Informal Institutions and Forest Resource Governance

It is increasingly agreed that informal institutions matter in forest resources governance. Informal institutions are the set of working rules that regulate forest resource use (i.e. access, management type, use constraints, permissible technologies) that constitute prescriptions about what actions are required, prohibited and permitted, but that are not created and enforced through officially sanctioned channels – the distinctive feature of formal rules. Depending on their type, some informal institutions may serve to legitimate the interests of people using forest resources in ways that ensure sustainable management, while others may serve illegal purposes or stimulate corrupt institutional behavior.

The characteristics that distinguish the positive or negative influence of informal institutions are not yet well understood. This activity aims to discern what informal arrangements or rules-in-use work as incentives for good governance of forest resources, and which have negative effects on forests and human welfare. With PROFOR support, CIFOR will carry out research in selected study areas in which local economies, and hence local people, depend on forest resources for their livelihoods. A multi-scale approach will be used to look at "informal rules" within institutions at different levels of government. The overarching goal is to contribute to improving decision making and incentives for forest resource use by providing inputs for improving institutions through enhancing transparency.

Case studies in Bolivia, Nicarágua, Brazil and Honduras will document the set of working rules – separating the formal from informal – that influence the decision-making process and forest resource use. This will include communal-level rules, as well as those operating at the municipal and central level. The goal of this will be to identify inconsistencies between rules-in-use versus rules-in-form, as well as to assess their social, economic and political outcomes. This will include an analysis of the cost and benefits of rules compliance for different forest users, in order to identify the winners and losers under existing institutional arrangements.

Based on an assessment of identified working rules and their either positive implications for stimulating good forest management practices or their negative implications for the expansion of illegal activities, typologies of informal institutions will be developed. These typologies will be analysis to identify recommendations for corrective measures to decrease incentives for corrupt behavior and clientelism, which hamper the development of working rules as positive incentives. A report summarizing the findings is forthcoming.