Coercing conservation

The origins of CBNRM are best understood in relation to the history of the western conservation model. From 18th century and onwards, ideals of a people-free landscape for the purposes of leisure and consumption played an important role in defining land use in colonized regions of the world (Neumann Reference Neumann2002; Brockington et al. Reference Brockington, Duffy and Igoe2008). While many reserves preceded Yellowstone as America's first national park in 1872 (Cronon Reference Cronon and Cronon1995; Brockington et al. Reference Brockington, Duffy and Igoe2008), the Park's management approach of restricting local access to natural resources through coercion became the de facto model for most protected areas (Nash Reference Nash1967; Stevens Reference Stevens1997; Igoe Reference Igoe2005). In the post-war period, as the conservation movement began to diversify (through capitalist expansion) in ways that would later support the rise (and fall) of CBNRM, so-called ‘fortress conservation’ strongly influenced the development of protected areas in former colonies (Neumann Reference Neumann1998). Conservation policies upheld the view that those who depended on resources near reserves be criminalized for what they harvested, and, where identity was closely tied to livelihoods, for who they were (Neumann Reference Neumann1998). In some cases, resource dependent peoples were forcibly removed and dispossessed from lands, else suffering economic displacement (Brechin et al. Reference Brechin, Wilshusen, Fortwangler and West2002; Brockington & Igoe Reference Brockington and Igoe2006; Dowie Reference Dowie2009). The ‘legitimacy’ of Anglo-European scientific understandings of nature and culture were reproduced coercively through protected areas for decades (Brockington et al. Reference Brockington, Duffy and Igoe2008).

Historical shifts to CBNRM

In this context of inequality and human suffering, resistance and political struggle grew rapidly. In the 1960s, social movements, networks and programmes with emancipatory objectives grew in strength, pressing the conservation agencies of independent states to care for their citizens’ livelihoods through more inclusive approaches (Hutton et al. Reference Hutton, Adams and Murombedzi2005). Critical scholars working on participatory approaches and conservation with indigenous peoples argued that conservation ultimately silenced those people who held the greatest insights into their own state of affairs in the name of science (Simpson Reference Simpson2001; Ryan & Robinson Reference Ryan and Robinson1990). The ideology of participatory research, community development and grass roots conservation soon converged to advocate that marginalized peoples harness their own experiences and knowledge to define priorities and enhance their capacities for action (Hall Reference Hall1981; Ryan & Robinson Reference Ryan and Robinson1990).

In the 1970s–1980s, the drive of grass roots initiatives soon pressed for community-based solutions to larger environmental problems (Brokensha et al. Reference Brokensha, Warren and Werner1980; Chambers Reference Chambers1983). The early environmental movement, powerful publications such as Silent Spring (Carson Reference Carson1962), innovative academic work (Berkes Reference Berkes1989) and international policy documents (such as Our Common Future; WCED [United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development] 1987) all emphasized the need ‘to seek a new balance in the use of both ‘scientific’ and ‘traditional management systems’ (Berkes Reference Berkes1989, p. 3). Academics and practitioners now emphasized that because local people already used, relied on and managed natural resources, they were most suited to conserve them, though with extra-local support. They set out to work with local resource users and traditional management in common property systems to ensure conservation met local livelihood aspirations and scientific objectives (Ostrom Reference Ostrom1990; Western & Wright Reference Western and Wright1994). NGOs and park managers adopted ‘devolved’, ‘collective’ and/or ‘community-based’ natural resource management by facilitating and building on local interests and management capabilities to assist local people to make decisions and develop resources in order to support livelihood and conservation (Western & Wright Reference Western and Wright1994; Wittayapak & Dearden Reference Wittayapak and Dearden1999; Li Reference Li2002; Berkes Reference Berkes2004). The CBNRM agenda had been set.

The 1980s–1990s saw the scaling up, institutionalizing and merging of community and conservation concerns in a political-administrative framework that some consider a ‘global biodiversity conservation regime’ (for example, in 1992, the World Summit on Sustainable Development) (Escobar Reference Escobar1998). The popularity of ‘sustainable development’ led to a rash of poorly conceived and rarely successful, large-scale ‘integrated conservation and development projects’ (Brandon & Wells Reference Brandon and Wells1992). In parallel, CBNRM practitioners sought to ‘make nature and natural products meaningful to rural communities’ through markets in contrast to local people seeing CBNRM as the means by which to regain control over natural resources for livelihood security and conservation (Western & Wright Reference Western and Wright1994). CBNRM fostered intense relationships between local communities, conservationists and donors, thereby creating and institutionalizing major political disjunctures in the intent and ideal of CBNRM. The outcomes of this process have led to the current CBNRM predicament.

The rise and fall of CBNRM in the Philippines

CBNRM in the Philippines arose in response to colonial conservation policy and practice that centred on coercion and injustice, restricting indigenous peoples’ use of forest resources. Despite good intentions, the case shows how CBNRM's original objectives of local empowerment for rights to land, livelihood and conservation effectively supported state interests in sedentarized agriculture and market expansion.

Much of the colonial period, from Spanish (1521–1898) to American (1902–1945) rule, involved the zoning of timber resources in protected areas, from which uplanders were evicted as squatters on public lands. Little had changed after independence in 1945, with foresters criminalizing the use of forest resources near park boundaries. In the 1960s and 1970s, Dictator Ferdinand Marcos expanded his timber monopoly into forest frontiers and aimed to sedentarize swidden cultivators with de facto tenure and agroforestry schemes (Vitug Reference Vitug and Utting2000; Dressler Reference Dressler2006). In 1986, the masses and civil society revolted, ousting Marcos during the first People Power Revolution, creating community-based solutions to social injustice and deforestation (Hilhorst Reference Hilhorst2003). Constitutional recognition of ancestral land rights and devolution then enabled NGOs to push ahead with national anti-logging campaigns, indigenous rights agendas and livelihood programmes. Manila-based campaigns soon targeted the country's environmental hotspots, of which Palawan Island was primary.

Palawan Island's status of ecological frontier went global in the late 1990s, drawing major NGO and government-led CBNRM initiatives. But CBNRM on Palawan reflected multiple shades of green. With a celebrity mayor promoting a ‘clean and green’ political platform, the island's capital, Puerto Princesa City, hosted organizations promoting alternative livelihoods for forest dwellers in order to limit swidden agriculture. Moreover, the buffer zones of the island's flagship World Heritage Site, the Puerto Princesa Subterranean River National Park, hosted local and international NGOs who offered the Tagbanua and Batak (indigenous swidden farmers and hunter-gatherers, respectively) projects that simply re-regulated forest use and swidden toward sedentarization with market-based solutions (Dressler Reference Dressler2006).

Several cases show how community-based practitioners sought to intensify and modify Tagbanua and Batak swidden-based livelihoods in Palawan. In 2007, the NGO, Tagbalay Foundation, set out to develop an extensive nursery with 100s of seedlings of indigenous fruit trees and hardwoods for planting in swidden fallows. In 2008, in partnership with the City Agriculturist's office, Nestle Incorporated introduced cacao seedlings in new swidden fallows. In 2009, the NGO Haribon Palawan worked through a UNDP programme to implement several hectares of paddy fields for Tagbanua to harvest and sell surplus rice in local and city markets, providing them with high-yielding seeds and capital with which to enhance production. In contrast, it was hoped that the Batak would ‘voluntarily’ adopt agroforestry plots in order to stabilize swiddens with tree crops for sale in markets nearby. These CBNRM projects were designed to have Tagbanua and Batak abandon swidden for paddy rice farming, despite history showing that neither group adopted paddy rice or agroforestry with any great success.

Despite the promise of CBNRM, there are countless examples in the Philippines of well-meaning internationally-funded programmes being implemented under the assumption that pre-existing subsistence livelihoods need to be sedentarized and modernized. Most of the country's CBNRM programmes and projects have been implemented under the broader assumption of how rural people and livelihoods should be or become over time: productive citizens who embrace modernity. The ability of CBNRM planners to modernize efficiently has arisen through the process of criminalizing, erasing and replacing earlier land uses with commercial agriculture.

Nepalese community forestry: who wins, who loses?

CBNRM arose in Nepal through forest policies developed and implemented by state forestry agencies. The case demonstrates how well intentioned community-forestry policies and projects did support ‘collective’ afforestation, but ultimately emboldened local elites politically and financially.

Early forest policies emphasized ‘efficient’ economic forest management for maximizing revenue, leading to conservation outcomes that disadvantaged minority groups (Shrestha & McManus Reference Shrestha and McManus2008). In 1957, state efforts to nationalize private forest holdings ensured most forestlands were under centralized government control. Since the mid-1970s, however, increased pressure for more democratic governance, decentralization and bottom-up planning has emphasized the need to work through pre-existing local panchayats (village councils) to involve local people in forest management. Against this background, the community forestry (CF) policy emerged in 1976 because of the failure to halt deforestation and the need for policies that were responsive to local needs and indigenous resource use. This change represented a paradigm shift from the state-controlled policies to user-based decentralized control policies (Gilmour & Fisher Reference Gilmour and Fisher1991). Radical as these changes may have been, it remains to be seen whether there was sufficient political will to change a centrist bureaucratic culture and practice toward a locally driven forest management model.

In the case of Nepalese CF, the voluntary labour provided by community groups has significantly improved highly degraded forests (Shrestha & McManus Reference Shrestha and McManus2008). Legally, all forest users must follow local management rules which aim to minimize forest use and ensure forest conservation. However, local elites set the rules and, unlike the poor and minorities, they depend less on community forests for their livelihoods. Local elites have few difficulties implementing protection-oriented management approaches for the simple reasons that they are (1) supported by the state forest officials and international donor agencies (DANIDA [Danish International Development Agency], USAID [United States Agency for International Development] and AUSAID [Australian Government Overseas Aid Program]) and (2) that protectionist rules are, in this case, easier to enforce than complex rules regulating the sustainable use of forests (Shrestha & McManus Reference Shrestha and McManus2007). This has resulted in the under use of forests and reduced the flow of forest products to the local poor and minorities.

The shift towards CBNRM in Nepal has largely failed to strike a reasonable balance between the conservation of forests and the socioeconomic needs of forest-dependent poor people. This can be attributed to the protection-oriented management practices promoted by state officials and many conservation organizations. The irony is that the poor have been made worse off under CF and lost much of their local autonomy to vested interests.

Madagascar: CBNRM for and by outsiders

CBNRM initiatives in Madagascar have been pushed and organized by foreigners and a cadre of Malagasy bureaucrats and scientists. CBNRM grew within a complex conservation bureaucracy that largely held the opposing goal: limiting local resource use practices.

Nature conservation in Madagascar builds on the legacy of the French colonial government, which restricted forest clearance and fire-setting by locals, and established the first nature reserves in the 1920s. Conservation efforts in this biodiversity hotspot boomed from the late 1980s, when the World Bank, WWF and various bilateral aid programmes partnered with the Malagasy government to propose a massive National Environmental Action Plan. Implemented 1991–2008, the three-phase Plan received almost US$ 50 million in cumulative funding (Hufty & Muttenzer Reference Hufty, Muttenzer and Le Prestre2002; Pollini Reference Pollini2007).

The Plan's second phase, responding to international trends, emphasized community-based resource management. The common property tradition (Berkes Reference Berkes1989; Weber Reference Weber1995) heavily inspired the approach developed by French, American and Malagasy scholar-practitioners. The resulting 1996 legislation, known as GELOSE (gestion locale sécurisée = secure local management), permits granting of management rights over specific natural resources to community associations. These associations enter into a contract with the local municipality and the relevant government ministry. Implementation of GELOSE requires the creation and registration of community associations, the assessment and delimitation of the resource and the use of a specially trained ‘environmental mediator’ to negotiate the contracts (Antona et al. Reference Antona, Biénabe, Salles, Péchard, Aubert and Ratsimbarison2004). In addition, a problematic and infrequently-used ‘relative’ land tenure process facilitates zoning the resource involved, but not actual titling (Le Roy et al. Reference Le Roy, Bertrand, Montagne, Bertrand, Montagne and Karsenty2006). Given this complexity, GELOSE contracts have always been created through the initiative and guidance of NGOs and projects, usually foreign-funded.

For some practitioners, GELOSE was too cumbersome. As a result, they developed a simpler alternative, called GCF (gestion contractualisée des forêts = forest management contracts), by decree in 2001 (Montagne & Ramamonjisoa Reference Montagne and Ramamonjisoa2006). Unlike GELOSE, GCF requires neither tenure allocation, mediation, nor negotiation with the municipality. However, it can only be applied to state forest lands, such as reserved or classified forests. At one point, the competing GELOSE and GCF approaches became emblematic of rivalries between different donors and NGOs.

In 2003, spurred by conservationists, President Ravalomanana announced that the country would triple its protected areas in five years. This ‘conservation emergency’ (Marie et al. Reference Marie, Sibelet, Dulcire, Rafalimaro, Danthu and Carrière2009), subsequently overrode any meaningful community engagement (Pollini Reference Pollini2007; Corson Reference Corson2008). Various NGOs continued developing new GCF and GELOSE contracts, but this took place in the spirit of Ravalomanana's ambitious, and not very participatory, programme for high-speed economic development and urgent conservation. Overall, more than 450 local management contracts were established. Evaluations point to both successes and failures. Concerns have been raised over longer-term sustainability, and others point to problems with non-representative community associations, with elites that get control of the resources or with new resource conflicts engendered by the contracts (Montagne et al. Reference Montagne, Razanamaharo and Cooke2007; Pollini Reference Pollini2007; Toillier et al. Reference Toillier, Lardon and Hervé2008).

The conception and implementation of CBNRM in Madagascar was top-down, driven by well-funded foreign conservation and development agencies and dependent bureaucracies. Rural civil society is weak and the state has little capacity or legitimacy to implement decisions. Consequently, outsiders control the agenda (Duffy Reference Duffy2006). While there is hope that the well-meaning CBNRM experiment will take hold and lead to a trend of communities taking meaningful control of their resources, its dependency on outside intervention leads to pessimism about its sustainability.

CBNRM in Southern Africa: from inspiration to ambiguity

CBNRM programmes emerged in southern Africa in the early 1980s in response to the strictures of Apartheid and neo-colonial governance limiting rural people's civil liberties and rights to natural resources. However, this case shows that the enormous hope vested in CBNRM in the region was paralleled by equally ambiguous outcomes through market-based structures and political/administrative realities, which ultimately led to its current demise.

In the context of an increasingly isolated South African Apartheid state in the 1980s, tensions between countries in the region ran high and multiple initiatives countering top-down neo-colonial governance and policies developed. In some ways, early CBNRM ran as a counter-hegemonic programme aiming to stimulate local ownership and devolution of decision-making power (Mackenzie Reference MacKenzie1988). Initial forays began in Zimbabwe in the 1980s through CAMPFIRE (Zimbabwe's Communal Areas Management Programme for Indigenous Resources), with parallel programmes emerging in Namibia, Zambia and Botswana (Marks Reference Marks2008). These initiatives focused on providing benefits to local communities through a utilitarian approach to wildlife. Individually and collectively, these efforts rose to prominence during the 1990s, exciting many in the global conservation and development community.

While advocates loudly proclaimed their successes, actual results were mixed (Fabricius et al. Reference Fabricius, Koch, Magome and Turner2004). CAMPFIRE, the shining star of the CBNRM world, struggled to devolve benefits to local resource users (see Murphree Reference Murphree2004). While some Zimbabwean districts did profit from income at household level, in others local elite reaped the rewards or overall income simply was not enough to provide tangible benefits to local people. Meanwhile, Namibia had some success by focusing on the development of community conservancies, which sought to create ecotourism opportunities in marginal grazing lands. The market-based approach of the conservancies appears to have provided more tangible benefits to local people than the alternatives, in the context of Namibia's low human population, marginal rangelands, high levels of biodiversity and strong ecotourism interest (Barnes & Macgregor Reference Barnes and Macgregor2002). However, the exceptional nature of the Namibian case is counterbalanced by experiences in Zambia where ‘there appears to be little within Zambian wildlife history or current circumstances that support ADMADE's promotional claims to enhance rural welfare while promoting ‘sustainable conservation’ within the central Luangwa Valley. Rather its practices and approaches appear counterproductive to both objectives’ (Marks Reference Marks2008, p. 3).

In 1994, when South Africa ended Apartheid, the regional CBNRM picture changed rapidly. Initially, it seemed that the conservation community and the newly elected government combined to push for more people-oriented conservation policies and programmes. In some areas, such as the Eastern Cape and Limpopo Provinces, communities managed to use the CBNRM rhetoric to legitimate claims over land. However, CBNRM never emerged in South Africa to the extent of its neighbours. This was partly owing to the prominence of the conservation structures already in place. Built around protected areas, this structure was subjected to land restitution claims after 1994, in a drive to restore land ownership to previously disadvantaged groups and communities. Yet, despite some successes (Fabricius & de Wet Reference Fabricius, de Wet, Chatty and Colchester2002), including the famous case of the Makuleke community owning the northern part of the Kruger National Park, the old system proved resilient. In early 2009, the South African government announced that, with respect to the Kruger Park, all remaining claims were annulled and other solutions for making communities profit from the Park had to be found.

By the late 1990s, critics identified shortcomings of CBNRM, including problems with benefit sharing, the frequent mismatch between the goals of the state and communities, and the weakening of local commonage institutions so vital for CBNRM (see Cocks et al. Reference Cocks, Dold and Grundy2001 for the case of the Masakane community in the Eastern Cape Province). As a result, funding for CBNRM steadily decreased, partly as more money went toward transboundary conservation, but especially in support of market-based mechanisms that sought to support public-private-community schemes. The importance of CBNRM in Southern Africa stems mainly from the influence that it had globally. Its primary success in instilling hope that integrating conservation and development might succeed however, should be balanced by noting that the few successes have been undermined by neoliberalism-induced socioeconomic differentiation.

CBNRM and the BOSAWAS Reserve, Nicaragua: merging common interests?

The CBNRM process that evolved in Bosawas illustrates how external organizations may play a critical role in ensuring indigenous peoples’ land and resource rights when resident land use interests are in conjunction with conservation goals. The case also illustrates that the promotion of resource rights, empowerment and sustained environmental governance requires political, technical and financial support that extends longer than the time frames of many CBNRM projects.

Bosawas International Biosphere Reserve is located in remote northern Nicaragua and is part of a set of protected areas created to conserve remnant regional humid tropical forests. In 1991, newly elected President Chamorro created Bosawas as a nature reserve in order to prevent mining and logging in the region (Stocks Reference Stocks2003). At this time, the civil war had recently ended and politicians, indigenous residents (mainly Miskito and Mayagnas) and colonists were fighting to control resources in the region. During the war, many indigenous peoples in Bosawas were either forced to serve one of the militant groups or removed to camps in Nicaragua and Honduras. When the residents returned to their communities after the war, they found that their homelands were now a forest reserve under government jurisdiction, and colonized by many farmers and ex-combatants (Stocks Reference Stocks, Redford and Mansour1996).

In protest against the reserve and colonization, the indigenous peoples of south-western Bosawas joined forces to create a unified political organization to advocate for their land rights. Shortly thereafter, leaders gained the support of Centro Humboldt (a Managua-based NGO) and The Nature Conservancy (TNC) to help establish their land rights while creating a CBNRM plan for the region. TNC took a unique approach in implementing CBNRM in Bosawas. Rather than beginning with conservation interests, TNC first addressed the concerns of the indigenous residents; namely, securing territorial tenure and preventing settler colonization. The NGOs worked with the indigenous residents to demarcate their territories, create CBNRM plans and ultimately demand formal land rights from the Nicaraguan government (Stocks Reference Stocks2003; Hayes Reference Hayes2007). In 1997, the indigenous residents signed an accord with the colonists creating a de facto community-based land-use plan for the region and, in 2005, the indigenous residents received legal collective titles to their territories, turning a government reserve into an indigenous reserve.

Given clear territorial demarcation and resource management plans, the indigenous residents have conserved the forests and prevented further colonization in the region (Hayes Reference Hayes2007; Stocks et al. Reference Stocks, McMahan and Taber2007). Residents and leaders express great pride in their ability to defend their territory from colonists and manage their lands. The indigenous peoples’ ownership of the process points to a key ingredient in the success of Bosawas: residents believe that the CBNRM system is their own creation. Nonetheless, the role of NGOs in the CBNRM process has proven equally significant.

Analysis of the resource management process in Bosawas points to three lessons and a critical concern for the role of external organizations in implementing CBNRM. The first lesson is the importance of supporting residents’ needs rather than structuring the management process around a conservation agenda. In Bosawas, by recognizing the residents’ demands, the NGOs gained the residents’ trust and facilitated the creation of a set of natural resource management plans that both indigenous residents and the colonists perceived to be legitimate (Hayes Reference Hayes2008). Second, the case highlights the technical, financial and organizational costs involved in rule making, and the role that external agencies may play in covering these costs. The NGOs also provided the technical and financial resources necessary for demarcating the territories, acquiring territorial titles, and training and paying the forest guards.

Finally, the case illustrates the costs involved in rule maintenance. The continued dependency on external assistance points to a critical caveat. CBNRM in Bosawas demands sustained financial, institutional and technical support from extra-local sources. Centro Humboldt continues to play a significant role in the region by providing administrative and institutional support. Their presence also serves as a watchdog to ensure compliance with the land-use rules (Hayes Reference Hayes2008). A concern for the future, however, is if and how support for this governance system will be generated on a sustainable basis.

CBNRM in North America

CBNRM in North America has often taken the form of community forestry programmes and projects. These programmes spread rapidly throughout North America over the past two decades as part of the global dissemination of community forestry as an alternative to fortress conservation and centralized state control over natural resources. This case shows how, despite much promise, community forestry has also been subject to a litany of complaints including, that its establishment violated the rights of local and indigenous populations, and that it has emphasized primary commodity production and export at the expense of social and environmental considerations.

While forms of community forestry are pursued at multiple juridical levels in every country in North America (see for example Baker & Kusel Reference Baker and Kusel2003; Bray et al. Reference Bray, Merino-Perez and Barry2005; Davis Reference Davis2008), we focus on community forestry on large state-owned National Forests in the USA and Crown forests in Canada. National and Crown forests represent extensive areas of natural resources directly owned and administered by the state. As such, they have much in common with each other and other areas in world that have turned to CBNRM in response to colonial encounters, competing claims and scientific assumptions of best practice.

Many critics of forest governance in both countries saw community forestry as the basis to recognize and privilege local rights, knowledge and priorities and, by so doing, balance and improve social, economic and environmental performance. Calls for community forestry thus grew in both countries during the 1980s and into the 1990s, with strong and explicit linkages to global trends in community forestry. In both the USA and Canada, proponents of community forestry drew from the growing international discourse on community forestry when they made their cases regarding its potential.

Efforts to implement community forestry on large public forests met very different fates in the two countries. In Canada, new community forest tenure categories emerged within forest management systems, giving control over large areas to different community forestry organizations, with indigenous First Nations, environmentalists, cooperatives, municipal governments and other actors all beginning to operate community forests (see McCarthy Reference McCarthy2006; Bullock & Hanna Reference Bullock and Hanna2008). In the USA, however, efforts to carve out space for community forests within the National Forest system generated fierce controversy, with most major environmental organizations opposing and successfully blocking the efforts (McCarthy Reference McCarthy2005). The controversies were both juridical and substantive. Juridically, opponents argued that community forestry was incompatible with key federal environmental legislation, which demanded strong and consistent environmental standards and federal accountability. The substantive fear behind the opposition was that the devolution and more flexible regulation associated with community forestry would be a Trojan horse for increased corporate access and logging, a fear lent weight by the fact that conservative anti-environmental politicians strongly supported community forestry in the USA in the 1990s. Environmentalists thus gave voice to the critical concern that community forestry was perhaps suspiciously compatible with broader trends in the neoliberalization of governance: it shared a deep scepticism regarding state control, a faith in markets, devolution and voluntary and flexible approaches to regulation, and a strong conviction that civil society, or its communities, were best suited to address any market failures or inequities (see McCarthy Reference McCarthy2005; Schroeder Reference Schroeder1999).

McCarthy (Reference McCarthy2006) interpreted this divergent outcome as primarily a matter of scale and timing, reflecting trends in environmental governance. While the critiques of the dominant model of forest governance and use were similar in the USA and Canada, the political momentum for reform peaked at very different times in the two countries and, in each case, the responses reflected the prevailing wisdom of the period. Demands for reform of the National Forest system in the USA peaked during the 1970s, and the reforms instituted as a result reflected that period; all centred on the state and strengthened agencies and regulation, particularly a centralized, federal system of forest governance. Subsequent decades saw environmental politics move increasingly to the arena of the courts and the adversarial strategies they demanded. Environmentalists thus saw community forestry as a direct attack on hard-won environmental reforms of state institutions. In Canada, by contrast, political momentum for reform of forest governance did not peak until the 1990s, by which time the shortcomings of the above approach were fully evident, and neoliberal hegemony with respect to questions of governance had arguably taken hold. Thus, the reforms adopted largely eschewed state-centred approaches, and focused instead on flexible and voluntary approaches, with substantial deference and autonomy for market actors and communities. Moreover, governance of Crown forest occurs mostly at the provincial level, allowing for a more varied institutional landscape.

In sum, the adoption or non-adoption of community forestry often seems to have less to do with the specific content of programmes or governance than with questions of what community forestry would replace and with larger trends in governance.