reforms, only a small fraction of all forest
user groups in Bolivia have secure land title,
and even fewer have secure access to for-
est resources.
Because of their closer geographical proxim-
ity to local forest users, and because of the
past failures of central governance, munici-
pal governments are often considered to be
in a better position than central agencies to
engage in such co-provision activities.^34 The
role of local governments within the new
regime is to monitor local compliance with
the new legislation, promote forestry sector
opportunities for smallholders, and to facili-
tate the process through which smallholders
gain legal access to forest resources.
There is little doubt that the latest set of
reforms has improved the conditions for
rural populations to enjoy forest tenure
security in Bolivia. The reforms have explic-
itly recognised, at least on paper, that
indigenous groups and smallholder farmers
are legitimate forest managers and stew-
ards. The reforms have also instructed gov-
ernmental authorities to work with the
resource users to determine what the actual
boundaries of the managed resources are,
and then formalise the local users as the
legitimate property right holders for that
resource.
An increasing number of empirical studies
are examining the conditions that may sup-
port better outcomes for decentralised for-
est governance in Bolivia. Findings to date
indicate that the outcomes for community
forestry is very mixed, but also that local
users benefit when the recently empowered
municipal governments have more financial
resources and qualified personnel; are pres-
sured by both central government and local
user groups to take action; and when
municipal government representatives agree
to form collaborative agreements with
NGOs, central government and local user
groups to co-produce services in the sec-
tor.^35
The challenge to provide forest
tenure security
Despite recent reforms to address tenure
insecurity, only a small fraction of all forest
user groups in Bolivia have secure land title,
and even fewer have secure access to for-
est resources. Insecure land tenure adds to
the uncertainties associated with forest
users’ access and user rights to forest
resources. Without such tenure security, for-
est users are unlikely to develop longer time
horizons and instead favor activities that
provide short term pay-offs. In other words,
forest users whose rights may be easily
challenged by the government or rival users
are not likely invest in sustainable forest
management activities, which distribute
benefits over the longer term.
One of the main reasons for the current sit-
uation of widespread land and tree tenure
insecurity in Bolivia is the extremely skewed
land distribution, especially in the forest-rich
lowlands. For instance, in the two largest
departments of the Bolivian Lowlands,
Santa Cruz and El Beni, 87 percent of the
land is concentrated in properties of 500
hectares and larger. These properties are in
the hands of only 5.4 percent of the total
number of landholders. On the other
extreme of the spectrum, 84.6 percent of
the total population of farmers represents
small land holders who occupy only 6.9 per-
cent of the total land area.^36 These inequal-
ities, which are the consequence of almost
200 years of oligarchic land policies, pro-
voke conflicts over land and competing land
uses.
A recent survey with representatives of rural
communities in 50 randomly selected
municipalities in Bolivia confirms the pres-
ence of forest tenure insecurity among
smallholders in the Lowlands. When asked
about the most serious problems in the
forestry sector that rural communities face,
History, cculture aand cconservation
