DOES PARTICIPATION IMPROVE DEVELOPMENT OUTCOMES?
the poor, who rely the most on the forest, are often also a minority group whose interests do not coincide with those of village leaders or the village majority. The choice of local institutions and the rules regulating such institutions are set by higher-level institutions that reflect a multitude of values and interests, ranging from concerns with resource sustainability, biodiversity, and carbon storage to the desire for a strategic political advantage or enhanced opportunities for rent-seeking. The choices these institutions make are influenced by national elites as well as a host of international interests, including bilateral and multilateral donors (Ferguson 1996; Blaikie 2006; Ribot, Lund, and Treue 2010). As a result, policies originally designed to favor elites under colonial structures are often maintained, even when countries officially promote popular participation in natural resource management. Mustalahti and Lund (2010), for example, find that despite official policies supporting community participation in forestry in the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Mozambique, and Tanzania, local communities were systematically prevented from sharing in the returns from commercially valuable forest resources. A number of other studies raise similar concerns regarding the disproportionate advantages obtained by the rich, powerful, and well connected (see, for example, Ribot 1995; Larson and Ribot 2007; Lund and Treue 2008). Beck and Nesmith’s (2001) review suggests that a process of progressive exclusion of the poor from natural resource–based livelihood sources may be underway even where conservation has been successful, as in India and Tanzania. They caution that unless management regimes are specifically designed to include poor people, CBNRM may end up as little more than donor- supported control by elites. Dasgupta and Mäler (1995) illustrates how this cycle can lead to an environmental poverty trap. Nerlove (1991) shows that increasing rates of deforestation may lead to greater population growth and even faster rates of deforestation. Several studies caution against assuming that the introduction of simple participatory mechanisms can ensure downward accountability in the absence of clear mechanisms for ensuring compliance. Two case studies from Tanzania and Senegal are illustrative. Lund (2007) reports that a new requirement in Tanzania that elected forest committee members provide oral accounts of all forest-related incomes and expenditures at quarterly village assemblies led to greater equity in the distribution of forest-related incomes. However, as Ribot, Lund, and Treue (2010) note, such simple changes in rules, though powerful, may work only
In practice, however, local management seems to disproportionately benefit the rich, powerful, and well connected.
Unless management regimes are specifically designed to include poor people, community-based natural resource management may end up as little more than donor-supported control by elites.
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