Explaining Compliance with Rules Governing Forest Common-Pool Resource Use and Conservation: Dynamics in Bara Country, Southwestern Madagascar

Abstract

"Existing theories of compliance have largely ignored the ways in which various aspects of rules affect actors' decisions to go for or against rules. This paper addresses this knowledge gap by addressing the question of what accounts for variations in compliance behavior in the field of community-based forest (common- pool) resources conservation. The paper presents four compliance and non-compliance scenarios observed in Bara country, southern Madagascar, where both state and community-devised rules govern access to state-protected and community-protected forests. One way to understand compliance behavior in community-based natural resource management is to analyze individual forest users' behavior in the context of a complex set of relationships involving state actors and community actors. At one level these relationships entail conflict of purpose vis-a-vis forest resources as well as more or less tacit cooperation on whether to conserve or overexploit resources. At another level, intra-group dynamics, which entail consensus and disagreement, also affect individuals' decisions to go with or against rules. These sets of relationships produce rules-in-use that, next to factors such as ease of access and relief, have an impact on forest users' decisions to conserve or degrade forests. Ultimately, actors' willingness and ability to monitor individual behavior and sanction rule breakers are crucial in determining resource-conserving vs. resource-degrading outcomes."