lowlands. The problem with the reforms
was that they produced strong incentives
for settlers to clear the forest for agricultur-
al land, as this strengthened their claim in
case of land disputes. As a result, forestry
activities were undervalued as a contribu-
tion to the rural household economy in
comparison to agricultural activities. One of
the lessons from this era is that the estab-
lishment of formal property rights is not
enough to promote natural resource conser-
vation, especially if other public policies
encourage short-term strategies.
Deregulation and decentralisation
of the state (1985-present)
In the mid-1980’s, there was a government-
led and donor-supported effort to transform
the Bolivian central planning model to a
modern market economy. The structural
adjustment programme, which improved the
financial stability of the country, was fol-
lowed up by a second generation of reforms
in the 1990’s. Part of this reform package,
which focused on reducing the central
bureaucracy through decentralisation of the
public sector functions and privatised the
government owned corporations, were the
1996 agrarian reform^28 and the 1996
forestry law.^29 For the first time in Bolivian
history, the country’s formal legal frame-
work recognised forest management as a
legitimate land use for all property owners.
Formal property rights with regards to for-
est resources according to the two integrat-
ed laws can be summarised in the following
manner:
Q The Bolivian State owns all forest
resources in the country;
Q Private ownership of forest resources are
limited to forest plantations and harvest-
ed products that are accompanied by
government permits;
Q The current private land holders’ user
rights with respect to the forest on their
land include:
Household use of forest products and
services on their land without any for-
mal permits from the government;
Forest management activities, including
commercial timber logging, if in accor-
dance with the national standards of
sustainable forest management;^30 and
First option to apply for commercial
logging rights, but may pass on or sell
these rights to third party users who do
not hold formal titles to the land.The implementation of the new formal
property rights system has been a very
complicated and slow process partly
because of the number of contested land
areas and the limited resources of the gov-
ernment agencies in charge of implementa-
tion. The agrarian reform agency’s task to
sort out overlapping claims through an elab-
orate ‘legal sanitation’ process carries an
impressive back-log. Five years after the
new law was passed, less than 10 percent
of Bolivia’s land surface had gone through
the legal sanitation process.^31The new possibilities for rural smallholders
to gain access to timber management rights
have also been met with
several challenges, mostly
from government bureau-
cracy. One recent study
determined that for forest
user groups to gain access
to a community forestry
concession, 26 different
administrative permits and
requirements had to be
met.^32 As a result of the
inflexible and slow administrative system,
very few local groups have been able to
access formal timber management rights. In
2002, the authorities in more than one third
of all forest rich-municipalities in Bolivia had
failed to issue even one single management
permit to local communities.^33
Consequently, despite the promisingConservation aas ccultural aand ppolitical ppractice
As aa rresult oof tthe
inflexible aand sslow
administrative
system, vvery ffew
local ggroups hhave
been aable tto aaccess
formal ttimber
management
rights