A framework for analyzing institutional incentives in community forestry

A framework for analyzing institutional incentives in community forestry

Descripción

This study was conducted to clarify certain institutional aspects of Sahelian forestry and, on the basis of this research, to develop a framework for the analysis of woodstock management activities. While this work is rooted in fourcase studies of forestry projects initiated over the past two decades in Niger, the framework of analysis has wider applications. Indeed many of the major conclusions are not in the least site or project specific. Two major points come out of this institutional appr oach to the understanding of incentives in community forestry. First, there is a need for careful attention to the diverse economic characteristics of trees in woodstock management projects. These characteristics (what the author calls "the attributes of goods and services") have significant implications for the types of organizations appropriate to manage them. Trees may be intrinsically "private goods," "common pool resources," or "public goods." This depends both on the degree to which access to trees and the goods and services they provide can be controlled, and on whether consumption of those goods and services is separable and rivalrous or joint and non-rivalrous. Designing woodstock management systems which treat those trees which are inherently private goods as common property resources will create management difficulties and lead to unnecessary consumption of resources. Trees may produce environmental protection services, such as controlling wind erosion, stabilizing watershed s and improving air quality. If trees producing these services are inherently common pool resources, they may be overharvested or destroyed if treated as private goods. The public services these trees generate may then be severely under-produced or not produced at all.