84 % of the community leaders mentioned
problems related to forest tenure. Legal
access to timber products was also men-
tioned as a particularly serious problem.^37
In addition to the skewed land distribution,
a variety of other explanations have been
presented to explain insecure forest tenure
in Bolivia. These include: a sparsely popu-
lated land with large patches of forests, and
a governance structure that introduces
uncertainties into forest management.^38The Bolivian government’s policy responses
to these problems have
been similar to those of
other developing coun-
tries: central government-
led, command and control
instruments. As the histor-
ical analysis revealed, such
a regime was designed to
benefit a small group of
elitist rulers and was offi-
cially justified on grounds
of geopolitical interests.
After a long history of
ineffective forest gover-
nance policies, the 1996
forestry law marked a new
beginning in Bolivia’s efforts to address
problems of forest tenure insecurity.
Progress has been slow, and many difficult
challenges lie ahead, but most analysts
agree that a step in the right direction has
been taken.^39For these reforms to lead to any real
improvements in local forest users’ forest
property rights, governmental authorities
need to interact with local users to develop
mutually recognised rules that control
access to forests and regulate competition
over them.^40 So far, such arrangements
have developed only sporadically. There are
several issues that such institutional
arrangements need to address, such as:
who has legitimate access rights to the for-
est; what harvesting activities are allowed;and what enforcement powers are assigned
to local user groups. Even if a formal agree-
ment is reached, the enforcement of the
rules will also require the active cooperation
from both governmental authorities as well
as local forest users. The active involvement
of the local forest users seem particularly
crucial for the monitoring and enforcement
of rules as the governmental authorities
usually do not have either the resources or
the personnel to do so. Hence, the future
role that forestry activities will play in allevi-
ating rural poverty in Bolivia will depend to
a great extent on how national, municipal
and community level actors work together
to monitor and enforce the forest property
rights of the rural poor.Conclusions
Why is forestry not playing a more impor-
tant role in the fight against poverty in
Bolivia? The evidence we discussed points
to problems associated with forest tenure
security and legal access to forest
resources, which appear to
have hampered rural people’s
ability to benefit from sus-
tainable forest management.
While recent reforms have
increased the possibilities of
creating improved conditions
for community forestry, many
contemporary empirical stud-
ies suggest that this is by no
means an automatic process.
One of the common challenges for govern-
ment and users alike is to create local level
institutions can implement the progressive
reforms in an effective and equitable man-
ner. The eventual contribution of forestry to
poverty alleviation will depend on the effec-
tiveness of these joint efforts.The political history of Bolivia speaks of the
government’s reliance on coercive gover-
nance as the principal method of inducing
citizens to conform to public policy. Coercive
governance by any level of government —Conservation aas ccultural aand ppolitical ppractice
The ffuture rrole tthat
forestry aactivities
will pplay iin aalleviat-
ing rrural ppoverty iin
Bolivia ddepend tto aa
great eextent oon hhow
national, mmunicipal
and ccommunity
level aactors wwork
together tto mmonitor
and eenforce tthe ffor-
est pproperty rrights oof
the rrural ppoor.
This ttransforma-
tion pprocess iis
about mmuch mmore
than jjust cchang-
ing tthe llaw- iit iis
about ttransform-
ing aa ddeeply rroot-
ed cculture oof ggov-
ernance