Rural Development Rural Development Forestry Network Forestry Network Rural Development Forestry Network network paper 24b Local Governments and Forests in the Overseas Development Institute winter 98/99 Bolivian Lowlands Portland House Stag Place David Kaimowitz, Pablo Pacheco, James Johnson, Iciar London SW1E 5DP Pávez, Christian Vallejos and Róger Vélez Tel: +44 (0) 171 393 1600 Fax: +44 (0) 171 393 1699 Email: [email protected] Website: www.oneworld.org/odi/ The Rural Development Forestry Network is funded by The EUROPEAN COMMISSION Please send comments on this paper to: Rural Development Forestry Network Overseas Development Institute Portland House Stag Place London SW1E 5DP United Kingdom Email: [email protected] Comments received will be passed on to the authors and may be used in future Newsletters. Photocopies of all or part of this publication may be made providing that the source is acknowledged. The Network Coordinator would appreciate receiving details of any use of this material in training, research or programme design, implementation or evaluation. ABOUT THE AUTHORS David Kaimowitz leads a project on ‘Causes of Deforestation, Forest Degradation, and Changes in Human Welfare’ at the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) in Bogor, Indonesia. He can be contacted at: P.O. Box 6596, JKPWB, Jakarta 10065, Indonesia. Email: [email protected] Pablo Pacheco is a sociologist at the Center for Studies of Labor and Agrarian Development (CEDLA) in La Paz, Bolivia. He can be contacted at CEDLA, Avenida Jaimes Freyre # 2940, Zona Sopocachi, Casilla Postal 8630, La Paz, Bolivia. Email: [email protected] Cristian Vallejos currently works at the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) in Oaxaca, Mexico. When he participated in the research for this paper he worked at the Bolivian Sustainable Forest CREDITS Management Project (BOLFOR) in Santa Cruz, Bolivia. Editors of this paper: David Brown and Kate Schreckenberg James Johnson and Róger Vélez are consultants in Santa Cruz Bolivia and Iciar Pávez works Layout and editorial assistance: Caroline Wood as a consultant in La Paz. Printed by: Russell Press Ltd, Nottingham on recycled paper ISSN 0968-2627 RDFN logo by Redesign RDFN paper 24b - Winter 1998/99 LOCAL GOVERNMENTS AND FORESTS IN THE BOLIVIAN LOWLANDS David Kaimowitz, Pablo Pacheco, James Johnson, Iciar Pávez, Cristian Vallejos, and Róger Vélez Local Governments and Forests SUMMARY in relation to forests. It is hoped that by so doing government bureaucracy can be reduced, This paper evaluates Bolivia’s recent experience decision-making will be democratised, the of giving municipal governments a role in benefits from forest resources will be forest management. It first provides distributed more equitably, and forest utilisation background information on Bolivia’s can be regulated more effectively. decentralisation policies, including the 1994 Popular Participation Law and the 1996 It remains to be seen whether the new policies Forestry Law. It then presents case studies of will live up to their expectations. To-date, few four specific municipalities: Ascención de studies have analysed their effects. This paper Guarayos, Rurrenabaque, Villa Tunarí, and San draws on initial experiences in the Bolivian Ignacio de Velasco. It concludes that lowlands to present some tentative conclusions decentralisation has created new opportunities on the topic. for marginal groups, but they have not always been able to take advantage of those Five years ago, the Bolivian government opportunities. Municipal forest reserves could embarked upon a wide-reaching process of provide small-scale loggers with greater access decentralisation. It approved a ‘Popular to forest resources, yet institutional, technical, Participation’ law that strengthened municipal and organisational constraints impede their full governments and attempted to make them more implementation. Local government democratic. Two years later, in 1996, it passed municipalities are interested in forest issues a Forestry Law that gave municipal but their capacity to address them remains governments an explicit role in forest limited. While they show signs of interest in management and the right to receive a portion sustainable forest management, they are of forest revenues. unlikely in the short term to make major progress on reducing deforestation, regulating Between December 1996 and October 1998, concession management, or improving small- we interviewed key informants and prepared farmer timber management. nine municipal case studies to assess how these laws had affected: i) the participation of INTRODUCTION previously marginalised stakeholders in In recent years, countries around the world decision-making related to forests; ii) the access have begun to give local and provincial of these groups to forest resources; and iii) the governments greater rights and responsibilities extent to which forest resources were 1 RDFN paper 24b - Winter 1998/99 sustainably managed. We also hoped to identify The next section of this paper provides basic Small-scale operators produce a substantial Cochabamba and La Paz (INE, 1993). steps that might be taken to better achieve these background information on Bolivian forest amount of timber, although the full extent of Indigenous people accounted for around one objectives in the future. Full versions of the management. This is followed by a summary their contribution remains uncertain. Many of quarter of the rural population (Díez Astete & nine cases in Spanish, along with a comparative of the major elements of the decentralisation these producers belong to the ‘informal’ sector, Reister, 1996). By early 1998, indigenous analysis can be found in Pacheco & Kaimowitz process. Four examples of how decen- which has traditionally operated outside the people had received title to about three million (1998). tralisation of forest management has worked legal framework. hectares of land. The government had yet to Local Governments and Forests in particular municipalities are then presented. rule on indigenous peoples’ claims over an Since we conducted our fieldwork less than A comparison of these cases allows us to Logging in Bolivia tends to be quite selective additional area of 11.5 million hectares five years after the start of decentralisation and present some broad conclusions in the final and rarely contributes directly to deforestation (Pacheco, 1998). less than three years after the passage of the section. (although, in certain instances, farmers use new forestry law, we could not reach firm logging roads to gain access to forest areas, By 1995, 12.8 million hectares, or 17 percent conclusions regarding the longer-term impacts FOREST MANAGEMENT IN THE which they then clear for agriculture). of the entire lowlands, had been given some of these processes. Nevertheless, we believe BOLIVIAN LOWLANDS Nevertheless, timber harvesting has greatly protected status, although only a small fraction the evidence we have collected so far gives us depleted the population of valuable species of that total was effectively protected (Pacheco, some significant insights which can contribute In this study the Bolivian lowlands are taken such as mahogany (Swietenia macrophylla) 1998). Among the most important lowland to the on-going debate on these issues. to include all the departments of Beni, Pando, and cedar (Cedrela sp.) and has had a negative protected areas are: the Amboró, Noel Kempff and Santa Cruz and the tropical areas of effect on certain mammal, bird and fish Mercado and Kaa-iya National Parks in Santa Perhaps not surprisingly, we conclude that Cochabamba and La Paz. Most of the region is populations (López, 1993). Cruz, the Isiboro-Securé National Park in Beni, decentralisation increases diversity. Depending less than 500 meters above sea level, although and the Pilón-Lajas Biosphere Reserve in Beni on local circumstances, it can lead to more or some areas are much higher. Forests cover The collection of Brazil nuts (Bertholletia and northern La Paz. less democratic, equitable, and sustainable around 44 million hectares, or 57 percent of excelsa) and palm hearts (Euterpe precatoria) outcomes. On balance, in Bolivia it has led to the entire lowlands (MDSMA, 1995). Most plays an important role in the economies of THE ROLE OF LOCAL GOVERNMENTS slightly more democratic and equitable of this forest belongs to some forty or so heavily Pando and northern Beni. Although the outcomes, although the opposite has clearly forested municipalities. collection of Brazil nuts typically does not In the mid 1990s, President Gonzalo Sánchez occurred in certain cases. The net effect on the deplete resources, the same cannot be said of de Losada made decentralisation a major theme sustainable management of forest resources is Commercial logging in the lowlands began to the extraction of palm hearts. of his government. The centrepiece of the policy more uncertain. It is worth stressing, however, increase in scale in the 1970s and has grown was the 1994 ‘Popular Participation’ law, that even in those cases where decentralisation sharply in recent years. By 1994, the Bolivian Deforestation rates in the Bolivian lowlands which fundamentally changed the role of has favoured more sustainable resource government had assigned 185 logging areas, have traditionally been low, but in recent years municipal governments. management the dominant trend towards covering almost 21 million hectares, to 173 they have increased markedly, particularly in resource degradation