Resumen de Power alliances for biodiversity—Results of an international study on community forestry
Jens Stanzel, Max Krott, Carsten Schusser
Protecting and enhancing biodiversity is one of the most important ecological goals of community forestry. Meeting this goal depends on a complex interaction of ecological as well as social and economic factors. With this paper we ask, whether the power of actors has a strong influence on the ecological outcomes of community forestry and if so, how such alliances for biodiversity look like. For empirical evidence we use our database compiled of research on 84 international community forestry cases of both developed and developing countries, taken from 2009 to 2016. The results show that the powerful actors are driving biodiversity in community forestry. With a small number of powerful actors interested in enhancing biodiversity we were able to identify only little substantial support for this goal. The widespread public announcements of biodiversity goals are mostly symbolic. Dominant information and financial incentives are the most common instruments for protecting the ecological equilibrium. This indicates a “soft” policy for biodiversity in contrast to the hard coercive instruments which protect the forest area as such. We conclude that the analysis of power can be a valuable factor in explaining the outcomes of community forestry in practice.
