Keywords

Tropical developing countries are important for the provision of global ecosystem services like climate change mitigation, support for biodiversity, and the regulation of global hydrological flows; however, they are also experiencing high poverty levels and rapid destruction of the natural resources on which they depend (MEA, 2005). In many developing countries, formal institutions are weak or non-existent. Informal institutions may be insufficient as well depending on the context (e.g., large scales, heterogeneous populations, migration, and displacement due to military conflicts) (Baland & Platteau, 1996). A promising new approach to address tenure insecurity in tropical countries in the absence of strong institutions is the voluntary market-based interventions that have emerged in the past 30 years (e.g., Auld et al., 2008; Milder et al., 2015). These are a class of interventions like commodity certification that use markets to provide incentives for participation like price premiums or market access for primary commodity producers and/or supply chains. Their take-up is voluntary, but once enrolled in the certification scheme, producers have to comply with a set of standards. Many of these certification schemes include provisions about resolving land tenure conflicts.

The goal of this chapter is to review the role of voluntary market-based interventions as a mechanism for ameliorating forest land tenure insecurity in the absence of strong local institutions in developing tropical countries. We specifically focus on one such market-based intervention—the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) forest management certification as it directly affects working forest lands, has been around for nearly 30 years, and is the most common such intervention in tropical countries (Auld et al., 2008; Potts et al., 2014); as of late 2017, 198 million hectares of forests are under FSC certification globally, with 16% located in Asia, Africa, and Latin America (source: Mongabay: https://news.mongabay.com/2017/09/does-forest-certification-really-work/ accessed January 11, 2020). However, our insights can be applied to other similar voluntary market-based interventions. We focus exclusively on native forests as they are of global conservation importance and are most affected by tenure insecurity relative to other forest land uses like agroforestry and tree plantations.Footnote 1

The Causes of Forest Land Tenure Insecurities in Developing Countries

Even though forest lands are of primary importance for supporting livelihoods, providing key ecosystem services, and generating revenue in most tropical developing countries (MEA, 2005), forest land management is often plagued by weak institutions that are unable to clearly define, delineate, and enforce property rights, and punish perpetrators. In this chapter we focus on two types of institutional failures that pertain to working forest lands in tropical developing countries:

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    Unclear delineation of land rights, resulting in either confusion as to where one’s land is or creating overlapping land rights, with multiple actors claiming use or ownership rights over the same piece of land. These are often caused by land reform policies implemented when inadequate institutional structures exist, in the presence of rapid institutional change, or a combination of both. For example, the rapid decentralization in Indonesia led to the formal recognition of customary land tenure (Larson & Soto, 2008; Resosudarmo, 2004). At the same time, district governments also issued permits to logging companies to raise revenues, often over the same productive forest lands (e.g., Engel et al., 2006; Miteva, 2013; Resosudarmo, 2004), leading to conflict over tenure rights. How these conflicts were resolved depended on the bargaining power of local communities, which in turn depended on the community characteristics and the value of the forest to local communities (Engel et al., 2006; Larson & Soto, 2008; Resosudarmo, 2004). In other locations, like postwar northern Uganda (e.g., see Chap. 8 in this volume), the prolonged military conflict, coupled with the prolonged displacement of a large fraction of the rural population into internally displaced persons (IDP) camps, resulted in the breakdown of the previous informal institutions, with no adequate formal institutions to replace them (Bjørkhaug et al., 2007; Deininger & Castagnini, 2006; Miteva & Brown, 2018; Miteva et al., 2019). Unsurprisingly, postwar, there has been significant conflict over land, exacerbated by a land tenure reform encouraging the conversion of the traditional customary land ownership, regulated by clans, to private land ownership, with a household holding the deeds to land that can be traded, transferred, or used as collateral for loans (Bjørkhaug et al., 2007; Deininger & Castagnini, 2006; World Bank, 2009). Because of the lack of formal and informal institutions in postwar northern Uganda, there have been a lot of instances of land grabbing, especially by wealthy male-headed households (World Bank, 2009; Bjørkhaug et al., 2007; Adelman & Peterman, 2014; Miteva & Brown, 2018). Clearing of native forests and their subsequent conversion to agriculture is a way to establish claims over the land (Fenske, 2011; Unruh et al., 2005; Lambin et al., 2018; Miteva et al., 2019).

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    The inability to enforce existing regulations. For example, in areas with clearly defined property rights in Indonesia, households often use rivers to transport illegally harvested trees from logging concessions or protected areas (Resosudarmo et al., 2012). It has been estimated that illegal logging contributed to 64% and 83% of the total timber production in 2000 and 2001, respectively (Resosudarmo et al., 2012). Similarly, even though land property rights are clearly defined and delineated in Mexico, there is illegal logging in community-managed forest lands (e.g., ejidos in Mexico) (e.g., Alix-Garcia et al., 2005; Honey-Rosés 2009). Even if done selectively for only the most valuable species, it may still hamper efforts for the long-term management of the land as forest by reducing the incentives to keep the forest intact. How the ejido members address illegal logging depends on the characteristics of the community, the value of timber, and the ease of monitoring (e.g., Alix-Garcia, 2005; Baland & Platteau, 1996). While some ejidos may address the issue by increasing the monitoring of forests or bribing non-ejido members to protect forests (e.g., Alix-Garcia et al., 2005), others may resort to the parceling of land and the creation of individual land rights (Ellis et al., 2015). Because commercial forestry requires large scales, the parceling of land may lead to deforestation since commercial forestry may not be profitable at a small scale.

In both cases, the insecure land rights over forests often result in (a) increased deforestation as a way to establish claims to the land (e.g., in Uganda) or minimize losses from illegal logging (e.g., Mexico) and (b) decreased incentives to invest in the land by replanting trees or improving the soil quality. That is, land tenure insecurity in tropical developing countries often leads to forest degradation and deforestation. The goal of this chapter is to illustrate how a voluntary market-based initiative like forest management certification can improve land tenure security and improve forest conservation on the ground.

FSC Certification as a Way to Address Forest Land Tenure Insecurity and Promote Forest Conservation

In this chapter, we argue that FSC certification can be a substitute for weak institutions under certain conditions. Initiated in the early 1990s by conservation non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in response to rapid deforestation, FSC aims to promote forestry practices that are economically viable, socially beneficial, and environmentally friendly, and thus, contribute to the sustainable management of production forests (Auld et al., 2008).Footnote 2 It includes measures to minimize the impact from logging on forests (e.g., restrictions related to the methods and amounts of timber harvesting, road width as well as measures to conserve soils and high conservation value habitat for species), measures to improve worker safety and rights and community well-being, and measures to ensure compliance with laws, recognition of Indigenous People’s rights, and land tenure conflict resolution (FSC principles and criteria, 2015). The potential benefits for timber producers and timber processing companies from certification include (a) increased market access, for example, to Europe and the US, which do not allow for non-certified timber to be imported; (b) price premiums; and (c) brand loyalty and increased demand for products (Auld et al., 2008; Breukink et al., 2015).

While the certification is guided by universal principles underlying the three goals, the forestry practices and criteria for each country are developed in accordance to local characteristics (FSC, 2009). Prior to certification and each year post-certification, the FSC forest management units are audited by independent third-party auditors. If the auditors find violations, they issue corrective action requests (CARs); if the prescriptions in those are not met within a specified time period, the FSC certification can be suspended or revoked.

FSC can play a vital role in resolving land tenure insecurities, when the local formal and informal institutions are inadequate. Specifically, certification requires compliance with the law and international agreements, tenure security, and conflict resolution among all stakeholders, recognition of Indigenous People’s rights, and community relations and workers’ rights (FSC principles and criteria, 2015). For example, prior to the certification of PT Erna Djuliawati in Indonesia, the auditors selected 11 villages for field visits and interviews with community members; the villages were selected based on the auditors’ perceptions where both positive and negative impacts of certification are likely to occur (Smartwood, 2005). If the meetings with local stakeholders indicate unresolved tenure disputes, the concession holders are issued CARs to be resolved prior to certification. Similarly, if new land tenure conflicts arise post-certification, the concession holders are also issued CARs during the annual audits and given a time frame to resolve them. For example, even though PT Sumalindo Lestari, an FSC-certified concession in Indonesia, had a good relationship with the local communities at the time of certification, the influx of new households forming new settlements and practicing slash-and-burn agriculture inside the concession necessitated the issuance of a CAR involving more community building relations and the development of a better system for monitoring illegal logging (Smartwood, 2007). The company complied within a year.

The implementation on the ground often includes a formal benefit-sharing mechanism with local communities (e.g., Cerutti et al., 2017; Vermeulen & Karsenty, 2017). It can be based on just the presence of customary lands within the concession or proportional to their area (Cerutti et al., 2017). Alternatively, concession holders may provide local community development or health programs (e.g., Miteva et al., 2015).

FSC certification is often viewed as a non-state voluntary market-based third-party governance system (Cerutti et al., 2017). The examples above illustrate how FSC certification can be used as a mechanism for conflict resolution and frequent forest monitoring that does not depend on weak governments or ineffective informal institutions. Thus, by addressing tenure insecurity issues, FSC can contribute to the sustainable use and protection of forests. In addition, by providing access to markets or by providing price premiums for certified timber, FSC can also make commercial forestry profitable (e.g., Breukink et al., 2015) and provide a sustained source of local livelihoods. Thus, it can create incentives for land to be kept as forest. For example, in the Maya Biosphere Reserve (MBR) (Guatemala), FSC-certified forestry operations in community-held and industrial concessions generate income that exceeds from agriculture and provides employment for ~25% of the population associated with the concession; in those areas, concession management was also effective in reducing deforestation (Bocci et al., 2018; Fortmann et al., 2017).

Is FSC the Panacea?

We argue that, by creating incentives for the long-term management of forests, FSC can be an effective mechanism to promote tenure security and protect forests in tropical developing countries. However, several caveats are in order:

First, FSC targets only production forests; these are lands with valuable timber and/or non-timber forest products (e.g., Chamaedorea spp. palm fronds that are exported to Europe and the US), usually at a larger scale, so that commercial forestry is profitable. FSC is not designed to be used in locations that are not commercially viable. Further, certified concessions should have sufficient market access, so that the certified timber and other products can meet the demand. If market access is difficult, the demand for certified timber is low, or consumers find it difficult to distinguish between certified and non-certified timber, FSC is unlikely to provide incentives for the sustainable use of production forests.

Second, while FSC is a global voluntary market-based intervention, with the requirements adjusted to a local context, its implementation often is done on a concession-by-concession basis.Footnote 3 That is, even though FSC may provide incentives for a concession holder to resolve the land tenure conflicts around the certified forest tract, the impacts are at a relatively small scale. Unless extensive tracts of productive forest land are placed under FSC certification, large-scale improvements in tenure security due to the intervention are unlikely.

Third, FSC tends to be located in areas where complying with the guiding principles and criteria is feasible and compliance is less costly. Forest management units, whose location makes it difficult to monitor and enforce logging restrictions, may choose not to pursue FSC certification as compliance may be very difficult or costly. For example, in Indonesia, relative to traditional logging concessions, the FSC certified ones are placed in isolated areas with lower population density, shorter river networks, which traditionally facilitate illegal logging as the logs are transported down large rivers undetected, and less peatland, which is protected by national law (Miteva et al., 2015). Similarly, areas with high conservation value and valuable timber, but high incidence of large-scale conflicts, like the Democratic Republic of Congo, currently lack any active FSC certification; all previous FSC certificates in the country have been terminated or revoked (FSC, 2019: https://info.fsc.org/certificate.php#result).

Fourth, since FSC certification is voluntary, concession holders may decide not to pursue it if certification involves changing practices for which they have little or no experience and the financial means to implement. Similarly, when compliance with certification becomes costly, concession holders may opt out of certification or have their certification canceled or suspended. The reasons for that include changing market incentives or exogenous change (e.g., influx of migrants or natural disasters like hurricanes wiping out entire forests). In addition, local governments may also limit the effectiveness of forest management certification, for example, by demanding exorbitant bribes (Breukink et al., 2015) or threatening to terminate the concession.

Fifth, certification may not be easily accessible. For example, as certification often necessitates adoption of reduced impact logging and improved worker safety measures as well as certification and auditing costs, certification can be expensive (e.g., Breukink et al., 2015). That is, large commercial concessions holders who have access to large funds, or have already adopted better practices and have resolved tenure conflicts are more likely to get certified; for smallholders and communities, the costs of certification may be prohibitively high (e.g., Lambin et al., 2018).

The caveats described above suggest that the effectiveness of FSC certification as a mechanism to improve tenure security and promote the sustainable use of forests is contingent on the uptake and continuation of certification, which in turn depend on a number of conditions, most notably the costs of certification and compliance and the demand for certified products.

NGOs to the Rescue?

Certification by itself is often not sufficient and requires partnerships with non-governmental organizations (NGOs), in order to effect change on the ground. The goal of this section is to highlight the channels through which NGOs can help address some of the limitations that have been shown to hamper the effectiveness of FSC. We argue that, while not perfect, NGOs can help lower the costs of certification and compliance and increase the demand for certified products, thereby addressing most of the caveats listed above that undermine FSC’s effectiveness.

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    NGOs can lower the costs of certification and compliance. For example, since certification often requires substantial changes in the forestry practices, the Tropical Timber Foundation works with concession holders in Indonesia to train staff in terms of reduced impact logging practices and sustainable forestry, before the concession receives certification (source: https://www.tff-indonesia.org/index.php/certification/certification-support2; accessed March 27, 2019). Similarly, before certification in the Maya Biosphere Reserve in Guatemala, a number of communities with relatively small forest management units partnered with NGOs, who provided technical, administrative, and financial assistance (see Box 13.1). In Peru, the Maderacre concession, composed of indigenous Iñapari district inhabitants, obtained FSC certification with the help of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and USAID (source: http://www.wwf.org.pe/index.cfm?uNewsID=192806&uLangID=1; accessed March 27, 2019). Further, the concession was able to obtain Reduced Emissions from Avoided Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) funds to offset some of the costs of certification and further supplement the forest area within the concession (Jose Canchaya, 2015, personal communication). Thus, in addition to companies, NGOs can increase the number of smallholders and community concessions that receive certification and remain certified; for these the costs of certification and compliance might otherwise be prohibitively high.

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    NGOs can facilitate land tenure conflict resolution. For example, driven by NGOs, some FSC-certified concessions in Central Africa have started mapping customary lands spanned by the concession areas (Karsenty & Hardin, 2017). The companies there use this information for revenue sharing with local communities. Similarly, in order to secure FSC certification in the Congo Basin, Congolaise Industrielle des Bois partnered with the Tropical Forest Trust, an NGO that provided technical guidance and assisted with building relationships with the local semi-nomadic peoples whose land the concession overlapped (Watson, 2009). A key aspect of the partnership involved participatory community mapping with Geospatial Positioning System (GPS) units provided to local communities. The latter would walk through the forest and provided spatially explicit maps of natural springs, sacred sites, and areas for harvesting key non-timber forest products. These maps were used to avoid timber harvesting in areas important to the Indigenous Peoples and minimize conflict. Further, the partnership established a local radio station, whose broadcasts are controlled by local people as a way to increase their influence of how the forest is managed (Watson, 2009).

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    NGOs can assist with forest monitoring and enforcement of regulations. Because many NGOs have offices in tropical locations and carry out fieldwork on the ground or have launched auditing programs, they are often instrumental in detecting non-compliance in certified forest management units. For example, even though PT Intracawood obtained FSC certification in 2006, it had its certification suspended multiple times due to non-compliance reported by the auditors, the Rainforest Alliance Smart Wood Program (Smartwood, 2006, 2008). The concession is currently listed as being FSC certified (FSC, 2019). NGOs can also support and/or lead ecological monitoring of certified forests, helping to evaluate the ecological impact and provide recommendations for improved management. For example, the Wildlife Conservation Society and partners evaluated certified forests in Guatemala, Nicaragua, French Guiana, and Bolivia, concluding that at these specific sites certified forest management has been effective in conserving jaguars and their habitats (Polisar et al., 2016). Studies of this nature can assist in making the case for the continuance of forest management regimes, especially in the face of relentless pressure from alternative land uses including cattle grazing and oil palm cultivation.

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    NGOs can help increase the demand for certified timber. For example, with the help of large consumer awareness campaigns, large international conservation NGOs can exert considerable pressure on manufacturers dependent on timber and, hence, their supply chains (Lambin et al., 2014). They can also help consumers directly differentiate between certified and other timber by lending their logos on the products made from certified timber. For example, in the US WWF’s or the Rainforests Alliance’s logo can be seen on a host of products from printer and toilet paper to coffee. The placement of the logo of major conservation NGOs signals to consumers that the product is made from certified timber, reducing the need for consumers to research products in depth. Further, NGOs are often instrumental in helping communicate the impacts of certification. For example, recently the ISEAL Alliance, an umbrella organization of sustainability standard holders (https://www.isealalliance.org/about-iseal/who-we-are), formed the Value Added Impact (VIA) initiative with representatives of major NGOs involved in sustainable timber certification as well as academics. The goal of the initiative is for companies purchasing sustainable timber and representatives of the FSC impact and evaluation body to provide guidance about the pertinent policy-relevant questions to businesses and FSC communities. The initiative reviewed the existing literature on the impacts of FSC certification, distilled messaging about the impacts of the intervention based on the existing evidence, and, more importantly, provided guidance about how existing academic studies can be used to inform credible messages about the impact of certification. The latter includes guidance on what constitutes causal impacts versus correlations, what are some potential drawbacks of existing studies, as well as the appropriate vocabulary to use to describe different types of studies in business communications. The outputs from the VIA initiative are intended to help businesses communicate in a credible way the impact of certification to consumers, and, thus, to increase the demand for certified products and the uptake of certification.

Efforts to credibly evaluate empirically the impact of NGOs in improving the causal impact of FSC on deforestation and forest degradation using quantitative data from numerous tropical countries are currently underway.

Ways Forward: The Role of Hybrid Partnerships

A recent couple of decades have experienced a rapid proliferation of voluntary market-based certification schemes that also include land conflict resolution as the requirement for obtaining and retaining certification (e.g., the Roundtable on Sustainable Oil Palm [RSPO] for oil palm production,Footnote 4 Bonsucro for sugarcane,Footnote 5 and Rainforest Alliance certification for coffeeFootnote 6). All of these have requirements pertaining to respecting local rights. We argue that these voluntary market-based interventions have the potential to address land tenure insecurity issues and promote the sustainable use of working forest and other lands in the tropics. Some of these certification schemes are relatively new; it remains to be seen what their impact on local communities is.

Their effectiveness depends on the uptake and continuation of certification, which in turn depends on the demand for certified commodities. While NGOs can help with the administrative, financial, and technical aspects of certification and compliance, communicating the value of the intervention also increases the demand (Polasky et al., 2015). However, rigorous empirical evidence on the impact of certification is still rare, with the most rigorous studies focusing on more convenient locations, where data are easily accessible and are of generally good quality (e.g., Burivalova et al., 2019; Evidensia, 2019: https://www.evidensia.eco/work-with-evidence/visual-summaries/ accessed December 22, 2019). While some studies have also considered the social and economic aspects of certification, most focus on environmental outcomes that are easy to quantify (e.g., those based on remote sensing data that allow for large-scale analyses) (Burivalova et al., 2016, 2019; Evisensia: https://www.evidensia.eco, accessed December 22, 2019). Further hampering the communication of the impacts of certification is the inaccessible and highly technical language in which the evaluations of certification are described in academia (Miteva, 2019). Thus, for rigorous evaluation and effective communication of the impacts of certification, multidisciplinary partnerships between businesses, academia, the sustainability standards community, and NGOs are necessary (Miteva, 2019; Milder et al., 2015). These can help ask and answer policy-relevant questions and facilitate the translation of theory onto improvements in the impact of certification on the ground (Miteva, 2019; Milder et al., 2015).

Hybrid partnerships are also needed between formal institutions, specifically, national and international (supra-national) governments, on the one hand, and certifying bodies, on the other. Even though, aided by NGOs and academics, market-based voluntary interventions like FSC forest management certification can in principle be an effective mechanism to mitigate land tenure insecurity when domestic formal and informal institutions fail, they still depend on formal institutions that set the broader governance context nationally (e.g., factors like political stability and corruption, in/out migration policies, and zoning, as well as fiscal incentives like subsidies and taxes for certified products) and internationally (e.g., global markets) (see Box 13.1). That is, for voluntary market-based interventions like FSC to be effective, the incentives set by governments need to align with that of the certification scheme and NGOs (Lambin et al., 2014; Miteva, 2019; see Box 13.1 for an example from Guatemala). While NGOs, through consumer awareness campaigns, can pressure institutions to some extent, the policy coordination cannot be left entirely to the NGO sector.

In conclusion, our review indicates that voluntary market-based interventions like the FSC can and have improved land tenure security in many tropical locations plagued by weak institutions. However, hybrid interventions composed of FSC, NGOs, and formal governments are needed. These should be supported by rigorous science and credible communications in the agenda setting and negotiation, implementation, and monitoring and enforcement phases for the continued impacts in protecting forests on the ground.

Box 13.1 Case Study: Community Forest Concessions of Guatemala’s Maya Biosphere Reserve

One example of a hybrid partnership is the case of the community forest concessions in Guatemala, where the local government requires that the communities become FSC certified in order to maintain their concession status. Two decades of experience with the development and management of the community forest concessions in Guatemala’s Maya Biosphere Reserve have highlighted some of the benefits of certification as a mechanism for improved land tenure security discussed in this chapter, as well as its challenges and limitations. Both international and local NGOs played a crucial role in providing technical and financial support to the concessions as they developed. NGO partners continue to offer support, with their roles evolving over time as local concession managers have gained experience and become more established, and as the second-tier organization known as the “Association of Forest Communities of Peten” or ACOFOP plays an increasingly important role in technical assistance (Fig. 13.1).

Fig. 13.1
figure 1

FSC-certified timber in the Maya Biosphere Reserve. (Credit: Ben Schilling/WCS)

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While the MBR was established in 1990, the first community forest concession was not created until 1994. The impetus for the concessions was to provide local populations access to forest resources; however, diverse actors were concerned about the potential ecological impacts, the socioeconomic viability of forest management, the ostensible lack of financial capital faced by local communities, and by the long-term financial sustainability of forest management. For these reasons, a 1992 study funded by USAID and developed by Tropical Research and Development concluded that local communities would not be able to manage vast forest tracts, recommending instead that the communities be provided areas of 5000 hectares maximum, to use as wood lots and for ensuring their subsistence needs.

After a pilot program led by the Center for Tropical Agriculture and Education (CATIE: https://www.catie.ac.cr) established the first community forest concession of 7039 hectares in San Miguel la Palotada, the tide began to turn and public and professional sentiment in Guatemala began tilting toward greater community control. The coupling of community concessions with FSC certification ended up being a key factor in the Guatemalan government’s final decision to prioritize community concessions under a hybrid partnership in which CONAP, the local governance institution, allowed the concessions to form under the condition that they become FSC certified within the first three years of formation (Monterroso & Barry, 2012). Communities that were awarded forest concessions were allocated property rights to the land for a renewable period of 25 years as long as they maintained their certification status (Fig. 13.2). Previously, local communities had no formal de facto rights in the area whatsoever; but once concessions were granted communities had legal recourse to resist, and eventually withstand considerable pressure brought by large-scale tourism and their interest groups that, as of 2002, began to promote a large archeological “wilderness area” entitled the “Mirador Basin” and advocate for strict conservation in the region (Nittler & Tschinkel, 2005; Radachowsky et al., 2012).

Fig. 13.2
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Location of community-based and industrial concessions (with FSC certification, all 11) within the Maya Biosphere Reserve

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Given the lack of sustainable forest management experience among many of the local communities, one of the requirements for gaining concession status was that the community partner with an NGO that would provide technical, financial, and administrative assistance (Radachowsky et al., 2012). One of the first steps to gaining concession status was for the community to legally register as an association. With the help of their partner NGO, the community concession members were guided through this process, along with developing an environmental management plan for the forest area, which is required for FSC certification. In addition to lack of technical experience, many of the concession managers also lacked business acumen. The NGOs were able to provide additional support and expertise when it came to matters such as financial planning, paying taxes, meeting labor standards, writing labor contracts, and registering workers for social security.

As noted earlier in the chapter, a number of caveats exist that determine whether certification is a good fit for the forest management unit and whether it will be successful in providing environmental protection and economic support for the local communities. These caveats apply to the experience of the concessions in the MBR. While 12 concessions were initially formed, 3 have since been cancelled or suspended, and one requires consistent technical and financial support to continue due to land conflicts and considerable deforestation in the area. A number of factors contributed to the success of some of the concessions and the fact that others have struggled from the beginning. The concessions that have been most successful tended to be the nonresident concessions composed of members living outside the concession boundaries (Radachowsky et al., 2012). These groups came together voluntarily to form a concession out of common interest in forest management, and many of the members had previous forestry experience. Additionally, the more successful groups also had stronger local and social ties, including two concession communities that have been long established in the Petén and have historically depended on the forests and its resources for their livelihoods (Gómez & Méndez, 2007; Fortmann et al., 2017).

The concessions that have failed are primarily the recently inhabited concessions made up of members coming from predominantly agricultural backgrounds. These members were initially not interested in forest management, but ultimately came together to form a concession out of desire to maintain their landholdings within the reserve and at the prompting of their partner NGOs (Nittler & Tschinkel, 2005). Another factor that contributed to the downfall of these concessions was their relatively smaller size and paucity of high-value timber, which would make it harder to extract enough to be economically sustainable and cover the cost of compliance to maintain their certification. To try to overcome some of these issues, a group of concessions joined together to be certified as one forest management unit to spread out the costs, but this also meant that the success or failure of each concession was tied to the success or failure of the group as a whole. A number of external factors also played into the breakdown of the recently inhabited concessions. These areas were under greater pressure from external forces, including cattle ranchers and narco drug traffickers, wanting to buy their land to clear for grazing (Radachowsky et al., 2012). Lack of trust among the members and greater internal corruption were also present in the concessions that failed. Additionally, these groups were also less educated and had lower-income relative to the other concession households (Fortmann et al., 2017).

While the community forest concessions in the MBR have had their share of ups and downs, on the whole, they have been widely heralded as a story of success, demonstrating how local governance structures can implement market-based mechanisms, such as FSC certification, to achieve their policy goals while promoting environmental sustainability and improve local livelihoods (see https://www.rainforest-alliance.org/articles/guatemala-forest-concessions-global-conservation-model).