsustainable palm heart harvesting in the Venezuelan Delta Amacuro (World Bank 1999) but, although three companies are processing palm heart here, production figures are unclear and

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no research has been done on the impact of current extraction on the regeneration of E. oleracea (MARN 1999; Catalán pers. comm.). Generally, canning factories buy palm heart or açaí from independent extractors without knowing exactly where it was harvested. Most factories have obtained a government concession and are obliged to produce a management plan, but responsible government agencies have little control over the ecological and social effects of commercial harvesting (Pollak et al. 1995; Van Andel et al. 1998; Shanley et al. 2002). Low prices and dependence on the factories for food and basic commodities force extractors to work on a full-time basis and shorten rotation periods ( Johnson 1995; Pollak et al. 1995; Van Andel et al. 1998). Obviously, the indiscriminate felling of Euterpe palms also has a negative effect on the availability of açaí resources (Peters et al. 1989a; Anderson and Jardim 1989). Sustainable Management Practices Fortunately, the rural Amazonian population is increasingly implementing alternative land-use practices permitting both fruit harvest and palm heart extraction (Anderson and Jardim 1989). Harvesting palm heart at longer intervals (4–5 years) causes less damage to the natural stands and produces a higher palm heart yield. Its abundance and multi-stemmed habit enables E. oleracea to sustain a viable extraction industry, as long as rotation periods are extensive enough and producers adhere strictly to their management plans. Maintaining a minimum diameter for palm hearts (2 cm) is a powerful tool to prevent the felling of immature stems (Pollak et al. 1995; Van Andel 2000; Johnson 2002). Other sustainable management practices are selective thinning of competitive lianas and pruning to increase production (Anderson and Jardim 1989). Palm heart harvesting does not necessarily have negative consequences for fruit collection (Peters et al. 1989a; Richards 1993). Leaving intact one mature stem per cluster increases the vitality of the clump and supplies the extractor with fruits. As long as people climb the trees to collect the fruit instead of cutting all mature stems, açaí production can be considered sustainable. In Suriname and Brazil, people also cultivate E. oleracea for its fruit. Enrichment plantings in open areas should be stimulated, considering the rapid growth of the species (Strudwick and Sobel 1988). However, with such extensive wild resources at hand,

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it would not be economically viable to establish large-scale plantations of Euterpe oleracea. Discussion For Euterpe exploitation in the Guiana Shield to be ecologically sustainable, economically feasible and socially adequate, several requirements have to be taken into account. These include (a) making use of the most appropriate areas and the full potential in the area; (b) careful marketing on promising (niche) markets; (c) socially responsible labour relationships; (d) secure land tenure arrangements; (e) an enabling government policy; (f ) a proper balance with subsistence activities; and (g) measures to prevent overharvesting (the most important of which is to observe a minimal rotation period of four years in order to ensure sufficient regeneration) and the combination with less sustainable activities. Below, we examine some of these issues and formulate suggestions for further research and action. Natural Monocultures of Euterpe: The Most Appropriate Areas for Sustainable Harvesting Extractivism is more likely to be successful in forests in which only a few marketable species dominate (Browder 1992). The extensive swamps dominated by Euterpe oleracea palms are an example of these so-called ‘oligarchic forests’ in the Guiana Shield (Peters et al. 1989b; Van Andel 2000). In terms of density and yield, oligarchic forests rival many commercial fruit orchards, while they often occur on sites not suitable for agriculture, cattle ranching or logging (Peters et al. 1989b). Products from these ‘natural monocultures’, such as açaí and palm heart, have the greatest potential for sustainable harvesting. Fruit collection may cause little damage to the forest ecosystem (Peters et al. 1989a), but we have seen that palm heart harvesting may have a serious impact on Euterpe populations. The case of Muaná, however, shows that once programmes for controlled extractivism and non-destructive harvesting techniques are implemented, the management of these palm-dominated swamps can be a viable enterprise. Making Use of the Full Potential Although Euterpe oleracea occurs in large quantities throughout the Guiana Shield, the scale of its harvest and marketing differs from

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country to country. This is caused by differences in access to markets and market information, national legislation, labour and transport costs and familiarity with products on the part of the consumers (van Andel et al. 2003). In Guyana and Venezuela, large areas with Euterpe with good possibilities for sustainable açaí harvest are left untouched because the product lacks a domestic market. The management of the canning company in Guyana showed no interest in processing Euterpe fruits for export purposes, but once a stable external market is found, they might reconsider developing a conserving system for fruit pulp export. Using the existing infrastructure for palm heart collection, the revenues from palm swamps could increase significantly, resulting in more income and employment for local people. Moreover, the use of Euterpe fruits in the local diet should be promoted, as malnutrition is not uncommon in these regions (Forte 1995; van Andel 2000). Barriers to Overcome Certification is an expensive route to follow for small-scale NTFP producers and their products should therefore be marketed carefully in order to capture environmentally sensitive markets in Europe and the US. Apart from strictly following ecologically sound methods of harvesting palm heart and açaí, commercial extractors have more policy, institutional and socioeconomic barriers to remove in order to fulfil their goal of sustainable forest management. In stead of buying resources from independent harvesters, companies should hire extractors and pay them on the basis of them complying with good management practices rather than simply the volume of products harvested ( Johnson 2002). Better housing and health and education facilities for their employees will greatly reduce conflicts between extractors and the company (Forte 1995; Van Andel et al. 1998). Secure land tenure arrangements should be obtained from the relevant government agencies and harvester communities should identify their rights, roles and responsibilities and determine penalties in cases of bad practices (Shanley et al. 2002). Measures to Prevent Overharvesting The future will show us whether initiatives like those of Muaná Alimentos have a long-term effect on biodiversity conservation in the area. It remains to be seen whether people involved in sustainable

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NTFP harvesting cease other, less sustainable land-use practices, such as slash-and-burn agriculture, logging and cattle ranging. Research in Guyana revealed that part-time palm heart harvesters who also practised subsistence farming used less destructive extraction methods than full-time cutters who neglected their traditional agriculture. With few food reserves grown at home, the latter were forced to cut palm hearts to be able to provide their daily meals. This led to extreme poverty and malnutrition in overharvested areas (Forte 1995; van Andel et al. 1998). Encouraging extractors to abandon their home gardens and concentrate on NTFP harvesting can thus have fatal social and ecological consequences. This is another factor that should be taken into account when promoting community-based NTFP production. Suggestions for Further Research and Action The trade in NTFPs still represents a ‘hidden economy’. Even for economically important products such as palm heart and açaí, data on harvested quantities, provenance, number of extractors, domestic trade, export volumes and revenues is unreliable or absent (see Table 8.1). Much more research is needed on the scale and impact of palm heart harvesting in the Guiana Shield. What are the consequences for forest resources if NTFP extractors work full-time and give up subsistence farming? Monitoring the market chains of NTFPs is also essential to obtain insight into their role in the national and regional economy. Green investors and NGOs should be encouraged to engage more in certification projects with palm heart and açaí producers. Finally, methods should be developed to enhance the exchange of experiences and technology in NTFP extraction and marketing between the countries of the Guiana Shield (Van Andel et al. 2003). The Guiana Shield Initiative could play a stimulating role in this process, provided they succeed in obtaining World Bank funding to continue their programme. Conclusions Although Euterpe oleracea offers marvellous possibilities for sustainable harvesting, there is only one case where it has been authoritatively proven that commercial extraction is carried out in a responsible way. The case of Muaná Alimentos shows that the certification of

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sustainably harvested products can indeed enhance the potential of NTFPs to improve local people’s livelihood. It can be seen as an example of how partnerships between green investors in the North and a company in the South, as well as partnerships between such a company and producer organisations can enhance sustainable harvesting of forest products and provide a more secure income for extractors than destructive activities. However, this requires sufficient funds for the business to invest in entering the global food market. The way the Brazilian factory succeeded in finding partners that enabled it to do so could serve as a model for canning companies and other industrial NTFP producers throughout South America. It is not surprising that the first FSC-certified NTFPs are produced in Brazil. This country has the advantage of having large cities (such as Manaus, Belém), surrounded by endless forests, a relatively good infrastructure and large supplies of cheap labour willing to engage in collection activities (van Andel et al. 2003). Rural people that massively migrated to the cities to seek their fortune are now major consumers of non-timber forest products (Piñedo Vasquez, pers. comm.). Furthermore, Brazil is one of the few countries in the world with an active government policy on subsidising NTFP extraction and establishing extractive reserves. Brazilian institutions also have ample experience with providing technical support to communitybased NTFP enterprises (Allegretti and Schwartzman 1986; Shanley et al. 2002). Brazil is an important player in the global market and this case study suggests that globalisation—by creating niche markets for sustainably produced forest products and linking ‘green’ investors to local communities—can indeed play an important role in protecting the Amazon forests, as long as investors can be convinced that the value of an intact forest is greater in the long term than the profits to be made from destroying it (Hirsh 2002). Acknowledgements The author wishes to express her gratitude to the staff of the Utrecht branch of the National Herbarium of the Netherlands, the Netherlands Committee for the World Conservation Union (NC-IUCN) (in particular Olaf Bánki and Amy MacKinven), the former TropenbosGuyana programme, canning company Amcar (Guyana), Georges Snyder (director of Muaná Alimentos) and Mirjam Ros (University

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of Amsterdam) for their collaboration. The author also wishes to thank Americo Catalán, Bart de Dijn, Karin Boven, Maureen Playfair and Miguel Piñedo-Vasquez for sharing their field experiences relating to commercial NTFP harvesting in the region. References Allegretti, M.H. and Schwartzman, S. (1986) Extractive Reserves: A Sustainable Development Alternative for Amazonia. Washington, DC: World Wildlife Fund. Andel, T.R. van (2000) Non-Timber Forest Products of the North-West District of Guyana, Part I. PhD Thesis. Tropenbos-Guyana Series, No. 8A. Utrecht: Utrecht University. Andel, T.R. van, Huyskens, P.E. and Bröker, K.C.A. (1998) Palm Heart Harvesting in Guyana’s North-West District. Tropenbos Interim Report 98–I. Utrecht: Utrecht University. Andel, T.R. van, MacKinven, A. and Bánki, O.S. (2003) Commercial Non-Timber Forest Products of the Guiana Shield: An Inventory of Commercial NTFP Extraction and Possibilities for Sustainable Harvesting. Amsterdam: Netherlands Committee for IUCN. Anderson, A.B. (1988) ‘Use and Management of Native Forests Dominated by Açaí Palm (Euterpe oleracea Mart.) in the Amazon Estuary’, Advances in Economic Botany, Vol. 6, pp. 144–154. Anderson, A.B. and Jardim, M.A.G. (1989) ‘Costs and Benefits of Flood plain Forest Management by Rural Inhabitants in the Amazon Estuary: A Case Study of Açaí Palm Production’, pp. 114–129 in J.O. Browder (ed.) Fragile Lands of Latin America: Strategies for Sustainable Development. Boulder: Westview Press. Beer, J.H. de and McDermott, M.J. (1996) The Economic Value of Non-Timber Forest Products in Southeast Asia. Amsterdam: Netherlands Committee for IUCN. Bellos, A. (2004) ‘It Gives Energy and Strength—And It’s Great for Sex. Alex Bellos Travels to the Amazonian Source of Açaí, Brazil’s Favourite Tipple for Improving Everything’, The Observer, 18 June 2004. Broekhoven, G. (1996) Non-Timber Forest Products: Ecological and Economic Aspects of Exploitation in Colombia, Ecuador and Bolivia. Gland: World Conservation Union (IUCN). Browder, J.O. (1992) ‘The Limits of Extractivism: Tropical Forest Strategies beyond Extractive Reserves’, Bioscience, Vol. 42, pp. 174–182. Brown, L., Robinson, D. and Karmann, M. (2002) The Forest Stewardship Council and Non-Timber Forest Product Certification: A Discussion Paper. Bonn: Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). Buia, C. (2001) Exports from Amazonia. (URL: http://www.time.com/time/global/july/ green.html). Castro, A. de (1993) ‘Extractive Exploitation of the Açaí, Euterpe precatoria, near Manaus, Amazonia’, pp. 779–782 in C.M. Hladik, A. Hladick, O.F. Linares, H. Pagezy, A. Semple and M. Hadley (eds) Tropical Forests, People and Food. Man and the Biosphere Series No. 13. Paris: United Nations Education, Science and Culture Organization (UNESCO). Clay, J.W. (1996) Generating Income and Conserving Resources: 20 Lessons from the Field. Gland: World Wildlife Fund. Clay, J. (1992) ‘Some General Principles and Strategies for Developing Markets in North America and Europe for Non-Timber Forest Products’, pp. 302–309 in M.J. Plotkin and L. Famolare (eds) Sustainable Harvest and Marketing of Rain Forest Products. Washington DC: Island press. Forest Stewardship Council (2000) ‘Workshop on NTFP Guidance to Certifiers.

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Summary Report of the NTFP Certification and Marketing Workshop 20–22 June 1999, Oaxaca, Mexico’. Forte, J. (ed.) (1995) Indigenous Use of the Forest. Situation Analysis with Emphasis on Region 1. Georgetown: University of Guyana/Amerindian Research Unit. Henderson, A. and Galeano, G. (1996) ‘A Revision of Euterpe, Prestoea, and Neonicholsonia (Palmae)’, Flora Neotropica Monograph, Vol. 72, pp. 1–90. Hirsch, T. (2002) ‘Amazon Foresters Make Green Profits’, BBC News Science/Nature, 25 August 2002. (URL: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2214383.stm). Huber, O. (1995) ‘Vegetation’, pp. 97–160 in J.A. Steyermark, P.E. Berry and B.K. Holst (eds) Flora of the Venezuelan Guayana 1. St. Louis: Missouri Botanical Garden. Johnson, D.V. (2002) ‘Palm Heart (Euterpe spp.)’, pp. 75–84 in Shanley, P., Pierce, A.R., Laird, S.A. and Guillen, A. (eds) Tapping the Green Market: Certification and Management of Non-Timber Forest Products. London: Earthscan. ——. (1995) ‘Report on the Palm Cabbage Industry in Northwest Guyana’, pp. 62–67 in J. Forte (ed.) Indigenous Use of the Forest. Situation Analysis with Emphasis on Region 1. Georgetown: University of Guyana/Amerindian Research Unit. Maas, J. and Ros-Tonen, M.A.F. (2001) ‘NTFP Certification: Challenges for Research’, European Tropical Forest Research Network News, Vol. 32, pp. 69–71. Mallet, P. (2000) ‘Non-Timber Forest Products Certification—Challenges and Opportunities’, Forests, Trees and People Newsletter, No. 43, pp. 63–66. Mallet, P. and Karmann, M. (2001) ‘Certification of NTFPs: An Emerging Field’, European Tropical Forest Research Network News, Vol. 32, pp. 67–69. Ministerio del Ambiente y de los Recursos Naturales (MARN) (1999) Boletín Estadístico Forestal, No. 2. Año 1998. Caracas: MARN. Nepstad, D.C. and Schwartzman, S. (eds) (1992) ‘Non-Timber Forest Products: Evaluation of a Conservation and Development Strategy’, Advances in Economic Botany, Vol. 9. Oliveira, P. (2002) ‘Brazil: Community-Based Forest Management in the Brazilian Amazon’, World Rainforest Movement Bulletin, No. 63 (URL: http://www.wrm.org.uy/ bulletin/63/Brazil.html) Padoch, C. (1987) ‘The Economic Importance and Marketing of Forest and Fallow Products in the Iquitos Region’, Advances in Economic Botany, Vol. 5, pp. 74–89. Peña-Claros, M. and Zuidema, P. (2001) ‘A Code of Practice for Manicole in Guyana’. Report of a consultancy for the Guyana Forestry Commission. Georgetown: Department for International Development/Natural Resources Institute (DFID/NRI). Peters, C.M., Balick, M.J., Kahn, F. and Anderson, A.B. (1989a) ‘Oligarchic Forests of Economic Plants in Amazonia: Utilization and Conservation of an Important Tropical Resource’, Conservation Biology, Vol. 3, No. 4, pp. 341–349. Peters, C.M., Gentry, A.H. and Mendelsohn, R.O. (1989b) ‘Valuation of an Amazonian Rainforest’, Nature, Vol. 339, pp. 655–656. Pierce, A. (1999) ‘The Challenges of Certifying Non-Timber Forest Products’, Journal of Forestry, Vol. 97, No. 2, pp. 34–37. Pollak, H., Mattos, M. and Uhl, C. (1995) ‘A Profile of Palm Heart Extraction in the Amazon Estuary’, Human Ecology, Vol. 23, No. 3, pp. 357–385. Ponce, M.E., Stauffer, F.W., Olivo, M. and Ponce, M.A. (2000) ‘Mauritia flexuosa L.f. (Arecaceae). Una Revisión de su Utilidad y Estado de Conservación en la Cuenca Amazónica, con Especial Énfasis en Venezuela’, Acta Botanica Venezuelica, Vol. 23, No. 1, pp. 19–46. Renström, M. and Rainey, M. (2001) ‘Social Issues and the Forestry Stewardship Council’, Sustainable Development International, Vol. 4, pp. 137–139. Richards, E.M. (1993) Commercialization of Non-Timber Forest Products in Amazonia. NRI Socio-Economic Series. Chatham: Overseas Development Agency/Natural Resource Institute (ODA/NRI). Ros-Tonen, M.A.F., Dijkman, W. and Lammerts-van Bueren, E. (1995) Commercial

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and Sustainable Extraction of Non-Timber Forest Products: Towards a Policy and Management Oriented Research Strategy. Wageningen: The Tropenbos Foundation. Shanley, P., Pierce, A.R., Laird, S.A. and Guillen, A. (eds.) (2002) Tapping the Green Market: Certification and Management of Non-Timber Forest Products. London: Earthscan. Strudwick, J. (1990) ‘Commercial Management for Palm Heart from Euterpe oleracea Mart. (Palmae) in the Amazon Estuary and Tropical Forest Conservation’, Advances in Economic Botany, Vol. 8, pp. 241–248. Strudwick, J. and Sobel, G.L. (1988) ‘Uses of Euterpe oleracea Mart. in the Amazon Estuary, Brazil’, Advances in Economic Botany, Vol. 6, pp. 225–253. Wessels-de Boer, J.G. (1965) The Indigenous Palms of Suriname. Leiden: E.J. Brill. World Bank (1999) GEF Project Brief. Conservation of Biological Diversity in the Orinoco Delta Biosphere Reserve and Lower Orinoco River Basin. Venezuela: United Nations Development Programme/Global Environmental Facility.

PART IV

MULTI-SECTOR OR INTERSECTORAL PARTNERSHIPS

CHAPTER NINE

SUSTAINABLE FOREST MANAGEMENT AND THE GUIANA SHIELD INITIATIVE Pitou van Dijck* The Guiana Shield eco-region is one of the largest areas of tropical forest in the world left in a relatively intact condition. It extends from Colombia in the west to the State of Amapá in Brazil in the east, covering the Venezuelan States of Amazonas and Bolivar, all of Guyana, Suriname, French Guiana, and continues into the ecologically associated areas of the Brazilian States of Pará, Roraima and Amazonas (Figure 9.1). The region’s rain forest simultaneously provides direct and indirect use values. Among its direct use values are its capacity to supply timber and commercial non-timber products like nuts, palm hearts and meat, its value as a habitat for various indigenous tribes and groups of Maroons and its educational and recreational potentials that may serve as a basis for ecotourism, reflection and research. Simultaneously, the forest provides indirect use values in the form of environmental services like its contribution to the nutrient cycle, water control and carbon sequestration, and the provision of a habitat for a diverse flora and fauna, with as yet little known economic potential. Some of these ecological functions, specifically the region’s biodiversity and capability of carbon sequestration, are not merely of local but also of global significance. Most of these indirect use values are available as public goods for which no markets exist and no remuneration is paid. Consequently, there is the risk of these services being undervalued. At the same time, the region’s multifunctional character as a major supplier of public goods and habitat for indigenous people is threatened by activities aimed at exploiting the diverse direct use values. Cattle ranching, agricultural production and commercial logging are among the main causes of deforestation in the region.

* Centre for Latin American Research and Documentation (CEDLA), Keizersgracht 395–397, 1016 EK Amsterdam. E-mail: [email protected].

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The Guiana Shield Initiative (GSI), introduced by a partnership of various organisations with its secretariat at the Netherlands Committee for the World Conservation Union (NC-IUCN) aims to support sustainable forest management in this region by proposing a financial construction through the Global Environment Facility (GEF) (NC-IUCN 2003). This construction rewards the region and its population for the environmental services it provides to the outside world—public goods which so far are being produced without the region being rewarded for it by the world community which, in turn, benefits from their supply. In order to assure the relevant actors in the region of a decent income over time as a stimulus to prevent forest destruction, the GSI aims to create reliable political arrangements for long-term carbon sequestration contracts, cooperation within watersheds, international payments for the preservation of biodiversity and the development of markets for sustainably produced commercial forest products and services (see also Chapter 8 by Van Andel). This chapter explores the main features of the Guiana Shield region, the motives for setting up the GSI and the main components of the initiative. After providing an overview of the ecological and cultural significance of the region and of the threats to its very existence as an intact eco-region, we present the main elements of the GSI. Since creating financial mechanisms for the region’s sustainable development is among the GSI’s main objectives, we reflect on the valuation of the region’s multiple functions from a welfare economic perspective and on the political economy of such an initiative. The Significance of the Guiana Shield Region With its 250 million hectares, the Guiana Shield eco-region occupies roughly the northeastern third of Amazonia. Due to its relative intactness, the region’s forests play an important role in terms of (i) conserving biodiversity; (ii) climate stabilisation through carbon storage and sequestration; (iii) the maintenance of hydrological cycles; and (iv) the protection of regional watersheds and water quality. The region’s ecosystems are extremely diverse and some are unique. This holds particularly for the 50 or more tepuis of the Guiana Highlands which rise to between 1,000 and 3,000 metres above the surrounding lowlands and are home to highly specialised endemic flora and fauna. These ecosystems are still in part unknown but are

Figure 9.1 The Guiana Shield Region

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expected to harbour a rich and strikingly archaic biota. Indicators for the region’s biodiversity are presented in Table 9.1. Another important ecological service the region provides is the contribution to climate stabilisation through carbon sequestration and storage. A rough estimate of the amount of carbon stored in the region’s forest is 25 billion tons. This may, in itself, provide a strong basis for sustainable development of the region in the context of global commitments to combat global warming by reducing the emission of greenhouse gases and by establishing an international exchange mechanism of emission rights. Through this mechanism—more specifically: the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) under the Kyoto protocol—developed countries can acquire carbon credits that can be subtracted from their emission reduction targets by investing in carbon sequestration projects that contribute to sustainable development in developing countries. Such efforts imply that the carbon sinks of the Guiana Shield have the potential to become a valuable asset in the near future. The Guiana Shield also plays an important role in maintaining the hydrological cycle and protecting the regional watersheds and water quality. It has been estimated that the region as a whole discharges 133,557 m3 per second and probably produces nearly half of the overall discharge of the Amazon and Orinoco rivers, the first and third largest rivers in the world in terms of discharge. As such, the Guiana Shield contributes significantly to the world’s largest source of fresh water, accounting for as much as 10–15 per cent of the world’s fresh water. The three Guianas were recently listed in Table 9.1 Estimated diversity and endemism of Guiana Shield flora and fauna

Vascular plants Birds Mammals Reptiles Amphibians Freshwater fish

Number of species

Number of endemic species

Percentage of total species that are endemic

20,000 975 282 280 272 2,200

7,000 150 27 76 127 700

35 15 10 27 47 32

Source: Huber and Foster (2003).

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the UN World Water Development Report among the world’s top ten water-rich countries. Table 9.2 presents data on the estimated water availability per capita in the six countries of the region. It should be noted that there are seasonal variations in the volume of water supply and that mercury pollution by wildcat gold miners and agricultural pollutants threaten the quality of the water supplied. Given the world-wide water shortages predicted for 2050, the conservation of the Guiana Shield hydrological services can be considered of global importance. The total population of this vast region is estimated at only 1.5–2 million people, approximately 30 per cent of which are indigenous or Maroon peoples—descendents of escaped African slaves. Although population density is among the lowest in the world (0.6–0.8 people per km2), the cultural diversity is high, with at least 100 Amerindian cultures spread throughout the region, six tribes of Maroons in Suriname and French Guiana, a mix of European, Amerindian and African cultures in Brazil, Venezuela and Colombia, and coastal cultures of Amerindian, African, Asian and European origins in the three Guianas. Table 9.2 Estimates of water availability in the Guiana Shield Country

State

Area (km2)

Population Population (2000) density

Water availability (m3 per capita year)

French Guiana 91,000 214,970 163,270

172,605 697,286 431,303

1.9 3.2 2.6

Bolívar 238,000 Amazonas 177,000

1,306,652 70,000

5.1 0.4

Guyana Suriname Venezuela Colombia Guainía

72,238

13,491

0.2

Vaupés

65,268

18,235

0.3

Roraima Amapá

224,118 142,816

324,152 475,843

1.5 3.3

Brazil

812,121 316,689 292,566 51,021 414,024 4,377,722 50,635 14,050,083 6,866,120 48,314 498,081 390,780

Source: Netherlands Committee of the World Conservation Union (NC-IUCN) (2003).

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Throughout the region, indigenous populations mostly live in forested areas, which have largely remained intact partly as a result of their traditional management methods. These indigenous populations depend on the natural ecosystems to support their traditional lifestyles. An estimated 65 to 95 per cent of all plant species found in the Guiana Shield are considered useful by local indigenous people, while over 85 per cent of the meat consumed in the Amazon is provided by hunting and fishing (Van Andel et al. 2003). The habitat of many indigenous tribes living in the region is legally protected by the creation of a large number of reserves, be it that these reserves differ in status and are not necessarily preserving the whole of these areas effectively. The Guiana Shield region still offers good opportunities for the creation of conservation and protected areas at a scale hardly possible elsewhere in the world. Threats Spatial analysis of economic activities in Amazonia and the Guiana Shield, supported by satellite images, indicates that the northern frontier of Amazonia is as yet still among the least affected regions in Amazonia. However, over the last decade, the region has come under increasing pressure from ecologically and socially destructive activities like farming, cattle ranching, soybean cultivation and ill-planned infrastructure and colonisation projects (Mahar 1989). Prospects for sustainable development look bleak because of recent plans and initiatives developed by the Brazilian and other governments in the region, to open up the area even more and to improve its accessibility in order to facilitate the exploitation of some of its direct use values. These plans include the project Avança Brasil (Forward Brazil), the construction of the Arco Norte (the Northern Arch) and other long-distance heavy duty roads through northern Amazonia. Avança Brasil was initiated in the late 1990s and aims to invest over US$ 24 billion over the period 2000–2007 in western and northern Amazonia, and an additional US$ 50 billion in the areas south and east of the centre of the Amazon region. About 60 per cent of these amounts, or US$ 43.6 billion, is to be allocated to infrastructural works, of which an estimated US$ 20.1 billion is destined for projects affecting the forest such as road building and improvement, the construction of railways, ports, hydroelectric reservoirs, gas lines,

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airports and cargo facilities, and river canalisation (Laurence et al., 2001; Andersen et al. 2002, 33 and 34). The Arco Norte project was introduced by the Brazilian government to connect the northern area of Amazonia with the three Guianas. The road will link Boa Vista, Georgetown, Paramaribo, Cayenne and Macapá. The western section, connecting Boa Vista with Georgetown, is part of a larger economic development project and investment programme to construct a deep water port in Georgetown as well as energy and high speed communications systems, and to develop an industrial zone in Boa Vista including an aluminium smelter, meatpacking facility, soybean complex compressor and a freeze-dried coffee plant. Moreover, other infrastructural projects are being undertaken in the eastern part of the Arco Norte, in French Guiana and in Amapá. More roads are envisaged in the Latin America-wide Initiative for the Integration International of Regional Infrastructure in South America (IIRSA) which will improve the accessibility of northern Amazonia and the Guiana Shield over very long distances. Moving the frontier by building new roads, particularly in pristine forests, stimulates colonisation because new land areas become available. This tends to decrease overall land prices, while the improvement of existing roads may increase land prices along the road and hence lead to intensified land use. Consequently, investment in the expansion of the road network results in more deforestation than investment in road improvement (Andersen et al. 2002, 145–147) and leads to a deeper penetration into the forest (Gascon et al. 2001, 25). Both satellite images and statistical studies of deforestation in Amazonia show a high concentration of forest loss along the expanding road network. In the period 1991–95, 33 per cent of deforestation was concentrated in an area within 50 kilometres of the eastern road network, 24 per cent within 50 kilometres of the central road network, and 17 per cent within 50 kilometres of the western road network (Andersen et al. 2002, 55). All together, 74 per cent of deforestation was concentrated within a range of 50 kilometres around roads, creating long corridors through the forest. Most new clearing takes place in areas adjacent to areas already cleared, along the moving agricultural frontier and often in accordance with a so-called fish-bone pattern (Andersen et al. 2002). Expansion of the road network, combined with the depletion of world stocks of timber, will further stimulate timber exploitation in

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the last great tropical timber reserves. Various authors (for instance Nepstad et al. 2002; Carvalho et al. 2002; Ros-Tonen 2004) have pointed to the fact that road paving lowers transport costs and hence makes the exploitation of economically less attractive timber species more profitable and that improved roads allow for the transportation of larger volumes of logs. As a result, logging tends to be intensified in the 50-km zones adjacent to the asphalted roads (Nepstad et al. 2002; Carvalho et al. 2002). Nutrient mining—conceived of as the unsustainable removal of nutrients from the forest soil by logging, unsustainable farming and cattle ranching—is a rational response to seemingly endless supplies of free or cheap land, which are not an incentive to replenish nutrients as in the case of land scarcity (Schneider 1995, 15). Extending the activities further into virgin areas when the land is depleted means nutrient mining is among the main causes of deforestation. The forest is also threatened by small and large-scale open pit mining activities, be it that the impact of such activities may be more locally confined than the impact of highly destructive and poisoning gold mining by garimpeiros throughout the region. Nutrient mining and wildcat gold and diamond mining activities in the forest interact to the extent that smallholders account for over half of the garimpeiros, according to two surveys undertaken in Pará and Roraima (MacMillan 1995, 56–104). According to MacMillan, garimpeiros invest gold in properties located in forest areas. Towards Sustainable Forest Management: The Guiana Shield Initiative Goals The overall objective of the GSI is to promote ecologically sustainable management of the Guiana Shield eco-region. Recognising that unsustainable forest and land use result from multiple institutional, regulatory and financial capacity constraints in the Guiana Shield countries, financial resources are being sought to help overcome these constraints. With these financial resources, sustainable development plans of the Guiana Shield countries can be implemented and its longer-term integrity maintained, including its ability to provide valuable environmental goods and services such as biodiversity, climate stability and water for present and future generations at both local and global level.

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To help achieve the stated goal, the GSI aims to realise a number of key objectives at regional, national and local level: 1. To create a collaborative eco-regional framework for the sustainable management of the Guiana Shield region and for the fulfilment of obligations under multilateral environmental agreements such as the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). 2. To strengthen institutions and building regional capacity to deliver and maintain a growing number of environmental goods and services for local, national, regional and global markets. 3. To provide support for regional and national management including planning, prioritisation and sequencing of required policy reforms and investments, by means of expansion and consolidation of the knowledge base pertaining to ecological and socioeconomic values, and of climate-related functions of the ecosystems in the region. 4. To establish a regional ecological balance-of-payments system by means of an innovative financing mechanism for the delivery and maintenance of environmental goods and services. 5. To contribute to public environmental awareness through communications, education and training. 6. To provide a tool for poverty alleviation by protecting the ecosystems on which local and indigenous peoples depend for their livelihoods and traditional lifestyles, and by providing the financial capital and technical assistance required to increase the capability to develop sustainable livelihood systems. Local communities will also be supported in acquiring improved access to legal capital (access, use and property rights), natural capital (natural resources and ecological services), social capital and human capital (education and health care). Partners and Target Groups The GSI can be conceived as a global-local multi-sector partnership for conservation and sustainable development encompassing various local stakeholders, such as indigenous and other local inhabitants, local authorities, NGOs, academics, intergovernmental and international organisations and the private sector.1 The initiating party is the NC-IUCN. 1

Partners and donors in the initiative include the GSI Steering Committee, the

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The GSI aims to work in close partnership with existing initiatives and the organisations already active in the Guiana Shield, such as the Amazon Cooperation Treaty, the Pilot Programme for the Protection of Brazil’s Tropical Forests of the Group of seven most industrialised countries’ (PPG7), the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and the Andean Pact. In this respect, the GSI is also a regional, trans-boundary partnership. The project is opting explicitly for an eco-regional approach for a number of reasons. Many Guiana Shield countries face the same problems such as the influx of garimpeiros. Moreover, many indigenous groups cross international borders. In addition, there are many similarities with respect to the biodiversity and ecology across the region. Through the eco-regional approach, trans-boundary protected areas and peace parks can be established. There are several disputed boundaries within the Guiana Shield which could perhaps be solved by negotiating co-managed peace parks under the GSI framework. Furthermore, an eco-regional approach allows for strong political support, information exchange across the region, harmonised policy, legislation and management plans, cooperation for protection and enforcement of regulations against poaching, illegal logging, mining and rare species harvesting and cooperation as regards joint training, research, monitoring, education and environmental awareness raising (GSI 2002). An ecoregional approach is also beneficial when developing packages of ecological services for the development of global markets. Nevertheless, the most appropriate—that is, most effective and efficient—level at which to implement activities and apply economic instruments, such as payment systems for eco-services, eco-taxes and other regulatory measures, can only be established on a case-by-case basis. The main target groups that, in the long term, will benefit from the financial mechanisms to be set up under the GSI are the region’s

Dutch Government (Ministry of Foreign Affairs—DGIS), the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), Global Legislators for a Balanced Environment (GLOBE), Conservation International, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the European Working Group on Amazonia (EWGA) and the Guiana Shield Media Project. The latter is a project undertaken by Black Eye International—a media cooperative based in the Netherlands supported by the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF), the NC-IUCN, the Prins Bernhard Fund and Black Eye International. Proposals for funding are also being prepared for submission to the Global Environmental Facility.

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local communities that usually manage the ecosystems. At the same time, national governments may benefit from keeping ecosystems intact as an incentive for sustainable development and conservation. Through the GSI they receive support to meet their obligations through the CBD and UNFCCC. In the long term, the national governments in the region may benefit from royalty and tax income generated through sustainable natural resource management, as demonstrated by similar experiences Costa Rica. Economic Dimensions Poverty is widespread throughout the region. Foreign timber and mining interests are sources of foreign direct investment and of potential income for governments in the region. Local people may be among the beneficiaries of unsustainable forms of development such as gold mining and timber harvesting, but they are among the most affected as well. Many young indigenous people abandon traditional lifestyles and leave their villages for the cities or mining towns because they feel that staying behind offers them few prospects for the future. In the recent past, projects focused on alternatives for income generation such as tourism, the development of non-timber forest production and bio-prospecting. These projects often failed to be financially sustainable due to varying market trends and—in the case of tourism— significant capital and investment requirements. The GSI programme, however, is forward-looking since it provides revenues in an equitable manner to those managing intact ecosystems, while at the same time capacity is developed for sustainable enterprises. The development of sustainable livelihoods is an important component of the GSI and the establishment of payment systems for eco-management may create alternative opportunities for local development. Over the last decade, a growing body of studies has been made available on the valuation of forests and direct payments for conservation (Pagiola et al. 2002; van Beukering and van Heeren 2003) and new market mechanisms are emerging for carbon sequestration and watershed protection. The GSI and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) take these concepts as examples and apply them in an integrated manner in the context of the Guiana Shield eco-region. Pilot projects in several structures which exist locally may test benefit-sharing mechanisms for the payment for ecological services.

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In Phase I of the GSI (2000–2004), various ecosystem management experiences have been examined, such as the resguardos of Colombia (Van der Hammen 2003) and the Iwokrama International Centre of Guyana (Van Beukering and Van Heeren 2003). Nevertheless, there is still a need for additional experience with ecosystem management that incorporates the aspect of environmental goods and services. The GSI envisages several pilot field-based eco-management projects that could include various forms of management ranging from indigenous management to the management of conservation concessions, like those established by Conservation International in Guyana and other countries. Such projects would enable the GSI to test the concepts and learn lessons from pilots to be set up across the Guiana region. In each pilot area, an assessment of the spectrum of environmental goods and services needs to be made, such as the carbon sequestered per hectare of forest or watershed potential. The main portion of the project budget is being set aside for the payment of ecological services and the development of sustainable livelihood components of the project and their monitoring. This is intended to allow for experimentation with various payment systems and for the initiation of several innovative sustainable livelihood projects designed to generate income for those living in or near the project area. There are various ways in which payments can be made for ecosystem services and this depends, to a large extent, on the cultural setting of the pilot area. The GSI intends to work on a ‘on request’ basis and base the assessment of payments for ecological goods and services on the needs of ecosystem managers as well as on the market rates for services for which established global markets already exist. Payment schemes for carbon storage and sequestration, watershed protection and biodiversity can be experimented with on the basis of the experience in other countries such as Costa Rica and theoretical models. Costa Rica has been a pioneer in this regard by making contracts between local forest owners and CO2–emitting entities in the USA, and with the governments of the Netherlands and Norway. Carboncontaining biomass is financed at a rate of US$ 5.8 per ton of CO2 sequestrated in the case of the Netherlands-Costa Rica contract. However, other contracts have been based on lower levels of compensation (Veening and Groenendijk 2000, 38–40). Based on a sim-

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ple carbon model, Ter Steege estimated that plots in the Guiana Shield area might stock about 360 ton of living biomass per hectare with this quantity increasing to 351 ton of carbon per hectare, if the total dead material and soil carbon are included (Van Beukering and Van Heeren 2003, 41). Environmental services that have market value can be bundled into packages that can be sold (later) on the international market. Possible future carbon credits could be banked at low costs now in a regional financial mechanism and be sold at a later date. However, so far, the CDM does not allow for carbon credits from forest conservation. Whereas an estimated 25 per cent of total greenhouse gas emissions is caused by deforestation, countries in the Guiana Shield region are disadvantaged by not being rewarded for keeping their forests intact. The estimate of the budget line for payments of ecological services is based on an estimate of initial payments ranging from US$ 1–4 dollar per hectare. Amounts per hectare could be lower due to relative isolation and low population in the area. The higher figure of US$ 4 per hectare is based on payments made by the Community Development Carbon Fund of the World Bank. This Carbon Fund specifically supports projects which benefit poor communities while generating emission reduction credits for the private sector and thereby paying a higher than average amount for the carbon credits because of the development component. These projects do not focus on standing forest, due to the difficulties of acquiring credits under the actual CDM for conservation projects. It is anticipated that, in the longer term, carbon or water contracts constructed in the GSI will generate income from other sources, such as the private sector or other beneficiaries of the ecological services. The sustainable livelihoods component funded by the Tropical Rainforest Programme of the NC-IUCN, will amplify the benefits of the ecological payments through seed funding for sustainable livelihood development in the pilot areas. This is important for capacity building in local communities to make commercial use of sustainable rain forest products and will most likely focus on NTFP or ecotourism enterprises. This component would also be based on a ‘on request’ basis.

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Applying Welfare Theoretical Considerations The true value of the Guiana Shield region has to be assessed in order to allow the structuring of optimal investment programmes to exploit or sustain specific use values of the region, and to select optimal economic instruments for intervention. An assessment of the economic value of the environment is required not only in investment procedures, as is increasingly practised by multilateral investment banks, but also as a base for a payments system for the collective goods the region provides. This requires a comprehensive inventory of the many different functions of the forest, including the array of direct and indirect use values as well as optional and existence values of the rain forest.2 Exploitation of some or more of the direct use values of the forest may result in ecological degradation and limit the capability of the forest to sustain its other values. However, methodological problems make it very hard to assess the positive and negative welfare effects of interventions accurately. To start with, many of the markets involved are imperfect and markets do not even exist for many of the provided eco-services. The problem of non-existence of markets is particularly urgent when dealing with the economic valuation of biodiversity. These complications must be tackled in order to make a comprehensive valuation of alternative options for forest exploitation. Moreover, longer-term forecasting of variations in direct and indirect use values, resulting from future patterns of demand and supply in markets of natural resources and ecological services, are hard to make (Trindade de Almeida and Uhl 1999; Van Beukering and Van Heeren 2003). Second, the economic response of subjects to new opportunities created by, for instance, improved access to a region, in terms of 2 Direct use values refer to ecosystem goods and services that are used directly by human beings, including the values of consumptive uses such as the use of timber and food products, and the values of non-consumptive uses such as recreational and cultural activities. Indirect use values are related to positive welfare effects derived from services provided by an ecosystem outside the ecosystem itself, such as water regulation and carbon sequestration. Optional values are derived from preserving the option to use in the future goods and services provided by the ecosystem. The existence value refers to the positive welfare effect that people may experience from the fact that an ecosystem exists without actually using the goods and services provided by the system. See for instance Pierce and Moran 1994.

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investment and expansion of economic activities, and the implications of such activities for the region’s ecology, depends on a large number of interrelated and geographically dispersed factors which are very hard to integrate into a regional development model with economic and environmental dimensions. For further discussion of these and related methodological problems see May (1999). For a review of potential effects of road construction in pristine forest areas see Andersen et al. 2002. Third, the measurement of deforestation, fragmentation and edge effects—which are due to improved area access and to investment in economic activity—may, in itself, be complicated and expensive. The environmental monitoring system Sistema de Vigilância Ambiental (SIVAM) may be useful in the future for monitoring changes in forest coverage. However, combining information from satellite images with land surveys may be complicated. Hence, a rational assessment of the costs and benefits of alternative types of exploitation of available resources in the area is hard to realise. However, at least some of these complications must be tackled in order to structure rational payment systems, based on some sort of costs-benefit analysis related to the eco-services provided by northern Amazonia and the Guiana Shield. The Political Economy of Sustainable Forest Exploitation In view of the methodological problems referred to above, one may question whether any alternatives are available for applying the economic principles and more specifically the price mechanism in order to create a rational way of exploiting the forest. An alternative may be discretionary decision-making using quotas, which may be applied in the context of a zoning policy. The concept of zoning was introduced in Brazil in 1990 by presidential decree. National and statewise zoning commissions were installed but these have been largely inactive so far (Hall 2000). Thus, zoning has offered little in terms of an optimal use of areas of high ecological value. Comparison of the map of priority areas for biodiversity conservation in Amazonia with maps indicating the proposed development corridors shows that the conservation corridors essentially run east-west and the development corridors north-south, causing intersections and consequently conflicts (Lovejoy 2000, 55). In the region between Manáus and Boa Vista, conservation areas are intersected by the existing road connection.

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Consequently, the planned Arco Norte trace from Manaus via Boa Vista to Georgetown as well as the planned agro-industrial complex in Roraima, with Boa Vista as its economic centre, crosses a significant ecological zone. Hence, zoning as such does not solve the problem if it is not based on a rational assessment of alternative values of regions. Moreover, Mahar (2000) has shown how zoning in Rondonia, which was introduced to protect specific regions with high ecological values, was opposed by farmers, ranchers and loggers, who could not find compensation for lost opportunities, while the positive income effects of zoning were restricted to civil servants and others in charge of implementing and maintaining the zoning policy. Obviously, there were too few local winners while the losers were not compensated by offering them alternative opportunities. In order to sustain the capability of the region to supply indirect use values, deforestation in the northern sections of Amazonia and in the Guiana Shield region must be limited. This essentially implies that incentives for logging and mining, including nutrient mining, must be reduced or abolished and that the physical and economic accessibility of the land should be reduced. Key policy measures in this respect are the reduction of investments in roads, the reduction of fiscal and monetary incentives and improved land tenure policies. These measures may be combined in the context of a zoning strategy for vulnerable regions including the establishment of nature reserves and strengthening of their preservation functioning (Schneider 1995, 37). Such measures conflict sharply with the preferences of local pressure groups, except for the indigenous peoples, and also with planning at the state and federal levels. Interest groups and politicians at local level usually prefer the exploitation of direct use values and improved links with markets. Turning the local decision-making process in favour of sustainable development and forest protection will require another balance between economic gains and costs, and the creation of winners at the local level. By introducing the market mechanism to whatever extent is possible, by including payments for environmental services and taxes on negative external effects of specific economic activities and by providing incentives at the local level, policy initiatives such as the GSI may contribute to a more sustainable development in the region.

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Acknowledgements This article has been based in part on the project proposal by the Netherlands Committee for the World Conservation Union (NC-IUCN) for the Guiana Shield Initiative (GSI). I wish to thank Wouter Veening, head of the GSI and director of the Institute for Environmental Security in The Hague, for his kind cooperation and for sharing documentation and data. References Andel, T. van, MacKinven, A. and Bánki, O. (2003) Commercial Non-Timber Forest Products of the Guiana Shield. Amsterdam: Netherlands Committee for the World Conservation Union (NC-IUCN) and the Guiana Shield Initiative (GSI). Andersen, L., Granger, C., Reis, E., Weinhold, D. and Wunder, S. (2002) The Dynamics of Deforestation and Economic Growth in the Brazilian Amazon Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Beukering, P. van and Heeren, A. van (2003) Economic Valuation of the Iwokrama Forest, Guyana—A Stakeholder Perspective. Amsterdam: Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM), Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Internal Report, March 2003. Carvalho, G.O., Nepstad, D., McGrath, D., del Carmen Vera Diaz, M., Santilli, M. and Barros, A.C. (2002) ‘Frontier Expansion in the Amazon. Balancing Development and Sustainability’, Environment, Vol. 44, No. 3, pp. 34–46. Gascon, C., Bierregaard, Jr., R., Laurance, W. and Rankin-De Mérona, J. (2001) ‘Deforestation and Forest Fragmentation in the Amazon’, pp. 21–30 in R. Bierregaard Jr., C. Gascon, T. Lovejoy and R. Mesquita (eds) Lessons from Amazonia.The Ecology and Conservation of a Fragmented Forest. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. Guiana Shield Initiative (GSI) (2002) ‘Profile Guiana Shield Initiative. An Ecoregional Approach to Conservation and Sustainable Development’. URL: http:// www.guianashield.org. Hall, A. (2000) ‘Environment and Development in Brazilian Amazonia: From Protectionism to Productive Conservation’, pp. 99–114 in A. Hall (ed.) Amazonia at the Crossroads—The Challenge of Sustainable Development. London: Institute of Latin American Studies. Hammen, M. van der (2003) The Indigeneous Resguardos of Colombia: Their Contribution to Conservation and Sustainable Forest Use. Amsterdam: Netherlands Committee for the World Conservation Union (NC-IUCN) and the Guiana Shield Initiative (GSI). Huber, O. and Foster, M. (2003) Conservation Priorities for the Guayana Shield. 2002 Consensus. Washington: Conservation International/CABS/UNDP/ NC-(UCN GS(. Laurence, W.F., Cochrane, M.A., Bergen, S., Fearnside, P.M., Delamônica, P., Barber, C., D’Angelo, S. and Fernandes, T. (2001) ‘Environment: The Future of the Brazilian Amazon’, Science, No. 291, pp. 438–439. [DOI: 10.1126/science. 291.5503.438] (in Policy Forum). Lovejoy, T. (2000) ‘Amazonian Forest Degradation and Fragmentation: Implications for Biodiversity Conservation’, pp. 41–57 in A. Hall (ed.) Amazonia at the Crossroads— The Challenge of Sustainable Development. London: Institute of Latin American Studies.

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MacMillan, G. (1995) At the End of the Rainbow? Gold, Land and People in the Brazilian Amazon. London: Earthscan. Mahar, D. (2000) ‘Agro-Ecological Zoning in Rondonia, Brazil: What Are the Lessons?’ pp. 115–128 in A. Hall (ed.) Amazonia at the Crossroads—The Challenge of Sustainable Development. London: Institute of Latin American Studies. ——. (1989) Government Policies and Deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon Region. A World Bank Publication in cooperation with World Wildlife Fund and the Conservation Foundation. Washington DC: The World Bank. May, P. (1999) ‘Globalization, Economic Valuation and Natural Resource Policies in Brazil’, pp. 1–26 in P. May (ed.) Natural Resource Valuation and Policy in Brazil— Methods and Cases. New York: Columbia University Press. Nepstad, D., Capobianco, J.P., Barros, A.C., Carvalho, G., Moutinho, P., Lopes, U. and Lefebre, P. (2002) Roads in the Rainforest: Environmental Costs for the Amazon. Belém: MGM Gráfica e Editora. Netherlands Committee of the World Conservation Union (NC-IUCN) (2003) ‘The Guiana Shield Initiative’ (Project proposal), Amsterdam: NC-IUCN. Pierce, D. and Moran, D. (1994) The Economic Value of Biodiversity. London: Earthscan. Pagiola, S., Bishop, J. and Landell-Mills, N. (2002) Selling Forest Environmental Services. Market-Based Mechanisms for Conservation and Development. London: Earthscan. Ros-Tonen, M.A.F. (2004) ‘Changing Perspectives for Sustainable Forestry in Brazilian Amazonia: Exploring New Trends’. Paper presented at the 4th Joint DutchGerman-Austrian Geographers’ Symposium on ‘Territory, Local governance and Development in Latin America’ Utrecht, 1–2 July 2004. Schneider, R. (1995) Government and the Economy on the Amazon Frontier. World Bank Environmental Paper, No. 11. Washington DC: The World Bank. Trinidade de Almeida, O. and Uhl, C. (1999) ‘Developing a Quantitative Framework for Sustainable Resource-Use Planning in the Brazilian Amazon’, pp. 49–84 in P. May (ed.) Natural Resource Valuation and Policy in Brazil, Methods and Cases in Conservation Science. New York: Columbia University Press. Veening, W. and Groenendijk, J. (2000) ‘Extractive Logging in the Guianas: The Need for A Regional Ecosystemic Approach’, pp. 25–40 in A. Hall (ed.) Amazonia at the Crossroads—The Challenge of Sustainable Development. London: Institute of Latin American Studies.

CHAPTER TEN

IMPACTS OF MULTI-SCALE PARTNERSHIPS ON MISKITU FOREST GOVERNANCE IN NICARAGUA Mary M. Finley-Brook* As a result of the simultaneous globalisation and localisation of forest management in Nicaragua’s Autonomous Region, new cross-scale partnerships—and hence opportunities for community forestry—are emerging in indigenous Miskitu communities. This chapter examines four multi-scale co-management partnerships involving international donors, government agencies, private corporations, non-governmental organisations and indigenous villages. It focuses on the question of how cross-scale linkages function in actual forest management, how these partnerships integrate multiple horizontal and vertical governance scales and how they have influenced the structure of Miskitu governance over common pool forests. We analyse the four cases using a threefold theoretical framework that involves politics of scale, common pool resource management and indigenous development. In the following sections we will first introduce the study area and the contextual factors in which the partnerships are being shaped, and discuss the fieldwork methods and theoretical framework used. Next we will evaluate the four multi-scaled forestry partnerships and describe changes in Miskitu governance structures. We finalise by summarising continuing challenges and by presenting recommendations. Multi-scale Governance: Constraints and Opportunities Nicaragua has developed a complex, multi-scale system of governance. In 1987, the Sandinista Administration created northern and southern autonomous regional governments in eastern Nicaragua. These autonomous regions, both administered by a governor and

* Assistant Professor Geography Program, University of Richmond, Richmond, Virginia 23173. E-mail: [email protected].

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council, combine to make up approximately fifty per cent of Nicaragua. The Región Autónoma Atlántica Norte (RAAN; North Atlantic Autonomous Region) is covered in this study (Figure 10.1). The seven large municipalities in the RAAN each contain an urban core plus dozens of satellite villages. In the indigenous Miskitu villages in this region, common pool land-use practices and traditional leadership are in crisis. Decentralisation created additional scales and structures without resolving these governance problems. Globalisation—defined here as increased economic and political interaction across multiple spatial scales— added to the complexity of governance by generating new resource management initiatives involving multiple stakeholders such as international donors, government agencies, private corporations, nongovernmental organisations and indigenous villages. When analysing forestry development projects that result from the new partnerships, it is essential to observe how global discourses influence local realities and generate cross-scale linkages. Global ideas about indigenous participation, decentralised governance, common pool resources, gender, land tenure and protected areas permeate internationally funded forestry initiatives in Latin America. Crossscale networking plays an important role in the communication and implementation of donor goals for community forestry. Linkages across scales also play an instrumental role in communicating village responses back to higher governance levels. The persistence of environmental degradation may be related in part to a lack of attention to these cross-scale linkages (Berkes 2002). Instead of looking for one ‘correct’ management scale, it is helpful to determine how different scales can be managed simultaneously, taking account of differences in class, race, culture and education level between actors at various scales. Due to such differences, social complexities may be magnified within multi-scale initiatives. Comanagement projects that are unable to balance heterogeneous sectors and scales face conflicts during implementation. Analysing multiple-scale linkages requires the identification of both horizontal and vertical linkages. Horizontal linkages occur across space but at the same level of organisation. Examples are multivillage blocks or agreements among municipalities. Vertical linkages connect institutions at different spatial scales, as in the case of international financial support for a village forestry project. Since international assistance is often channelled through national, regional or

Note: The Atlantic Biological Corridor as depicted here represents a broad sense of influence surrounding proposed connectivity zones between existing terrestrial and marine protected areas.

Figure 10.1 Nicaragua and the North Atlantic Autonomous region

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municipal government counterparts, village development projects are frequently multi-scaled. Vertical linkages across different scales of organisation—including vertical networking which improves local access to information—are important for the provision of technical and financial support to local institutions. Nonetheless, when scaling up vertically from the village level, networks and higher-level institutions need to maintain mechanisms of accountability to local populations and to resist the centralisation of control over resources and decision-making (Agrawal and Gibson 1999). Forestry initiatives linked horizontally may internalise costs that would normally remain external to smaller communal units or individual private property lots (Gibson et al. 2000). For example, a producer is likely to be more concerned about negative downstream consequences, such as erosion or pollution, if networked with downstream producers. Contiguous villages can cooperate and effectively impede undocumented extraction by outsiders as well as assure compatible management techniques across forest tracts (McKean 1996). By the same token, some natural resource systems are more productive when intact instead of fragmented. With both vertical and horizontal linkages, organisational processes involve a large number of participants at multiple scales or in different areas, and thus become more time-consuming and costly (Ostrom et al. 1999)—especially if there is duplication of work. In Nicaragua’s RAAN, costs rapidly increase from vertical and horizontal linkages due to the abominable condition of transport and communication infrastructure. In summary, globalisation of environmental concerns and decentralisation processes create new opportunities for community forestry in Nicaragua, but also imply several complexities. New partnerships involve multiple scales and linkages between these scales—both horizontally and vertically—have to be taken into account. Such linkages have their pros such as the internalisation of externalities, sharing of information, technologies and costs, but also their cons, such as growing complexity of the social fabric of partnerships, rising costs of networking and communication and the need to maintain accountability mechanisms to local populations when scaling up from local to higher levels.

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Fieldwork methods With a view to analysing cross-scale linkages in forestry and their implications for forest governance in Nicaragua, the author has documented logging in indigenous villages throughout the RAAN over the past eight years. There are approximately 60,000 Miskitu and 12,000 Mayangnas living in 300 villages, each with its own communal land holding. The villages chosen for in-depth analysis rely heavily on timber resources for both household and commercial uses. All are located in the Prinzapolka municipality, which first became a hotspot for illegal logging in the late 1990s. During the period of fieldwork, these villages became the sites of numerous international development initiatives. Twenty months of fieldwork in Nicaragua in 2002 and 2003 consisted primarily of participant observation, interviews, household surveys and analysis of case study projects. The majority of this time was spent in Miskitu villages on the interface between rain forest and pine savannah. The main research village, Alamikangban, is also the seat of the municipal government. In addition to daily, unstructured, interviews, fifty surveys on forestry and governance were completed, signifying coverage of more than thirty per cent of the households in Alamikangban. The researcher also observed dozens of community meetings in Alamikangban and smaller villages throughout Prinzapolka. In order to obtain multi-scaled perspectives, extended periods of research were completed in the seat of the regional government, Bilwi, and the nation’s capital of Managua. More than one hundred semi-structured interviews were completed with state, non-governmental and international agency representatives. In addition, two dozen national and regional archives were visited. Analysing Scale in Indigenous Common Pool Resource Management Scale analysis assists in the determination of costs and benefits associated with natural resource management as it provides an organisational framework for the definition of boundaries related to social claims, activities and behaviours (Blaikie and Brookfield 1987). In this study, scale is defined in two ways. First, it is broadly understood to be a level of geographical resolution, such as the village,

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municipal, regional, national and international scales. Second, the initiation of development projects fit in with Smith’s (1993) formulation of scale as the physical resolution of social forces. Smith believes that social processes, such as competition and cooperation, can manifest themselves in territorial or spatial terms. Three bodies of literature combine to provide a theoretical framework for addressing scalar issues in indigenous resource governance. The first is a subtopic of human geography called politics of scale. Next, we will deal with discussions of common pool resource management and the discourse on indigenous development. Politics of Scale Current politics of scale in Nicaragua clearly involve the process of ‘glocalisation’ (sensu Swyngedouw 1997, 142), which is the simultaneous movement of political and economic interactions to both larger and smaller levels. Glocalisation aptly describes eastern Nicaragua’s current development because of (1) increasing integration with supranational structures, such as international development projects or multilateral finance networks; and (2) national administrative decentralisation based on the 1987 Autonomy Statute and later municipal reforms. As far as globalisation is concerned, multilateral and bilateral lending institutions, development consultants and transnational companies play an influential role in Nicaraguan forestry. The pace of corporate logging rapidly increased after neo-liberal economic reforms which started in 1990 (Alves-Milho 1996). By 1993, there had been an influx of foreign logging companies into the RAAN. Valuable species, such as mahogany, were rapidly harvested. In light of ecological deterioration and the continuation of extreme poverty, donor loans for sustainable forestry increased dramatically in subsequent years. Several of the case studies in this study originated as a result of these newly available funds. In general, state decentralisation involves the transfer of finances, power and responsibility from the central government to sub-national institutions, but specific types can also be identified (Rondinelli and Nellis 1986). De-concentration involves the handing over of responsibility to lower levels of central government. This occurs when a regional office of the Instituto Nacional Forestal (INAFOR; Nicaraguan National Forestry Institute) makes decisions. Devolution is the cre-

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ation of distinct sub-national structures, such as an autonomous region or municipality. Delegation implies the transfer of responsibility to powers outside the normal governmental structure, such as non-governmental organisations (NGOs). During privatisation, state tasks may transfer to corporations. Each of these four types of decentralisation is evident in Nicaragua. Development processes currently involve scales in addition to the standard hierarchy of global, national and local. Zimmerer (2000) believes that weaknesses in the middle governance scales are an obstacle to the defence of economic and ethnic rights of local populations, in addition to limiting resource management. Although the presence of Autonomous Regions is rare in Latin America, their role in Nicaragua is important to protect the diversity and rights of regional populations that are ethnically underrepresented in the national government. A regional or district government may also improve communication and coordination between higher and lower scales. Given the legally recognised village leaders in the RAAN, such as the síndico (natural resource chief ), wihta ( judge) and Elder Council, the municipal governments can also acquire a position at an intermediary scale. In much of Latin America, as is true in Nicaragua’s Pacific, the municipality is the bottom governance scale. However, in the RAAN, formal structures extend even further to the base. In an international comparison, Nicaragua is advanced in the creation of decentralised structures, but the definition of the roles, responsibilities and budgets of each scale in relation to the others remains weak. Problems occur when the autonomy of each layer is violated by other intermediary institutions or by the central government. The central government’s promotion of municipal governments and simultaneous alienation of regional and communal leaders has fuelled conflict. Decentralised governance layers do not tend to perceive each other as allies and therefore work in isolation. Shifts in power are constantly renegotiated as legislation is reworked and funds are disbursed to different entities. Movement to both larger and smaller scales of governance may cause the national government’s role to decrease. This process threatens the hegemony of the national economic elites, which are strongly linked to the central government. For this reason, state decentralisation will continue to be actively contested at national level. Nicaraguan institutions have to compete for scarce resources. While the RAAN government strives for autonomy from the central

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government through economic self-sufficiency from the sale of natural resources, municipal and village institutions also struggle for control over resource wealth. Multi-scale forest development initiatives have also begun to vie for natural resource profits as international donors push projects to become self-supporting. Programmes claiming future income from forests quickly alienate state institutions competing for the same resources. Common Pool Resources Secure property rights with defined boundaries are a foundation of forest management. When a government restricts, denies or ignores communal land rights, local populations are more likely to extract resources quickly because of uncertain future access and the risk that outsiders will harvest if they do not. Incentives to develop the resource stock for future extraction are therefore limited (Ascher 1999). With subsequent resource degradation, it is often recommended that communal lands be transferred to private individuals or placed under state administration in order to improve management. Yet, the blame should not be placed on the communal property institutions when the real problem is overwhelming uncertainty (Gibson et al. 2000). Open access resource exploitation has prevailed in most Miskitu commons and currently leads to ecological deterioration. With a historically large resource base and low population density in Prinzapolka, the demand for resource management was previously too low to justify the expenditure of time and energy in maintaining strong common pool institutions. There is more pressure today as a result of deforestation along the agricultural frontier, increased corporate extraction and the incursion of international forestry initiatives. In the coming years, Nicaragua will issue property titles in common pool territories based on the National Assembly approval in 2003 of a demarcation law for indigenous and ethnic communities. This is a multi-scale process. Pressure from international donors played a major role in achieving the approval. National level legitimisation was also essential, but regional, municipal and village institutions must now carry out demarcation. The process is predicted to take years due to contradictory land claims between state agencies, private individuals, corporations, combatant groups and indigenous villages. The most fundamental conflict may arise from the central government’s recognition of state land and local rejection that such

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a concept exists within the majority of the RAAN. A difficult aspect of common pool management is establishing territories and deciding rights of exclusion (Bruce 1999): conflict often arises from attempts to balance diverse claims and needs at different scales. McKean (2000) proposes that the administration of communal resources is most effective when promoted through existing organisations. Still, in some situations, it may be difficult to decide whether regimes should rely on indigenous forms of governance or create new institutions (Arnold 1998). Customary Miskitu leadership roles assign considerable unchecked authority to a single individual. The síndico is the most important village leader for forest management: this elected official oversees communal land and resource transactions. Since the síndico has become increasingly incorporated into negotiations with state and private institutions, misappropriation of communal resources has become more prevalent. Indigenous Development Funding for indigenous development is a global trend, but projects take many different forms. Canada leads the world in the promotion of aboriginal entrepreneurship (Anderson 2002) and this model was recently extended to Prinzapolka in one of the cases studied. Nevertheless, developing countries have overwhelmingly focused on protected areas for indigenous people and surrounding ecosystems. Previously, the park model attempted to eliminate resource use, but impacted populations often protested when external agents restricted customary access. New protected area models permit sustainable use by native populations. Two cases in this study exemplify this trend: an extractive forest reserve and a biological corridor. Participatory co-management between indigenous populations and other sectors is frequently promoted in forest development literature. Nonetheless, success in co-management is not easy. The process is complex and true participation by indigenous populations can be limited (Berkes 2002). There is often little incentive for state, nongovernmental or private institutions to share decision-making. Power relations among co-management partners range from fairly symmetrical to highly asymmetrical. Co-management leads to both positive and negative consequences for indigenous populations. Potential positive consequences of comanagement include (1) the creation of enabling legislation, such as

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land recognition or titling; (2) economic and technical support for institutions and capacity building; and (3) increased access to regional, national and international networks. Some positive aspects may also have negative implications. One example is the state codification of indigenous practices at national level which reduces local flexibility by fixing institutional norms in time and space (Berkes 2002). Further potential negative consequences include (1) the loss of local autonomy or the centralisation of decision-making; (2) increased economic dependence on outside agencies or markets; (3) shifts in systems of knowledge including the subordination of local knowledge; and (4) the loss of access to land or resources through nationalisation or privatisation. Modern indigenous governance in Latin America often merges diverse historical influences. National laws created after interaction with colonial powers influenced traditional structures which were unique to each place and people. Although there are countrywide governance standards today, local variations remain common. Autonomy over internal affairs exists to varying degrees, but the state often exerts pressure to conform to national norms. A question that must be posed while analysing development projects is whether they encourage the acceptance of national or international governance standards and whether this has negative consequences for native populations. In Nicaragua, it appears that conformity is mandated for bilateral or multilateral projects for two reasons. First, project resources are administered through a highly centralised national government that has an inadequate understanding of autonomous region structures and indigenous village governance. Second, projects require transparency and democracy in order to assure the proper management of financial assets. Informal, hierarchical Miskitu structures often do not meet donor expectations. Likewise, the dominance of male leaders does not conform to global trends towards gender equity. Without arguing for or against specific governance attributes, should international governance standards transform local practices? Multi-scale Forestry Case Studies International development agencies have initiated forestry projects to create economic alternatives to illegal logging and improve resource management in Prinzapolka. These include the creation of a Caribbean

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pine logging, processing and marketing company (CEPISA), the Atlantic Biological Corridor conservation project, a community forest genetic reserve and an indigenous corporation for sustainable forest management, corporate storing and marketing of agricultural products and ecotourism. CEPISA This Caribbean pine (Pinus caribaea) logging, processing and marketing company was formed in response to an external reward system created by foreign donors. The main stakeholders are fifty-three Miskitu families, many of whom are related to the founder and legal representative of the company. These Miskitu formed a village in the area called Las Crucetas, where a few homesteads were historically located, although most are migrants from other villages to the north. Organisers networked horizontally with two additional villages in order to receive a larger forest management plan, but the majority of project members are from Las Crucetas, where the sawmill is being constructed. Most core company officials are from the same family. CEPISA’s forest management plan covers 11,200 hectares in an area where land tenure is officially undesignated and where there are multiple claims. Since the creation of the project, Las Crucetas has gained hegemony over proximate villages due to the assistance of international donors. Other villages have few political, economic and human resources, which limits their capacity to oppose or legally challenge the project. Supporters of the project at higher scales believe that nearby villages need to recognise efforts made by the core family to bring investment to area. They concur that even if the project is not perfect, it is necessary to support it in order to demonstrate that Miskitu community forestry is possible. Meanwhile, state officials have suggested that those that are able to meet donor conditions, such as forming a corporation, deserve assistance while those that cannot should not contest the benefits enjoyed by others. As a result, thousands of dollars of international assistance have been channelled to one small group. Corredor Biológico del Atlántico (the Atlantic Biological Corridor) The Mesoamerican Biological Corridor (MBC), covering 768,000 square kilometres, is one of the largest conservation projects in the

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world. Many other Central American countries were able to establish MBC structures more quickly than Nicaragua, who first had to meet conditions imposed by international donors. Two such requirements took a number of years, namely the approval of Law No. 445 for land titling and the creation of a National Environmental Fund to administer MBC funds. Nicaragua’s MBC section, the Atlantic Biological Corridor (ABC), is located in the autonomous region. The spatial coverage of the project involves seven nuclei conservation areas connected by numerous corridors. Villages lying along these corridors were selected for sustainable development assistance. The ABC is strong at international and national scales. However, structures in the RAAN were weak for the first three and a half years, until the project’s decentralisation was announced. Fiscal aspects of the project remain centralised in spite of the fact that partnering with regional and communal structures increased during 2003. Selected Prinzapolka leaders were included in a 2003 diagnosis of problems and potential projects. During consultations, an attempt was made to involve a cross section of community leaders, such as pastors, teachers, elders and women. Nevertheless, diversity varied between participant villages as ABC representatives relied on a few key sources to determine who would be invited to meetings. While internationally recognised methods of participatory appraisal were used, local input was limited. Consultations in the sixty RAAN villages included in the project were rushed and interactions with local institutions remained superficial. At the end of 2003, the structural and technical components of viable community development plans were presented back to the villages. However, the ABC did not execute any community development plans in Prinzapolka before its funding ended in October of 2004, although thirteen pilot projects were implemented through ABC-NGO partnerships in other villages of the RAAN. Clearly the geographical scale of the ABC greatly surpassed the original fiveyear funding cycle of donors. ABC representatives hope that publicity relating to Prinzapolka community development plans will attract future donors. Examples of community development plans for Prinzapolka include (1) an integral forestry project in the municipal seat; (2) land demarcation and placement of boundary markers; (3) creation of communal ecotourism;

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and (4) the use of organic fertiliser with traditional crops to conserve agricultural soils. The ABC was designed to be large enough to protect ecosystems on a bioregional scale, but Nicaraguan coverage is patchy and fragmented nonetheless. Not all existing protected areas were included as nuclei conservation zones. Within the selected corridors, areas of high ecological value and risk for deforestation are numerous and in some cases political factors appear to have weighed heavily in the inclusion of certain villages. In sum, the projects envisioned may have general development benefits for some villages, yet they may not directly assist in the protection of viable biological corridors across the RAAN. Reserva Genética Forestal Comunitaria (Community Forest Genetic Reserve) An 1,100 hectare genetic reserve for Caribbean pine is the smallest project studied. Along with protecting an important high quality forest, this project aims to harvest and market certified seeds. This project has the most profound integration with regional institutions of any of the cases: the government of the RAAN (GRAAN) wrote the project plan and Bluefields Indian Caribbean University (BICU) is providing administrative and technical support. Nonetheless, since its initiation, GRAAN’s power has been limited by national institutions working to appease international donors. Serious technical planning is important and should be completed, but the World Bank’s rigid demands made meeting stipulations for the release of project funds difficult. The World Bank works through national agencies that may be too distant from the realities of the RAAN to understand the extreme difficulties imposed by World Bank standards. Enforcing inflexible global standards may not be appropriate for the preliminary stages of community projects in remote areas such as Prinzapolka. Just as the national government has constrained GRAAN participation, regional structures have limited village roles. Project representatives were established in the village of Alamikangban in 2002, but poor transport and communication infrastructure have limited interaction with the regional capital. There were occasions when village representation was subordinated to the technical expertise of Bluefields Indian Caribbean University and the GRAAN. While stronger village leaders may have been more forceful in demanding

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more participation from the beginning, the blame can largely be placed on the political dominance of the regional capital over the remote village. Village participation will increase with the imminent creation of a community business for seed harvesting and processing. Yet it is uncertain how soon village populations will be prepared to manage the business since their initial involvement was low and human resource development has been insufficient. Community businesses have frequently been proposed in the RAAN to improve the economic self sufficiency and political self determination of indigenous villages, but preliminary projects often appear to continue paternalism, albeit administered through multiple governance scales. Limi-Nawâh Limi-Nawâh is an indigenous corporation initiated with support from the Meadow Lakes Tribal Council (MLTC) in Saskatchewan, Canada. ‘While the membership communities that form the MLTC maintain their independence, MLTC represents a pooling of resources . . . on a scale which is beyond the reach of individual communities’ (Contigo International 2002, 29). With the goal of assisting other indigenous cultures, MLTC established a working relationship in the RAAN and created an NGO called Contigo International. In 2002, Contigo formed Limi-Nawâh in partnership with sixteen Miskitu and Mayangna villages. After highly participatory elections in early 2003, a council with representatives from each village now governs Limi-Nawâh. Limi-Nawâh exhibits two types of horizontal linkages and is the strongest of the studied cases in this aspect. The organisation of proximate Nicaraguan villages is one set of horizontal linkages: villages are organised into three multi-village blocks united under a shared governance council. The Canadian Cree and Déne’s advisory role also increases spatial coverage. This linkage is horizontal, since it networks indigenous villages, but it is also vertical because of the movement across scales from the local to the international. Leadership in Limi-Nawâh has been controversial. Some village members feel that Limi-Nawâh has violated local customs by electing new leaders instead of working through standing officials. This position is held largely by those whose power has been challenged by Limi-Nawâh’s council. Their criticism is supported by RAAN populations who see this new structure as a threat to recent advances

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in the acceptance of síndicos as the base structure of formal natural resource governance. Nevertheless, a potential benefit of Limi-Nawâh’s council is the election of new leaders, especially women. Young people were also chosen because of their higher literacy rates. Project leaders limited the governance scales and villages involved in Limi-Nawâh in two important ways. First, intermediary state institutions were not included in what is predominately a global/local partnership. Some officials appear to be threatened by Limi-Nawâh and have spoken out against the project as a result. Second, LimiNawâh includes portions of two watersheds. To work across the entire watersheds, Limi-Nawâh would have had to partner with nonindigenous populations that confiscated and privatised indigenous communal land. Like the previous cases, Limi-Nawâh reveals the challenges facing multi-scale projects working with large ecosystems and diverse populations. It is often impossible to include all potential villages and governance scales in a project, but exclusion may create controversy. Another great challenge is to match institutions to the forest ecosystem. None of the case studies chose their forest project boundaries using purely ecological criteria. Political factors included land tenure conflict and the jurisdiction of other development projects, villages and municipalities. Other factors instrumental in determining placement included ethnicity and economic need. Comparison With international funding and technical assistance in each case, the global support networks for the projects under review are still asymmetrical, as are other vertical linkages. The case studies may or may not involve the municipal government or the RAAN government. The majority of projects work with non-governmental and private sectors and thereby demonstrate a trend away from sole state control over resource management. Although most projects claim to support local participation, the manner in which village representatives were involved was highly divergent. In each case, the two strongest scales are the international and village ones. While movement towards international decision-making has already occurred, village institutions are slowly being incorporated. Project representatives generally contacted local leaders after state officials or international donors had proposed the project and

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after it had been allocated funds. Donors and external agents, most often working at national or international scales, took most major decisions. Local populations seldom controlled project administration, finance, design or even village selection. The four case studies demonstrate co-management models currently in vogue, such as community logging enterprises, ecotourism, forest reserves and biological corridors. The geographical size of the projects varies and several programmes extend beyond Prinzapolka. However, the analysis focuses on the work done by each in this specific area. In addition to individual goals, each project aims to achieve ecological sustainability and financial viability. Most of them also incorporate plans for local employment. The planning stage is highly important for multi-scaled projects. As demonstrated by the short sketches above describing each comanagement case, it can be difficult to define and finance the appropriate temporal and spatial scales. Another challenge is to determine the leaders, villages or institutions that should be involved, as well as the degree of decision-making power that will be assigned to each. The Changing Structure of Miskitu Governance Local populations are aware of responsibility for deforestation at multiple governance scales. While villagers are most likely to blame the national government, there is increasing concern about local practices as well. In a 2002 survey in Alamikangban, in which representatives from fifty households participated, ninety four per cent thought the mayor was not managing forests well and ninety per cent thought the same about their village síndico. There are limited financial and human resources in most Prinzapolka villages and people’s understanding of the state judicial system is poor. Leadership requires working outside the village and often villagers are manipulated or feel confused by external agents. Many people are uncertain of their leadership ability because of illiteracy, as well as poor Spanish skills, and standing leaders were therefore chosen from a small pool of potential candidates. The roles of different leaders in Miskitu villages have changed over time. Elder Councils play an instrumental role in a wide range of decisions by giving moral advice, but the terms of their selection and the effectiveness of their leadership varies between villages. The

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wihta has a role in village judicial decisions. The wihta, like the Elder Council, has a long history in the RAAN. While the Miskitu appropriated the position of síndico and claim that it is traditional to their culture, British allies influenced the creation of this institution a century ago. Síndicos are supposed to be elected annually but they often remain in power for longer, sometimes without the support of the community. In the most conflictive villages, even the discussion of future síndico candidates is divisive. Although most síndicos begin with an intention to assist their community, they frequently become corrupt. They often do not search for alternative economic options because of easy money from logging (a stumpage fee is paid for each tree taken from indigenous land) or illegally selling communal land. As síndicos gain access to financial resources from the sale of timber, they begin to prioritise corporate extraction. Historically, money from communal resources was used to assist the neediest villagers. A common complaint now is that the síndico uses this money as a type of salary. Modern Miskitu governance has been influenced by international donors, the state, NGOs and corporations. Since the end of the civil war in the 1980s, many RAAN indigenous rights advocates have fought for the recognition of síndicos as legitimate village representatives in natural resource decision-making. Training of local leaders by some national NGOs and international aid agencies has increased state acceptance of customary village leaders. Nevertheless, not all donors want to work through síndicos. Material donations from development agencies signed over to síndicos are frequently misappropriated. Donors with experience in the RAAN often feel cynical about working with síndicos and may not respect village institutions as a result. Some donors even refuse to work in Prinzapolka until governance improves. Government agencies then justify state appropriation of international funds destined for Miskitu populations due to leadership problems. There has been a historical lack of state institutions in the isolated Prinzapolka municipality and the relationship between central government and communal officials is poor. The state has recently worked to strengthen its institutions in the RAAN. Permanent police and army troops were stationed in Prinzapolka’s municipal seat in recent years. This greatly reduces the role of the wihta and the elders. In a nutshell, there are multiple reasons for a breakdown in Miskitu governance, including (1) corruption; (2) the weak role of the Elder

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Council and wihta in comparison with the síndico; (3) the poor understanding of village processes by outside organisations; and (4) the willingness of state officials to dominate village practices. As documented by this study, donor-initiated community forestry has a fundamental impact on Miskitu governance by (1) ‘scaling up’ leadership roles and responsibilities; (2) initiating new village leadership positions; (3) encouraging new leaders, such as women and youth; (4) advancing some leaders at the expense of others; (5) promoting some villages at the expense of others; and (6) introducing external funding, training and resources. Whether these changes are defined as positive or negative is potentially controversial. Future Challenges for Multi-scale Governance Various institutional structures are necessary for forestry in Latin America due to cultural and ecological diversity. Problems of compatibility between ecosystems and institutions, as well as between different institutions, are common (Brown and Rosendo 2000). Tension may develop from contradictory goals, different spatial or temporal scales, a lack of adaptability or an inability to deal with complexity. Many Nicaraguan forestry projects import global models and village involvement is deficient in planning stages. Ecologically and socially sensitive local models may not yet exist because they require input from each of the multiple scales and sectors involved. Donors should accept that they might not always be able to achieve their proposed goals. Above all, villagers should determine governance transitions. New institutions or reforms to old structures require time to develop and can delay rapid project initiation. The subsidiarity principle states that management authority should be vested at the lowest level of social organisation capable of solving a particular problem (Young 2002). Higher-level institutions may question the capability of lower level groups to solve problems. While regional or global mechanisms may be needed to address national or transnational problems, local knowledge and solutions should not be overlooked when appropriate. While current literature shows that multi-scale partnerships produce numerous potential benefits, some countries limit development projects due to their placement in settings of ‘ill-integrated legal pluralism . . . [where] . . . anomalies favor the powerful’ (Bruce 1999, 10). In the case of Nicaragua, legal pluralism would refer to the recog-

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nition of multiple decentralised and indigenous institutions. Pluralism is enhanced by the proliferation of NGO networks, international donors and communal and private corporations. Problems occur due to contradictions between the goals of different scales and sectors. Important methodologies have been developed for the micro-scale study of indigenous populations, but current development literature does not sufficiently address networks extending beyond the local level. Although they provide instrumental support, multi-scale development initiatives increase pressure on village governance structures. Local structures may need to function independently before they can effectively partner with other sectors and scales, yet village governance across Prinzapolka is in crisis. With the exception of CEPISA, the case study projects were not instigated by the impacted villages. Local populations generally do not feel that initiatives belong to them. Although villagers agree to management plans with projects, some then act in a contradictory manner and sell mahogany illegally from the same area, as was the case in with Limi-Nawâh. In other cases, community members have set fires within project areas, such as the Genetic Reserve. These have not been malignant actions against the projects but rather a continuation of open access use of communal lands. Projects will not be able to succeed unless community populations perceive themselves to be owners and managers. While this is the primary goal of the initiatives, it has not been effectively communicated and demonstrated at the village level. Donor-initiated institutions with multiple scales are frequently unsustainable due to the availability of large quantities of external funds, which can undercut the capabilities of local institutions, increase inefficiencies and create dependency (Ostrom 1995). If the connection between provision and use of resources is lost, fiscal prudence may be lowered and the diversion of resources may increase. Project design may then become oriented towards maintaining the approval of outsiders in order to capture more funds. ‘Empowerment lies across scales; disempowerment results from being defined by one scale of action’ (Williams 1999, 68). This holds true for all scales. It is often perceived that access to global networks is the key to success. However, when speaking with international donors in Managua it is possible to detect frustration because in spite of the vast amount of financial resources invested in Nicaragua they have not been able to realise the improvements that they envisioned

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and illegal logging is still rampant. To meet sustainable development goals, donors need assistance from villagers, institutions at intermediary scales and the national government. It is not easy to either scale up or scale down resource management systems (Berkes 2002). The projects studied are simultaneously attempting to do both—a global trend in resource management. Many of the concerns discussed in this chapter are not unique to the RAAN. Rescaling governance is a complex process that requires long-term support from a range of actors at various scales. The key to success in cross-scale networking is the allocation of specific tasks to the scale that is appropriate and then working to forge complementary rather than conflicting actions (Young 2002). Acknowledgements I am grateful for the cooperation and support from governmental and civilian sources throughout Nicaragua without whom this work could not have been completed. I also appreciate the candidness afforded to me by representatives of international agencies. Fellowships from Fulbright-Hays, the National Science Foundation, the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy and the University of Texas at Austin (the Homer Lindsey Bruce Fellowship) financed this research. The findings and opinions expressed, however, are solely the responsibility of the author. References Agrawal, A. and Gibson, C. (1999) ‘Enchantment and Disenchantment: The Role of Community in Natural Resource Conservation’, World Development, Vol. 27, No. 4, pp. 629–649. Alves-Milho, S.F. (1996) Dinámica del Sector Forestal en Nicaragua, 1960–1995. Managua: Escuela de Economía Agrícola, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Nicaragua, Universidad Nacional Agraria (ESECA/UNAN/UNA). Anderson, R.B. (2002) Aboriginal Entrepreneurship and Business Development. North York, Ontario: Captus Press. Arnold, J.E.M. (1998) Managing Forests as Common Property. Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Ascher, W. (1999) Why Governments Waste Natural Resources: Policy Failures in Developing Countries. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Berkes, F. (2002) ‘Cross-Scale Institutional Linkages: Perspectives from the Bottom Up’, pp. 293–321 in Natural Resource Council (ed.) The Drama of the Commons. Washington DC: National Academy Press. Blaikie, P. and Brookfield, H. (eds.) (1987) Land Degradation and Society. London: Methuen.

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Brown, K. and Rosendo, S. (2000) ‘Environmentalists, Rubber Tappers and Empowerment: The Politics and Economics of Extractive Reserves’, Development and Change, Vol. 31, pp. 201–227. Bruce, J.W. (1999) Legal Bases for the Management of Forest Resources as Common Property. Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Contigo International. (2002) ‘Prinzapolka-Bambana Community Development Project: Project Implementation Plan’. Managua: Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). Gibson, C.C., McKean, M.A. and Ostrom, E. (2000) People and Forests: Communities, Institutions and Governance. Cambridge: MIT Press. McKean, M.A. (2000) ‘Common Property: What Is It, What Is It Good for, and What Makes It Work?’ pp. 27–55 in C. Gibson, M.A. McKean and E. Ostrom (eds.) People and Forests: Communities, Institutions, and Governance. Cambridge: MIT Press. ——. (1996) ‘Common-Property Regimes as a Solution to Problems of Scale and Linkage’, pp. 223–243 in S. Hanna, C. Folke and K.-G. Mäler, (eds.) Rights to Nature: Ecological, Economic, Cultural and Political Principles of Institutions for the Environment. Washington DC: Island Press. Ostrom, E. (1995) ‘Designing Complexity to Govern Complexity’ pp. 33–45 in S. Hanna and M. Munasinghe (eds) Property Rights and the Environment: Social and Ecological Issues. Washington DC: Beijer International Institute of Ecological Economics/World Bank. Ostrom, E., Burger, J., Field, C.B, Norgaard, R.B. and Policansky, D. (1999) ‘Revisiting the Commons: Local Lessons, Global Challenges’, Science, Vol. 284, No. 5412, pp. 278–282. Rondinelli, D.A. and Nellis, J.R. (1986) ‘Assessing Decentralization Policies in Developing Countries: The Case for Cautious Optimism’, Development Policy Review, Vol. 4, pp. 3–23. Smith, N. (1993) ‘Homeless/Global: Scaling Places’, pp. 87–119 in J. Bird, B. Curtis, T. Putnam, G. Robertson and L. Tickner (eds) Mapping the Futures: Local Cultures, Global Change. New York: Routledge. Swyngedouw, E. (1997) ‘Neither Global nor Local: “Glocalization” and the Politics of Scale’, pp. 137–166 in K.R. Cox (ed.) Spaces of Globalization: Reasserting the Power of the Local. New York: Guilford Press. Williams, R.W. (1999) ‘Environmental Injustice in America and its Politics of Scale’, Political Geography, Vol. 18, pp. 49–73. Young, O.R. (2002) ‘Institutional Interplay: The Environmental Consequences of Cross-Scale Interactions’, pp. 263–291 in Natural Resource Council (ed.) The Drama of the Commons. Washington DC: National Academy Press. Zimmerer, K.S. (2000) ‘The Reworking of Conservation Geographies: Non-Equilibrium Landscapes and Nature-Society Hybrids’, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Vol. 90, No. 2, pp. 356–369.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

PARTNERSHIPS ACROSS SCALES: LESSONS FROM EXTRACTIVE RESERVES IN BRAZILIAN AMAZONIA Sergio Rosendo* Tropical forests generate a wide range of benefits that accrue to actors at a variety of scales, from local to global. Such benefits include, for example, the provision of resources to sustain rural livelihoods, the conservation of soil and water resources and the conservation of biodiversity. Sustainable forest management has been widely accepted as a possible solution to promote the conservation and sustainable use of forests in an attempt to satisfy a variety of demands. With a view to finding responses that can strike a better balance between local, regional, national and global needs, institutional forms such as co-management and multi-stakeholder arrangements are becoming increasingly common as a means of supporting local management regimes. Co-management means situations in which powers and responsibilities for resource management are shared between the government and local users (Berkes 1995). Multi-stakeholder arrangements involve a wider range of actors, including donors and nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) (Berkes 2002). Forest management is increasingly shaped by the interaction between multiple stakeholders operating at different scales. These actors form multi-sector partnerships, defined here in the broadest sense, which include systems of cooperation grounded in legally binding arrangements, cooperative working relationships and mutually adopted plans, policies and projects among a number of actors (OECD 1990). However, the proliferation of partnership approaches and the variety of collaborative forms involved in policy implementation often obscure crucial practical issues. Actors get involved in partnerships

* Centre for Social and Economic Research on the Global Environment, University of East Anglia, Norwich, NR4 7TJ, United Kingdom. E-mail: [email protected].

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as a strategy for accomplishing certain goals. When these goals are complementary, the partnership is likely to lead to outcomes that fulfil the needs of the different participants. However, these goals may also be difficult to reconcile or may even be incompatible. For example, environmental NGOs may wish to establish partnerships with local communities to promote the conservation of biodiversity, while the motivation of communities to collaborate with the NGOs may be to address their most urgently felt needs which may not be linked to biodiversity conservation. Alternatively, governments might be interested in the funding that collaborative initiatives bring into the country, but they may not always be prepared to hand over real control of forests to local groups, thus undermining local selfdetermination. Based on a case study of extractive reserves in the Brazilian state of Rondônia in western Amazonia, this chapter aims to contribute to a political understanding of partnerships. It cannot be assumed that effective cooperation will always result from the creation of institutional arrangements and structures that encourage collaboration and coordination between multiple stakeholders. Collective action between institutions and organisations with a view to managing natural resources is likely to face challenges similar to those which exist in collective action between individuals. In this chapter, we adopt a political ecology approach (Bryant and Bailey 1997; Peet and Watts 1996) to study the contours and forms of collaboration between different actors involved in the creation, legal implementation and development of the extractive reserves. A summary institutional mapping reveals a diverse set of actors and institutions involved in these processes, including donor-funded projects aimed at improving environmental management initiated by the World Bank, the government (at different levels), Brazilian and international NGOs and organisations representing the rubber tappers and local communities. After a brief clarification of the methodology used in this study, we will explore some of the more recent arguments that support multi-stakeholder arrangements for environmental management and the key issues that are likely to affect partnerships. Next, we will describe and analyse three different processes which are essential for the setting up of extractive reserves and which guarantee their overall viability—the creation, the legal implementation and the development of extractive reserves, with the latter focusing on efforts to build management capacity and to improve economic viability. The

Figure 11.1 Extractive reserves in Rondônia, Brazil

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chapter concludes with some reflections on the role of partnerships in grassroots empowerment, the constraints on effective cooperation and coordination between stakeholders involved in sustainable forest management and the requirements for better integration between actors and institutions at different scales. A Brief Clarification of Methodology This chapter is based on ethnographic research undertaken in Rondônia, in western Brazilian Amazonia (see Figure 11.1). The research took place over a total period of 14 months between 1999 and 2001. It involved semi-structured interviews with inhabitants of extractive reserves, community leaders, leaders and staff of grassroots organisations, NGO workers and government staff. Data was also collected using participant observation and a research method known as ‘process documentation’, which was developed to monitor and document the implementation of projects and to study the actors involved and the interactions between them (Lewis 1998; Mosse 1998). Process documentation relies primarily on participant observation in organisations. In this research, the method was applied to study the Organização dos Seringueiros de Rondônia (OSR; Organisation of Rubber Tappers of Rondônia) and its interactions with other actors and institutions involved in the creation, legal implementation and development of extractive reserves. It consisted of observing the everyday activities of the organisation, including how problems were dealt with, decisions made and strategies formulated. It also involved attending meetings with extractive reserve communities, NGOs, government and donors. Linking Actors and Institutions across Scales Berkes (2002) argues that cross-scale institutional linkages facilitate more environmentally sustainable and socially equitable resource management. Co-management and multi-stakeholder arrangements are examples of institutional forms that demonstrate potential for promoting such linkages. The distinguishing characteristic of collaborative approaches is their emphasis on local users. In Brazil, the argument for the involvement of local populations in resource management has gained wide acceptance. The government capacity to enforce envi-

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ronmental legislation is weak, so engaging local people in conservation efforts is of vital importance (Schwartzman et al. 2000a, 2000b). Hall (2000) argues that the active involvement of local populations in environmental management is not only desirable but even a prerequisite for sustainability. Without promoting sustainable livelihoods, the likelihood of large-scale resource degradation driven by commercial interests is greatly increased. Adaptive management is gaining in importance as an approach to deal with complex and dynamic social and ecological systems as are found in tropical forests (Holling and Sanderson, 1995). Adaptive management is a process whereby institutional arrangements and ecological knowledge are tested and revised in a dynamic, ongoing cycle of learning-by-doing. It assumes incomplete knowledge about ecosystem complexity and treats management as experiments from which managers can learn and then readjust management practices and institutions accordingly. Some authors believe that adaptive management needs to be collaborative and thereby become what has been defined as adaptive co-management. This means ‘flexible community-based systems of resource management tailored to specific places and situations and supported by, and working with, various organisations at different levels’ (Olsson et al. 2004, 75). Adaptive comanagement is based on the capacity of local groups to organise in order to shape and adapt to social and environmental change. However, this capacity is enhanced by involvement in networks linking them to actors operating at different scales. A network is a group of people or organisations that interact for mutual assistance and support. In Latin America, increasing attention has been devoted to the study of networks and their role in reconfiguring traditional power relations and helping local communities to gain access to land, resources and state institutions (Perreault 2003; Radcliffe 2001; see also Chapter 14 by Marcus Colchester). Collaborative approaches to forest conservation and sustainable forest management have often been debated without any adequate reflection on key issues that arise almost inevitably when a diverse set of stakeholders with different interests, worldviews and power are brought together to cooperate. Evidence from other areas of policy (for example, unemployment, poverty and social exclusion) indicates that partnerships have important limitations (Knox 2002). Common problems include situations where the agenda of one particular actor dominates, unresolved cultural clashes between the various partners,

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partners with aims and objectives that cannot be reconciled, partnerships that focus on short-term projects rather than long-term strategies, lack of clear accountability between partners, the roles and expectations of the different partners being not explicitly established and the organisations involved being unrepresentative of the groups or communities on whose behalf they claim to act (Mullett 2001). Partnerships are an essential part of the shift towards more adaptive and inclusive forest governance. However, crafting new institutions and institutional arrangements to promote this transition is a political process in which the actors involved seek to defend their interests. Young (2002) points out that establishing environmental or resource regimes that introduce new rules and decision-making procedures is likely to trigger off a response by the actors subject to such rules and procedures. The outcomes of these regimes, therefore, are ‘likely to reflect the political influence of major participants or coalitions of participants’ (Young 2002, 285). Bargaining strength plays a central role. Diversity may be a source of strength in multistakeholder approaches since management solutions can draw on the knowledge, capabilities and resources of the different stakeholders, which are often associated with the scale at which they operate (Cash and Moser 2000). However, when institutional arrangements involve cross-scale interactions between actors with different interests, scale of influence and power, the likelihood of tensions and disputes emerging is high (Young 2002). It is important to recognise that these dynamics are inseparable from partnership-based approaches, including the extractive reserves in Brazil. Setting Up Extractive Reserves: A Multi-stakeholder Process Extractive reserves are a groundbreaking approach to the sustainable use of natural resources by local populations. During the 1980s, when the commercialisation of forest products began receiving attention as a means to integrate conservation and development in tropical forests, extractive reserves became the first proposal seeking to guarantee the rights of local populations to natural resources and create conditions for the improvement of livelihoods and the protection of the forest. In many ways, extractive reserves embody the concept of conservation through sustainable use—a strategy that Hall

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(1997) calls ‘productive conservation’. These reserves are protected areas, established by the government, that guarantee the rights of local populations to harvest natural resources for livelihoods (Allegretti 1990; Schwartzman 1989). The extractive reserves concept originated in the struggle of the rubber tappers or seringueiros in Acre, a Brazilian state in western Amazonia, to resist the occupation of the forests they had traditionally inhabited from cattle ranchers settling in the region during the 1970s and 1980s (Hecht and Cockburn 1989). Underpinning the rubber tappers’ struggle was the need to secure rights to land (Keck 1995). The Brazilian legislation stipulated that forest clearing had to be used as proof of ownership and effective use of land, requirements which the rubber tappers did not fulfil since their patterns of resource use left the forest largely intact. Initially, the rubber tappers’ activism was local and focused on preventing the teams hired by the ranchers from clearing the forest. These actions were supported by rural workers’ unions and clerics of the Catholic Church. Gradually, the rubber tappers’ struggle became part of the larger movement for social justice that gained strength during the 1980s, a period when civil society gained strength as a result of democratisation in Brazil. The rubber tappers established alliances with other social movements and advocated their claims within the broader struggle for agrarian reform. Alliances involve joining forces with other groups to further common interests. At the same time, the rubber tappers’ struggles attracted the attention of environmentalists who were seeking to bring the problem of tropical deforestation to the attention of the international community (Keck 1995). The concept of extractive reserves was inspired by indigenous reserves, which recognise the rights of indigenous populations to their traditional territories (Allegretti 2002). The concept was considered by the government for further development, a process that counted on the participation of the rubber tappers’ organisations and an NGO called Instituto de Estudos Amazônicos (IEA; Institute for Amazonian Studies). Alliances with international NGOs enabled the rubber tappers to seek support for extractive reserves beyond national borders, among institutions that had the power to influence the Brazilian government into adopting this approach, in particular the World Bank. A combination of lobbying by the rubber tappers and international pressure, particularly following the death of Chico Mendes, against

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a context of accelerating deforestation and the run-up to UNCED led the Brazilian government to adopt extractive reserves in 1990 as part of its environmental policy (Hall 1997; Silva 1994). Currently, extractive reserves cover some 3.8 million hectares of forests and other ecosystems. The expansion of extractive reserves owes much to the Conselho Nacional dos Seringueiros (CNS; National Rubber Tappers Council) which has actively promoted the establishment of these areas. The support of internationally funded environmental programmes has also been vital. The Programa Piloto para a Proteção das Florestas Tropicais do Brasil (PPG7; Pilot Programme for the Conservation of the Brazilian Rain Forest), an initiative of the G7 Group of Industrialised Countries administered by the World Bank, includes a sub-project to support the implementation and development of extractive reserves. The Plano Agropecuário e Florestal de Rondônia (PLANAFLORO; Rondônia Natural Resources Management Project), implemented between 1993 and 2001, also included support for extractive reserves in Rondônia. Setting up extractive reserves involves three major stages: formal creation, legal implementation and development (see Hall 1997, 105–108; Ruiz and Pinzón 1995, 37–48; and Allegretti 1994, 36–41 for a more detailed explanation of the different stages described above). Below we review each of these stages, highlighting the actors and partnerships as well as the political processes involved. The Politics of Extractive Reserve Creation Between 1990 and 1992, the federal government created eight extractive reserves in Brazilian Amazonia. Since then, several other extractive reserves have been established under the authority of the federal government, including a number of reserves outside Amazonia (see Table 11.1). Most of the reserves in Rondônia were created by the state government under PLANAFLORO. Originally, PLANAFLORO aimed to enable the creation of six extractive reserves covering 3.5 million hectares of forest. Ultimately, twenty-one extractive reserves were created with a combined area of approximately 1 million hectares and involving 326 families. Initiated in 1993, PLANAFLORO represented an improved strategy for natural resource management, conservation, environmental protection and sustainable development in Rondônia (World Bank/SAR

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1992). The project aimed to address the social and environmental problems that another World Bank-funded development initiative, the heavily criticised Programa Integrado de Desenvolvimento do Noroeste do Brasil (POLONOROESTE; Northeast Brazil Integrated Development Programme), helped to cause. PLANAFLORO became a showcase project to demonstrate the World Bank’s new approach to development, which emphasised conservation measures, sustainable resource use and stakeholder participation (Redwood III 2002). Alongside conventional development components such as infrastructure development, PLANAFLORO included a number of innovative measures such as support for integrated farming systems, the creation and implementation of protected areas, support for indigenous communities and implementation of agro-ecological zoning. One project sub-component was exclusively aimed at creating extractive reserves, their demarcation and development. There were concerns regarding the effective implementation of PLANAFLORO by the Rondônia government. As one NGO activist interviewed explained, the state government was not committed to the project’s environmental objectives, but saw it as a means to obtain much needed funds to improve infrastructure and public services. These concerns were communicated to the World Bank but PLANAFLORO went ahead as planned. The process for the creation of extractive reserves began in the late 1980s, while PLANAFLORO was still on the drawing board. Several actors were involved in this process: – The Instituto Estadual de Florestas (IEF; State Institute of Forests), the state agency concerned with environmental issues, identified areas with potential for the establishment of extractive reserves. – Leaders of the Conselho Nacional de Seringueiros (CNS; National Council of Rubber Tappers) participated in meetings with the local rubber tappers to discuss plans for the creation of extractive reserves. Contrary to other Amazonian states, however, the CNS had little involvement in the reserves created under PLANAFLORO. – Socio-environmental NGOs like the Instituto de Pesquisa em Defesa da Identidade Amazônica (INDIA; Research Institute in Defence of the Amazonian Identity) and the Ação Ecológica Guaporé (ECOPORÉ; Ecological Action Guaporé)—an organisation working with local populations through projects funded by international NGOs— encouraged the Rondonian rubber tappers to organise and establish

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an independent organisation, the OSR, to negotiate the creation of extractive reserves. The NGOs and the OSR jointly developed efforts to promote the creation of reserves, with the NGOs providing the expertise that enabled the rubber tappers to formulate sound proposals for the establishment of extractive reserves. – The Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF)-Sweden provided funding to enable a group of three NGOs, including INDIA and ECOPORÉ, to assist the OSR in its efforts to guarantee the creation of the extractive reserves within PLANAFLORO. The project provided wages for grassroots leaders, thus enabling the OSR and the associations to maintain a full-time leadership base. It also provided funding aimed at improving community organisation and building participatory structures for communication and decisionmaking based on regular meetings between leaders and communities. Within the WWF-funded project, advisory NGOs also implemented a number of activities aimed at strengthening extractivist and agricultural production and marketing. Despite the action of the OSR and its NGO partners, the effective creation of extractive reserves was difficult to guarantee given the prevailing political circumstances. By 1995, none of the reserves included in the PLANAFLORO milestones had been created. Various other implementation failures and problems were apparent in PLANAFLORO, including irregular demarcation of protected areas, ineffective implementation of various project components by weak state agencies, failure to enforce agro-ecological zoning—including the continuous advance of agricultural settlement projects in unsuitable areas that threatened forest-dwelling and indigenous communities— and exclusion of civil society from project decision-making and implementation (Forum and FoE 1995). This led local NGOs and grassroots organisations, coordinated by the Rondônia NGO forum, to submit a request to the World Bank Inspection Panel asking for a formal investigation of PLANAFLORO.1 Although the request for investigation was strongly supported by international NGOs, it was

1 The World Bank Inspection Panel is a body created in 1993 to ‘provide an independent forum to private citizens who believe that their interests have been or could be directly harmed by a project financed by the World Bank’ (URL: http:// www.worldbank.org/html/ins-panel/overview.html).

20.05.92

Maranhão

8,117.53 89,500.00 56,769.00

11.08.00 21.09.00

Bahia Bahia

Rio de Janeiro 03.01.97

10,450.00 9,542.00

20.05.92 20.05.92

Maranhão Maranhão

7,050.00

600

3,612 828

500 900

1,150

600

16,000 700

700 n/a 800

3,600 7,500 n/a 3,800

Coastal

Amazonia Amazonia

Amazonia Amazonia Cerrado/Amazonia

Amazonia Amazonia Amazonia Amazonia

Biome

Fish

Fish Shrimp and fish

Coastal/Atlantic f.

Coastal Coastal

Babaçu palm and subsistence Cerrado agriculture Babaçu, fish and subsistence agriculture Cerrado Babaçu, fish and subsistence agriculture Amazonia

Fish and shellfish

Rubber Brazil nuts, copaiba oil, rubber Rubber Brazil nuts, copaiba oil, rubber and açaí fruits Brazil nuts, copaiba oil and rubber Fish Babaçu palm, fish and subsistence agriculture Rubber, fish, oils and resins Rubber, fish

Estimated Main resources population

* In addition to sixteen established extractive reserves, there are three in the final stage of approval and thirteen in the process of being legalised. (1) n/a: information not available Source: URL: http://www.ibama.gov.br.

Mata Grande Marinha da Ponta do Quilombo do Frexal Marinha da Baía de Iguapé Marinha do Corumbau Southeast Marinha de Arraial do Cabo

20.05.92

S. Catarina

1,444.00

06.11.98 647,610.74 04.03.97 253,226.50

Pará Amazonas

506,186.00 970,570.00 151,199.64 481,650.00

Tapajós Arapiuns Médio Juruá South Marinha do Pirajubaé Northeast Ciriáco

23.01.90 12.03.90 08.11.00 12.03.90

Area (ha)

13.03.90 204,583.00 10.05.00 55,850.00 20.05.92 9,280.00

Acre Acre Acre Amapá

North Alto Juruá Chico Mendes Alto Taraucá Rio Cajarí

Date of creation

Rio Ouro Preto Rondônia Lago do Cuniã Rondônia Extremo Norte do Tocantins Tocantins

State

Name

Table 11.1 Federal Extractive Reserves in Brazil*

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not pursued by the Inspection Panel. However, it still had a vital impact on the implementation of PLANAFLORO. The Bank was forced to supervise the project more closely and to pressure the state government into addressing some of the criticisms of civil society. Most of the reserves claimed by the rubber tappers were finally created in the aftermath of the investigation request, albeit with considerable reductions in the land area originally proposed. The criticisms put forward by civil society were also addressed in the mid-term review of PLANAFLORO held in 1996 which led to a new community-driven development component that enabled communities to obtain funding to implement projects they themselves proposed (World Bank 2003). With the assistance of the NGO ECOPORÉ, the rubber tappers were able to secure funding to strengthen and expand a number of ongoing initiatives, including sustainable logging and ecotourism. PLANAFLORO provided an exceptional entry point for the creation of extractive reserves, but the strong environmental orientation of the project was driven more by the World Bank (and to a lesser extent by the federal government) than local stakeholders, particularly the state government. PLANAFLORO ran counter to the prevailing development culture of a large part of Rondônia’s society and important political and economic interests. As a result, the creation of extractive reserves was delayed. State agencies responsible for environmental management lacked capacity but, more importantly, they lacked support from key sectors of the government as one government member of staff noted. Partnerships with Brazilian and international NGOs were important because they facilitated a more effective equipping of the rubber tappers with the capabilities and strategies they needed to defend their claims in an unsupportive political environment. The involvement of the World Bank, however, provided them with a vital source of leverage in relation to the state government. Perhaps unwittingly, the World Bank became a strategic ally of the Rondonian rubber tappers. Legal Implementation The formal creation of extractive reserves must be followed by their legal implementation, which means addressing land tenure issues. This procedure (known as regularização fundiária in Portuguese) is also

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largely dependent on government action and requires a high degree of cooperation and coordination between federal and state government. Essentially, the legalisation of extractive reserves involves clarifying property rights. The extractive reserves (as well as other protected areas) created by the state government encompass three types of land ownership and control: so-called ‘public lands’ which are controlled by the federal government, lands under private ownership, and lands in the domain of the Military2 (World Bank 2003). Land rights are confusing and uncertain. The legalisation of a reserve involves transferring land from these different forms of control into the state domain. The main agencies involved in the process of land tenure legalisation are the Instituto Nacional de Colonização e Reforma Agrária (INCRA; National Institute for Colonisation and Agrarian Reform), which controls the public lands, the Defence Department, which is responsible for lands under military oversight, and the Secretaria de Estado do Desenvolvimento Ambiental (SEDAM; State Secretariat for Environmental Development), the state agency that gains control over the territories covered by the reserves. The latter was originally the Instituto de Terras de Rondônia (ITERON; Rondônia Land Institute) until this organ was discontinued in 2000 when its responsibilities were transferred to SEDAM. Privately-owned lands must be expropriated and their landowners adequately compensated. The land tenure issue is important because, without the transfer of land from the federal to the state domain, the contract between the government and the association cannot be signed and individual extractivists will not gain formal rights to their landholdings. The different agencies and levels of government have demonstrated little willingness to cooperate in order to address the land tenure situation of extractive reserves. They often compete for power and influence rather than working together. According to one leader, INCRA has acted as owner of public lands, seeing the transfer of jurisdiction to SEDAM as undermining its strength and influence in the state. In effect, INCRA is known for not recognising the protected areas established by the state government, as witnessed by the

2 The Military have oversight over the 150 kilometre wide border strip, which covers a good part of Rondônia.

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fact that it has continued to create agricultural settlement projects in the vicinity of protected areas, which is certain to increase human pressure on such areas (Forum and FoE 1995). The legalisation of most reserves is still pending, largely because of the difficulty in reconciling the interests of the different agencies involved. For example, the state government is interested in acquiring greater authority over its territory and sees the legalisation of protected areas as a way to achieve it. As one NGO activist remarked, the reasoning of Rondônia’s politicians is that once the state government gains control over protected areas it will then be able to manipulate state legislation to accommodate developmental interests. Rubber tapper leaders agree that reserves under the jurisdiction of the state government were not an ideal solution but rather the most feasible option at the time, given the urgent need to put the extractivist areas under a legal regime that offered some protection from external pressures. Reserve residents have different concerns and the uncertainty that surrounds state extractive reserves is undermining their confidence in the future of these areas. Lack of land tenure security—together with low incomes and poor access to education and health care—is a factor that contributes to the depopulation of extractive reserves. Depopulated extractive reserves are even more vulnerable to invasion by loggers and land grabbers since there is nobody to stop their advance and alert the authorities. Increasingly, more families are finding the prospect of obtaining a plot of land in government-sponsored agricultural colonisation projects attractive. If this trend intensifies and more families move out, the justification for the existence of extractive reserves disappears. OSR leaders recognise that the creation of extractive reserves owes a lot to PLANAFLORO and the influence that the World Bank has had over the state government. Since the conclusion of PLANAFLORO, and without the burden of World Bank conditionality, the new government has threatened on numerous occasions to invalidate the protected areas established by its predecessor. The governor of Rondônia, for example, declared that state protected areas would be abolished if the Federal Government did not pass legislation allowing landowners to deforest higher proportions of their landholdings than are currently permitted under national legislation (GTA/RO 2003).

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Development of Extractive Reserves Improving the living conditions of families in extractive reserves and setting up working management arrangements for the implementation of socioeconomic development and environmental protection activities are crucial challenges. The prices of rubber, which is an important source of income for many families, have been highly unstable over the last decade and dependent on intermittent subsidies. Marketing arrangements for forest products managed by local associations have often run into financial difficulties and required periodic injections of external capital to resume. Without adequate living conditions, including incomes, families are more likely to abandon the reserves in search of better opportunities in surrounding rural areas or in towns. Without a viable population, the reason for the existence of a large extractive reserve is severely undermined. Already, politicians in Rondônia are criticising some reserves for their low population density, which they argue does not justify the large area under protection. Hall (2000) suggests that cooperation amongst all stakeholders is absolutely crucial for the development of working management systems and for achieving economic sustainability in extractive reserves. There has been some progress as regards generating and sustaining such cooperation but it is becoming clear that collaboration is subject to tensions and unconstructive dynamics. Building Management Capacity One of the government’s responsibilities in relation to extractive reserves is to assist communities to prepare and implement resourceuse plans, to organise the management of extractive reserves and to support and implement activities aimed at improving incomes. The design of PLANAFLORO included a technical cooperation programme with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), which was aimed at strengthening the admittedly weak capacity of state agencies to implement the project. Significant emphasis was placed on strengthening SEDAM, the agency concerned with environmental management, including extractive reserves, through training and consultant services. UNDP hired consultants to work exclusively alongside SEDAM in extractive reserves. During the period in which UNDP consultants worked in extractive reserves, significant advances were achieved in community organisation

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for reserve management. Development plans for a number of reserves were prepared and these enabled communities to express their needs and establish development priorities (Weigand Jr and de Paula 1998). Consultants also facilitated collective action processes whereby communities organised the clearing of footpaths, the improving of waterway navigability, the building of community centres and the executing of other tasks requiring collective efforts. They also played an important role in mediating conflicts at community level. UNDP established a close working relationship with the associations of rubber tappers and the OSR which facilitated the implementation of community development activities, although progress in the self-organisation of communities was not sustained. When the UNDP project came to an end, communities were not yet capable of organising without external support and facilitation. The time it takes for community institutions to develop and mature is different from the time spent on projects. This means that it may not be feasible to build collective action institutions through external interventions within the lifecycle of typical projects such as PLANAFLORO. An equally important point is that the capacity of SEDAM to support the development and management of extractive reserves was not strengthened. SEDAM staff were hardly involved in UNDP field activities aimed at improving community organisation for extractive reserve management. As a consequence, there was hardly any training of SEDAM staff through working alongside UNDP experts. At the end of PLANAFLORO, SEDAM was not equipped with the necessary expertise to give continuation to extractive reserve management and development activities. According to OSR leaders, SEDAM’s role in extractive reserves is also constrained by lack of support from the government itself and absence of a coherent state policy for extractive reserves. Protecting extractive reserves from environmental degradation caused by external actors such as loggers and land gabbers is fundamental for their long-term viability and development. A debate is going on in Brazil regarding the relative competencies and responsibilities of different levels of government in relation to environmental management. In theory, environment agencies in each state should establish an agreement with the Federal environmental agency responsible for enforcing environmental legislation (Instituto Brasileiro do Meio Ambiente e dos Recursos Naturais Renováveis; IBAMA), which defines the respective responsibilities. Failure to implement this agreement effectively

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in Rondônia has led to a situation whereby IBAMA shies away from operating in protected areas established by the state government while SEDAM, which holds some of the responsibility for monitoring and defending the protected areas created by the state government, claims that it does not have the means and authority to do so. According to some NGOs interviewed, the bottom line is that neither of these agencies is efficient and effective at doing its job. The ineffectiveness of government at both the federal and state levels with regard to protecting extractive reserves from external pressures has caused the rubber tappers to develop their own self-organised monitoring and protection efforts. This often involves confronting loggers and other individuals acting illegally in extractive reserves, gathering evidence of such activities, pressuring environmental agencies to take action and exposing environmental crimes in the media. Engaging the support and liaising with public prosecutors has been one of the most effective means of reducing illegal logging in extractive reserves. Public prosecutors in Brazil have powers to indict suspects of environmental crimes to respond to accusations put forward by individuals or civil society organisations. This has led to a number of trials and convictions which served to dissuade loggers from taking timber from the reserves. Improving Economic Viability Since 1993, projects funded by WWF aimed at promoting extractive reserves have also sought to improve their social and economic development. A number of income-generating projects were made possible through the partnership between OSR, WWF and ECOPORÉ, including community-based logging and ecotourism and the production of a rubber-coated textile known as ecological leather or couro vegetal. WWF provided seed funds to initiate many of these alternatives. With pilot projects off the ground, it became easier to obtain additional financial support from initiatives such as PLANAFLORO, PPG7 and specific government programmes. More ambitious projects relied on funding from different agencies, each supporting a specific component. For example, feasibility studies for ecotourism were funded by WWF, while the construction of infrastructure, including a lodge and visitors centre and purchase of equipment, were funded by PLANAFLORO and PPG7. Finally, funding for consultancy and training has been provided by WWF.

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Community-based logging based on sustainability criteria is amongst the most promising options to improve the rubber tappers’ income. So far, logging projects have been implemented in four state extractive reserves. Although sustainable logging is more expensive than conventional logging methods, timber from a sustainable source can obtain higher prices in markets for certified timber. In Rondônia, efforts are underway to certify the rubber tappers’ logging projects through the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). However, obtaining certification is complex given the comprehensive set of criteria that must be met, including ecological criteria and criteria regarding resource tenure and use rights and responsibilities, community relations and workers’ rights, benefit sharing, and monitoring and assessment. Advisory NGOs invested a lot of effort in order to enable community projects to meet all these criteria, but progress has been slow owing to the complexity and the fact that some criteria require additional financial investments which put stress on already overstretched budgets. Recently, the certification process had still not been completed, as a consequence of which timber was being sold in local markets, fetching only modest prices. The economic alternatives developed in extractive reserves are practical examples of what partnerships between different actors can achieve. ECOPORÉ has provided the technical expertise needed to develop and implement projects and has been able to attract funding for community-based resource management by working with communities and grassroots organisations. These initiatives have served as a catalyst for the development of linkages between local groups, NGOs and donors. However, the partnerships formed to implement these projects have also experienced tensions, for example between NGO directors and community leaders with regard to the management of community logging projects. This demonstrates the fact that partnerships are as much about promoting linkages between organisations as managing relationships between the people involved. In organisational terms, however, conflict may also enable partnerships to evolve. Through negotiation, ECOPORÉ and a community which opposed the appointment of an outside sawmill manager reached a compromise over project management. The community kept its own manager and the NGO limited its role to providing technical assistance. Sometimes a compromise is hard to reach, for instance in a case whereby the NGO decided to stop working with the community because it felt that unscrupulous leaders interested in gaining

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power over the project’s financial resources were manipulating the process. Partnerships between local groups and international NGOs also have potential to facilitate the management of forests and other ecosystems. WWF provided much of the financial support that enabled the OSR and advisory NGOs to advocate the creation of extractive reserves. Its funding has also been essential for the implementation of a number of income-generating projects. The strategic importance of WWF actions is widely recognised by the organisations working with traditional and indigenous communities in Rondônia. Collaborating with the rubber tappers has also been beneficial for WWF. Extractive reserves in Rondônia represent over one million hectares of tropical forest under protection, which otherwise would be much more vulnerable to destruction and degradation. However, the partnership between WWF and the rubber tappers also demonstrates what Kiss (1999) calls ‘unconstructive dynamics and incentive structures’, including situations where projects create dependency rather than selfsufficiency. For example, recipient organisations often expand their infrastructure, staff and activities and develop modes of operating that become impossible to sustain without continual flows of external funds. Rubber tappers’ organisations have thus become strongly dependent on funding from WWF. When funding for the associations responsible for managing extractive reserves ceased, the activities of these organisations almost came to a halt. Association leaders had grown accustomed to receiving a wage for their work, paid using WWF funding. Many had abandoned their livelihood activities in extractive reserves and moved to the towns where associations had an office. Because they were unpaid, many were unwilling to develop their leadership activities. The OSR’s dependency on a single source of funding also has implications for its autonomy. In one occasion, WWF interfered in the OSR leadership elections by overtly supporting one set of candidates over another. Partially as a result, the OSR has been governed essentially by the same group of leaders ever since WWF began funding it more than a decade ago. This has contributed to making the OSR a reasonably cohesive organisation, but has also meant that there has not been any significant rotation in leadership and that over the years very few people from the grassroots have become OSR leaders. As a result, there are few opportunities for new leaders with potentially good ideas to emerge.

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Parallel to this, the core group of leaders that governs the OSR have gradually moved with their families to urban centres. Many have completely abandoned extractive activities and depend exclusively on the wages they receive from the organisation. The separation between those that govern the OSR and those that are represented by it has implications for the extent to which ordinary rubber tappers living in the extractive reserves feel effectively represented by their leaders. Although the work the OSR carries out is widely recognised and valued at grassroots level, many rubber tappers also argue that their leaders only visit the reserves sporadically and since they do not live there are simply out-of-touch with the realities of life in these areas. Discussion The case study presented in this chapter demonstrates the vital importance of multi-stakeholder collaboration in various domains. Partnerships with national and international NGOs enabled the rubber tappers to negotiate the establishment of extractive reserves under PLANAFLORO more effectively. To some extent, the involvement of international NGOs, Brazilian advisory NGOs and the World Bank provided an enabling environment for the empowerment of the rubber tappers in negotiations with government regarding the establishment of extractive reserves. However, this also meant that the rubber tappers became heavily dependent on the involvement of the World Bank and the support of international actors to make their claims heard by the government. This strategy, therefore, only works under certain conditions which may be transitory. As PLANAFLORO drew to a close, the government of Rondônia already expressed a more unaccommodating attitude in relation to conservation measures. Extractive reserves were created in Rondônia despite the lack of support from key sectors of the state but their implementation is not viable without the support from federal, state and municipal government. The Rondônia government has designated agencies to promote environmental conservation but many of its actions run contrary to this objective, including its development policies. Despite the importance of grassroots activism and NGO advocacy, the main driver for environmental policy innovations in Rondônia has been international

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actors. There has not been sufficient effort to build constituency for these measures at the state and municipal levels, especially among politicians and the business sector. Without support at these levels, the implementation of environmental measures, including extractive reserves, is seriously compromised. The projects promoted by the World Bank and NGOs which focus on the rubber tappers and extractive reserves have had less impact than expected on the improvement of incomes and quality of life. The initiatives developed by NGOs demonstrate a great deal of potential, especially community logging. Although a comprehensive analysis of their impact on incomes has not yet been undertaken, field observations suggest that not all reserve inhabitants benefit from this initiative and that it is highly biased towards men. In addition, community logging is only viable in some reserves. PLANAFLORO enabled some improvement in the provision of health and education by financing the construction of schools and health centres in the reserves. However, their functioning depends on municipal health and education authorities. The training of community health officers and teachers has been a positive development but education and, in particular, health services are still inadequate. The most important result of these projects may have been that they enabled the political empowerment of the rubber tappers (World Bank 2003; Brown and Rosendo 2000a). NGOs played a supportive and catalytic role in the social and political organisation of the rubber tappers while PLANAFLORO provided an opening for the involvement of civil society in policy making, which motivated many previously unorganised groups to set up associations and other representative bodies. Being better organised improves the position of local groups as regards planning and implementing strategies to defend their claims. However, the rubber tappers’ organisations continue to depend on external funding to survive, which raises questions regarding their autonomy in relation to funding agencies. As partnerships become the norm in project implementation, the relative power and influence of the different participants becomes an issue. In some partnerships funding can be used to influence decisions and outcomes. For local organisations dependent on external resources, being funded by NGOs or other donors can limit their autonomy and even accountability to their constituencies as well as create dependency rather than self-sufficiency and empowerment. Negative incentive structures, created by an excessive reliance on ex-

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ternal funding, may also emerge. For example, the payment of wages has motivated fierce competition for leadership positions which tend to prevent the infusion of new ‘blood’ into the grassroots organisations. Another situation that can occur is that NGOs become excessively zealous about the projects they initiate to the point of being reluctant to phase out their involvement and allow communities to take control over management and decision-making as their capacity develops. This type of unconstructive dynamic has affected the partnerships between the rubber tappers and their advisory NGOs. These NGOs have often adopted a fairly paternalistic attitude, doing things for the organisations and communities rather than delegating or sharing responsibilities and thereby also denying them control over project management and decision-making. However, this situation has gradually changed because the parties involved are no longer afraid to discuss problems openly. Conflicts may play an important role in prompting changes for the better when communication is possible. Conflicts can be a threat to partnerships but they may also be necessary for such partnerships to evolve. Conclusion Mutually adopted plans or policies among a number of institutions like PLANAFLORO have helped to provide opportunities for bottom-up involvement in decision-making. Alliances, partnerships and network forms of collaboration have in turn strengthened the capacity of local actors to take advantage of such opportunities and to make them work in their favour. These collaborative forms of interaction, however, have demonstrated greater success in terms of process rather than outcome. Most of the successful partnerships documented here have evolved between civil society actors. These are a valuable but an insufficient response to entrenched problems of poverty and environmental degradation. Managing cross-scale interactions is crucial but there are important barriers that must be addressed. Different actors get involved and become stakeholders in forest management as a means to achieve different goals, which are not always complementary or even compatible. Brown and Rosendo (2000b) described these problems as a misfit between institutions involved in conservation and development. Actors do not need to have exactly the same interests to cooperate.

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However, they do need to recognise and respect different interests, be flexible and adaptable to new circumstances, which are characteristics that some organisations notoriously lack. Adaptive management is fast becoming a paradigm in natural resource management contexts requiring adaptive processes, social learning and the creation and reform of institutions. In the case of extractive reserves, adaptive management would imply facilitating institutional relations across spatial scales in ways that meet the needs of the various stakeholders and match the complexity of the ecosystems being managed. For example, it would require the involvement of actors that have so far remained at the margins of extractive reserve creation and development, including municipal governments and the business sector. It would also entail clarifying the responsibilities of each level of government and better coordination between all the actors involved. However, adaptive management is not a panacea. It provides general principles but no clear guidelines for action and institutional design. There are no transferable models that can be applied, only principles that must be adapted to context. References Allegretti, M.H. (2002) A Construção Social de Políticas Ambientais: Chico Mendes e o Movimento dos Seringueiros. PhD Thesis, Brasília: Universidade de Brasília/Centro de Desenvolvimento Sustentável (UnB/CDS). ——. (1994) ‘Reservas Extrativistas: Parâmetros para uma Política de Desenvolvimento Sustentável na Amazônia’, pp. 17–48 in R. Arnt (ed.) O Destino da Floresta: Reservas Extrativistas e Desenvolvimento Sustentável na Amazônia. Rio de Janeiro: Relume Dunará, Instituto de Estudos Amazônicos e Ambientais and Curitiba: Fundação Konrad Adenauer. ——. (1990) ‘Extractive Reserves: An Alternative for Reconciling Development and Environmental Conservation in Amazonia’, pp. 252–264 in A.B. Anderson (ed.) Alternatives to Deforestation. Steps towards Sustainable Use of the Amazon Rain Forest. New York: Columbia University Press. Berkes, F. (2002) ‘Cross-Scale Institutional Linkages for Commons Management: Perspectives from the Bottom Up’, pp. 293–321 in E. Ostrom, T. Dietz, N. Dolsak, P.C. Stern, S. Stonich and E.U. Weber (eds) The Drama of the Commons. Washington DC: National Academy Press. ——. (1995) ‘Community-Based Management and Co-management as Tools for Empowerment’, pp. 138–146 in N. Singh and V. Titi (eds) Empowerment towards Sustainable Development. London: Zed Books. Brown, K. and Rosendo, S. (2000a) ‘Environmentalists, Rubber Tappers and Empowerment: The Politics and Economics of Extractive Reserves’, Development and Change, Vol. 31, No. 1, pp. 201–228. ——. (2000b) ‘The Institutional Architecture of Extractive Reserves in Rondônia, Brazil’. Geographical Journal, Vol. 166, No. 1, pp. 35–48.

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Bryant, R.L. and Bailey, S. (1997) Third World Political Ecology. London: Routledge. Cash, D.W. and Moser. S.C. (2000) ‘Linking Global and Local Scales: Designing Dynamic Assessment and Management Processes’, Global Environmental Change, Vol. 10, No. 2, pp. 109–120. Forum and Friends of the Earth (FoE) (1995) Pedido de Investigação Apresentado ao Painel de Inspeção do Banco Mundial sobre o Plano Agropecuário e Florestal de Rondônia. Porto Velho: Forúm de ONGs e Movimentos Sociais que Atuam em Rondônia and Friends of the Earth, Programa Amazônia. Grupo de Trabalho Amazônico—Rondônia (GTA/RO) (2003) ‘Nota de Repúdio á Destruição do Zoneamento do Estado de Rondônia’. URL: http://www.amazonia.org.br/noticias/noticia.cfm?id=81210. Hall, A. (2000) ‘Environment and Development in Brazilian Amazonia: From Protectionism to Productive Conservation’, pp. 100–114 in A. Hall (ed.) Amazonia at the Crossroads: The Challenge of Sustainable Development. London: Institute of Latin American Studies. ——. (1997) Sustaining Amazonia: Grassroots Action for Productive Conservation. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Hecht, S. and Cockburn, A. (1989). The Fate of the Forest: Developers, Destroyers and Defenders of the Amazon. London: Penguin Books. Holling, C.S. and Sanderson, S. (1996) ‘Dynamics of (Dis)harmony in Ecological and Social Systems’, pp. 57–86 in S.S. Hanna, C. Folke and K.-G. Mäler (eds) Rights to Nature: Ecological, Economic, Cultural and Political Principles of Institutions for the Environment. Washington D.C. and Covelo, California: Island Press. Keck, M.E. (1995) ‘Social Equity and Environmental Politics in Brazil: Lessons from the Rubber Tappers of Acre’, Comparative Politics, Vol. 27, No. 4, pp. 409–424. Kiss, A. (1999) ‘Making Community-Based Conservation Work’. Paper presented at ‘Society for Conservation Biology Annual Meeting’, June 1999, University of Maryland, College Park, USA. Knox, C. (2002) ‘Partnerships’. Review of Public Administration Briefing Paper. URL: http://www.rpani.gov.uk/partnerships.pdf. Lewis, D.J. (1998) ‘Partnership as Process: Building an Institutional Ethnography of an Inter-Agency Aquaculture Project in Bangladesh’, pp. 99–115 in D. Mosse, J. Farrington and A. Rew (eds) Development as Process: Concepts and Methods for Working with Complexity. London and New York: Routledge. Mosse, D. (1998) ‘Process-Oriented Approaches to Development Practice and Social Research’, pp. 3–30 in D. Mosse, J. Farrington and A. Rew (eds) Development as Process: Concepts and Methods for Working with Complexity. London and New York: Routledge. Mullett, D. (2001) ‘The Nacro Guide to Partnership Working’. Nacro Community Safety Practice Briefing, London. URL: http://www.nacro.org.uk. OECD (1990). Partnerships for Rural Development. Paris: Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD). Olsson, P., Folke, C. and Berkes, F. (2004) ‘Adaptive Co-Management for Building Resilience in Social-Ecological Systems’, Environmental Management, Vol. 34, No. 1, pp. 75–90. Peet, R. and Watts, M. (1996) Liberation Ecologies: Environment, Development and Social Movements. London: Routledge. Perreault, T. (2001) ‘Developing Identities: Indigenous Mobilization, Rural Livelihoods and Resource Access in Ecuatorian Amazonia’, Ecumene, Vol. 4, No. 4, 381–413. Radcliffe, S.A. (2001) ‘Development, the State and Transnational Political Connections: State and Subject Formations in Latin America’, Global Networks, Vol. 1, No. 1, 19–36. Redwood III, J. (2002) World Bank Approaches to the Brazilian Amazon: The Bumpy Road toward Sustainable Development. LCR Sustainable Development Working Paper No. 13.

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Washington: The World Bank Latin America and Caribbean Region Environmentally and Socially Sustainable Development Department (LCSES). Ruiz, J.M. and Pinzón, R.R. (1995) Extractive Reserves. Gland and Cambridge: The World Conservation Union (IUCN), Commission of the European Communities and Centro Nacional de Desenvolvimento Sustentado das Populações Tradicionais (CNPT). Schwartzman, S. (1989) ‘Extractive Reserves: The Rubber Tappers’ Strategy for Sustainable Use of the Amazon Rainforest’, pp. 150–163 in J.O. Browder (ed.) Fragile Lands of Latin America: Strategies for Sustainable Development. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press. Schwartzman, S., Moreira, A. and Nepstad, D. (2000a) ‘Rethinking Tropical Forest Conservation: Perils in Parks’, Conservation Biology, Vol. 14, No. 5, pp. 1351–1357. Schwartzman, S., Nepstad, D. and Moreira, A. (2000b) Arguing Tropical Forest Conservation: People versus Parks. Conservation Biology, Vol. 14, No. 5, pp. 1370–1374. Silva, E. (1994) ‘Thinking Politically about Sustainable Development in the Tropical Forests of Latin America’, Development and Change, Vol. 25, pp. 697–721. Weigand Jr, R. and Paula, D. de (1998) Reservas Extrativistas em Rondônia: Dando Poder ás Comunidades através da Elaboração e Implantação Participativa do Plano de Desenvolvimento. Porto Velho: SEPLAN/SEDAM/PLANAFLORO/PNUD. World Bank (2003) Implementation Completion Report (CPL-34440) on a Loan in the Amount of US$167.0 million to the Federative Republic of Brazil for a Rondonia Natural Resources Management Project (Loan 3444–BR). Washington DC: World Bank. World Bank/SAR (1992) Rondonia Natural Resource Management Project. Report No. 8073–BR. Washington DC: World Bank. Young, O.R. (2002) ‘Institutional Interplay: The Environmental Consequences of Cross-Scale Interactions’, pp. 263–292 in E. Ostrom, T. Dietz, Dolsak, N., Stern, P.C. Stonich, S. and Weber, E.U. (eds) The Drama of the Commons. Washington DC: National Academy Press.

CHAPTER TWELVE

PARTNERSHIPS FOR ECOLOGICAL PAPER PRODUCTION IN THE STATE OF PARÁ, BRAZIL Kei Otsuki* In the Brazilian Amazon region, non-timber forest product (NTFP) development has been considered an effective alternative to modernisationdriven deforestation by large-scale development projects and a promising strategy to generate income for poor populations. The economic viability of NTFP development largely depends, however, on the degree to which a localised production chain can be established and this, in turn, requires partnerships between actors at various levels. This chapter deals with a multi-level/multi-sector partnership that was set up to implement a production chain for ecological paper in the Amazon. It is based on a case study of the Amazon Paper project of the Núcleo de Ação para o Desenvolvimento Sustentável (POEMAR; Centre of Action for Sustainable Development); an NGO affiliated with the Programa Pobreza e Meio Ambiente na Amazônia (POEMA; Poverty and Environment in the Amazon Programme) of the Federal University of Pará in Belém, Brazil. The study illustrates how experts and local institutions, in partnership with private sector actors and international donors, implemented the production chain for Amazon Paper with a view to raising the economic competitiveness and sustainability of NTFP production and, thus, to contributing to poverty alleviation. The principal objective of the project is to market processed NTFPs from the Brazilian Amazon as ‘sustainable commodities’, in the expectation that sustainable development can be promoted (1) by creating economic opportunities for both the rural and urban poor along the production chain and (2) by managing local forest and land resources. This chapter aims to analyse how the partnership took shape and what problems it encountered in making NTFPs

* Rural Development Sociology Group, Wageningen University, Hollandsweg 1, 6706 KN Wageningen, the Netherlands. E-mail: [email protected].

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economically competitive. Based on the problems encountered, the chapter will summarise the lessons learned and identify essential elements for sustainable NTFP development through partnerships. Non-Timber Forest Products for Sustainable Development The partnership discussed in this chapter is engaged in NTFP development in the State of Pará, which is located in the eastern part of the Brazilian Amazon. In this chapter, we define non-timber forest products in accordance with the Food and Agriculture Oganization’s definition of non-wood forest products as: products of biological origin other than wood, derived from forests, other wooded land and trees outside forests. NWFP may be gathered from the wild, or produced in forest plantations, agroforestry schemes and from trees outside forests (FAO 1999).

We explicitly reserve the term for biological materials, excluding services such as ecotourism or carbon sequestration, which are called environmental services. We also emphasise that NTFPs are not necessarily being extracted from natural forests alone, but may also come from human-modified or anthropogenic landscapes (Ros-Tonen and Wiersum 2005). In the Brazilian Amazon, NTFPs have always had economic importance as traditional extractivist products. However, as the ‘boom and bust’ history of natural rubber and Brazil nut extraction has shown, the exploitation of NTFPs was never economically viable in the long run (Homma 2002), nor considered environmentally sustainable by definition (Ros-Tonen et al. 1995). When sustainable development became the norm by the end of the 1980s, NTFPs were conceptually transformed into ‘sustainable commodities’ and presented as a promising strategy to simultaneously curb deforestation and alleviate poverty (Arnold and Pérez 1996). Substantial research on NTFP development has been conducted since then (for instance Nepstad and Schwartzman 1992; Neumann and Hirsch 2000). In the Amazon region, research focused mainly on extractivist reserves, the economic viability of NTFP production and forest resource management (for example Fearnside 1989; Browder 1992; Butler 1992; Homma 1993) and focused less on marketoriented NTFP development outside the extractive reserves or on sustainable regional development strategies based on a combination

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of various NTFPs, NTFPs with agricultural products and/or NTFPs with agro-industrial residues. Moreover, the viability of NTFP processing and marketing from the Amazon region has seldom been explored. These aspects of NTFP development are, however, essential for the success of partnerships for sustainable NTFP development and for designing realistic strategies for forest land management and regional development (Coppen et al. 1995). This study aims to make an inquiry into these aspects by analysing a project for NTFP development which is being developed outside extractive reserves, involves multiple NTFPs and agricultural products, and establishes the production chain from the natural product to the end market. In this chapter we focus on the role that partnerships can play in promoting multiple NTFPs at different phases in the production chain. The History of NTFP Production in Pará: from Extractivism to Localised Production Chains In Pará, as elsewhere in the Brazilian Amazon region, gathering forest products is traditionally one of the subsistence activities of forestdwelling people who combine it with hunting and slash-and-burn agriculture. Extractivism in this sense has often been considered as a ‘traditional’ or, in an evolutionist view, ‘uncivilised’ activity (Allegretti 1992). From the 1850s onwards, with the commercial exploitation of rubber and Brazil nuts, extractivism became more systematic and ‘modernised’. Rubber tapping flourished, with the emergence of the automobile industry leading to a rubber boom between 1900 and 1912 (Assies 1997). The extractive economy depended, however, entirely on external market demand. Between 1912 and 1920, the new Southeast Asian rubber plantations reached full production and generated additional and cheaper supplies on the world market. As a result, the rubber economy in Brazil collapsed (Santos 1980), and the extractive economy diversified in favour of commercial Brazil nut exploitation, which already occupied a place in the rubber tappers’ year-round agro-extractive cycle (Assies 1997). After a short revival in the 1940s, fuelled by the demand for rubber during World War II and Japanese threats to the plantations in Southeast Asia, the rubber economy continued at lower levels with price subsidies from the Brazilian federal government. Various foreign tyre industries

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had been established in Brazil in the meantime and these absorbed the rubber production from the Amazon (Miranda Neto 1986). Rubber production fell sharply again in the 1970s to 1980s because the prices dropped when the government abandoned its price policies (Assies 1997) and also because rubber was substituted by other— cheaper, artificial—products (Homma 2002). From the 1970s onwards, massive land occupation and expansion of cattle ranching destroyed extractivism in many parts of the Amazon. During the whole evolution of the extractive economy, there was little support for local producers. In social terms the production was (and to a large extent still is) based on the aviamento system in which the extractor receives tools and merchandise in advance in return for the final product at the end of the expedition (Ros-Tonen et al. 1995). This system turned out to be highly exploitative and kept the extractors permanently indebted (Browder 1992). As a result, NTFP exploitation tended to perpetuate poverty (Neumann and Hirsch 2000) and regional underdevelopment (Bunker 1985). It was not until the 1990s, when the environment was turned into something to be ‘managed’ (Escobar 1995), that extractive products became ‘non-timber forest products’. The world began to speak about sustainable development and the state and federal governments of Brazil started to recognise the potential of traditional extractive products as a means to promote economic development and forest conservation at the same time. Today, the governments tend to support the ‘sustainable business’ to give incentives to the sustainable NTFP production. In Pará, the NTFPs that offer opportunities for such a sustainable business are Brazil nuts and Brazil nut oil, natural rubber, açaí palm fruits and palm heart (see Chapter 7 by Morsello and Adger for a case study of a partnership dealing with Brazil nut oil and Chapter 8 by Van Andel for a partnership dealing with açaí and palm hearts). Extractive reserves were being created to protect the use rights of rubber tappers and Brazil nut gatherers (see Chapter 11 by Rosendo). In order to overcome the traditionally exploitative labour relations, more attention is now being paid to training and promoting the formation of local producers’ associations and cooperatives. In addition, the governments recently shifted their focus from conventional raw material-based activities towards processing activities (beneficiamento) (O Liberal, 18 May 2003) in order to add value to the regional products. Local value adding, through the involvement of the local population in pre-processing and processing activities, could

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contribute to poverty alleviation (Hyman 1996; Neumann and Hirsch 2000), in contrast to traditional extractivism, in which the Amazon region was merely a supplier of raw materials while the added value was generated outside the region. Local processing and marketing also prevent NTFPs from becoming too vulnerable to international price and demand fluctuations. Currently, the Northeast of Pará is engaged in agro-industrial development to produce juice pulp, plant fibres, vegetable oil and resin. Although it is not yet significant in terms of their contribution to the regional economy, the activities are steadily expanding and many processed NTFP-based products have started to circulate in markets. What is more, they are often used by large industries such as the automobile and cosmetic industry. The local value-adding activities can, and should, involve both the rural and urban poor. For instance, product processing as well as administration can be carried out in cities and towns to the benefit of a growing urban population. In the past, most NTFP-related discussions, research and projects dealt with rural areas only and focused on forest management and the rural poor. Today, with 70 per cent of the Amazonian population living in cities and towns (IBGE 2000) the Brazilian Amazon has turned into an ‘urban Amazonia’ (Browder and Godfrey 1997). In the state of Pará, the urban population is said to amount to 66 per cent of the total population, with three quarters of them living in the so-called interior outside the metropolitan urban areas (Governo do Pará 2003), where land occupations and settlements have developed into municipalities with urban centres and peripheries. As a consequence, selling labour became a part of the rural household economy. At the same time, the population in the shantytowns of metropolitan areas such as Belém continued to expand. Most of these urban dwellers originate from rural areas and lack access to the formal labour market. The issue of rural poverty alleviation cannot therefore be separated from the issue of urban poverty alleviation because rural and urban poverty are closely intertwined. If NTFPs are to bring about sustainable development aimed at poverty alleviation, their development in today’s Amazon is to deal with the synergy between rural and urban populations (Imbiriba 2002). Sound NTFP development in today’s Amazon also requires the domestication of forest products with a view to improving resource management. Domestication is needed because in some parts of the

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Amazon region (particularly in the study area) primary forest has already vanished to a large extent. This involves choices as to whether the (primary) product should be extracted from secondary forests or can be planted in degraded areas. One of the proposals which covers the requirements of local value adding, rural-urban synergy and domestication in an integrated form is the idea of the localised production chain. The Commercialisation Manual of Forest Products distributed in Brazil in 1997 (Warner III and Pontual 1997) defines the production chain concept as commercialisation. In the study area the term production chain (cadeia produtiva) is used more commonly than commercialisation to indicate practically the same thing, but primarily to emphasise regional connection, product processing, actors involved and value added through the chain. This chain consists of (i) choice of the product; (ii) decisions about which product should be cultivated in what location; (iii) decisions about how much of the product should be cultivated; (iv) storage of the products; and (vii) product distribution. Although the manual omits product processing and packing—significant links in the chain between storage and distribution—it summarises the process of building a market-oriented production chain in the Amazon. In practice, the localisation of production chains requires institutional partnerships among various development actors. Many NTFP development initiatives have required institutional cooperation among multiple actors and agents at local, regional, national and international levels: local associations and cooperatives, governmental and non-governmental organisations, research institutions and universities, private enterprises and international organisations. Normally, these actors strengthen existing NTFP exploitation by (i) domesticating and revalorising products like fruits, palm hearts, fibres, latex and oil as ‘sustainable commodities’ or (ii) introducing and applying innovative technologies to create new products, mostly marketoriented and subject to further processing. The automobile components made of fibre taken from coconut husks and paper crafts made of processed pulp of forest plants and fibres under the POEMA programme (see below) provide a case in point. Most NTFP development projects combine the two strategies, embracing private sector actors for product development and strategic marketing.

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Market Problems Some basic problems are associated with the marketing of processed NTFPs, while successful marketing is key to sustainable NTFP development based on localised production chains. First of all, the market position of NTFP must be improved. To achieve this, a producer should analyse the value chain in the market and establish a competitive position (Scherr et al. 2002). The question is how. The problem associated with becoming a competitive NTFP producer is that the production scale of NTFPs is, in general, too small and the distance between the production base and the market too large to lower production and distribution costs. If a product can reach or even create a new or high-value specialty market (Scherr et al. 2002), the market niche can be secured. However, if NTFP production is to involve a large number of small producers and has a poverty alleviation aim, the fact that the ‘new’ market will soon be old and the niche will be filled up in several years is a matter of concern. This means that the NTFPs do not easily become economically viable and that, for the committed local organisations, the financial sustainability becomes an urgent issue. Keeping a balance between supply and demand is also problematic. For example, a recent analysis of NTFP commercialisation shows that product marketing and sales are the major factors constraining overall NTFP success (Marshall et al. 2003). On the other hand, the experience of The Body Shop with setting up an Amazon product line (see Chapter 7 by Morsello and Adger) shows that even if marketing is successful, the production organisation simply cannot follow if market demand greatly overwhelms the local production capacity (International Herald Tribune 9 October 2003). Having launched the product line in 1991, it had to be given up five years later due to a lack of supply (but see Petean 1996 for other critical aspects of this project). In a country like Brazil, the market problem is also closely linked to the government’s commitment to support new businesses. Although the Pará state government is aware of the economic potential of NTFP processing and marketing, in reality little support has been provided for these stages of NTFP development. In practice, the high number of procedures and the long time required to start a business is overwhelming in Brazil compared to developed

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countries.1 The high sales tax imposed—a national (interstate) sales tax rate of 12 per cent of the product price and an intrastate sales tax of 17 per cent—also discourages many new NTFP initiatives. Making NTFP development sustainable and economically competitive therefore requires continuous domestication of new extractive products, market-oriented product development and effective marketing strategies, together with substantial technological and institutional assistance to generate increases in productivity, improvements in product quality, an increase in local self-sufficiency and local skills development for marketing and production management (Hyman 1996). The case study of the Amazon Paper project presented below illustrates how an actual project dealing with NTFP production chain development functions and struggles to become economically viable when faced with these market-associated problems. The project has been developed as part of a local university programme and is affiliated with a non-governmental organisation, receiving most financial support from international development organisations. Poverty and Environment in the Amazon Programme (POEMA) The Amazon Paper project which is the subject of this study has been developed as part of the local university’s POEMA programme that aims to contribute to poverty alleviation in the Amazon region through sustainable use of the region’s natural resources. The project is being implemented in the northeastern part of the state of Pará, including its capital city Belém. This city is one of the largest metropolitan centres in the Amazon Basin with a population of nearly two million (including its peripheries). Pará is the most industrialised state in the Amazon, whose major sources of income are in the service and mining sectors (IBGE 1999). Recently, the state government is encouraging tourism and large-scale grain production of soybeans and rice. Extensive cattle ranching has also been dominant in spite of the negative environmental consequences (see, for example, Hecht 1984). 1 According to Djankov et al. (2002) Brazil requires seventeen procedures to set up a business, taking 152 days on average. The average for the rich countries (those in the top quartile of per capita Gross Domestic Product) is seven procedures, taking about twenty-five business days.

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POEMA was created as a research and extension sector of the Núcleo de Meio Ambiente (NUMA; Environmental Department) of the Federal University of Pará in 1992.2 The first project under this programme was conducted jointly with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and was aimed at the development of a cheap and easy water purification system in the peripheral areas of Belém. The technology, however, soon started to be disseminated to precarious rural communities where basic infrastructure practically did not exist (Mitschein 1994). In the rural communities, POEMA worked with local governments to improve basic and social infrastructure.3 In this process, the technical experts of the university and municipal/state agrarian extension services became involved in the organisation of small producers to help them apply for credit and invest in their production activities. The technical experts supported small producers in the implementation of a small-scale agroforestry system, starting with four communities in different areas of eastern Pará (Mitschein and Miranda 1998; Nagaishi et al. 1998). In 1995, the Centre of Action for Sustainable Development (POEMAR) was created as a legal nongovernmental entity with a view to facilitating additional support from other governmental and non-governmental organisations. POEMA began promoting the development of NTFP production chains for fibre and fruits and became well known when it established a production chain of coconut in cooperation with Mercedes Benz do Brasil (presently: Daimler Chrysler). The chain started to deal with car products such as headrests, upholstery and noise-reduction panels made from fibres extracted from coconut husks, combined with natural latex. In 1999, POEMA founded the Comércio de Tecnologia Sustentável para a Amazônia (POEMATEC; Sustainable Technology for the Amazon Ltd.) in the outskirts of Belém, for the production and commercialisation of car components, together with other products

2

URL: http://www.poema.org.br. It is not uncommon in Brazil that the universities embrace extension programmes and/or act as business incubators—organisations that support the start-up of innovative companies in order to increase their survival rate—in partnerships with local governments and private sector actors. However, in Pará, the universities still tend to focus more on research and education compared to the universities in the main Brazilian cities like São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. In this sense, POEMA was innovative when it started the extension programme with state government agencies. 3

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made of coconut fibres such as gardening products.4 The factories are owned by small farmers’ cooperatives and car products are sold to multinational automobile companies that are committed to social and environmental responsibility (Zahn 2001). For these companies, the reduction of industrial waste is also an important issue, and the NTFP-oriented industrial materials have an advantage due to them being biodegradable (see Danielou 2002 for further details). The Amazon Paper Project The Amazon Paper project is POEMA’s youngest fibre-related project. The idea for a paper project came about in 1999 when some staff members were invited to an international symposium in Japan where they attended a demonstration of Japanese traditional papermaking and learned that any fibrous plant could be turned into paper by employing simple (basically manual) techniques (although intensive training is required to achieve high quality). The practical applications soon became apparent and one of the members exclaimed: ‘We have plenty of plants and fibres in our forest and even in our backyard. Why don’t we make paper over there?’ The Amazon Paper project was launched in 2000 with a view to promoting the use of natural fibres and dyes and the training of local, especially young, people in the manufacture of handmade art paper and craft products. The project was, and is, not a typical NTFP development project in the sense that it deals with extractive activities in natural forests. The principal ingredient for the paper is a native Amazonian fibre plant called curauá (Ananas erectifolius), which had been domesticated by indigenous people called Curuaí in the western part of Pará.5 The fibres are combined with palm tree barks and branches, dyes and/or agro-industrial residues such as sugar cane bagasse and coconut shell fibres. It is arguable whether a fibre plant and other (traditionally) domesticated plants that were once

4

The gardening products include vases, pots, plates, pads, mats, manure made from fibers and coconut organic material. For further information see http://www.poematec.com.br. 5 The local name curauá came from the region of Lago Grande do Curuaí (Great Lake of Curuaí) in Santarém, home to an indigenous group of the same name who has utilised the curauá fibre for hammocks and ropes. It belongs to the same family as pineapple (Ananas comosus) (see Table 12.1).

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part of the forest but now grow in already cleared land or secondary forest, or are cultivated by local farmers, should be labelled NTFPs or agricultural crops. Some strict definitions of NTFPs consider products from natural forests only, but Wiersum (1999) has noted that NTFPs are not only collected from wilderness areas, but also from socially differentiated forest environments which are the product of an evolutionary continuum in interaction between local communities and forests. The recent (re)introduction of alternative farming techniques such as agroforestry and plantation in consortium have also blurred the border between agriculture and forest management in Brazilian Amazon. In this region, the picture is further complicated by the patchy character of the forest, especially in the state of Pará where twenty per cent of original forest has already disappeared. The major challenge facing Amazonian development today is to find ways of utilising already cleared and degraded areas sustainably in order to prevent small farmers and land grabbers, who mainly practise slash-and-burn-farming and cattle ranching, from further encroaching into primary forest areas (mostly reserves). If NTFPs conceptually include domesticated forest products planted in cleared forestland as well as extracted products from reserves, the development can assist extractivists forced out of the forest as well as small or landless farmers, who form the majority of the rural poor in the region. In this sense, the study treats domesticated forest products and residues as well as extractive plants as NTFPs to show how natural materials obtained in a rain forest area can be used as a tool to promote sustainable development. Product Development In 2000, a small research and development unit called the Product Development Unit was established and a number of workshops were held. A papermaking expert contracted through the Japan International Cooperation Agency ( JICA) provided basic technical advice to local people who participated in the workshops. Eventually, curauá became the base fibre for paper developed in the Unit because of its fine and resistant character, which makes it suitable for making high quality paper. Moreover, curauá adapts well in degraded soils and generates two harvests per year (three years after plantation). As it is a native Amazonian plant which originates in northern Brazil, the processed

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Table 12.1 Commercialised plants (NTFPs) in the Amazon Paper project Common name in Pará State

In English

Scientific name

Family

Abacaxi Açaí Banana Barbatimão

Pineapple – Banana –

Ananas comosus (L.) Merr. Eutherpe oleraceae Musa acuminata Colla Stryphnodendron rotundifolium Mart. Saccharum officinarum L. Cocos nucifera L. Calyptransthes Ananas erectifolius or Ananas lucidus Mill. Genipa americana L. Urena lobata L. Pachira aquatica

Bromeliaceae Arecaceae Musaceae Mimoseae

Cana de Açúcar Sugarcane Côco Coconut Cumatê – Curauá Wild ananas, (Curagua) Jenipapo – Malva Caesarweed Mamorana Guiana Chestnut Mangarataia Canton Ginger Zingiber officinale Roscoe Miriti – Mauritia flexuosa L. Muruci Golden Spoon Byrsonima crassiflolia (L.) Kunth in H.B.K. Tinteira – Henrietea sucosa Urucum – Bixa orellana L. Verônica Speedwell Veronica officinalis

Poaceae Arecaceae Humiriaceae Bromeliaceae Rubiaceae Malvaceae Bombaceae Zingiberaceae Arecaceae Malpighiaceae Melastomataceae Bixaceae Scrophulariaceae

paper can be publicised as ‘Amazonian’ and this is ideal for the promotion of the paper as a local product. Until the beginning of the project, the plant had only been cultivated on a small scale since it had no commercial value before then.6 More than 3,000 seedlings were therefore grown in glass test tubes in the initial period of the project, to be provided to small farmers for exploratory plantation in their plots. The Centre for Research in the Humid Tropics of the Brazilian Agricultural Research Institute (EMBAPA/CPATU; Empresa Brasileira de Pesquisa Agropecuária/Centro de Pesquisa do Trópico Úmido) in Belém cooperated in this initiative.

6 Automobile companies, however, already started research on the industrial use of curauá fibre in the mid 1990s. In 2003, a São Paulo-based automobile components company (a subsidiary company of Volkswagen) announced that they were ready to invest R$ 25 million (approximately US$ 9 million) in a curauá plantation and processing unit in Santarém. The state government is fully supporting the plan as a ‘productive chain establishment in Pará that should be compatible with environmental management’ (O Liberal, March 30, 2003).

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In order to utilise various plants and allow variations in texture and colour, a number of different NTFPs (Table 12.1) were mixed with curauá and commercialised as ingredients of Amazon art paper and crafts. The Product Development Unit is responsible for the project administration and promotion of the final products. It established a local brand called Amazon Paper as the only handmade non-timber forest (or tree free) paper of the region.7 Although papermaking as a development project is not a new idea,8 the processing of newly valorised plants of the Amazon region through the use of the millennia old technique of oriental papermaking became a new opportunity created through the discourse of ‘sustainable development.’ The Production Chain from Fibre to Paper The production chain from fibre to Amazon Paper entails the following stages: 1. Domestication and pre-processing of native plants (principally curauá) involving small farmers’ organisations in rural communities and the extraction of tree barks, fruits and other palm tree fibres by local extractivists. 2. Training of people from the urban periphery in the Product Development United in Belém, in order to help them process the pre-processed fibres to pulp for making paper. The Unit contracts local specialists in dye processing and product design to create the product prototypes. 3. Adding natural pigments, dyes and tree bark as well as agroindustrial residues of coconut fibres, açaí pulp and the residue of the curauá plant9 to the curauá pulp. 7 In Brazil, handmade paper or art paper is simply called papel artesanal (craft paper) and also includes recycled paper. 8 For example, in South and Southeast Asia, papermaking had been already a part of the local culture, and a number of development projects have supported the activities. In South Africa or in Ecuador, local development organisations (with significant support from international donors) are developing sisal papermaking. However, most of the projects do not directly support the domestication of raw material and/or strategic marketing and promotional activities outside the framework of ‘fair trade’ or ‘community development.’ 9 In the process of fibre extraction (disfibramento), more than 70 per cent of the plant mass becomes residue.

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4. Further processing of paper craft products in the newly created permanent production poles in the rural town of Abaetetuba10 (about 70 km from Belém). 5. Creation of Amazon Paper as a local brand and promotion of some production lines of stationary, gifts and interior decorations. In terms of product development, various plants can be combined to make pulp, dyes, paper, ready-made articles and further crafts. In the process of pulp processing or craft making, for example, manioc glue is used—another processed natural product. Clay can be used to dye the pulp as well. Local young people and experienced crafts people are involved in each process. The Agents Involved and Institutional Sustainability As the project and production chain take shape, various development actors and agents are becoming involved in the Product Development Unit. Figure 12.1 maps the flow of commodities, technical inputs, money and institutional support and commitment to the project. Central to the partnership is POEMA (4), which organises the production in and provides technical assistance to rural communities (4→1). POEMA is a broker for international funds that are channelled to the communities (8→4→1) or encourages small producers to apply for rural credits at local banks (6(→4)→1) or governmental institutions (7(→4)→1). POEMA also deals with governmental agencies to secure other production rights (mainly land titles). The pre-processed fibres are sold to the Product Development Unit (1→2) where factory workers make paper and products which can be used for further processing by crafts people (2a→2b). The final products go to the consumers (2→3). The papermaking technology was introduced by JICA in 2000 (8/9→4→2). Parallel to the technology transfer, local knowledge of plant use was provided by researchers at the university or indigenous/ local people’s groups (5→4↔2). After initial research and development, the Production Unit was provided with funds from OxfamNetherlands (Novib) in 2001–2002 and a German private company

10 Abaetetuba is known for its local craft (toys and ornaments) made of miriti palm stems (see Table 12.1).

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(1) Small farmers/ extractivists

(2) Product Development Unit for Amazon Paper 2a) Factory workers 2b) Local craftsmen/ women; artists

(3) Consumers

(5) Researchers/ local experts

(4) POEMA System – POEMA - University – POEMAR/ Bolsa Amazônia – POEMATEC Ltd. – POEMACOOP

(6) Private sector – Local banks – Retailers – Representatives (distributors)

269

(7) Governments – Local – State – Federal (8) International organisations; donors

(9) Outside experts

(10) Investors Consultants

Commodities Technical inputs Money Institutional support

Figure 12.1 Actors and agents involved in the Amazon Paper project

called Deutsche Investitions und Entwicklungsgesellschaft (DEG) in 2003, while a World Bank grant was obtained in 2004 through POEMAR and its partnership with POEMATEC Ltd. (8→4→2). The funds from international donors served as an initial investment in the project. With regard to marketing, various private sector actors are involved in the project. These are investors (10) and retailers and sales representatives (6). With the POEMA system acting as an intermediate party, they ensure that the products made by the Production Unit go to consumer markets ((10→)6→4→2→3). The Bolsa Amazônia programme plays a specific role in promoting final products. This programme was set up in 1998 by POEMAR in partnership with the Biotrade Initiative of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), with a view to promoting sustainably produced products from the Amazon regions of Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela. Projects aimed at trading NTFPs as ‘sustainable commodities’ often face the problem that profit making is not their first objective, which often implies that they have

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a sales organisation that is not sufficiently effective from the point of view of investors who normally want to make a quick return. Currently, partnerships with international organisations such as the International Finance Cooperation of the World Bank Group—which supports business promotion of non-governmental organisations—are being sought to obtain technical assistance for strategic marketing (8→10→6→4→2→3). A localised production chain thus transforms the local organisation into a complex whole, starting with production, processing and training, and resulting in marketing. This makes the process similar to that of private enterprises or large development agencies. However, there is an important difference from usual business since a larger number of actors and partnerships are involved as shown in Figure 12.1. In order to administrate the web of actors and agents shown here, the institutional sustainability of the Product Development Unit is critical. This includes financial and administrative organisation, which in turn requires specific expertise. To this end, the Product Development Unit currently (both permanently and occasionally) employs a project coordinator, a secretary, an accountant, a sales staff member and production coordinators, designers, a website master and a marketing expert. The Question of Value In 2003, Amazon Paper started to sell paper at US$ 2–3 per sheet (98 cm × 64 cm). The price was set by calculating the production costs, which were fairly high at the production level of 5,000 sheets per month. It was difficult to establish a price for two reasons. Firstly, in the event that the paper is further processed into stationary goods, value was added twice, and that made the product too expensive for outside distributors. Secondly, it was difficult to set a price which adequately reflected the products’ exchange value, since the value of non-timber forest products is conceptual and cannot be fully translated into a market price as simply as for other commodities. The concept of NTFP embodies a value that differs from the mere economic value, for encompassing social, ecological and cultural values as well (Neumann and Hirsch 2000; IIED 2003). This aspect of NTFP development had been relatively ignored in many sustainable development projects implemented in the region, which ended up

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in failures. Although the products’ economic value was inevitably determined in the market, there were no financial mechanisms in place to cover their value of being an important part of the tradition and culture of local small producers (Rios 2000). The contribution of these products to sustainable livelihoods should be reflected in the price as well, in order to differentiate them from the conventionally traded forest products. At a global level, the fact that products have local added value in itself adds value to the products, since globalisation calls for the appreciation of something ‘local’. The localisation of production chains is also important in this sense, as the final products at this stage can actually be sold with a local ‘Amazon story’. The branding of NTFPs with ‘local stories’ is to be more explored in order to create a new value associated with sustainable development. However, the final products cannot be too local since markets for these ‘sustainable commodities’ at global level demand global quality standards. After all, these local products were shaped in a context of global sustainable development concerns—a concept that originated in the developed world—and should therefore meet global requirements. The tension between simultaneously being a ‘global’ and ‘local’ product in the NTFP commercialisation process affects the economic competitiveness of the products and the future development of NTFP-related projects. For the sake of the sustainability of these projects, this tension is to be eradicated. Lessons Learned The POEMA partnerships with public, private and civil society actors provide an example of how to make NTFP-based projects sustainable and viable. The study indicated some significant requirements of a successful NTFP development project: 1. Institutional flexibility of the local organisation. 2. Strategic partnerships with international donors, the private sector and civil society organisations. 3. Partnerships with research institutions to map local knowledge of plant use and develop new processing technologies. 4. Production chain establishment involving rural communities, urban dwellers and rural towns. 5. Market-oriented product development.

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6. Branding, marketing and business promotion of final products, stressing non-economic values incorporated in the product. 7. Efficient administration and planning by local people. POEMA is an example of a strategic local organisation, which encompasses a wide range of experts and sub and parallel organisations. This broad range of actors and agents is necessary for its institutional sustainability and for its capacity to connect local (especially poor) populations to governments of developed countries, international organisations and businesses which have a greater interest in (and money available for) financing sustainable development projects than national or state governments. It is important for local development organisations to function as a bridge between the ‘global’ and the ‘local’ world by elaborating production and commercialisation strategies in partnership with local producers’ organisations and the private sector. The paper and craft production and commercialisation project aimed to connect the two worlds from the beginning of the project implementation. However, in practice, the ‘local’ is not homogenous and ‘poor people’ face different conditions. At the same time, the ‘global world’ and ‘global markets’ are abstract entities which are difficult to control especially for local NGO workers and researchers who try to engage in the new NTFP business. In other words, establishing new NTFP production chains requires a reflection on the heterogeneity of local realities and on economic viability and competitiveness under present financial and personnel conditions. It is an enormous challenge, but with accumulated experience and research, NTFP development in order to achieve sustainable development has the potential to benefit all the actors and agents involved. Conclusions: Towards Sustainable NTFP Development As the discussion on the history of extractivism in the Amazon showed, current NTFP development in the Brazilian Amazon is aimed at achieving sustainable development. This requires the proper NTFP development to be sustainable. In this chapter we reviewed six elements which are needed to achieve this, namely (i) production chain establishment for domesticated ‘forestland’ products; (ii) valorisation of local knowledge and plant usage by encouraging local incentives; (iii) localisation of the production chain, promoting rural-

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urban synergy; (iv) institutional and financial sustainability of the local development organisation; (v) sound international recognition and financial support for initial investments; and (iv) active participation of private business partners as well as governmental support. Each element is related to the others and if one of them is missing, it is highly possible that the project will fail to be sustainable either environmentally or economically. The most problematic point is the lack of institutional support and incentives to initiate the production chain, involving local experts and poorer populations. Once the production chain starts to work, the administration of all project components including maintaining and establishing partnerships, and the question of marketing arise. As a consequence, the initiative continues to be small scale and NTFPs are therefore still marginal in the broader economy of the Amazon, occupying merely 1.13 per cent of the total export value from the Brazilian Amazon region in 2000 (Homma 2002). Partnership building is a key to covering all the elements. The partnerships include actors from multiple sectors and scales, such as local farmers and extractors, a multilayered local development organisation (including a production unit, NGO, research unit and marketing organisation), civil society organisations (including various NGOs and research organisations), municipal, state and national governments, international donors, and national and international private sector actors (including businesses, consultants and experts). The grassroots, social and community development projects and environmental conservation initiatives in the 1970s and 1980s were launched as an alternative, or sometimes as a hostile response, to business and the markets. Today we are in a different stage since these initiatives are intended to transform conventional economic development by operating under the denominator of ‘sustainable development.’ The project described in this chapter shows that, if grounded on a broad range of partnerships, localised production chains for NTFPs in the Brazilian Amazon have the potential to bring about sustainable development and to change existing socioeconomic structures. References Allegretti, M.H. (1992) ‘A Amazônia e o Extrativismo’ pp. 399–416 in L.E. Aragón (ed.) Desenvolvimento Sustentável nos Trópicos Úmidos. Série Cooperação Amazônica

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13. Belém: Associação de Universidades Amazônicas/Universidade Federal do Pará (UNAMAZ/UFPA). Arnold, J.E.M and Pérez, M.R. (1996) ‘Framing the Issues Relating to Non-Timber Forest Products Research’, pp. 1–18 in M.R. Pérez and J.E.M. Arnold (eds) Current Issues in Non-Timber Forest Products Research. Bogor: Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR). Assies, W. (1997) Going Nuts for the Rainforest. Non-Timber Forest Products. Forest Conservation and Sustainability in Amazonia. Amsterdam: Thela Latin America Series. Browder, J.O. (1992) ‘Social and Economic Constraints on the Development of Market-Oriented Extractive Reserves in Amazon Rain Forests’, pp. 33–41 in D.C. Nepstad and S. Schwartzman (eds) Non-Timber Products from Tropical Forests: Evaluation of a Conservation and Development Strategy. New York: The New York Botanical Garden. Browder, J.O. and Godfrey, B.J. (1997) Rainforest Cities: Urbanization, Development and Globalization of the Brazilian Amazon. New York: Columbia University Press. Bunker, S.G. (1985) Underdeveloping the Amazon: Extraction, Unequal Exchange, and the Failure of the Modern State. Chicago: University of Illinois Press. Butler, J.R. (1992) ‘Non-Timber Forest Product Extraction in Amazonia: Lessons from Development Organizations’, Advances in Economic Botany, No. 9, pp. 87–99. Coppen, J.J.W., Green, C.L., Gordon, A. and Hone, G.A. (1995) ‘Markets and the Public/Private Sector Interface: Their Importance in the Successful Development of Non-Wood Forest Products’, Non-Wood Forest Products Vol. 3. Danielou, M. (2002) ‘Economic Development and Ecosystem Conservation: Sustainable Use and Management of Amazonian Natural Fibres in the Brazilian Amazon’ in Both Ends (ed.) Encyclopedia of Sustainability. (URL: http://www.bothends.org/ encycl/encycl.php). Djankov, S., La Porta, R., Lopez-de-Silanes, F. and Shleifer, A. (2002). ‘The Regulation of Entry’, Quarterly Journal of Economics, No. 117, pp. 1–37. Escobar, A. (1995) Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third World. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) (1999) ‘FAO Forestry. Towards a Harmonized Definition of Non-Wood Forest Products’, Unasylva, Vol. 50. Fearnside, P.M. (1989) ‘Extractive Reserves in Brazilian Amazonia’, Bioscience, Vol. 39, No. 6, pp. 387–393. Hecht, S.B. (1984) ‘Cattle Ranching in Amazonia: Political and Ecological Considerations’, pp. p. 366–398 in M. Schmink and C. Wood (eds) Frontier Expansion in Amazonia. Gainesville: University of Florida Press. Homma, A.K.O (2002) ‘Do Extrativismo à Domesticação: 60 Anos de História’, pp. 137–156 in A.D. Mendes (ed.) A Amazônia e o Seu Banco. Manaus: Banco da Amazônia. ——. (1993). ‘Extrativismo Vegetal na Amazônia: Limites e Oportunidades. Brasília: Empresa Brasileira de Pesquisa Agropecuária (EMPRAPA-SPI). Hyman, E.L. (1996) ‘Technology and the Organisation of Production, Processing and Marketing of Non-Timber Forest Products’, pp. 197–218 in M.R. Pérez and J.E.M. Arnold (eds) Current Issues in Non-Timber Forest Products Research. Bogor: Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR). Imbiriba, N. (2002) ‘Desenvolvimento de Produtos e Empresas de Responsabilidade Social e Ecológica na Amazônia’, POEMATROPIC, No. 9, pp. 26–33. Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (IBGE) (1999) Anúario Estatístico do Brasil 1998. Rio de Janeiro: IBGE. ——. (2000) Censo Demográfico 2000. Rio de Janeiro: IBGE. International Herald Tribune (2003) ‘Brazilian Company Plants its Future in the Amazon’, Business 14, 9 October 2003, Brussels.

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International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) (2003) Valuing Forests: A Review of Methods and Applications in Developing Countries. Oxford: IIED. Marshall, E., Newton, A.C. and Schreckenberg, K. (2003) ‘Commercialisation of Non-Timber Forest Products: First Steps in Analyzing the Factors Influencing Success’, International Forestry Review, Vol. 5, No. 2, pp. 128–137. Miranda Neto, M.J. (1986) O Dilemma da Amazônia. Belém: Cejup. Mitschein, T.A. (ed.) (1994) Amazônia: Alianças em Defesa da Vida. Série POEMA 1. Belém: Universidade Federal do Pará/ Programa Pobreza e Meio Ambiente na Amazônia (UFPA/POEMA). Mitschein, T.A. and Miranda, P.S. (1998) ‘POEMA: A Proposal for Sustainable Development in Amazonia’, pp. 329–365 in D.E. Leihnerand and T.A. Mitschein (eds) A Third Millennium for Humanity? The Search for Paths of Sustainable Development. Frankfurt: Peter Lang. Nagaishi, G., Bardin, L. and Cardoso, M.A.S. (1998) Estratégias de Comercialização para a Agricultura Familiar no Pará. Série POEMA 8. Belém: Núcleo do Meio Ambiente/Universidade Federal do Pará/Programa Pobreza e Meio Ambiente na Amazônia (NUMA/UFPA/POEMA). Nepstad, D.C. and Schwartzman, S. (eds) (1992) Non-Timber Products from Tropical Forests: Evaluation of a Conservation and Development Strategy. New York: The New York Botanical Garden. Neumann, R.P. and Hirsch, E. (2000) Commercialisation of Non-Timber Forest Products: Review and Analysis of Research. Bogor: Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR). O Liberal (2003) ‘Pará Muda o Perfil de Sua Pauta de Exportação’, Painel 8, 18 May 2003. Belém. ——. (2003) ‘Senador Defende Indústria de Beneficiamento de Curauá’, Painel 11, 30 March 2003. Belém. Governo do Pará (2003) ‘Câmara do Comêrcio e o Desenvolvimento Sustentável’, Seminar Document Mobilisa Amazônia 27 May 2004–29 May 2004. Mimeo. Petean, S. (1996) ‘Broken Promises’, Cover Story, BRAZZIL Webmagazine, 16 Dec 1996. www.brazzil.com/p16dec96.htm. Rios, M (2000) ‘Importancia de los Productos Forestales no Maderables para las Poblaciones Tradicionales de la Amazonía’, POEMATROPIC, No. 5, pp. 22–29. Ros-Tonen, M., Dijkman, W. and Lammerts van Bueren, E. (1995) Commercial and Sustainable Extraction of Non-Timber Forest Products: Towards a Policy and Management Oriented Research Strategy. Wageningen: The Tropenbos Foundation. Ros-Tonen, M.A.F. and Wiersum, K.F. (2005) ‘The Importance of Non-Timber Forest Products for Forest-Based Rural Livelihoods: An Evolving Research Agenda’, Forests, Trees and Livelihoods, Vol. 15, No. 2, pp. 129–148. Santos, R. (1980) História Econômica da Amazônia: 1800–1920. São Paulo: T.A. Queiroz. Scherr, S.J., White, A., and Kaimowitz, D. (2002) ‘Making Markets Work for Forest Communities’, Policy Brief. Washington D.C: Forest Trends. Warner III, P.D. and Pontual, A.C. (1997) Manual de Comercialização de Produtos Florestais. Brasília: Genesys. Wiersum, K.F. (1999) ‘Understanding Diversity in NTFP Management: A Neglected Issue in NTFP Research’, pp. 161–166 in M.A.F. Ros-Tonen (ed.) Seminar Proceedings. NTFP Research in the Tropenbos Programme: Results and Perspectives. Wageningen: The Tropenbos Foundation. Zahn, J.F. (2001) ‘Social and Environmental Responsibility of Large Enterprises in the North/South Relation—Globalization as Opportunity: Daimler Chrysler in South America’, POEMATROPIC, No. 8, pp. 46–51.

PART V

POLITICAL PARTNERSHIPS

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

NEGOTIATING SOLUTIONS FOR LOCAL SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT AND THE PREVENTION OF DEFORESTATION IN THE BRAZILIAN AMAZON1 Imme Scholz* Until the 1980s, deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon had been largely the result of public interventions, such as fiscal incentives for the creation of large cattle ranches and investments in dams, roads and railroads. In the 1970s and 1980s, the new infrastructure opened up formerly closed areas of lowland forests, facilitated planned colonisation and stimulated spontaneous migration towards the region (Mahar 1988; Browder 1988). The result was a dramatic increase in both urban and rural population, and the disappearance of 10 per cent of the original forest cover. Since the 1990s, with basic infrastructure installed and cattle ranching rendered profitable due to innovations, deforestation has been based on endogenous dynamics which occur independently of public investments. In the meantime, civil society organisations mushroomed in the Amazon, often with support from foreign non-governmental organisations (NGOs). Today, they are important partners for sustainable, bottom-up development strategies. They are now focusing their attention on new federal investments in infrastructure in the heartland of the Amazon rain forest, as became evident in the broad political mobilisation of social movements and NGOs against two large public infrastructure investment projects: the hydroelectric plant in Belo Monte, nearby Altamira, at the conjunction of the Transamazônica and the Xingu river and the paving of the federal road BR-163 between Santarém and Cuiabá. This chapter explores how

* Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE) Tulpenfeld 4, 53113 Bonn, Germany. E-mail: [email protected]. 1 An adapted version of this paper has been published in The European Journal of Development Research, Vol. 17, No. 4, December 2005, pp. 681–705.

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local civil society organisations perceive these projects, the degree of importance they assign to their environmental dimension, how they position themselves and which alliances and partnerships they build with local, national and international actors in order to achieve their aims. In the following section, we highlight the dynamics of tropical deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. Thereafter, we explain the conceptual framework and methodology used in this research and then present and discuss the findings regarding the national setting for environmental policy, the main impacts of the projects under study, the local environmental capacity identified and the role of international relations and partnerships in environmental capacity building. Finally, we formulate conclusions and recommendations for the further strengthening of environmental capacities to combat deforestation. Structural Change and Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon Deforestation has continued throughout the 1990s and reached 14.2 per cent of the original primary forest cover in August 2000,2 representing an above-average annual deforestation rate during the first deforestation wave in the late 1970s. In the past, the economic integration of the Brazilian Amazon happened largely under conditions of a military regime, but today, new social and political actors have emerged, especially in the federal state of Pará. The local population is organised into social movements such as trade unions and peasants’ associations and there are a considerable number of NGOs working for social, environmental and scientific purposes. The largest number of NGOs and social movements are concentrated in the state of Pará, in the Eastern Amazon. Pará is also the location of the largest public investment in infrastructure and mining (now privatised), symbolised by the Transamazônica highway and the Programa

2 Deforestation data has been provided by the Brazilian spatial research agency INPE (Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais), see http://www.obt.inpe.br/prodes/ for 2000–2002 figures and the INPE databank for earlier data. The deforestation percentage is calculated in comparison with the area of original primary forest cover, not in comparison with the total area of the Amazon region (Scholz 2002). In 2002, INPE estimated that total deforestation had reached 15.4 per cent.

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Grande Carajás. These projects attracted large numbers of migrants to the state, who either came as settlers or turned to agriculture after the construction work had been finished. Today, only 25 per cent of Pará’s population live in the capital Belém, while the rest are distributed between the rural area itself and small and medium-sized towns. Rural Pará is characterised by violent land conflicts between large landholders and peasants. It was the resistance against the impunity of rural violence and the social costs of the large public projects which led to the emergence of peasants’ unions and NGOs related to their cause, often with strong backing from the Church. International attention was drawn to the Amazon by alarmingly high indices of both violence and deforestation. Mainly church-based development organisations started to support local resistance in order to strengthen the capacities for coping with the impacts of social and economic change. Democratisation in the late 1980s and the Rio Summit in 1992 caused the number of NGOs to increase drastically in Brazil as a whole and therefore in Pará as well.3 Today, the largest NGOs in terms of annual budget based in Pará focus on socioenvironmental issues (Buclet 2002). Besides civil society, local political and economic elites in the Amazon also started to claim more participation rights in decisionmaking on local and regional economic development in the 1980s. The new democratic constitution of 1988 responded to these claims and created ample possibilities for political participation by local and regional state governments as well as by social movements and the population as such. Participation rights are especially broad when it comes to environmental protection.4 This means that nowadays local stakeholders and their interests have to be taken into consideration when the federal government plans new investments in the Amazon. Another new actor is the federal Ministry of the Environment which was created in 1992 and since then has put a special focus on the Amazon region. Two motives which may have influenced this strategic decision are of particular interest in the context of this paper: (1) the creation of the G7 Programa Piloto para a Proteção das

3 According to Falconer (1999), there are between 100 and 500 thousand NGOs, associations, philanthropic organisations, foundations and clubs in Brazil. Landim and Beres (1999) estimated that, in 1995, 1.3 million people worked in this sector as professionals, plus an additional 300,000 as volunteers. 4 See Hochstetler (2002) and Scholz et al. (2003, Chapter 3) for a detailed analysis.

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Florestas Tropicais do Brasil (PPG7; Pilot Programme for the Protection of Brazil’s Tropical Forests), which channelled huge amounts of funds into the Amazon region and the environmental bureaucracy (see section on international cooperation between governments below)5; and (2) the Brazilian environmental movement which, together with public opinion, steadily increased pressure for more effective public policies in order to promote forest protection and sustainable development strategies. The Ministry of the Environment, and especially its Secretaria de Coordenação da Amazônia (SCA; Coordination of Amazonian Affairs Secretariat), has strongly promoted alliances with social movements and NGOs during recent years and used the instruments provided by the PPG7 for this purpose. Conceptual Framework and Methodology The conceptual framework of the research was based on the Capacity Development in Environment (CDE) concept, elaborated by the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in the aftermath of the Rio Earth Summit in 1992 (OECD 1994 and 1995). This concept was strongly influenced by the findings of comparative environmental policy analysis ( Jänicke and Weidner 1995; Weidner and Jänicke 2002) and focuses on the systemic problem-solving capacity of public and private actors. Its starting point is that environmental policy needs negotiated solutions in order to overcome the obstacles set by short-term economic, political and social interests, uncertainty and cross-sectoral complexity. CDE is understood to be ‘the ability of individuals, groups, organisations and institutions in a society to devise and implement solutions to environmental issues as part of a wider effort to achieve sustainable development’ (OECD 1995, 12). Among other things, an increased capacity to negotiate and to establish cooperative relations between politics, economics and civil society is paramount for this purpose, as the measures necessary for increasing environmental sustainability typically involve short-term costs,

5 The PPG-7 was created in 1990 with a budget of US$ 350 million. Its objectives include the reduction of deforestation rates and CO2 emissions as well as the promotion of alternative sustainable production patterns. For more details, see www.worldbank.org/rfpp, Kolk (1998) and Scholz (2002).

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while their benefits often appear only in the long term. This is why they often generate more opposition than support. Moreover, many solutions require people to change their habits and they need to be convinced that this is in their own interest. Therefore, negotiations and alliances with civil society may enhance the problem-solving capacity of public administration in areas where the application of conventional instruments of public administration (laws and sanctions) does not have much chance of success. The concept of environmental capacity has been operationalised by Jänicke (2002) in order to analyse and compare the environmental policy performance of different countries. He distinguishes five central categories of this concept, which have a number of different dimensions: (i) actors, their capacities (strength, competence and configuration) and resources (economic, financial and technological); (ii) strategies; (iii) the structure of the problems to be solved; (iv) the structural context; and (v) the situative context. The structural context encompasses factors which are not subject to rapid changes, such as the structure of the economy and the existing capacities for introducing technological and organisational innovations. However, it also refers to the structural conditions for successful environmental policy, such as the existence of environmental information and the degree of public awareness and the existence of policies, laws and procedures for the coordination of activities of the public administration and other relevant actors. The situative context refers to short-term variable conditions of action such as elections, catastrophes or other events which influence public opinion and create sudden windows of opportunity for introducing institutional change. Hamacher, Heidbrink and Paulus (2001) developed a set of questions based on Jänicke’s categories in order to facilitate the mapping of capacities held by all relevant actors and use the concept as a heuristic tool in the analysis of environmental policy. This set of questions was adapted to the research presented here and helped to structure information on: – the identification of the relevant actors to be considered; – the identification and analysis of strategies pursued; – the structure of the environmental impacts related to the infrastructure projects in question; – the systemic framework conditions for environmental policymaking (environmental laws and administrative bodies in Brazil, economic conditions and environmental awareness);

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– the situative opportunities, in particular due to the change of government. Capacity mapping helped to organise empirical research in Brazil, providing the structure for the qualitative interviews carried out with more than seventy representatives of public bodies, private sector, NGOs and social movements in Belém, Santarém, Altamira, Brasília and São Paulo. The interviews provided qualitative data on: – the benefits and impacts actors associated with the infrastructure project in question, and on the importance they assigned to the environmental dimension as compared with the social and economic dimensions; – their general interests and specific objectives and strategies regarding the projects; – the alliances and partnerships they constructed (or not) for achieving these objectives at local, national and international level. In the study, special emphasis was placed on the willingness and capacity of actors to engage in cooperative politics—that is in processes of dialogue, negotiation and the construction of alliances and partnerships or networks. In this chapter, we understand alliances to be a common action of various organisations with a specific objective. The alliance ends when the objective has been attained. Partnerships are understood to be a rather stable relationship between two or more organisations around common objectives, based on shared ideals and worldviews. Networks are larger groupings of organisations, generally created for information exchange and sometimes for common action. The relationship among organisations is subject to change, depending on their objectives, strategies and the situative context. It may turn from a network into an alliance, although some of the organisations involved build up a partnership. In the context of this study, all three categories belong to what in Chapter 1 were labelled political partnerships. There are various reasons to put emphasis on cooperative politics. First, alliances and partnerships constitute political resources which are especially important in a relatively weak policy area such as environmental policy. Networks, in particular, facilitate policy coordination among sectors as well as between governmental and non-governmental actors, in order to increase policy coherence and combine efforts for collective purposes. In addition to that, networks can ‘supplement bureaucratic approaches, regulation and incentives and legal systems

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with voluntary action at the national, regional and local level’ (OECD 1995, 42; Jänicke 2002, 10). These arguments reflect the importance given in environmental policy analyses to participation as an instrument for creating transparency, legitimacy and trust. The first objective of participation would be to guarantee transparency of the environmental policy process. Once this has been achieved, legitimacy of public policy decisions and trust in public actors could follow. The research results were presented to a broad public in Belém and Brasília in April 2003. All the actors interviewed were invited to participate and many attended the presentation. The debate which ensued during these presentations provided additional information which we used when evaluating and weighing research data. In the following sections, we present the findings of our study, first with regard to national development planning and the environmental policy dialogue, second in relation to the specific characteristics of environmental capacity identified in the study area and third in relation to the role of international partnerships and alliances. National Development Planning and Environmental Policy Dialogue Since the late 1990s, the federal government has resurrected large investment projects in the Amazon which mostly serve national economic interests and have at least dubious social and environmental impacts on local level. The new multi-annual investment plan for 2004–2007 (PPA; Plano Plurianual), recently adopted by the government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva from the political party Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT), continues this policy. The PPA therefore includes funding for most of these large projects, especially for the dam and hydroelectric power plant in Belo Monte and the paving of the BR163, as they are essential for ensuring energy supply and domestic growth and for making commodity exports more competitive and increase foreign exchange earnings (for infrastructure investments see also Chapter 9 by Van Dijck).6

6 See www.planobrasil.gov.br for the strategic principles which formed the basis for the elaboration of the plan. The Association of Brazilian NGOs, (ABONG; Associação Brasileira de Organizações Não Governamentais) (http://www.abong.org), published a series of critical comments as an input for public debate. For the Amazon region, see Costa (2003).

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During the first three months of the new government, local stakeholders developed intense lobbying activities at federal level in order to bring about a decision on Belo Monte and the BR-163. Local social movements and NGOs approached the Ministry of Energy, which was led by an influential leftist PT-politician, and requested a dialogue. They were impressed by the openness of the new leadership. The minister of the environment, Marina Silva, a famous environmental activist from Acre who had joined the rubber tapper Chico Mendes in his struggle, announced the setting up of a joint commission with the Ministry of Energy to discuss large infrastructure projects in order to devise sustainable solutions. One and a half years later, it became clear that the dialogue between both Ministries has not led to any fundamental change in the federal Amazon policies. The Ministry of Environment has become very involved in participatory planning of the BR-163 and supports the NGO initiative there. As regards energy policy, two additional dams and hydroelectric power plants on the Rio Madeira were included in the PPA. In reaction to the PPA, the Ministry of the Environment has prepared a new programme for a sustainable Amazonia, together with the Ministry of National Integration. The programme states: it is not the economic activities or infrastructure investment as such that contribute to environmental degradation and social conflicts in the region, but the fact that they were (. . .) executed without careful analysis, without debate with local society and without attempts to prevent, mitigate or solve their perverse effects (Ministério do Meio Ambiente 2003, 7).

The document goes on to state that all public investment should be preceded by preventive measures in order to minimise adverse social and environmental impacts. There is a danger, however, that the Ministry of the Environment could use participatory procedures to socially engineer acceptance of political decisions instead of fostering a thorough analysis of all benefits and costs entailed by a project. In the Amazon region, the local constituency of the now ruling PT consists of those social movements and NGOs which generally oppose large public investment projects because local development does not benefit from them. Loyalty to the PT and the federal government may now influence the judgement and actions of some members of social movements and NGOs more strongly and lead

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to a change in their positions. This in turn may put existing partnerships and alliances under stress and thus weaken their assertiveness. The Cases: Two Social Movements Opposing Infrastructure Investments in Brazilian Amazonia In the framework of this study on environmental capacity in partnerships, alliances and networks, we focused on two social movements opposed to infrastructure investments in the Brazilian Amazon region. The projects concern the construction of the hydroelectric complex of Belo Monte near Altamira and the paving of the BR163 from Santarém to Cuiabá. Below, we briefly characterise the context of both investments, to present the analyses of the movements that oppose them in the following section. Impacts of the Hydroelectric Complex of Belo Monte The Belo Monte project is the successor of the hydroelectric complex of Kararaô and Babaquara which was stopped in 1989 after protests by the indigenous people of the Kayapó and the peasants’ trade unions in Altamira. This project included flooding of at least 6,000 km2. In the new project, this area is reduced to 400 km2, according to information disseminated by the project planner, Eletronorte, in 2000. However, the majority of local actors doubt that Belo Monte will be restricted to just one dam, for the following reasons: – Due to the high annual variations in the water volume of the Xingu river, the hydroelectric plant could only operate fully during the six month rainy period, and therefore its capacity would only be 6,000 MW annually instead of 11,000 MW. In order to increase annual production capacity, it would be necessary to build more dams which would increase the flooded area and the number of affected persons, especially in the indigenous lands of the Xingu basin. – Eletronorte affirms that the quantity of electricity produced by Belo Monte would be sufficient for the expected demand in the coming years. But people do not believe in what Eletronorte claims: demand could grow and the first dam opens the way for the next.

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The environmental impacts of the dam would be massive: The Xingu river basin is the largest continuous forest area remaining in Southern Pará. The dam would mean that the river basin would be fundamentally disturbed and some parts of it, for example the Volta Grande, would dry up and thus be definitively destroyed, thereby preventing the reproduction of several endemic species. Several indigenous peoples would be affected. The construction would stimulate spontaneous migration to the region and reinforce the rural exodus of peasants in search of urban labour. After the conclusion of the work, a large proportion of the urban population would be likely to turn to the countryside in order to survive from agriculture, and would thus exacerbate land conflicts. Indirect Impacts of the Expected Paving of the BR-163 The BR links Cuiabá, the capital of Mato Grosso, with Santarém in Pará. It was opened up in the 1970s, but it has only been paved in the state of Mato Grosso. Maintenance is extremely haphazard. The road has gained strategic importance for soybean farmers as it links Mato Grosso, the largest soy-producing region in Brazil and world-wide, to the port of Santarém which was equipped by Cargill with a modern loading system for grains in 2003. Export through Santarém lowers transport costs considerably and enhances international competitiveness of Brazilian soybeans. The road also facilitates the supply of logs from Pará to sawmills in Mato Grosso where timber resources have become scarce. Already the mere expectation of road paving has stimulated the expansion of large fazendas in the region, mainly for cattle-ranching and the exploitation of timber resources, and for growing soybeans. Due to the absence of public land distribution measures and the weakness or absence of the judiciary, violent conflicts about land rights have increased considerably in the region, resulting in the death of several leaders of the rural workers’ and peasants unions, including the American Sister Dorothy Stang who was assassinated in the town of Anapu in February 2005. Environmental Capacity in the Eastern Amazon: Empirical Results In this section, we present the four main results relating to environmental capacity in the Eastern Amazon region. These results refer to (1) the capacity of local civil and public actors to engage in dia-

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logue and negotiations; (2) environmental awareness of the actors involved; (3) the participation of the actors involved; and (4) the strength (or better: the weakness) of legal institutions. Civil Society’s Capacity to Engage in Dialogue and Negotiations The capacity of local civil and public actors to engage in dialogue and negotiations depends very much on their ability to establish local coalitions around clearly defined objectives and strategies, as well as on their ability to understand correctly the interrelated nature of the local social, economic and environmental impacts of the planned investment projects. Once these abilities have been properly developed, local actors can cope effectively even with highly complex conflicts and establish effective alliances with external actors like the Ministry of the Environment and international NGOs. In Altamira, civil society is organised in the Movimento pelo Desenvolvimento da Transamazônica e do Xingu (MDTX; Movement for the Development of the Transamazônica and the Xingu). This movement can be described as an alliance of more than a hundred grassroots organisations from all municipalities along the Transamazônica— mainly rural workers’ and peasants’ unions and associations as well as women’s groups and church-related groups. The strength of the MDTX is very much related to the history of colonisation along the Transamazônica. Settlers came to this region with the support of official government programmes when the road was opened up in the 1970s. Many of them came from the South of Brazil where they had been expelled by the soy boom. They were much better equipped with physical and financial capital and were more highly educated than the native population or the average settler from Northeast Brazil. Until the debt crisis broke out in the 1980s, their family farms received government support through subsidised credit and rural extension services. When this support was discontinued, peasants began to organise themselves and built up considerable social capital.7

7 The peasants’ union in Pará achieved several innovations in the 1990s which benefited peasants in the Amazon region as a whole. Leaders from the Transamazônica played an important role in this process. Innovations include access to a rural credit programme (PROAMBIENTE), financed by the BASA (Amazon Development Bank) and coordinated by the Ministry of the Environment, which would pay the environmental services delivered by sustainable production systems (Tura and Costa 2000).

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During this process, they established alliances with researchers and NGOs in order to improve their production systems, and engaged in political and environmental learning processes. When the peasants’ movement along the Transamazônica established itself at the end of the 1980s, it soon requested scientific support from researchers from the Federal University of Pará who were known for their solidarity with the peasants’ struggle for land. This request was answered positively and furthermore combined with the interest of French researchers to engage in ‘action research’ in this region. As a consequence, the Laboratório Agro-Ecológico da Transamazônica (LAET; Agro-Ecological Laboratory of the Transamazônica) was founded in Altamira, based on a successful model in the South of Pará. Several research projects were conducted together with the peasants. Later on, however, this partnership became flawed due to power struggles between both organisations and conflicting conceptions of each other’s role. Another basis for cooperation with researchers were the Projetos Demostrativos-A (PDA; Pilot Projects-A), a PPG7-sponsored programme for testing innovative sustainable production methods. The MDTX uses PDA resources to systematically test and evaluate several innovations developed on-farm. More recently, the MDTX has extended cooperation links with the Instituto de Pesquisa Ambiental da Amazônia (IPAM; Institute for Environmental Research in Amazonia), an internationally renowned research NGO which is studying the impact of road building on deforestation. IPAM is engaged in creating alliances with the aim of achieving land-use planning as a mitigating measure. Their critical position with respect to the Belo Monte project dates back to the experiences with the Kararaô project and the dam built in 1986 in Tucuruí. In both cases, Eletronorte (which is responsible for electricity supply in the whole North of Brazil) did not release full information in time, neither did it anticipate all the impacts of the flooding nor deal adequately with the resettlement and indemnification of peasants. Moreover, the forecasted local economic development boom did not materialise in Tucuruí. As a consequence, any action by Eletronorte is now met with a lot of mistrust by local actors, be they in favour or against the Belo Monte project. The basis of civil society engagement in Altamira consists of two main factors, namely (i) solid knowledge of the economic, environmental and social impacts of a dam; and (ii) the formulation of an

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alternative ‘bottom-up’ strategy for economic and social development in the region, based on the promotion of family agriculture, resource management and the demarcation of protected areas. The main objective of the MDTX is to channel funds for development into the region. A large public construction project of course also represents an opportunity for negotiating additional investment into the region, especially when there is local resistance to the construction. Part of the MDTX represents this type of strategic thinking. Others consider the social and environmental impacts of the dam so disastrous that construction cannot be justified at all. Despite these differences, the MDTX has been able to define a common objective (stop the construction), form alliances with non-local actors with this purpose and effectively use existing legal instruments (see below). By contrast, the situation in Santarém is quite different. Here, a large number of civil society organisations exist, but they are much more heterogeneous and autonomous. Cooperation among them is loosely organised and occurs on a selective basis, not as part of a specific strategy for local development.8 This weakens local capacity to deal with the expected impacts of the paving of the BR-163. In fact, the network of the economic and public agents in favour of the paving is much better organised and effective than civil society, in sharp contrast with Altamira. In both cases, civil society has lost the battle in so far as the government has decided to implement the projects. Nevertheless, civil society in Altamira has better chances to negotiate some benefits. Environmental Awareness of the Actors Involved Environmental awareness is much more developed among social movements than among public actors at local and regional level (mayors, members of municipal administrations and state government representatives). Public actors appeared to be rather unaware of the environmental impacts of the projects in question or dismissed them as irrelevant.

8 Santarém is one of the oldest towns of the Amazon and dates from pre-colonial times. The town has no recent unifying experience comparable to that of the Transamazônica peasants; a generally unifying topic today is the separation of the region from Pará state in order to acquire direct access to federal funds.

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Table 13.1 Main characteristics of civil society organisations in Altamira and Santarém Altamira

Santarém

Permanent forum of more than 100 organisations (MDTX) Alternative regional development strategy High environmental awareness

Large number of independent and unrelated local NGOs No specific alternative development strategy Rather ideological analysis of problems and conflicts (that is, in terms of class struggle or friend/enemy thinking) Dispersed alliances with external actors Lack of local political leaders with leverage at state and federal levels

Alliances with external NGOs Alliances with federal and state-level politicians Alliance with the Ministério Público Federal (MPF; Federal Prosecutor)

The vast majority of civil society representatives interviewed had a clear understanding of the environmental impacts of the projects and how they would affect human well-being. This is due, on the one hand, to the lessons learned by local social movements from past large investment projects: interviewees usually mentioned previous experiences with other dams in the Amazon. On the other hand, local social movements also draw political benefits from their international relations (see next section) and from the PPG7 subprojects aimed at promoting sustainable production methods by financing local experiments. These projects enabled them to strengthen their infrastructure and to engage in economic-ecological learning processes, for example through experiments with fallow agriculture without burning and diversified perennial cultures. Regarding civil society actors, the contrast between Altamira and Santarém was again very strong. The MDTX leadership includes people with strong environmental convictions and a clear view of the strategic importance of environmental sustainability for human welfare. This influences both their evaluation of the Belo Monte project and their strategy for local development. By contrast, the ideological orientation of civil society actors interviewed in Santarém was more conventional in the sense that political thinking in categories of class struggle and friend/enemy dominated the analysis. The envi-

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ronmental dimension appeared in the statements, but it was given less importance than in Altamira. This may also be related to the differences in impacts: flooding is the main impact of the dam and it simply makes the land inaccessible for other uses. Deforestation, by contrast, as the main indirect impact of road paving, does not make land inaccessible and it is still seen by many as an important prerequisite for economic development. Participation of the Actors Involved Negotiations are not effective when important actors do not participate. The differing capacity of local public and civil society actors to evaluate adequately the impacts of large investment projects, means that civil society lacks an appropriate partner for the description of problems and the definition of solutions. The government of Pará state supports these large investment projects and restricts the activities of its environmental body. Thus, civil society is forced to turn to the federal level. Due to the particularities of the Brazilian federal system, federal environmental authorities exist on local level, but they do not have the necessary human and financial resources to fill the gap left by state and local authorities. Civil society alone cannot fill this gap because they have no instruments and no legitimacy to act. As a result, there is a vacuum where there should be public authorities deciding on issues of public interests, which in turn strengthens private economic interests. Powerful local economic actors often prefer to achieve their objectives through the use of violence and do not participate in negotiations. This is particularly apparent in the rural areas of Altamira municipality, which is about half the size of Germany. In the remote areas of this municipality, close to the BR-163 and the border with Mato Grosso, impunity reigns and large landholders are able to impose their will on peasants without having to fear legal prosecution. Violent land grabbing9 (grilagem) is thus a widespread practice,

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Land grabbing leads to unclear land titles because several landholders claim to be the legal owner. Another reason for unclear land titles are disputes between the federal and state governments over territorial jurisdiction, which date back to the decrees issued in the 1960s and 1970s and which transferred jurisdiction over enormous areas to the federal government. Unclear land titles are one of the main obstacles for land-use planning and the application of environmental regulations for sustainable resource use.

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often covered up by judges and cartórios (firms of notaries that act as land registry offices). The Weakness of Legal Institutions The weakness or even absence of legal institutions is a severe obstacle for civil society action and the implementation of environmental law prescriptions. The judiciary is a responsibility of state authorities. In the interior of Pará the judiciary is very poorly equipped meaning that judges, prosecutors and police scarcely have any chance to work in a professional manner. Federal judicial bodies enjoy more autonomy and have access to more resources, but they are present mainly in the capital cities of the federal states. An exception is the Ministério Público (Prosecutor) that has the constitutional obligation to defend both social and individual constitutional rights as well as public interests. The Prosecutor has parallel structures at federal and state level, and works with the federal and state judiciary respectively. At both levels, the Constitution grants the Prosecutor an autonomous status and ample rights to sue public bodies in case they do not obey the law. Moreover, the Prosecutor can force other public bodies to take specific measures. These competencies are especially relevant when it comes to ensuring that environmental laws and procedures are respected (see also Rosendo, Chapter 11 of this volume). The close partnership between local social movements and the federal Prosecutor (MPF) has often been crucial for preventing the complete undermining of environmental law. This became especially clear when analysing the judicial dimension of the Belo Monte project. Representatives of the indigenous people who were to be affected by the dam informed the MPF about the activities of the Eletronorte, and the MDTX later engaged in a close alliance with the MPF in order to stop the ongoing environmental impact assessment. The instrument used was the ação civil pública por dano ambiental (public civic action in case of environmental damage), which is the right of the Prosecutor, government bodies and civil society organisations to sue in the event of violations of environmental law. The aim is to achieve either compensation payments (not for individuals but for the National Environmental Fund) or to force the perpetrators to change their activities.

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This was a successful strategy because Eletronorte had not complied with legal provisions. Firstly, it should have acquired permission from the National Congress before carrying out environmental impact assessment studies on indigenous land. Secondly, it should have applied for the environmental license to the Instituto Brasileiro do Meio Ambiente e dos Recursos Naturais Renováveis (IBAMA; the Brazilian Institute for the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources— the federal environmental authority) and not the Pará state environmental authority since the project is being financed by the federal government and has environmental impacts which go beyond state borders. The federal court accepted the arguments of the MPF and stopped the environmental impact assessment. Eletronorte appealed to the Supreme Court of Justice and is awaiting its decision. In the case of the BR-163, in the absence of an explicit strategy to deal with its impacts, no legal instrument was used by civil society. Worse still, the ongoing environmental impact assessment process was unknown to the vast majority of the governmental and nongovernmental actors interviewed. This means that even the information rights included in environmental impact assessment procedures are unlikely to be used. This passive attitude of civil society has another effect: the MPF is only vaguely informed about the process, and does not know the mixed feelings of local civil society. The Supportive Role of Global and Local Partnerships and Alliances in Local Environmental Capacity Building From what has been said until now it is clear that local environmental capacity depends strongly on civil society organisations. The increased local capacity to critically evaluate federal investment projects is mainly the result of relatively strong and old international relations between NGOs and social movements from Brazil and industrialised countries. International cooperation among governments has not been very successful yet in strengthening environmental capacities of public bodies at local and state level, as such processes of institutional learning need more time. This leads to an imbalance of forces which in itself may constitute an obstacle for dialogue and cooperative policy styles, due to the obvious weakness of public actors in relation to civil society and the weakness of local and state authorities in comparison with federal bodies.

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Global Partnerships and Alliances between NGOs and Social Movements from Brazil and Abroad In the 1980s, international public attention was drawn to the social and ecological costs of the Brazilian development strategy for the Amazon region, especially after the murder of the rubber tapper Chico Mendes in 1988. This led to the engagement of numerous NGOs, foundations and other organisations from the industrialised world in the Amazon region that wanted to support local social movements and NGOs in their struggle for local development. Research on this issue is still incipient but the scant data that is available suggests the following (Buclet 2002 and Oshai and Rogge n.d.). NGOs in the Amazon region are very heterogeneous regarding size, structure and ideological background. Most of them were formally registered in the 1990s, after democratisation, but some were created as long ago as in the 1960s. All NGOs have direct relationships with institutions abroad—many through their foreign founders (often former priests from Europe)—with other NGOs, universities or influential individuals that have committed themselves to the Amazon region. These relations are fundamental for assuring financial resources.10 Research-oriented NGOs have the largest annual budgets, but church-related NGOs, especially from Germany, finance the largest number of individual NGOs in Pará. Despite their donor dependency, NGOs state that they succeed in maintaining autonomy in defining their actions. Projects are the result of negotiations, where foreign NGOs restrict their interference in the internal affairs of Brazilian NGOs and the latter adapt their projects to those ideas from abroad that seem plausible. Many NGOs working in the area of natural resource protection and sustainable development maintain close relationships (alliances and partnerships) with social movements, especially with peasants and rural workers. These social groups suffer the most under the social, economic and environmental impacts of large investment projects in infrastructure, mining and cattle ranching. In addition, their movements are not only the protagonists of local resistance against these

10 A survey carried out in 2001 among 61 NGOs from Pará showed that 75 per cent of the most important financial sources for NGOs are located abroad, 21 per cent are from Germany and most of them have a church background. See Oshai and Rogge (n.d.).

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projects, but also the proponents of an alternative ‘bottom-up’ development model which emphasises natural resource management and protection. At a local level, it is the alliance between social movements and NGOs which creates the critical mass for demanding local participation in national development planning and the inclusion of the environmental variable in cost-benefit-analysis (see below). International Cooperation between Governments In the 1990s, after democratisation had occurred, this first type of international cooperation among civil society organisations was succeeded by the establishment of official cooperation among the Brazilian government and the G7 countries for the protection and sustainable use of the Brazilian tropical forests. After long and complicated negotiations,11 a programme setting was defined which channelled considerable funds into the development of environmental capacities at federal and regional level, including environmental authorities and civil society organisations: the Pilot Programme to Protect the Brazilian Tropical Forests—PPG7. The aim was to reduce deforestation rates and CO2–emissions as well as promote alternative sustainable production patterns.12 The mid-term evaluation of the PPG7 carried out in 2000 concluded that its main contribution was (i) the introduction of new principles for cooperation and participation in Brazilian public administration; and (ii) the creation of a critical mass of individuals in civil society and public administration which can guarantee the continuity of the lessons learned within the various sub-programmes under the PPG7. This second type of international relationship enabled the Federal Ministry of the Environment to redefine its role and to establish itself as a strategic ally for local social movements in the Amazon region. Since 1994, the Ministry’s Coordination of Amazonian Affairs Secretariat has, in particular, strongly promoted alliances with social

11

In Brazil, mistrust of foreign activities in the Amazon region is traditionally very high, due to the ongoing difficulties in controlling the borders and the immense territory of this region. NGOs, indigenous peoples and social movements are periodically accused by the military, large landowners and others of acting in the interest of industrialised nations willing to get hold of the natural resources (minerals, biodiversity, water) of the Amazon. See Kolk (1998). 12 For documents and the present situation of the PPG7 see http://www.worldbank.org/rfpp and http://www.mma.gov.br.

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movements and NGOs in order to increase its bargaining power at federal level with regard to other ministries and also with regard to state governments. This was a sensible strategy because of the relative strength of the environmental movement in the Amazon region (a new factor), the increasing environmental awareness of social movements, including peasants, and the population in general.13 However, this strategy increased the perception of the Pará state government and its environmental authority that they were encircled by the federal Ministry of the Environment and local civil society that both had very eloquent representatives and access to the media. This perceived relative weakness reduced their openness to engage in cooperative relations. Meanwhile, the Ministry of the Environment is increasingly in danger of seeing itself in a somehow marginalised position as it has not been able to fundamentally influence the multi-annual investment plan of the government (PPA). This reduces its credibility both in Brazil and internationally. Conclusions Six conclusions can be drawn from these results: 1. Strong local networks of social movements and NGOs are important to make public actors aware of social and environmental risks associated with large public investments. Another important function is to develop alternative development scenarios and to construct public consensus around these alternatives. 2. These networks are, however, ineffective as regards inducing change when the public sector does not have the technical, financial and organisational capacities to engage in this process itself. The weak environmental capacity of the public sector becomes an obstacle for dialogue and learning, both between different government layers and departments (horizontal and vertical policy coordination) and between the government and the public. 3. Support from foreign NGOs has been important for the strengthening of the environmental capacities of these local networks. 13 Several opinion polls conducted since the early 1990s show that the Brazilian population in general and the rural and urban population in the Amazon in particular consider forest protection to be a priority. See WWF (2001) as an example.

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Foreign funding continues to be important and is often the only source of financing for local civil society organisations. 4. Public actors at local level (mayors and members of the municipal administration) and state level (members of state government and administration) have not been exposed as much to international contacts as civil society organisations, at least not in the interior of Pará. This has led to imbalances which add to the existing environmental learning difficulties. Therefore, international official support for environmental capacity building among public actors in order to increase their problem-solving capabilities remains crucial. 5. The weakness of the judiciary is a central bottleneck for environmental and forest protection. Violence and impunity are two of the main obstacles which hinder the participation of local stakeholders in natural resource management planning. The judiciary needs to be strengthened as regards its autonomy and its specific environmental capacity in order to fulfil its role. 6. As deforestation dynamics have become partially independent from public investment, initiatives are needed which stimulate the selfinterest of the private sector (and especially cattle farmers and sawmill owners) as regards obeying environmental law. Economic incentives and certification schemes may help but a strengthening of environmental control systems is equally necessary. Alliances between national and international organised civil society and environmental authorities are instrumental in influencing public opinion and exerting indirect pressure on the private sector. Acknowledgements This paper is based on field research carried out between February and May 2003 in Brazil together with Daniel Dräger, Isabelle Floer, Constanze Neher and Julia Unger. We are indebted to Ane Alencar and Socorro Pena (IPAM), Edna Castro (Núcleo de Altos Estudos Amazônicos da Universidade Federal do Pará (NAEA/UFPA) and Raimundo Moraes (Ministério Público do Estado do Pará).

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Browder, J.O. (1988) ‘Public Policy and Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon’, pp. 247–298 in R. Repetto and M. Gillis (eds) Public Policies and the Misuse of Forest Resources. Cambridge/New York: World Resources Institute. Buclet, B. (2002) ‘Les Expérimentations des ONG en Amazonie. Quel Pouvoir pour Quelle Responsabilité?’, Lusotopie 1, pp. 263–282. URL: http://www.lusotopie. sciencespobordeaux.fr/buclet.pdf Costa, F. de A. (2003) ‘O Plano Plurianual 2004–2007 (PPA) e a Amazônia’. URL: http://www.abong.org.br/novosite/download/chiquito.zip. Falconer, A.P. (1999) A Promessa do Terceiro Setor. Um Estudo sobre a Construção do Papel das Organizações sem Fins Lucrativos e do Seu Campo de Gestão. São Paulo: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Hamacher, W., Heidbrink, K. and Paulus, S. (2001) Umweltpolitikberatung. Ein Diskussionsbeitrag zu den Möglichkeiten und Grenzen der TZ. Eschborn: Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ). Hochstetler, K. (2002) ‘Brazil’, pp. 69–95 in H. Weidner and M. Jänicke (eds.) Capacity Building in National Environmental Policy. A Comparative Study of 17 Countries. Berlin: Springer. Jänicke, M. (2002) ‘The Political System’s Capacity for Environmental Policy: The Framework for Comparison’, pp. 1–18 in H. Weidner and M. Jänicke (eds.) Capacity Building in National Environmental Policy. A Comparative Study of 17 Countries. Berlin: Springer. Jänicke, M. and Weidner, H. (eds.) (1995) Successful Environmental Policy. A Critical Evaluation of 24 Cases. Berlin: Edition Sigma. Kolk, A. (1998) ‘From Conflict to Cooperation. International Policies to Protect the Brazilian Amazon’ World Development, Vol. 26, No. 8, pp. 1481–1493. Landim, L. and Beres, N. (1999) As Organizações sem Fins Lucrativos no Brasil. Ocupações, Despesas e Recursos. Rio de Janeiro: Nau Editora. Mahar, D. (1988) Government Policies and Deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon Region. Washington: World Bank. Ministério do Meio Ambiente (MMA) (2003) Amazônia Sustentável. Proposta Metodológica e Subsídios para a Elaboração do Programa de Desenvolvimento Sustentável para a Amazônia. Brasília: MMA. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) (1995) Developing Environmental Capacity. A Framework for Donor Involvement. Paris: OECD. —— (1994) Capacity Development in the Environment. Paris: OECD. Oshai, C. and Rogge, J. (n.d.) ‘O Mundo da FAOR’: ONGs, Sociedade Civil e Terceiro Setor na Amazônia Oriental. Belém: Fórum da Amazônia Oriental (FAOR). Scholz, I. (2002) Desenvolvimento de Instituições Político-Ambientais na Amazônia a partir de 1992: A Contribuição do PPG7. URL: http://www.mma.gov.br/port/sca/ppg7/doc/ dipaa.zip. Scholz, I., Dräger, D., Floer, I., Neher, C. and Unger. J. (2003) Handlungsspielräume zivilgesellschaftlicher Gruppen und Chancen für kooperative Umweltpolitik in Amazonien. Bonn: Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE). Tura, L. and Costa, F. de A. (2000) Campesinato e Estado na Amazônia. Brasília: Brasília Jurídica/ Federação de Órgãos para Assistência Social e Educacional (FASE). Weidner, H. and Jänicke, M. (eds.) (2002) Capacity Building in National Environmental Policy—A Comparative Study of 17 countries. Berlin: Springer. World Wildlife Fund (WWF) (2001) Desenvolvimento e Conservação do Meio Ambiente. Pesquisa de Opinião com Lideranças e a População da Amazônia. Brasília: WWF.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

LESSONS FROM INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY FORESTRY NETWORKS Marcus Colchester* The assumption of our era is that globalisation is something new that distinguishes our time from previous more localised worlds. Of course, we know this is not really true. Globalisation of the timber trade started early (Perlin 1989). It was the intercontinental trade in brazilwood ( pau-brasil), used to make red dyes, that gave Brazil its name in the early sixteenth century (Hemming 1978, 8). Forestry, that is the ‘scientific forestry’ that developed in Europe in the eighteenth century, was likewise globalised under colonialism in the nineteenth century. As an essential adjunct to world trade, dominated by the European colonial powers, the science of sustainable forest management was used to justify the annexation of forests, indeed of whole countries like Belize, in the developing world (Westoby 1987; 1989). The ‘scientific forestry’, which was introduced into British, Dutch and French colonies, was used to justify the wresting of forests from local control. ‘Scientific forestry’ arrogated forest lands to the State; denied or limited the customary and prior rights of indigenous and colonised peoples to their forests; reallocated these resources to strategic interests prioritised by the State; and sought to control forest management, ostensibly on a ‘scientific’ basis, by means of State regulation (Grove 1992; Grove 1995; Peluso 1992; Gadgil and Guha 1993; Bryant 1997). Wherever this regime was imposed it sparked resistance, especially from the poor for whom access to forests formed an essential part of their livelihoods. Denied access to the forests, which were the ‘poor man’s overcoat’, their ‘safety net’, their survival, communities inevitably struck back to reassert their customary rights. The colonial

* Forest Peoples Programme, 1c Fosseway Business Centre, Stratford Road, Moreton-in-Marsh, GL56 9NQ , UK. [email protected].

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state was not blind to this resistance but contained it by a combination of punishments and privileges, while denying the communities’ fundamental rights. Today, we call this approach ‘conflict management’ (Means and Josayma 2002). The history of community forestry over the last twenty-five years can be seen as an effort to reverse these impacts of colonialism and its legacies on poor and marginalised social groups. They lost control of their forests to a colonial model of forestry that still dominates conventional, ‘global’, thinking about forests and, today, they are seeking to reassert their rights to these forests. Of course, forests have been managed by communities for sustained timber production for at least six thousand years (Rackham 1986, 73, 382), but it was not until the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO)’s 1978 World Forestry Congress, titled ‘Forests for People’, that the social importance of forests regained international recognition (Arnold 2001). Since then, an international movement has emerged calling for forestry reforms to give historically marginalised social groups secure access and rights to forests. A profusion of international agencies, civil society organisations and, latterly, social movements have combined in various ways to promote these reforms. Many of these groups have been linked together through international networks. Based on the results of a large multi-country study carried out for the Centre for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) titled ‘Learning Lessons from International Community Forestry Networks’ (Colchester et al. 2003), this chapter addresses the question of how effective these networks have been in giving local communities a voice in community forestry and what we can learn from their experiences. In line with the emphasis of this volume, we pay special attention to networks based in, or with particular relevance for, Latin America. Studying the Networks The study carried out for CIFOR looked at nine international networks that have promoted community forest management. Seven national studies were also carried out in China, Indonesia, India, Uganda, Cameroon, Mexico and Brazil designed to ascertain how and to what extent these networks have contributed to changes in thinking and actual practice at the national and community level.

lessons from international community forestry networks 303 The task was to review these experiences to assess (i) how much ‘value added’ the networks had provided or could potentially provide to activities at the local and national level; and (ii) their ability to advocate for community forestry at international levels. The project’s central objective was to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of international efforts to support community forestry. Prior to engaging in the research, the team met with a number of others, to develop a shared methodology for the investigation. This meeting resulted in working definitions for key terms used in the study, a shared framework for investigating the effectiveness of networking, a series of questionnaires for use by the researchers, proposed formats for national workshops and a general outline for the case study reports to follow. It was agreed that all the studies should take care to contextualise information about international networking and its effects, and not focus too narrowly on the actual activities of networks alone. Case study countries were selected with the aim of illustrating a wide range of experiences with networks and community forestry, spread across the various continents, experiencing differing degrees of donor interest, and including a variety of community forestry regimes. Cost, language and researcher familiarity with the countries were also taken into account. A Short History of International Community Forestry Networking The early social forestry of the 1970s and 1980s aimed to complement industrial forestry in natural forests with schemes to encourage the poor to plant trees in village woodlots, on wastelands, along field boundaries and on farms. The first international community forestry networks sprang up to share lessons learned from these early experiences (see Table 14.1 for a summary of the historical review presented here). The Rural Development Forestry Network (RDFN), which brings together 2,900 members from 120 countries, was one of the first and focused on sharing the results of research and field experience among academics and practitioners (Mandondo 2002a). The Regional Community Forestry Training Centre (RECOFTC) in Bangkok, which grew out of an FAO regional conference also emerged at this time, with a focus on training. A couple of year later, the Forests, Trees and People Programme (FTPP) was established, housed in the FAO, with a focus on information sharing and the promotion

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of national initiatives (Apte 2002a). Two regional networks were, in part, catalysed by the FTPP: the Central American Indigenous and Peasant Coordination for Community Agroforestry (ACICAFOC), addressed later in this chapter, and the Forest Action Network (FAN) of East Africa (Mandondo 2002b).The Asia Forestry Network (AFN) also emerged with similar information sharing goals, targeting academics and government officials as well as forestry practitioners (Apte 2002b). During the 1980s, the environmental movement began its strong criticism of the top-down nature of forest-related development. Campaigns against the World Bank’s road-building and colonisation schemes in Brazil and Indonesia, for example, led to grassroots mobilisation of environmental non-governmental organisations and social justice advocates who were critical of the whole framework of laws, policies and projects being imposed on forests by the ‘aid’ process. The Tropical Forestry Action Plan, of the World Bank, the FAO, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the World Resources Institute (WRI), was strongly criticised for promoting further commercialisation of forests without any proper consideration of issues such as community livelihoods, indigenous peoples, land tenure or the underlying causes of forest loss. The World Rainforest Movement (WRM), which consisted of social justice non-governmental organisations (NGOs) from the ‘North’ and the ‘South’, emerged through a coordinated campaign challenging top-down forestry and supporting an alternative model of forest management based on communities (Shiva 1987; WRM 1989; Colchester and Lohmann 1990). In the run up to the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, indigenous peoples coordinated their own inputs and established themselves as the International Alliance of Indigenous and Tribal Peoples of the Tropical Forests (IAITPTF, further down referred to as the Alliance), a political alliance demanding recognition of their rights (IAITPTF 1992). The emergence of forest peoples speaking for themselves in international forest policy debates was a new experience for foresters (Humphreys 1996) but was part of a much longer strategy of indigenous peoples to take their demands for recognition of their rights to the international level. Indigenous peoples not only sought recognition of their rights through the international human rights bodies but also consistency with these rights in international environmental and trade laws and policies (IAITPTF and EAIP 1996;

lessons from international community forestry networks 305 Table 14.1 Summary of the emergence of key international community forestry networks Date

Events

1978

World Forestry Congress

1985 1985 1986

Networks

RDFN Regional FAO meeting FAO/WB/UNDP/WRI launch TFAP

RECOFTC WRM

1987

FTPP

1991

ACICAFOC

1992

UNCED

AFN

1992

UNCED

IAITPTF

1993

ITTO rejects labelling in 1991/2

FSC

1995

IPF

FAN

1996

IPF

IUCN-CIFM

2002

WSSD

Global Caucus on CBFM

Key objectives/context Community forestry achieves first international exposure Share technical insights among practitioners Train community forestry practitioners in Asia Campaign to counter top-down forestry and support community rights Information sharing, developing tools, promotion of national initiatives Link community-based organisations and promote community forestry Share lessons learned from community forestry experience in Asia Political alliance of indigenous forest peoples demanding recognition of rights Promote independent voluntary certification with attention to human rights Promote national and regional forest policy reform Promote community forestry in international forest policy Promote policy reform to favour community-based and indigenous forestry

Meaning of acronyms in alphabetical order: ACICAFOC = Central American Indigenous and Peasant Coordination for Community Agroforestry; AFN = Asia Forest Network; CBFM = Community-based forest management; FAN = Forestry Action Network; FAO = the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations; FSC = Forest Stewardship Council; FTPP = Forest Tree and People Programme; IAITPTF = International Alliance of Indigenous and Tribal Peoples of the Tropical Forests; IFF = International Forum on Forests; IPF = International Panel on Forests; ITTO = International Tropical Timber Organisation; IUCN-CIFM = World Conservation Union’s Community Involvement in Forest Management; RDFN = Rural Development Forestry Network; RECOFTC = Regional Community Forestry Training Centre; TFAP = Tropical Forestry Action Plan; UNCED = United Nations Conference on the Environment and Development; UNDP = United Nations Development Programme; WB = World Bank; WRI = World Resources Institute; WRM = World Rainforest Movement; WSSD = World Summit on Sustainable Development. Source: Colchester et al. 2003.

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Jentoft, Minde and Nilsen 2003; see also the section on the Alliance further down in this chapter). NGO efforts to ensure that international forest policies recognised and promoted community forestry were also coordinated by the World Conservation Union (IUCN) through an initiative named Community Involvement in Forest Management (IUCN-CIFM). The network—made up of NGOs and community forestry practitioners, but not community-based organisations—sought specifically to introduce language recognising the importance of community forestry into the ‘proposals for action’ of the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Forests (IPF) and the later Intergovernmental Forum on Forests (IFF). The combined pressure of these networks was successful in getting text into final resolutions, but led to little apparent change in either national policies or intergovernmental development agency programmes. Earlier in the 1990s, concern about socially and environmentally destructive logging, which was perceived as being driven by the international trade in timbers, led NGOs to call on the International Tropical Timber Organisation (ITTO) to require the labelling of timbers and wood products to show their provenance. The ITTO’s refusal to accept such an approach, on the grounds that it could lead to unfair discrimination against tropical timbers was followed by the refusal of ‘Northern’ governments to revise the organisation’s mandate to encompass boreal and temperate timbers (Gale 1998). Faced with this impasse, NGOs coordinated in 1993 to establish the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), a voluntary organisation designed to accredit principled schemes for the certification and labelling of timbers extracted from well-managed forests (see section on the FSC further down in this chapter). The FSC incorporated consideration for the rights of local communities and indigenous peoples into its standards and has undertaken a number of networking initiatives to promote the certification of community-based forest management. Mapping Change Figure 14.1 illustrates schematically the way some national and international networks envisage their promotion of community forestry and framework reform. Starting on the ground, the aim, often through ‘pilot projects’, is to assist targeted communities to secure control

lessons from international community forestry networks 307 Advocacy Political support Information exchange International law & policy

Advocacy

International Networks

Aid

Trade

Advocacy

National Networks or national contacts

INTERNATIONAL PRESSURES

Policy

Foreign Direct Investment

NATIONAL FRAMEWORK

Institutions

Law

Support local struggles

Mobilising for reform

Local networking

Pilot projects

‘Scaling up’

Communities

Figure 14.1 Mapping change: scaling up and scaling down.

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over forests resources, which are then backed up by efforts to ‘scale up’ from these local experiences to reach additional communities. Local networking, exchanges and institution building form part of this work. Many of the national networks and a few international networks see part of their role also being to provide support for ‘local struggles’, using their national and international advocacy skills to heighten the leverage and profile of local actors who face specific threats to their rights and livelihoods. Grassroots mobilisation of community-based organisations is also supported as a means of pressing for reform from the bottom-up. However, this may not be enough to promote changes in the legal, political and institutional frameworks which hinder community forestry and so are backed up by national networks and coalitions, which press for policy reforms through targeted advocacy at the ‘national level’. Other networks prioritise awareness raising, consensus building and retraining of forestry officials to encourage forestry departments to adopt more participatory approaches more sensitive to local needs and rights. However, the international networks recognise that national frameworks are, in turn, to a greater or lesser extent, influenced by international pressures from aid, trade, debt and investment. Advocacy for international policy reform, changes in international law, targeted aid and market transformation may encourage or pressurise national frameworks into forms more amenable to community forestry. Different networks have prioritised very different parts of this puzzle. Some have focused on the forest policy-making processes of the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development (UNCSD) and subsidiary bodies, such as the IUCN-CIFM. Others, for example the Alliance, have prioritised legally binding international treaties such as the Convention on Biological Diversity and the various human rights instruments. Still others, like the World Rainforest Movement, have targeted the World Bank and other international financial institutions, while for others, like the Forest Stewardship Council, targeting private sector agencies and pressing for market reforms have been given priority. Just how networks position themselves within this changing framework determines to a great extent how they then interact with government agencies, the private sector and the communities themselves. A fundamental choice for networks at their formation is to decide whether or not they should include government officials within their membership or not. We found that many of the international networks,

lessons from international community forestry networks 309 like the RDFN and IUCN-CIFM, do not, in fact, reach through from the international level to grassroots communities either through local and national institutions or directly. We also found that since the 1980s, the scope of ‘community forestry’ discourse and analysis has broadened greatly. The emphasis has gradually shifted from community forestry as a technical innovation—in which knowledge about forest management is passed down to farmers and authority is shared with or devolved to them—to one with a focus on the validation or revival of customary systems of forest management controlled by communities. Correspondingly, the forestry focus itself has shifted from woodlots and reforestation to natural forest management and natural regeneration. A focus on promoting tree planting for timber and fuelwood supplies has likewise shifted to multiple-use forestry, non-timber forest products and the promotion of wider livelihood strategies. At the same time, the community forestry debate can also be seen to have significantly widened its agenda. Actors now focus as much attention on the reform of the national and international policy frameworks that constrain or make possible community forestry as on the delivery of ideas, resources and practical advice to foresters and communities. This shift in emphasis of the key issues and major activities addressed by community forestry advocates, can be represented in a highly simplified table (see Table 14.2). Community forestry debates have been ‘radicalised’ to address issues of customary

Table 14.2 Changing visions of ‘community forestry’ Reforestation model

Customary rights model

Technical innovation Reforestation/plantations on ‘wasteland’ Timber and fuelwood Collaborative management Training Forest management Conflict management Silviculture Forest department reform Consensus building Multi-stakeholder approaches

Customary knowledge Natural forest management/regeneration Multiple use, sustainable livelihoods Local control Collaborative learning Governance reform Land rights and agrarian reform Exposing underlying causes National policy reform Advocacy Connecting with social movements

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rights, land tenure, power over forests and the impacts of other sectors. In large part this has been driven by the emergence of community-based organisations, federations of forest users and other social movements which have been demanding stronger rights in land and forests. Activists have characterised these approaches as the ‘reforestation model’ and the ‘customary rights model’, respectively. Learning Lessons from Latin America Of the global networks studied, the FSC and the Alliance (IAITPTF) have particular relevance for Latin America. In addition, we studied the Asociación Coordinadora Indígena e Campesina de Agroforestería Comunitaria Centroamericana (ACICAFOC; Central American Indigenous and Peasant Coordination of Communal Agroforestry) based in Costa Rica. Below we present the main findings and lessons learned from each of these networks. The Forest Stewardship Council In response to international concerns in the 1980s about the impact of logging on forests, particularly tropical forests, and the refusal of intergovernmental agencies to promote the labelling of timbers, NGOs and some of the more progressive elements in the timber industry developed proposals to promote voluntary forest product labelling. This led to the creation of the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) in 1993. This Mexico-based NGO developed a global scheme for the certification of forests, according to agreed standards, independent of governments. The FSC is a ‘chambered’ membership organisation designed to be governed equally by members from ‘economic’, ‘social’ and ‘environmental’ groups. FSC stakeholders developed global standards for ‘environmentally responsible, socially beneficial and economically viable’ forest stewardship. These standards are adopted and modified by national initiatives for application in specific countries. Nonetheless, consensus building in national forums has proved lengthy and requires heavy investment of time and resources from participants. Marginal and poor social groups have not been able to afford the time and resources needed to engage in these processes effectively. For this and other reasons, national standard-setting has thus tended to focus on developing standards appropriate for large and not small-scale

lessons from international community forestry networks 311 producers (Robinson and Brown 2002; Counsell and Loraas 2002). Additionally, the requirements of independent certifiers to see documented management plans, the costs of certification inspections and problems linking small-scale producers to concerned consumers have discouraged some community forestry operations from getting certification. Whilst the earliest FSC certificates in the tropics were for community forestry, certification grew most rapidly among public and private landowners as FSC funders, Board members and secretariat gave priority to developing a significant market share for FSC-certified timber. By 2000, over ninety per cent of FSC-certified forests were managed by public bodies, individuals and corporations, not communities (Rezende de Azevedo 2001). Most certified community operations had been supported by substantial grant-funded technical assistance. In general, certification, as a tool for market-based reform, has not worked well for communities in its early phases (Thornber and Markopoulos 2002, 2). Nonetheless, around fifty FSC certificates have been issued to community forestry operations (principally in Central America and Mexico) providing an important set of experiences from which others can learn. Notwithstanding FSC has taken a series of measures, through concerted networking, to try to address these market failures and incorporate the needs of a broader range of forest users into its certification policies and procedures. In the mid 1990s, FSC members mandated the creation of a ‘Social Working Group’ to promote membership of the social chamber and to formulate a strategic plan for dealing with social issues. Vigorous efforts were made to recruit more members from communities, trade unions, social justice organisations and indigenous peoples. A still-active bilingual (English/Spanish) e-mail list of 170 was set up. In 1998, the FSC developed ‘group certification’, which allows groups of small-scale producers to jointly apply for certification and thus share administration and inspection costs. By 2002, almost one million hectares of forests, from over 7,500 individual forest operations in twenty-three countries had been certified under this scheme (Robinson and Brown 2002). During this same period, the FSC also invested considerable effort in devising a ‘Social Strategy’ which was based on the recommendations and requests collected at previous face-to-face meetings, such as the 2001 annual conference ‘Certification for the People’. The strategy was developed via extensive consultations with FSC members, national initiatives,

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e-mail circulars and using other networks, such as RECOFTC’s newsletter. The FSC expects that further networking will be crucial to the successful application of this strategy. In 2002, the FSC also launched a new initiative called ‘Increasing Access to Certification for Small and Low Intensity Managed Forests’ (the SLIMFs Initiative). This seeks to provide guidance on interpreting standards and management requirements for small-scale operations, make information about certification processes and standards more accessible and intelligible, and simplify the documentation system of certification inspections and audits. These ideas are now to be tested in field trials. Interested stakeholders are kept informed via regular ‘Review Committee’ briefings. FSC’s experiences with networking brings out the following lessons: – Considerable investment in translation and information servicing is required to keep networks active and working in two directions; – Face-to-face meetings are crucial if technical issues are to be addressed and developed in any depth; – Cost-effective means of incorporating the views of resource-poor NGOs and community organisations into policy development remains a major challenge. E-mail networking and consultation processes may not be the best way to reach them; – Bringing marginalised social groups into networks, national initiatives and certification processes requires grants (self-financing is not an option in most cases). In most national initiatives, community participation is minimal; – Although the governance structure of the FSC allows for voting equally among the six stakeholders groups (social, environmental and economic, each divided into ‘North’ and ‘South’), in practice decision-making processes favour those with higher education, technical knowledge, access to communication and financial resources; – Overcoming this de facto inequality either requires capacity building of southern and resource-poor social groups or novel mechanisms of decision-making, which give proper weight to local and indigenous knowledge, languages and discourses; – FSC’s formalised governance system and complaints procedures have nevertheless provided important political space for communitybased organisations and indigenous peoples, which they have used effectively to address serious problems. Supportive NGOs and grant financing have proved necessary to make use of these apertures.

lessons from international community forestry networks 313 The International Alliance of Indigenous and Tribal Peoples of the Tropical Forests Following the release of the Brundtland Report in 1986 and then in the run up to the United Nations Conference on the Environment and Development (UNCED), indigenous peoples’ organisations carried out extensive networking to prepare a joint platform that would give their concerns a high profile at the Rio Summit. At a planning meeting organised by the World Rainforest Movement in Penang in 1992, indigenous peoples from the Pacific, Asia, Africa and Central and South America decided to establish the International Alliance of Indigenous and Tribal Peoples of the Tropical Forests, a coalition of autonomous peoples’ organisations based on a shared Charter of demands. The Alliance has its roots in the global movement of indigenous peoples, which has been pressing for recognition of indigenous rights to land and to self-determination. The movement first sought access to the United Nations as colonised peoples and has since sought redress of violations of indigenous peoples’ human rights at the United Nations Human Rights Commission and its subsidiary bodies. Since 1983, a Working Group on Indigenous Populations, open to any indigenous representatives has met annually in Geneva and its deliberations have led to drafting of a Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (1993) and the establishment of a United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues under the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) (2002). The Alliance, which has its own secretariat (currently in Chiang Mai), has the dual mandate of promoting the rights of forest-dwelling indigenous peoples in international forums and strengthening regional networks of indigenous peoples. Governed by a Conference of regionally elected representatives, which has met approximately every three years, the Conference sets strategic objectives, reviews reports from the regions and Committees and delegates its authority to an elected International Coordinating Committee which makes decisions on behalf of the members between Conferences. The Alliance has established close ties with supportive networks, such as the WRM and the Global Forests Coalition and made substantial inputs into the InterGovernmental Panel on Forests, including running an intersessional meeting in Leticia, Colombia. It also participated in the similar NGO-run process that focused attention

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on the underlying causes of deforestation at the International Forum on Forests and now acts as a focal point for indigenous peoples in relation to the United Nations Forum on Forests. The Alliance is also involved in the ‘Global Caucus on Community-Based Forest Management’ and promotes indigenous participation in the Convention on Biological Diversity and World Parks Congress. Key lessons which emerge from the Alliance experience include: – Concerted advocacy can result in significant policy gains but these are slow to feed back to the national level; – Environmental policy processes are weakly linked to parallel standard setting processes related to human rights; – International policy work must be linked to parallel efforts to promote regional, national and local capacity building to avoid grassroots groups being ‘left behind’; – E-mail communications and newsletters are ineffective communications tools in reaching community-based organisations; – NGOs must respect the political nature of indigenous organisations and demands. Substantial and sustained financial support is required to ensure transparent, participatory decision-making at an inter-continental level. The Central American Indigenous and Peasant Coordination of Communal Agroforestry The ACICAFOC was born out of a 1991 regional meeting to promote community forestry organised by the National Peasant Forestry Board of Costa Rica, an organisation designed to help smallholders access government reforestation subsidies. With decisive support from the FAO’s Forests, Trees and People Programme, community organisations continued their regional interchanges, eventually coalescing as the networking body now known as ACICAFOC. ACICAFOC also salvaged elements from a previous but collapsing regional network of small farmer organisations and linked to new partners in the region with the help of the regional IUCN bureau. ACICAFOC thus emerged as one of the few community-based federations of the region and is increasingly seen by regional governments and international agencies as an authentic interlocutor that can bring community concerns to international forums and help ensure that dialogue, technical assistance and financial resources reach down to commu-

lessons from international community forestry networks 315 nities through a minimum of intermediaries, while assisted by a substantial informal network of supportive NGOs, technical advisers and other fellow travellers. ACICAFOC is formally incorporated as a regional organisation, governed by a General Assembly of self-selected delegates from sixtyfive member organisations, which range in size from being single community cooperatives to regional peasant federations and which pay a membership fee of US$ 100/year, although ten organisations dominate its activities. Since March 2002, aspiring members are screened to ensure that they are genuinely rooted in the communities. The General Assembly sets overall priorities for the organisation and elects a Board and a General Facilitator, who acts as the Executive Director of a small secretariat. Through this network ACICAFOC carries out training through local level workshops, promotes exchanges between member organisations, participates in regional and international policy forums and carries out community-level projects in territorial mapping, forest management planning and protected area co-management. It also promotes action-orientated research and has initiated attempts to ensure that rural women are involved in decision-making and forest management. ACICAFOC also links its members to other international networks. It is a member of the FSC, was a regional partner in the IUCN-CIFM project and is a regional member of the newly emerged Caucus for Community-based Forest Management. ACICAFOC is also jointly implementing regional projects with international financial institutions such as the World Bank and Global Environment Facility. Key lessons from the ACICAFOC experience include the following: – Its success has been dependent on an unusually committed Executive Director. – Its increasing involvement in advocacy at international forest policy debates, without clear objectives, has detracted from giving attention to the smaller and weaker members of the network. – Participation in regional forums has created political space for country members to raise, and engage in, dialogue with governments about issues that are hard to address at national level such as land tenure and indigenous territorial claims; – The creation of national offices distanced members from network communications rather than promoting their participation;

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– Electronic and telephone-based communications are inadequate means for good two-way information sharing with grassroots groups; – Capacity building of membership organisations is the main need. Main Lessons Learned The global and regional networks presented above have shown that the major problems facing networks are those related to communication (appropriate tools, the costs of networking and the resulting donor dependency) and the problem of linking with local communities. Networking Tools and Dilemmas It has been estimated that there are now some 20,000 international civil society networks worldwide (Edwards and Gaventa 2001, 4–5), a large but unquantified proportion of which are found in Latin America. Despite the variety of the issues they address and differences in the way they seek to promote change, the actual tools they use are all surprisingly similar. We reviewed those being used by the international community forestry networks and noted that these can be categorised into ‘one-way tools’ by which ideas and information can be communicated to hundreds or thousands of people and ‘twoway tools’ which only effectively network relatively small groups, unless budgets are limitless (see Table 14.3). Networks, as loose associations with minimum rules for interaction, rely substantially on personal trust, which in the long term is hard to maintain without

Table 14.3 Networking tools ‘One-way tools’

‘Two-way tools’

Newsletters Publications

Correspondence E-mail newsletters, list servers and discussion groups Assemblies or annual meetings Regional meetings Workshops Exchange visits Training courses Field projects Research

Resource centres Web sites DVDs, CD ROMs, Press releases Public radio and TV Other mass media

lessons from international community forestry networks 317 face-to-face meetings. As one workshop participant neatly put it: ‘twoway is four-eye’. Global networks work inter-continentally and face a major challenge sourcing adequate funds to maintain their communications with all the people they aspire to reach. Given the centrality of communications in networking, it was a surprise to discover how few of the networks have multilingual publications, websites and staff. Despite their aspiration many networks end up being more orientated towards donors and international ‘policymakers’, than towards the grassroots whose interests the networks seek to promote. Indeed, the review uncovered a pervasive concern that networks are unduly influenced by donors, but at the same time few networks have financial security and most struggle to fund their core costs. This implies either that communities and NGOs end up underwriting networking costs through voluntary work or other projects, or that the networks in fact have weak outreach. The tendency of donors to fund networks to undertake specific ‘projects’ with measurable and pre-determined ‘outputs’ and to demand that networks have defined structures and legal personalities, weakens networks’ capacities to be flexible and to prioritise demands from members. Donors have legitimate concerns about creating dependency and fostering non-representative processes and so tend to promise only short-term support, but reforming national legal, policy and governance frameworks, sharing information with communities, re-training foresters and providing community level services are all activities that need to take place over the long term to have real effect. Lack of secure funding hinders strategic planning. Intergovernmental and bilateral development agencies are also criticised for their reluctance to fund activities that they perceive as ‘political’ or ‘radical’. These funding constraints may combine to make networks more cautious than grassroots activists would like. In-country interviews carried out as part of the review revealed a widespread perception that many of the international networks are unduly donor-focused, secretariatdriven and ‘Northern’-dominated. The review showed that one of the best contributions from donors (apart from money) is their requirement for periodic evaluations of network effectiveness. Where these evaluations are carried out in participatory ways, they provide important opportunities for networks to assess their strategies and ensure that secretariats and network leaders are accountable to their members.

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It was also found that networks face real challenges deciding how best to develop appropriate governance structures. Networks are designed to serve their members but on the other hand they are not rule-based organisations. They work best when they give space for initiatives, fluid partnerships and spontaneous synergies. Retaining flexibility, while having enough rules to make members comfortable and able to resolve disputes, is a real dilemma. The only clear lesson that emerged from the review was that networks should choose their structures after a careful weighing of the pros and cons and so make choices in an informed way. Representing Communities A key finding of this study was that the links between the international networks and the communities themselves are relatively weak. Some of the networks, such as the RDFN and IUCN-CIFM, consciously decided not to aspire to reach community-based organisations, but rather to link with community forestry practitioners who work with them. For technical, cultural, financial and practical reasons the networks’ direct links with forest users are tenuous. Even those networks set up to politically represent communities, such as the Alliance and ACICAFOC, find the effort of two-way communication and shared decision-making with communities a daunting proposition. Addressing this challenge in the future should be a priority of international community forestry networking. If framework reforms are to be effective and enduring, they must be based on real mobilisation of communities pressuring for change. Successive studies show that reforms from the top, that are not mobilised for from the bottom, often do not work. Decentralisation without democracy tends to create new elites, and new layers of bureaucracy fill the political spaces being opened up for communities to occupy. More encouragingly, we found that social movements for reform of forest-related frameworks are growing. Political mobilisation to demand that forest lands are restored to the ownership, management and control of local communities and indigenous peoples is flourishing in many areas. Such movements seek a reallocation of power and resources, challenging the vested interests of those who presently benefit from preferential access and control of forests. In this context the politics of representation become a central concern. The rhetoric of participation is now an all-pervading part of devel-

lessons from international community forestry networks 319 opment discourse. Too often, however, participation is managed and limited so that ‘acceptable’ voices are heard by those in power and ‘unacceptable’ voices are edited out. Now that NGOs have become the favoured partners of development agencies, increasingly turned to to make up the ‘democratic deficit’ and even replace weak or ineffective state agencies, the responsibility that such NGOs bear to ensure that local voices are heard is all the greater. Such NGOs do not represent communities, yet all too often the voice of mediating NGOs is substituted for the voices of the communities themselves, creating the possibility of new forms of social exclusion. As one community activist noted to the concluding workshop of this study: ‘If networks can’t support social movements, they should at least leave them alone and not interfere or prejudice their growth’ (Colchester et al. 2003, 25). We discern two kinds of networks which are very differently placed to work with the social movements. Some hybrid networks include governments, development agency personnel, academics, NGOs and social activists in broad platforms aimed at information sharing. Examples are the Regional Community Forestry Training Centre (RECOFTC) in Bangkok and the Forests, Trees and People programme. The starting point of these ‘hybrid’ networks is a recognition that not all their members will share a view about the best ways to accommodate the interests of rural communities and indigenous peoples in forestry. However, the expectation is that through dialogue, information exchange, workshops, shared training and the implementation of pilot schemes, common ground can be found which will encourage officials to accept the feasibility of community forestry and effect reforms to make this possible on a wide scale. Even if debates do not yield unanimity, mutual respect can develop as long as opponents can see that their different points of view are at least being understood if not accepted. However, other networks which advocate policy reforms or support local struggles, such as ACICAFOC and the World Rainforest Movement must necessarily selectively recruit their members from among those who share their agenda for change. Members of hybrid networks who seek to use their networks to support local struggles ultimately run up against internal resistance from members with opposing views. Communities linked to such networks often feel let down, when expected support fails to materialise. As one activist from Nepal noted: ‘Networks have created dreams for communities but they run away when we face a

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problem. Do they link with us or with the Forestry Department?’ (Colchester et al. 2003, 13). Conclusions Forests have been a globalised resource for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. The ‘scientific forestry’ of the nineteenth century, which was spread worldwide in the colonial era, denied customary rights in forests but is now challenged by proponents of communitybased forest management. Community forestry has transformed over the past twenty-five years from being an experimental means of providing wood fuel to the rural poor to a community-led movement demanding fundamental reforms of the forestry sector. Numerous and extensive international networks advocating community forestry seek to promote new community forestry techniques as well as wider international and national legal and policy reforms. Paying particular attention to cases in, and/or relevant to, Latin America, this chapter addressed the question of how effective these networks have been in linking with communities and social movements, and what we can learn from their experiences. We have shown that these networks face various challenges, the largest being the degree to which they are linked and accountable to communities. Monolingual communication, over-reliance on e-mail communication and donor dependency are among the main causes of these weak links. Now that participation has become a norm in development discourse and even practice, the time has come for a much more critical evaluation of the form of this participation. ‘Multi-stakeholder’ decision-making, new ‘partnerships’, routine engagements with ‘civil society’ all promise new opportunities for local actors to get their voices heard. But there are also risks that these same processes are creating new divisions and possibilities of social exclusion. The community forestry networks and the social movements that they claim to support both need to be vigilant to ensure that they engage in these processes astutely, using political space that is offered in ways that do not legitimise unacceptable practices and exclude the rural poor in whose name community forestry is advocated.

lessons from international community forestry networks 321 Acknowledgements This paper is a personal summary of the findings of a large research project carried out for the Centre for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) with funds from the Department for International Development (DFID) and the Ford Foundation by a team of researchers including the author, Tejaswini Apte, Michel Laforge, Alois Mandondo and Neema Pathak. The project was overseen by David Kaimowitz, Carol Colfer, Lini Wollenberg, Rahayu Koesnadi and Dina Hubudin of CIFOR and advised by Mary Hobley, Janis Alcorn, Madhu Sarin and Louise Goodman. I would like to thank Mirjam Ros for inviting me to present the first version of this paper as a keynote speech to the opening of the Congress on ‘Globalisation, Localisation and Tropical Forest Management in the 21st Century’ held in Amsterdam on 22–23 October 2003. References Apte, T. (2002a) ‘Lessons from the Forest, Trees and People Programme Network’. Unpublished Manuscript. ——. (2002b) ‘Lessons from the Asia Forestry Network’. Unpublished Manuscript. Arnold, J.E.M. (2001) Forests and People: 25 Years of Community Forestry. Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Bryant, R.L. (1997) The Political Ecology of Forestry in Burma 1824–1994. Honululu: University of Hawaii Press. Colchester, M. and Lohmann, L. (1990) The Tropical Forestry Action Plan: What Progress? 2nd edition. Penang: World Rainforest Movement (WRM). Colchester, M., Apte, T., Laforge, M., Mandondo, A. and Pathak, N. (2003) Bridging the Gap: Communities, Forests and International Networks. Synthesis Report of the Project ‘Learning Lessons from International Community Forestry Networks’. CIFOR Occasional Paper No. 41. Bogor: Centre for International Forestry Research (CIFOR). Counsell, S. and Loraas, K. (eds.) (2002) Trading in Credibility: The Myth and Reality of the Forest Stewardship Council. London: Rainforest Foundation. Edwards, M. and Gaventa, J. (eds) (2001) Global Citizen Action. London: Earthscan. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) (1992) Technical Cooperation Networks. Rome: FAO. Gadgil, M. and Guha, R. (1993) This Fissured Land: An Ecolgical History of India. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Gale, F.P. (1998) The Tropical Timber Trade Regime. London: MacMillan Press. Grove, R. (1995) Green Imperialism: Colonial Expansion, Tropical Island Edens and the Origins of Environmentalism 1600–1860. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ——. (1992) ‘Origins of Western Environmentalism’, Scientific American July 1992, pp. 22–27. Hemming, J. (1978) Red Gold: The Conquest of the Brazilian Indians. London: Macmillan. Humphreys, D. (1996) Forest Politics: The Evolution of International Cooperation. London: Earthscan.

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International Alliance of Indigenous-Tribal Peoples of the Tropical Forest (IAITPTF) (1992) Charter of the Indigenous and Tribal Peoples of the Tropical Forests. Penang: World Rainforest Movement. International Alliance of Indigenous-Tribal Peoples of the Tropical Forest and European Alliance with Indigenous Peoples (IAITPTF and EAIP) (1997) Indigenous Peoples Participation in Global Environmental Negotiations. London: IAITPTF and Brussels: EAIP. Jentoft, S., Minde, H. and Nilsen, R. (eds) (2003) Indigenous Peoples: Resource Management and Global Rights. Delft: Eburon. Mandondo, A. (2002a) ‘Lessons learnt from the RDFN’. Unpublished Manuscript. ——. (2002b) ‘Lessons learnt from the Forest Action Network’. Unpublished Manuscript. Means, K., Josayma, C. with Nielsen, E. and Viriyasakultorn, V. (2002) CommunityBased Forest Resource Conflict Management: A Training Package. 2 Vols., Regional Community Forestry Training Centre (RECOFTC), Forests, Trees and People Programme (FTPP) and Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Peluso, N.L. (1992) Rich Forests, Poor People. Resource Control and Resistance in Java. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Perlin, J. (1989) A Forest Journey: The Role of Wood in the Development of Civilization. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Rackham, O. (1986) The History of the Countryside. London: J.M. Dent. Rezende de Azevedo, T. (2001) ‘Catalyzing Changes: An Analysis of the Role of FSC Forest Certification in Brazil’. Paper prepared for the EnviReform Conference on ‘Hard Choices, Soft Law: Voluntary Standards in Global Trade, Environment and Social Governance’, Toronto, November 8–9, 2001. Robinson, D. and Brown, L. (2002) The SLIMFs Initiative: A Progress Report. Increasing Access to FSC Certification for Small and Low Intensity Managed Forests. Oaxaca: Forest Stewardship Council Shiva, V. (1987) Forestry Crisis and Forestry Myths—A Critical Review of ‘Tropical Forests: A call for Action’. Penang: World Rainforest Movement. Thornber, K. and Markopoulos, M. (2000) Certification: Its Impacts and Prospects for Community Forests, Stakeholders and Markets. London: International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED). Westoby, J. (1989) Introduction to World Forestry. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. ——. (1987) The Purpose of Forests: The Follies of Development. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. WRM (1989) Rainforest Destruction: Causes, Effects and False Solutions. Penang: World Rainforest Movement (WRM).

INDEX A’Ukre-Kayapó, 5, 30, 147, 149, 151, 152, 154, 155, 157, 160, 161 Açaí, 169, 170, 171, 172, 174, 175, 177, 178, 179, 180, 181 Accountability, 127, 130, 131, 138, 141, 210, 234, 249 ACICAFOC, Central American Indigenous and Peasant Coordination for Community Agroforestry, 304, 305, 310, 314, 315, 318, 319 Adaptive management, 11, 121, 233, 251 AECO, Asociación Ecologista Costarricense, 94, 96, 97, 103 Afro-Ecuadorians, 38, 41, 42, 51, 58 Agricultural colonisation. See Colonisation Alliances, 3, 8, 17, 20, 31, 37, 38, 43, 49, 50, 51, 53, 55, 57, 58, 60, 88, 134, 235, 280, 282, 283, 284, 285, 287, 289, 290, 291, 292, 295, 296, 297 Amazon Cooperation Treaty, 198 Amazon Paper project, 255, 262, 264, 266 Amazon region, 6, 8, 15, 16, 17, 20, 26, 27, 30, 31, 68, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 155, 159, 163, 190, 194, 195, 203, 204, 229, 230, 232, 236, 255, 256, 257, 258, 259, 260, 262, 265, 267, 269, 272, 273, 279, 280, 281, 282, 285, 286, 287, 296, 297, 298 Amazonas, Brazil, 189, 193, 239 Arco Norte, 194, 195, 204 Atlantic Biological Corridor, 216, 217, 218 Avança Brasil, 194 Aviamento system, 258 Bamboo, Ecuador (Guadua spp.), 5, 6, 25, 30, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81 Belo Monte hydroelectric plant, Brazil, 279, 285, 286, 287, 290, 292, 294

BICU, Bluefields Indian Caribbean University, 219 Biodiversity, 13, 37, 40, 44, 46, 47, 49, 55, 56, 61, 87, 96, 97, 98, 99, 162, 171, 189, 190, 192, 196, 198, 200, 202, 203 Biodiversity conservation, 8, 9, 10, 22, 31, 45, 46, 57, 58, 96, 97, 98, 101, 138, 229, 230 Biodiversity protection, 87, 97, 102, 121 BR-163 (Santarém-Cuiabá road, Brazil), 279, 285, 286, 287, 288, 291, 293, 295 Brazil, 4, 5, 7, 14, 15, 16, 17, 21, 22, 133, 141, 147, 152, 154, 156, 157, 160, 161, 175, 176, 177, 178, 182, 189, 193, 194, 198, 203, 232, 234, 235, 237, 239, 244, 245, 255, 256, 257, 258, 260, 261, 262, 263, 266, 267, 269, 281, 282, 283, 284, 288, 289, 290, 295, 296, 297, 298, 299, 301, 302, 304 Brazil nut oil, 14, 21, 147, 152, 154, 156, 157, 161, 258 Brazilian Amazon region, 6, 8, 15, 20, 26, 27, 30, 31, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 155, 159, 163, 169, 174, 229, 232, 236, 255, 256, 257, 259, 265, 269, 272, 273, 279, 280, 287 Brokerage, 132 Brokers, 22, 27, 71, 80, 81, 159, 164 Brundtland Report, 9, 313 Capacity building, 8, 22, 25, 29, 37, 53, 54, 58, 59, 158, 159, 201, 216, 312, 314, 315 Carbon sequestration, 13, 31, 69, 70, 80, 189, 190, 192, 199, 202, 256 CARE, Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere, 44, 45, 46, 55 CARICOM, Caribbean Community, 198 CBD, Convention on Biological Diversity, 10, 16, 199, 308, 314 CDE, Capacity Development in Environment concept, 282

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CDM, Clean Development Mechanism, 192, 201 CEPISA, Pine Exporting Company Inc., Nicaragua, 216, 217, 224 Chachi Indians, Ecuador, 5, 22, 23, 25, 38, 41, 42, 43, 47, 48, 49, 51, 52, 54, 55, 58, 59, 60, 61 CNS, Conselho Nacional de Seringueiros, Brazil, 236, 237 Coalition, used in the meaning of multi-sector partnership, 30, 38, 49, 58, 59, 60 Coalition, used in the meaning of political partnership, 8, 20, 87, 88, 94, 95, 96, 97, 99, 102, 103, 234, 289, 308, 313 Colombia, 17, 41, 67, 82, 141, 174, 176, 183, 189, 193, 200, 205, 269, 313 Colonisation, 15, 51, 194, 195, 242, 279, 289, 304 COMAFORS, Corporation for Sustainable Forest Management, Ecuador, 38, 48, 57 Co-management, 4, 6, 11, 25, 129, 131, 133, 199, 200, 207, 208, 215, 221, 222, 229, 232, 233, 315 Common pool resource management, 207, 211, 212 Common pool resources, 208, 214 Community forestry, 11, 22, 25, 37, 43, 46, 47, 50, 52, 54, 56, 57, 58, 59, 121, 207, 208, 210, 217, 223, 302, 303, 305, 306, 308, 309, 311, 314, 319, 320 Community forestry networks, 8, 20, 23, 24, 31, 38, 56, 301, 302, 303, 305, 316, 320 Community-based conservation, 11 Community-based forest management, 48, 57, 306, 320 Community-based logging, 245, 246 Company-community partnerships, 5, 6, 8, 22, 23, 25, 26, 30, 37, 47, 49, 58, 71, 87, 88, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 133, 136, 137, 141, 142, 143, 147, 148, 149, 151, 159, 160 Operational conditions, 130 Conflict Osa Peninsula, 87 Conflict management, 29, 302, 309 Conflict resolution, 29, 47, 140 Conflicting interests, 4, 19, 23 Conflicts, 29, 60, 90, 93, 96, 132, 134,

138, 139, 140, 203, 208, 213, 214, 215, 244, 246, 250, 288, 289, 292 CORDELIM, Corporation for the Promotion of the Clean Development Mechanism (Ecuador), 70 CORPEI, Corporación de Promoción de Exportaciones e Inversiones, Ecuador, 74, 79 Corporate social responsibility, 6, 13, 14, 18, 25, 30, 129, 131, 133, 140, 147, 151, 152 Corporate-community agreements. See Company-community partnerships Costa Rica, 4, 6, 8, 14, 25, 66, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 93, 95, 96, 97, 130, 199, 200, 310, 314 Cross-scale interactions, 234, 250 Cross-scale linkages, 207, 208, 211, 232 Horizontal linkages, 208, 210, 220 Vertical linkages, 208, 210, 221 Curauá (Ananas erectifolius), 264, 265, 266, 267 Decentralisation, 3, 15, 16, 127, 208, 210, 212, 213, 218, 318 Democratisation, 17, 235, 281, 296, 297 Devolution, 16, 17, 51, 58, 140, 212 Dispute resolution mechanisms, 139, 141 Domestication, 65, 259, 260, 262, 267 E. oleracea. See Euterpe oleracea palm Ecological dynamics, 24, 107, 115, 117, 123, 160 Ecological services. See Environmental services Economic value, 202, 270 Direct use value, 202 Existence value, 202 Indirect use value, 202, 204 Optional value, 202 Economies of scale, 78, 132, 136 ECOPORÉ, Ação Ecológica Guaporé, 237, 238, 240, 245, 246 Ecuador, 4, 5, 6, 7, 15, 22, 25, 29, 37, 38, 40, 41, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 49, 50, 54, 55, 56, 63, 64, 65, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 267, 269 Ecuadorian Chocó, 37, 38, 40, 41, 55, 56, 57, 61

index Empowerment, 16, 22, 27, 30, 143, 157, 164, 225, 232, 248, 249 Entitlement approach, 18, 19 Environmental awareness, 197, 198, 283, 289, 291, 292, 298 Environmental capacity, 29, 280, 283, 285, 287, 288, 295, 298, 299 Environmental services, 69, 189, 197, 198, 199, 200, 201, 202 Biodiversity, 13, 37, 40, 44, 46, 47, 49, 55, 56, 61, 87, 96, 97, 98, 99, 162, 189, 190, 192, 196, 198, 200, 202, 203 Carbon sequestration, 13, 31, 69, 70, 80, 189, 190, 192, 199, 202, 256 Habitat function, 97, 189, 194 Hydrological functions, 9, 190, 192, 193 Nutrient cycle, 189 Water control, 189 Watershed protection, 138, 190, 192, 199, 200 Esmeraldas province, Ecuador, 5, 38, 41, 47, 53, 55, 59, 60, 61 Euterpe oleracea palm, 27, 30, 170, 172, 174, 175, 176, 177, 178, 179, 180, 181 Extractive reserves, 7, 17, 21, 24, 31, 150, 229, 230, 232, 234, 235, 236, 237, 238, 239, 240, 241, 242, 243, 244, 245, 246, 247, 248, 249, 251, 256, 257, 258 Extractivism, 41, 179, 257, 258, 259, 272 FACE, Forest Absorbing Carbon dioxide Emissions, 70 Fair trade, 46, 47, 147, 152, 154, 155, 160, 164 FAO, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 10, 302, 303, 304, 305, 314 FECCHE, Federation of Chachi Centres of Ecuador, 49 FoEI, Friends of the Earth International, 89 Forest conservation, 5, 26, 147, 148, 149, 159, 164, 201, 233, 258 Forest product certification, 171 Frames, 21, 23, 24, 28, 30, 90, 93, 94, 95, 98, 99, 101, 102, See also Strategic frames Framing, 22, 23, 24, 87, 90, 92, 94,

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96, 102, 121, See also Stategic framing French Guiana, 175, 176, 177, 189, 193, 195 FRIM, Forest Resource Inventory and Management section, Forestry Division Trinidad, 112, 113, 116, 118, 119 FSC, Forest Stewardship Council, 48, 55, 169, 170, 171, 182, 246, 305, 306, 310, 311, 312, 315 GEF, Global Environment Facility, 45, 190 Global environmental governance, 13 Global environmental problems, 13 Global forest governance. See Global environmental governance Global issues networks, 13 Globalisation, 14, 127, 147, 148, 161, 163, 207, 208, 210, 212, 271, 301 Global-local partnership, 197 Glocalisation, 212 Gmelina plantations, 95, 97, 103 Good governance, 11, 13, 17 GRAAN, Government of the RAAN, Nicaragua, 219 Green Oscars. See Greenwash Academy Awards Greenwash Academy Awards, 89 GSI, Guiana Shield Initiative, 7, 30, 169, 170, 189, 190, 196, 197, 198, 199, 200, 201, 204 GTZ, Geselschaft für Technologische Zusamenarbeit, 59 Guadua (Guadua spp.). See Bamboo, Ecuador Guiana Shield, 169, 170, 175, 176, 179, 181, 189, 190, 192, 193, 194, 195, 196, 197, 198, 199, 201, 202, 203, 204 Guyana, 4, 114, 170, 175, 176, 177, 180, 181, 189, 193, 200 Habitat function, 97, 189, 194 Hybrid networks, 319 Hydrological functions, 9, 190, 192, 193 IAITPTF, International Alliance of Indigenous and Tribal Peoples of the Tropical Forests (‘the Alliance’), 304, 305, 306, 308, 310, 313, 314, 318

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index

IBAMA, Instituto Brasileiro do Meio Ambiente e dos Recursos Naturais Renováveis, 244, 245, 295 ICDPs, Integrated Conservation and Development Projects, 11, 44, 45, 47, 54 IEF, Instituto Estadual de Florestas, Rondônia, Brazil, 237 IFF, Intergovernmental Forum on Forests, 305, 306 IIRSA, International Integration of Regional Infrastructure in South America, 195 ILO Convention 169, 16, 50 IMAFLORA, Instituto de Manejo e Certificação Florestal e Agrícola, Brazil, 170 IMF, International Monetary Fund, 13, 97 INAFOR, Instituto Nacional Forestal (Nicaragua), 212 INBAR, International Network for Bamboo and Rattan, 63, 64, 73, 76 INCRA, Instituto Nacional de Colonização e Reforma Agrária, Brazil, 241 INDIA, Research Institute in Defence of the Amazonian Identity (Brazil), 237, 238 Indigenous development, 207, 212, 215 Indigenous people(s), 3, 10, 14, 16, 22, 51, 53, 151, 157, 160, 189, 194, 197, 199, 204, 215, 221, 224, 235, 264, 287, 288, 294, 304, 306, 311, 312, 313, 314, 318, 319 INEFAN, Ecuadorian Forest Institute of Natural Areas and Life, 59 Intersectoral partnerships. See Multi-sector partnerships IPF, Intergovernmental Panel on Forests, 305, 306 ITERON, Instituto de Terras de Rondônia, 241 ITTO, International Tropical Timber Organisation, 50, 305, 306 IUCN, World Conservation Union, 18, 169, 305, 306, 308, 309, 314, 315, 318 JICA, Japan International Cooperation Agency, 265, 268 Joint forest management. See also Co-management LAET, Laboratório Agro-Ecológico da Transamazônica, 290

Land conflicts, 139, 221, 281, 288 Land tenure, 50, 55, 58, 131, 151, 204, 208, 217, 221, 240, 241, 242, 304, 310, 315 Legal pluralism, 27, 224 Limi-Nawâh, 220, 221, 225 Local value adding, 28, 258, 260 Localisation, 127, 147, 148, 207 Localisation of production chains, 260, 271, 272 MAG, Ministry of Agriculture (Ecuador), 44, 79 Maroons, 175, 189, 193 Master frame, 11, 90 Mayaro and Matura forest (Trinidad), 109 MBC, Mesoamerican Biological Corridor, 217, 218 MDTX, Movimento pelo Desenvolvimento da Transamazônica e do Xingu, 289, 290, 291, 292, 294 Mexico, 15, 17, 34, 35, 43, 130, 134, 141, 144, 165, 166, 184, 302, 310, 311 Millennium Development Goals, 12 Miskitu governance, 223 Miskitu Indians, Nicaragua, 25, 31, 207, 208, 211, 214, 215, 216, 217, 220, 222, 223 MLTC, Meadow Lakes Tribal Council, Canada, 220 Muaná Alimentos (Brazil), 170, 171, 172, 176, 179, 180, 181, 182 Multiple-scale linkages. See Cross-scale linkages Multi-scale development, 224 Multi-scale governance, 207, 224 Multi-scale partnerships, 24, 26, 66, 142, 207, 224 Multi-sector bamboo partnerships, 63, 64 Multi-sector partnerships, 6, 7, 8, 21, 24, 25, 26, 30, 31, 38, 49, 63, 64, 65, 66, 76, 77, 79, 197, 229 Multi-stakeholder arrangements, 229, 230, 232 Multi-stakeholder processes, 7 NC-IUCN, Netherlands Committee for the World Conservation Union, 190, 197 Negotiated management. See Adaptive management Neo-liberalism, 13, 25, 97, 102, 212

index Networked governance. See Global issues networks Networks, 20, 29, 31, 38, 41, 47, 54, 134, 210, 216, 221, 225, 233, 250, 284, 287, 298, 302, 303, 304, 306, 308, 310, 312, 313, 315, 316, 317, 318, 319, 320, See also Political partnerships and Community forestry networks NGO-community partnerships, 6, 72 Nicaragua, 4, 7, 25, 31, 130, 207, 210, 211, 212, 213, 214, 216, 217, 218, 224, 225 Normative pluriformity, 19 NTFPs, Non-timber forest products, 11, 28, 56, 129, 131, 137, 138, 147, 148, 149, 151, 155, 156, 159, 160, 161, 162, 163, 164, 169, 170, 171, 172, 174, 175, 180, 181, 182, 189, 199, 201, 255, 256, 257, 258, 259, 260, 261, 262, 263, 264, 265, 266, 267, 269, 270, 271, 272, 273, 309 Nutrient cycle, 189 Nutrient mining, 196, 204 OECD, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 11, 282 Oligarchic forests, 179 ORS, Open Range System (Trinidad), 111, 112 Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica, 85, 86, 87, 91, 93, 94, 100, 102 OSR, Organização dos Seringeiros de Rondônia, 232, 237, 238, 242, 244, 245, 247, 248 Out-grower schemes, 6, 73, 75, 80, 129, 131, 133, 134, 135, 139 Palm heart, 14, 27, 30, 169, 170, 171, 172, 174, 175, 176, 177, 178, 179, 180, 181, 189, 258, 260, See also Euterpe oleracea palm Palmito. See Palm heart Pará, Brazil, 7, 21, 175, 189, 196, 239, 255, 256, 257, 258, 259, 261, 262, 263, 264, 265, 266, 280, 281, 288, 289, 290, 291, 293, 294, 295, 296, 298, 299 Paradigms, 4, 23 Conservation paradigm, 24 Market paradigm, 23 Social forestry paradigm, 23 Technocratic planning paradigm, 23

327

Participation, 9, 10, 11, 16, 17, 22, 44, 46, 47, 52, 53, 102, 107, 123, 138, 208, 215, 219, 221, 232, 235, 237, 281, 285, 289, 293, 297, 299, 312, 314, 315, 318, 320 Participatory resource management. See Co-management Partnerships, 5, 37, 50, 88, 147, 148, 157, 230, 233, 247, 249, 255, 256, 257, 258, 260, 270, 271, 273, 284, 296 Company-community partnerships, 5, 6, 8, 22, 23, 25, 26, 30, 37, 47, 49, 58, 71, 87, 88, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 133, 136, 137, 141, 142, 143, 147, 148, 149, 151, 159, 160 Intersectoral partnerships, 6, 7, 30 Multi-sector bamboo partnerships, 64 Multi-sector partnerships, 6, 7, 8, 21, 24, 25, 26, 30, 31, 38, 49, 63, 65, 66, 76, 77, 79, 197, 229 NGO-community partnerships, 6, 72 Political partnerships, 7, 8, 20, 25, 26, 30, 31, 88, 284 Public-private partnerships, 5, 8, 13, 23, 25, 30, 69, 85, 88, 101, 102 Research partnerships, 7 PBS, Periodic Block System (Trinidad), 108, 109, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123 PDA, Projetos Demostrativos-A, PPG7, 290 Pit mining, 196 PLANAFLORO, Plano Agropecuário e Florestal de Rondônia, 236, 237, 238, 240, 242, 243, 244, 245, 248, 249, 250 Podosiri, 174, 175, 177, See also Açaí POEMA, Programa Pobreza e Meio Ambiente na Amazônia, Brazil, 255, 260, 262, 263, 264, 268, 269, 271, 272 POEMAR, Núcleo de Ação para o Desenvolvimento Sustentável, 255, 269 POEMATEC, Comércio de Tecnologia Sustentável para a Amazônia, Brazil, 263, 269 Political ecology, 88, 230 Political empowerment, 249, See also Empowerment Political partnerships, 7, 8, 20, 25, 26, 30, 31, 88, 284 Politics of scale, 18, 19, 207, 212

328

index

POLONOROESTE, Programa Integrado de Desenvolvimento do Noroeste do Brasil, 237 Power imbalances, 4, 18, 19, 21, 22, 23, 27, 31, 58, 81, 147, 149, 157, 159 PPG7, the G7 Pilot Programme for the Protection of Brazil’s Tropical Forests, 198, 236, 245, 282, 290, 292, 297 Prinzapolka, Nicaragua, 211, 214, 215, 216, 218, 219, 221, 222, 223, 224 Production chain, 77, 255, 257, 260, 262, 263, 267, 268, 270, 271, 272, 273 Public-private partnerships, 5, 8, 13, 23, 25, 30, 69, 85, 88, 101, 102 Pulpwood plantations, 87, 90, 91 RAAN, Región Autónoma Atlántica Norte, Nicaragua, 208, 210, 211, 212, 213, 215, 218, 219, 220, 221, 222, 223, 225 Rainforest Action Network, 94 RECC, Reserva Ecológica Cotacachi-Cayapas, Ecuador, 40, 41, 45, 47, 51, 52 Research partnerships, 7 Reserva Genética Forestal Comunitaria (Nicaragua), 219 Resilience, 127, 130, 134, 135, 137, 150, 162 River Cayapas basin, Ecuador, 38 Rondônia, Brazil, 21, 31, 230, 232, 236, 237, 238, 239, 240, 241, 242, 243, 245, 246, 247, 248 Roraima, Brazil, 189, 193, 196, 204 Rubber economy, 257 Rubber tappers, 21, 150, 230, 232, 235, 237, 238, 240, 244, 245, 246, 247, 248, 249, 250 SCA, Coordination of Amazonian Affairs Secretariat, 282 Scientific forestry, 301, 320 Secure property or tenure rights, 8, 21, 29, 151, 204, 214, 235, 302 SEDAM, Secretaria de Estado do Desenvolvimento Ambiental, Rondônia, Brazil, 241, 243, 244, 245 Síndico (natural resource chief, Nicaragua), 213, 215, 220, 222, 223 SIVAM, Sistema de Vigilância Ambiental, Brazil, 203

Smartwood, 170 SNV, Netherlands Development Organisation, 68, 71 Social capital, 19, 21, 158, 164, 197, 289 Social conflicts, 286 Social exclusion, 20, 25, 31, 233, 319, 320 Social forestry, 11, 18, 23, 303, See also Community forestry Social movement theories, 19, 20, 88 Social movements, 4, 8, 20, 31, 102, 150, 235, 279, 280, 281, 282, 284, 286, 291, 292, 294, 295, 296, 297, 298, 302, 309, 310, 318, 319, 320 Socio-political dynamics, 117, 123 Stakeholder theories, 19 Ston Forestal project, Costa Rica, 89, 94, 96, 98, 99, 102, See also Stone Container project Ston Forestal S.A., 85, 87, 88, 90, 91, 92, 94, 95, 99, 103, 104 Stone Container Corporation, 8, 85, 88, 89, 94 Stone Container project, 87, 91, 96, 98, 99, 100, See also Ston Forestal project Strategic frames, 23, 90, See also Frames Strategic framing, 85, 87, 88, 94, 103 Strategic neutrality, 87, 96, 99 SUBIR, Sustainable Use of Biological Resources, Ecuador, 7, 44, 45, 47, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 60 Subsidiarity principle, 224 Suriname, 174, 175, 176, 177, 178, 185, 189, 193 Sustainable forest (resource) management, 4, 5, 8, 9, 10, 11, 15, 16, 19, 24, 27, 29, 30, 31, 37, 43, 47, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 55, 56, 107, 108, 109, 111, 120, 123, 140, 161, 189, 190, 196, 217, 229, 232, 233, 301, See also Sustainable forestry Sustainable forestry, 8, 15, 37, 48, 49, 50, 58, 107, 123, 212 Sustainable Livelihood Approach, 18, 19 Symbolic capital, 21 The Body Shop, 5, 14, 21, 22, 30, 149, 151, 152, 154, 155, 160, 261 TNC, The Nature Conservancy, 44, 45

index Toquilla weavers, 76 Transaction costs, 21, 26, 28, 30, 79, 81, 132, 133, 135 Trans-boundary partnership, 198 Transdisciplinary conceptual network, 88 Transition zone management, 11 Trinidad, 4, 5, 23, 24, 30, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 114, 116, 117, 121, 122 UNCED, United Nations Conference on the Environment and Development, 9, 10, 236, 305, 313 UNDP, United Nations Development Programme, 68, 199, 243, 244, 304, 305 UNFCCC, United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, 10, 197, 199 Unpredictabilities, 24, 115, 121, 123 UONNE, Union of Black Organisations of Northern Ecuador, 47

329

USAID, United States Agency for International Development, 44 Venezuela, 15, 67, 175, 176, 180, 189, 193, 269 VHC, Christ’s Home Dwellings (Ecuador), 72, 73 Victoria Mayaro Reserve, Trinidad, 111 Watershed protection, 138, 190, 192, 199, 200 WCS, Wildlife Conservation Society, 44, 45, 47, 52 Wood fibre industry, 6, 30, 127 Woodworkers’ Association, Trinidad, 108, 114, 115, 120 WRM, World Rainforest Movement, 304, 305, 313, 319 WSSD, World Summit on Sustainable Development, 12, 305 WWF, Worldwide Fund for Nature, 18, 238, 245, 247 Zoning policy, 203, 204