Browsing by Author "Barry, Deborah"

Now showing 1 - 8 of 8

Environmental Governance and the Emergence of Forest-Based Social Movements
(2008) Cronkleton, Peter; Taylor, Peter Leigh; Barry, Deborah; Stone-Jovicich, Samantha; Schmink, Marianne
"This occasional paper is based on the results of a three-year project examining the emergence of forest-based grassroots movements in Latin America. Funded by the Ford Foundation, the Support to Grassroots Community Forestry Organizations in Central America and Brazil Project sought to understand how grassroots groups develop and influence conservation and development. The project focused on four noteworthy cases in Central America and Brazil, each representing 'successful' broad-based collective action to defend local control and use of forest lands. Cases included the Association of Forest Communities of the Peten in Guatemala, the Siuna Farmer-to-Farmer exchange programme in Nicaragua, the Mamiraua Sustainable Development Reserve in the Brazilian state of Amazonas, and the Brazilian rubber tapper movement in Acre. Although the context and outcomes varied, in these cases grassroots collective action to defend local livelihoods emerged when initially weak government institutions attempted to counteract chaotic frontier conditions through the imposition of conservation and development initiatives, provoking local resistance. A combination of indigenous capacity for collective organization and significant external assistance helped produce grassroots forest movements capable of becoming proactive partners in the management and defence of protected areas. These groups still confront external incursions into their hard-won resources rights and strive to respond to changing membership needs. The cases suggest that local communities can become effective forest stewards when acquired rights are duly recognized, avenues exist for meaningful participation, costs and benefits are distributed fairly, and appropriate external support is provided."
From Agrarian to Forest Tenure Reforms in Latin America: Assessing Their Impacts for Local People and Forests
(2008) Pacheco, Pablo; Barry, Deborah; Cronkleton, Peter; Larson, Anne; Monterroso, Iliana
"This paper assesses a new wave of land reform underway in Latin America, which we have labeled a 'forest reform.' This forest reform is aimed at harmonizing development and conservation concerns, while taking into account the demands of indigenous peoples, extractive communities and smallholders regarding secure land tenure rights and improved institutional, market and legal conditions for sustainable forest management. While the shift from agrarian to forest tenure reform is an important step for enhancing the livelihoods and cultures of forest-based people, these reforms fall short of achieving their expected goals due to shortcomings in national policy frameworks, combined with restrictive market, and other institutional conditions that tend to be biased against smallholders and community forestry. Recognition of existing --or the granting of new-- tenure rights to these actors, renewed efforts for adapting local institutions to evolving contexts and the development or strengthening of economic and social coalitions with other forest actors are all crucial factors for overcoming the almost insurmountable barriers for smallholders and communities to improving livelihoods and prospering from the sustainable management of their forests. Reconciling these efforts with conservation principles and implementing realistic policies based on a more nuanced understanding of the strengths and constraints faced by community level stakeholders, as well as of market conditions they interact with, constitute the principal tasks for the state to deepen forest reforms."
Institutional Change and Community Forestry in the Mayan Biosphere Reserve Guatemala
(2008) Monterroso, Iliana; Barry, Deborah
"The purpose of the larger study from which this paper draws, was to understand how the current tenure reforms underway in the lowland tropical forests of Guatemala are having an impact on improving or threatening forests and local livelihoods. The research project titled 'Enhancing Livelihoods and Equity in Community Forestry' is being conducted in 10 countries in 30 sites across Latin America, Africa and Asia where recent tenure reforms --transferring rights to local peoples-- are underway and expanding in the forestlands of the global south. While the scale of this process of devolution is considerable-- the amount of forestland has more than doubled in less than 20 years- how the transference of legal rights to local communities is playing out, is not yet well understood. Unraveling the way in which tenure rights can have an impact on the well being of local communities and forests is a complex and non-lineal path of inquiry, reflecting a similar reality. We have chosen to concentrate the initial part of the research on understanding how the shift in the allocation of the 'bundle of rights' to communities and the state set the stage for reaching those dual goals. Differences in the nature of forest tenure reforms, in contrast to agrarian land reforms are also of particular interest to help explain the outcomes and have formed part of the larger study, from which this paper provides input and draws insight."
The Invisible Map: Community Tenure Rights
(2008) Barry, Deborah; Meinzen-Dick, Ruth
"Land tenure reforms in the worlds southern forests is transferring a broad set or bundle of rights to indigenous peoples, local communities and groups to access forestlands and resources, providing initial opportunity for improving the livelihoods of poor forest-dependent communities. The definition of these rights, the marking of how and where they are held, who grants them, and who holds them are not straightforward under the classic tenure system models. The range of land use rights from individual to common property use is obscured. Internal customary practice is also dynamic, changing during different seasons, with new leadership, and often interacting with new rules imposed by external regulations or market opportunities once tenure is granted. The expansion in the tenure reform in coupled with the development of the visual mapping technology has posed significant demands on local communities to clarify the nature of their existing and desired tenure rights. It highlights a growing need to need to represent these rights in order to both manage and defend them. Community mapping of land use has grown, but existing tools for gathering, organizing and presenting the rights related to land and resource use are scarce and insensitive to the complexity of practice. This paper presents a framework in which to consider how bundles of rights are distributed between the state, the collective, smaller groups and individuals within communal tenure systems. It then discusses how the framework has been turned into a tool for multi-purpose participatory research at the intra and inter community levels. It makes the case that the tool can help communities themselves give visibility to internal tenure systems within the perimeters of their forestlands. Finally, the paper presents cases that demonstrate how the shifting boundaries among the categories of rights holders are influencing the security of tenure to common property resources."
Legitimacy of Forest Rights: The Underpinnings of the Forest Tenure Reform in the Protected Areas of Petén, Guatemala
(2012) Monterroso, Iliana; Barry, Deborah
"In recent decades, forests across the world have undergone a significant process of recognition and transference of tenure rights to local communities or individuals, referred to here as forest tenure reforms. Among developing regions, Latin America has seen the most important recognition and transference of these tenure rights to forest dwelling and forest dependent communities. This paper examines the process in Guatemala, where the state has recognised and transferred rights to organised local groups-establishing a community concession system in the multiple use zone of the Maya Biosphere Reserve. We analyse the evolution of claims over forest uses, and focus on the legitimacy elements underpinning the process of a claim becoming a right. The results indicate that in order to sustain this forest tenure reform process over time, it is important to understand how tenure arrangements are transferred and distributed among rights-receivers, and how this process is influenced by the elements that underpin legitimation as well as those that define authority. Understanding the underpinnings of the legitimacy behind forest tenure reforms is central to identifying ways in which these processes can work, and also becomes important for developing more sound policy frameworks that fill gaps and resolve incongruence in governmental systems for forest management."
Rural Social Movements and Forest Governance: Assistance to Grassroots Organizations to Promote Conservation and Development in Latin America
(2006) Cronkleton, Peter; Taylor, Peter Leigh; Schmink, Marianne; Stone-Jovicich, Samantha; Barry, Deborah
"This paper describes the Grassroots Assistance Project's approach to research and strengthening of community analysis and management capacities. It summarizes context studies of four grassroots forest organization in Central America and Brazil, focusing on the conditions shaping their emergence, the roles of the state and external technical assistance, and impacts on conservation and development. It briefly discusses the results of innovative community self-studies in Guatemala and Nicaragua. It then turns to an alternative model of technical 'accompaniment' emerging from the communities' own experiences that may more effectively help build community capacity to manage forests for conservation and development. Grassroots forestry organizations are showing that conservation and development need not be opposing strategies. Rather than being part of the deforestation problem, organized forest communities can potentially be key allies in the protection and management of the environment for the future."
Tenure Rights and Beyond: Community Access to Forest Resources in Latin America
(2005) Larson, Anne; Cronkleton, Peter; Barry, Deborah; Pacheco, Pablo
"This occasional paper is the result of research carried out from 2006 to 2008 on the effects of new tenure rights for forest-based communities in Latin America on access to forest resources and benefits. Focused on seven different regions in four countries, the paper examines changes in statutory rights, the implementation of those rights in practice, and the extent to which they have led to tangible new benefits from forests, particularly to new sources of income. The research sites included several types of conservation and settlement communities in the Brazilian Amazon, an indigenous territory and agro-extractive communities in Bolivia, indigenous territories in Nicaragua and community forest concessions and highland communal forests in Guatemala. Though the granting of tenure rights signifies an important achievement for many communities, new statutory rights do not automatically turn into rights in practice. Virtually all of the cases--even those in which benefits have been significant--encountered substantial challenges along the road from rights to benefits: conflicts with other resource claimants; the failure of the state to define the tenure right appropriately or defend it effectively; problems with local authorities and governance institutions; the superposition of new models over existing institutions; obstacles to community engagement with markets; and the lack of systems to support forest resource management. The bundle of rights granted is sometimes overwhelmed by an accompanying bundle of responsibilities, or limited by restrictions on use, and may include an important ongoing decision-making role for certain state authorities. Institutional arrangements are also shaped by a variety of local authorities, some of which have been created or given substantial new powers in the reform process but lack experience and clear accountability relations. The state often appears more concerned with establishing management regulations than with defending community rights; for their part, communities and their organizations are forced to waste time and resources defending their rights from outside interests, rather than using these to strengthen local governance and forest management capacity. Policy frameworks have generally failed to establish an enabling environment for endogenous, community-based management opportunities. The gains that have been won and the potential of these processes demonstrate the value of promoting efforts to overcome these obstacles."
Tropical Deforestation, Community Forests, and Protected Areas in the Maya Forest
(2008) Bray, David Barton; Duran, Elvira; Ramos, Victor Hugo; Mas, Jean-Francois; Velazquez, Alejandro; McNab, Roan Balas; Barry, Deborah; Radachowsky, Jeremy
"Community forests and protected areas have each been proposed as strategies to stop deforestation. These management strategies should be regarded as hypotheses to be evaluated for their effectiveness in particular places. We evaluated the community - forestry hypothesis and the protected-area hypothesis in community forests with commercial timber production and strict protected areas in the Maya Forest of Guatemala and Mexico. From land-use and land cover change (LUCC) maps derived from satellite images, we compared deforestation in 19 community forests and 11 protected areas in both countries in varying periods from 1988 to 2005. Deforestation rates were higher in protected areas than in community forests, but the differences were not significant. An analysis of human presence showed similar deforestation rates in inhabited protected areas and recently inhabited community forests, but the differences were not significant. There was also no significant difference in deforestation between uninhabited protected areas, uninhabited community forests, and long-inhabited community forests. A logistic regression analysis indicated that the factors correlated with deforestation varied by country. Distance to human settlements, seasonal wetlands, and degree and length of human residence were significant in Guatemala, and distance to previous deforestation and tropical semideciduous forest were significant in Mexico. Varying contexts and especially colonization histories are highlighted as likely factors that influence different outcomes. Poorly governed protected areas perform no better as a conservation strategy than poorly governed community forests with recent colonists in active colonization fronts. Long-inhabited extractive communities perform as well as uninhabited strict protected areas under low colonization pressure. A review of costs and benefits suggests that community forests may generate more local income with lower costs. Small sample sizes may have limited the statistical power of our comparisons, but descriptive statistics on deforestation rates, logistic regression analyses, LUCC maps, data available on local economic impacts, and long-term ethnographic and action-research constitute a web of evidence supporting our conclusions. Long-inhabited community forest management for timber can be as effective as uninhabited parks at delivering long-term forest protection under certain circumstances and more effective at delivering local benefits."