Hostname: page-component-7dd5485656-7jgsp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-10-31T01:36:15.779Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Does better common property forest management promote behavioral change? On-farm tree planting in the Bolivian Andes1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2008

RANDALL BLUFFSTONE ,
MARCO BOSCOLO  and
RAMIRO MOLINA
RANDALL BLUFFSTONE
Affiliation:
Portland State University, Department of Economics, Portland State University, PO Box 751 Portland, OR 97207-0751 Email: bluffsto@pdx.edu
MARCO BOSCOLO
Affiliation:
Harvard University. Email: Marco_boscolo@harvard.edu
RAMIRO MOLINA
Affiliation:
Fundacion Dialogo. Email: Rmolina_rivero@hotmail.com
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper analyzes behavioral change spurred by better common property forest management (CPFM), with a focus on on-farm tree planting. Results from our theoretical household model suggest that on-farm trees, which provide products that can substitute for those from common forests, should be stimulated by better CPFM systems. We test this finding using data from a household survey conducted in the Bolivian Andes in 2000. We find that better CPFM at its highest level of aggregation is positively correlated with more and higher quality on-farm trees. In terms of less aggregated indices, relatively few variables are significant, though two particularly important aspects of forest property rights – access clarity and the existence of formal penalties for overuse – actually reduce on-farm tree planting. We therefore conclude that in general synergies between individual CPFM components are most critical for behavioral change, but improvement of property rights aspects of CPFM may give counter-intuitive results.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Environment and Development Economics , Volume 13 , Issue 2 , April 2008 , pp. 137 - 170
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Adhikari, B. 2002, ‘Property rights and natural resource: socio-economic heterogeneity and distributional implications of common property resource management in Nepal’, Paper presented at the Second World Congress of Environmental and Resource Economists, 24–27 June 2002, Monterey, California.Google Scholar
Agrawal, A. 2000, ‘Sustainability on the commons’, Paper presented at the 8th Biennial Conference of the International Association for the Study of Common Property in Bloomington, Indiana.Google Scholar
Agrawal, A. 2001, ‘Commons property institutions and sustainable governance of resources’, World Development 29: 1649–1672.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Amacher, G.S., Hyde, W.F., and Kanel, K.R. 1996, ‘Household fuelwood demand and supply in Nepal's Tarai and Mid-Hills: choice between cash outlays and labor opportunity’, World Development 24: 1725–1736.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Amacher, G.S., Hyde, W.F., and Kanel, K.R. 1999, ‘Nepali fuelwood production and consumption: regional and household distinctions, substitution and successful intervention’, Journal of Development Studies 35: 138–163.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baland, J.-M. and Platteau, J.-P. 1996, Halting Degradation of Natural Resources: Is There a Role for Rural Communities? Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Baland, J.-M. and Platteau, J.-P. 1999, ‘The ambiguous impact of inequality on local resource management’, World Development 27: 773–788.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bluffstone, R. 1998, ‘Reducing degradation of forests in poor countries when permanent solutions elude us: what instruments do we really have?’, Environment and Development Economics 3: 295–318.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bromley, D.W. 1990, Essays on the Commons, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Castro, J.C.M. and Rist, S. 1999, ‘Tipos de relaciones bosque-comunidad y normas tradicionales de uso y acceso a la vegetacion boscosa’, La Paz: AGRUCO and PROBONA (in Spanish).Google Scholar
Cooke, P. 1998, ‘The effects of environment goods scarcity on non-farm labour allocation’, Environment and Development Economics 3: 443–469.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cooke, P. 2000, ‘Changes in intrahousehold labor allocation to environmental goods collection: a case Study from rural Nepal, 1982 and 1997’, IFPRI Discussion Paper #87, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Dayton-Johnson, J. 2000, ‘Choosing rules to govern the commons: a model with evidence from Mexico’, Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization 42: 19–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Edmonds, E. 2002, ‘Government initiated community resource management and local resource extraction from Nepal's forests’, Journal of Development Economics 68: 89–115.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fortman, L., Antinori, C., and Nabane, N. 1997, ‘Fruits of the labors: gender, property rights and tree planting in two Zimbabwe villages’, Rural Sociology 63: 295–314.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibson, C., Lehoucq, F., and Williams, J. 2002, ‘Does privatization protect natural resources? Property rights and forests in Guatemala’, Social Science Quarterly 83: 206–225.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heckman, J. 1979, ‘Sample selection bias as a specification error’, Econometrica 47: 153–161.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hegan, R., Hauer, G., and Luckert, M. 2003, ‘Is the tragedy of the commons likely? Factors preventing the dissipation of fuelwood rents in Zimbabwe’, Land Economics 79: 181–197.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heltberg, R. 2001, ‘Determinants and impacts of local institutions for common resource management’, Environment and Development Economics 6: 183–208.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heltberg, R., Arndt, A., and Sekhar, N.U. 2000, ‘Fuelwood consumption and forest degradation: a household model for domestic energy consumption in rural India’, Land Economics 76: 213–232.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jacoby, H. 1993, ‘Shadow wages and peasant family labor supply: an econometric application to the Peruvian Sierra’, Review of Economic Studies 60: 901–923.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jagger, P., Pender, J., and Gebremedhin, B. 2005, ‘Trading off environmental sustainability for empowerment and income: woodlot devolution in Northern Ethiopia’, World Development 33: 1490–1510.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kohlin, G. and Amacher, G. 2005, ‘Welfare implications of community forest plantations in developing countries: the Orissa Social Forestry Project’, American Journal of Agricultural Economics 87: 855–869.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Linde-Rahr, M. 2003, ‘Property rights and deforestation: the choice of fuelwood source in rural Viet Nam’, Land Economics 79: 217–234.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moscoso, R.E. and Villanueva, A.D.I. 1997 ‘Tipos de relaciones bosque-comunidad y normas tradicionales de acceso al bosque’, La Paz: PROBONA and PRADEM/CICDA (in Spanish).Google Scholar
Nepal, M., Bohara, A. and Berrens, R. 2007, ‘Investigating the impact of social networks on household forest conservation effort in rural Nepal’, Land Economics, 83: 174–191.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Olson, M. 1965, The Logic of Collective Action, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ostrom, E. 1990, Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action, New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Platteau, J. and Abraham, A. 2002, ‘Participatory development in the presence of endogenous community imperfections’, Journal of Development Studies 39: 104–136.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pradhan, A.J. and Parks, P.J. 1995, ‘Environmental and socioeconomic linkages of deforestation and forest land use change in the Nepal Himalaya’, in Hanna, S. and Munasinghe, M. (eds), Property Rights in a Social and Ecological Context: Case Studies and Design Applications, Stockholm: Beijer Institute and the World Bank.Google Scholar
Sethi, R. and Somanathan, E. 1996, ‘The evolution of social norms in common property resource use’, The American Economic Review 86: 766–788.Google Scholar
Singh, I., Squire, L., and Strauss, J. 1986, Agricultural Household Models: Extensions, Applications, and Policy, London: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Wade, R. 1988, Village Republics: Economic Conditions for Collective Action in South India, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar