the mid-1980’s, when economic crisis forced
the country into a World Bank-designed
structural adjustment programme.
The government’s policies and practices
during this period were geared towards the
creation of a nation-state based on private
agricultural entrepreneurs. In a sense, these
efforts were a continuation of previous poli-
cies, but it was not until after the agrarian
reform of 1952 that they gained momen-
tum. Despite the land reform’s ideological
undertones of social justice, and recognition
of the need for a more equitable distribution
of land and resources, the reforms largely
failed. De Janvry and Sadoulet (1989) pro-
vide a viable explanation of such failures in
the broader context of land reforms in Latin
America in the mid 20th century, arguing
that “land reform failed to be redistributive
because it sought to first modernise large
farms, which allowed landlords to reinforce
their power over the state.”^23
The limited capacity of central government,
aggravated by the extreme political instabili-
ty during the three decades following the
1952 revolution, led to little direct interac-
tions between government and local set-
tlers. As a consequence, the influence of
government policy on local settlers’ land use
decisions has been partial at best, and in
some cases non-existent.^24 In order to deal
with the uncertainty that a lack of formal
governance structure produced in their new
environment, settlers turned to more infor-
mal institutional arrangements to address
the problems they faced. Such informal
arrangements are still prevalent strategies
for lowland populations to deal with tenure
insecurity, variable climatic conditions,
volatile markets and other risk factors.^25
The government-led colonisation campaign
in the Lowlands was fueled by governmen-
tal policies with a strong bias towards agri-
cultural production. Such policies were not
conducive to sustainable forest manage-
ment. The 1953 land reform viewed forestry
as a less productive land
use compared to agricul-
ture. As a direct result of
the reform, clearing of for-
est became the most
widely-accepted way of
demonstrating control
over one’s land. Clearing
land for agriculture also
became an important
strategy to discourage the
settlement of squatters.
Even to this day, the old
agricultural paradigm of
the colonisation era per-
sists at the expense of
forestry, and the tension
between agriculture and
forestry as competing land uses (rather
than complementary) remains largely unre-
solved because of the national government’s
pro-agricultural policies. Although the new
1996 land reform^26 recognises forestry as a
legitimate land use, forest clearance has
become the traditional form of land
improvement in the lowlands and continues
to be the way rural people demonstrate
control over contested land areas.^27
The conditions for secure forest tenure
improved during this era as smallholders
were given formal land titles in the tropical
History, cculture aand cconservation
The oold aagricultural
paradigm oof tthe
colonisation eera pper-
sists aat tthe eexpense
of fforestry, aand tthe
tension bbetween aagri-
culture aand fforestry
as ccompeting lland
uses ((rather tthan
complementary)
remains llargely
unresolved bbecause oof
the nnational ggovern-
ment’s ppro-aagricul-
tural ppolicies
Figure 4. Soy bean plantations are considered the
main drivers of deforestation in the Bolivian low-
lands, as here in Pailón, Santa Cruz, in 2001.
(Courtesy K. Andersson).
