Decentralization Reforms: Help or Hindrance to Forest Conservation?

Abstract

"This study seeks to contribute to more nuanced expectations concerning the outcomes of decentralized forest governance. The paper argues that even in instances where local governments effectively carry out their decentralized mandate it is unreasonable to expect that decentralization will lead to conservation of all forests, all the time. Realistic predictions of decentralization outcomes need to base their assessments on the limitations of the local government mandate. We develop a theoretical approach that posits that the decentralization outcome is a function of the local government mandate, the effectiveness of the local governance institutions, and a series of structural factors, such as local demographics, road infrastructure, and resource endowments. We test our theory in the post-decentralization period in 30 Bolivian municipalities in the country's forest-rich lowlands. We identify the circumstances that allow municipal governance institutions to dampen the effect of the main drivers of forest loss. Our empirical analysis finds that the local governments' effectiveness in providing formal forest property rights to local forest users is associated with low levels of uncontrolled deforestation, but it detects no systematic relationship between local governance effectiveness and total deforestation."