Browsing by Author "Klooster, Dan"

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Institutional Choice, or a Process of Struggle? A Case Study of Forest Co-Management in Mexico
(1998) Klooster, Dan
"Change in the commons is poorly understood. After considering developments of theory on common pool resource management, this essay analyzes a comparative case study of community forestry in Mexico. It contrasts a community suffering from corruption in the logging business and timber smuggling with a set of forestry communities having institutions able to control these issues. A discussion assesses the utility of institutional choice models for change in the commons, and draws out implications for theory building and analysis."
The Intangible Benefits of Forest Certification in Mexico: Fame, Discipline, and Hope
(2004) Klooster, Dan
"This paper presents the results of fieldwork with Mexican actors involved in forest certification during the summer of 2003. Interviews with government officials, NGO administrators, and members of certified forest operations reveal substantial intangible benefits from certification, including widespread social recognition, improvements to forest management plans, better forest management activities, and a reduction in the negative environmental impacts due to logging. Forest certification also generates benefits for government agencies and NGOs involved in environmental management and forest regulation, because it is a measurable indicator of the success of their programs. So far, certification has been advancing because of subsidies from NGO promoters and government regulators and because of the expectation of market benefits, not because of tangible economic benefits currently. "Increasingly, major retailers such as Home Depot and Ikea are making it a point to offer certified wood. Furthermore, they pledge to sell only certified wood in the future. These international buyers are active in Mexico, but they do not generally pay more than domestic clients. Although a few forest management operations have already detected improved market possibilities, this is by no means widespread or guaranteed. Meanwhile, certification advances much more rapidly in the Northern, temperate forests than in the Southern, tropical forests that are simultaneously the most endangered and the most biodiverse. Without improved market possibilities for Southern forests like those in Mexico, therefore, forest certification could evolve into a market barrier, a kind of non-governmental license that forest operators must pay in order to enter markets. Instead of rewarding forest operations that conserve biodiversity and other environmental services for which there is no market currently, forest certification could become a mechanism which forces them to pay for the privilege of demonstrating that they conserve environmental services, which they continue to give away for free."
Local Commons with Global Implications in a Footloose World
(2004) Klooster, Dan
"In parts of Northern Mexico, small farms lie abandoned and common property forest owners are dispersed in the USA and Mexican cities. Only a tiny number of community members participate in decisions about logging in their forest commons. In a lightly populated landscape, the exclusion of outsiders who steal timber is increasingly difficult. In one successful common property ejido, however, the professional forester in charge of logging is a returned migrant from the USA, where he gave up a well-paying job. His ejido is now certified as a well-managed forest by an international nongovernmental organization and its wood enters globalized supply chains that end in Home Depot and Ikea stores.
Towards Adaptive Community Forest Management: Integrating Local Forest Knowledge with Scientific Forestry
(2000) Klooster, Dan
"In a paired case study of community forests used for fuelwood, the paper will explore recent arguments about the synergy between traditional knowledge, common property systems, and adaptive management theory (Berkes, Folke, and Colding 1998). "According to this theory, scientific and technological approaches to resource management often fail to encourage sustainable resource management because they are based on faulty models, limited goals, incomplete information, and an inadequate institutional foundation. Traditional resource-management systems, in contrast, often derived over time through a process of cultural learning, are frequently successful (Ostrom 1990). An integrated approach based on lessons from traditional systems combined with adaptive management theory could be more successful by providing a richer basis for institutional innovation while integrating local knowledge and monitoring into resource co-management. "Many argue that the environmental knowledge and social practices of indigenous people, like the Purepecha in the state of Michoacan, should lead to sustainable resource management. In one of two neighboring Purepecha communities studied, emigration to US and Mexican cities is a dominant household survival strategy, and its forests are both more extensive and denser than in 1960. The other community specializes in pottery production requiring large amounts of pine firewood. Its forests are more extensive, but also thinner than they were in 1960. Analysis of forest inventories also reveal shifts in genus composition. Woodcutting in the pottery community leads to oak dominance, forcing woodcutters to invade their neighbor's territory to find the kind of fuel they need to fire their pottery. "Contrasting the management philosophy and selection criteria of foresters and indigenous woodcutters in this case finds that, individually, neither is adequate for sustainable management. Appropriate implementation of an existing technical management plan requires additional information about the species local woodcutters target, participatory monitoring of forest response to woodcutting, an assessment of local forest knowledge and management goals, and better understanding of existing social structures and political organization. "Co-management is more likely to lead to the integration of local knowledge, scientific resource management, and institutional adaptability to local conditions and change for fuelwood production in Mexican forests. This approach will require higher levels of collaborative, participatory technical assistance from the state or NGOs than currently exists, however."