Decentralization and Community Forestry: Main Approaches and Their Implications in the Lowlands of Bolivia

Abstract

"This paper reviews different contemporary paradigms of forest governance ranging from those arguing to maintain central command and others favoring the emergence of local autonomies. In between of these extremes fall some positions such as the one prone to building a more democratic decentralization, and the other favoring a polycentric system of governance. This paper argues that the different positions may claim that their assumptions are being supported by the Bolivian experience, country in which the most significant experience of decentralization is underway. Consequently, this paper proposes an intermediate solution by which public system of government, and other forms of local government should be articulated, and functions distributed according to population choices. This may lead to move forward the process of decentralization, though favoring more flexible and adaptive institutional solutions across different levels of government."