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| Evaluating a Common Property Institution - La Campas common property forest institutions |
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Reference |
| Tucker, Catherine: Evaluating a Common Property Institution: Design Principles and Forest Management in a Honduran Community, paper presented at the IASCP conference held at Vancouver, Canada, 1998 |
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Introduction to the Institution |
| The municipio (county) of La Campa, Honduras, has maintained common property forests since the colonial period. During the past half century, the area has been experiencing population growth, market integration and disruptions related to policy reforms and national economic instability. On one hand, in La Campa, population growth and increasing demands for land and forest resources appear to be driving a transformation of communal forests into de facto private forests and agricultural fields. On the other hand, the people have been developing new regulations to limit exploitation and privatization of their forests. Given these contrasting trends, this paper explores the viability of La Campas common property forest institutions, whether the current transformations are likely to result in their disappearance or reinforcement. |
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Coverage of the Institution |
| Not reported |
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Rules for Management
of the Institution |
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(a) Boundary Rules |
| Rights to use La Campas communal resources, and to obtain usufruct land rights, belong solely to residents. Residents, known as Lacamperos, achieve their status by birth or special approval from the municipal council. The latter is awarded primarily through marriage to a resident, but historical records indicate that few outsiders obtained residency. Even today, Lacamperos expel squatters who try to stay, unless a resident offers to take them in and serve as a witness for their good character before the county council. |
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(b) Governance
rules |
| Every resident has the right to participate in decision making processes that can conform or transform the principles for managing communal lands. Decisions are made during bi-monthly municipal council meetings, in which any adult resident can present his or her concerns. Every resident who wishes to express an opinion may do so, and when a topic is controversial the discussions may last for hours, or even continue through several successive sessions. Decisions are eventually reacjed through one of several mechanisms - a rollcall vote of council members, a public voice vote, or a decision by the mayor once everyone has spoken. The mechanism depends upon the nature of the issue at hand, the political climate of the moment, and the preferences of the council members.
Attendence at council meetings is optional except for municipal officials and the village representatives, who must be present, send a reasonable excuse, or pay a fine. The rest of the population participates sporadically. Most individuals attend only when a matter of personal concern must be addressed viz., a request for land or when an issue of great public interest must be debated. As a result, those elected to serve on the municipal council (which represents the population and embodies the common property institution), havre an inordinate influence during their terms of office. The influence of any single person is limited, however because council membership changes after every four years, and village representatives change annually.
Traditionally, men dominate decision-making processes. All adult males must serve when called as representatives for their village before the municipal council ; most men do so periodically unless they are considered unfit for the responsibility. Although women serve as municipal treasurers and secretaries, men continue to monopolize all of the other elected and appointed municipal positions (mayor, council members, judge, police chief etc.). Women nevertheless participate in councul meetings; they can request land, lodge complaints, make petitions and express their opinions.
MAINTENANCE: Traditionally, municipal laws regarding common property resources delineated residents rights and a number of obligatory duties. Adult men were required to work on road and fence repair, construction, and miantenance of public building, cleaning public areas and serving in communal offices. Today the demands for labor have decreased, but men must serve when called as village representatives and volunteer for cleaning water reservoirs, maintaining school buildings and improving public areas. Committees responsible for communal forest pastures also request help with fence repair from residents who utilize the areas for grazing animals, but leadership problems have undermined co-operation with this duty.
MONITORING: Due to the extent and topography of the communal forests, monitoring is difficult. The county does not appoint or employ forest guards. Every resident bears the responsibility of bringing violations to the attention of the council, but this occurs only when residents spot a serious transgression during their normal routines. Residents do not feel that certain violations merit intervention. For example, owners of usufruct land that borders communal forests occassionally expand their fences into the communal area. Residents tend to accept all but the most blatant examples of this behavior; everyone has done it so anyone who accuses another of this activity risks bringing similar accusations upon himself. Besides, people perceive most illegal fencing as as expression of sincere need; what a neighbor does one year, they may need to the next, and mutual oversight of common trangressions makes for friendlier relationships. The willingness to forgive fence expansion evaporates, however, if people compete for the same land. Such rivalries generally come before the council, the end with both sides surrendering their private ambitions to preserve communal access. |
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(c) Resource Allocation |
| No limits exists on the amount of firewood that household may cut for its own use, but residents criticize cases of wasteful cutting. The council has placed a limit (0.7 ha) on the amount of communal land that a resident may request for a usufruct claim, because the majority of new claims reduce communal forests and involve clearing. Residents must obtain council permission to cut any healthy, mature pine tree, and they must pay a nominal fee for each one (dead or diseased pines, used to temper pottery, may be cut without prior approval). Residents need to pay resident fees and municipal taxes. Shirkers lose their right to request land, and often avoid participating in collective decion making at council meetings because they would encounter the treasurer (who must collect delinquent taxes).
Unfortunately, residents have been more determined to capture benefits from the commons than they have been to fulfill their duties. Pine trees are felled without permission, and the guilty parties generally receive a pardon as long as they utilize the trees for construction. Everyone acknowledges that surreptitious exportation of firewood occurs, but few consider it a serious offense. The council generally waives the limit on new usufruct claims, and it appears justified when the claimants are new households and growing families who need land to meet their their subsistence needs. But many claims have involved some of the county's largest landholders. "The people's commitment to limiting outsiders access to their communal resources has not been matched by a commitment to limit their own patterns of exploitation". |
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Conflict Resolution Mechanism |
| The municipal council, the municipal constable and the civil judge-all locally elected citizens perform mediation and arbitration for disputes. Conflicts eligible for these resolution mechanisms may include a broad range of social and civil problems, but the majority of conflicts relate to land rights. These include disputes over boundaries of private claims, as well as arguments over uses and abuses of communal lands.
Conflicts rarely requires intervention from external authorities, and avoiding such intervention is an important motivation for residents to find locally acceptable solutions to their problems. Most Lacamperos feel that they are more likely to be fairly treated by fellow residents than an outside agency. There are certain exceptions. In the very rare instances of criminal acts (attempted homicides or larceny), the local authorities turn the accused over to regional authorities. Political infighting has led involvement of regional powers to incarcerate council members accused of nefarious handling of municipal funds or other violations of public trust.
For disputes over municipal boundaries, Lacamperos and the residents of the opposing municipio find recourse in arbitration by the departmental governor, because he is usually considered a neutral mediator.
SANCTIONS: Sanctions are rarely enforced with regard to forest management laws. The process starts with a verbal warning, and continued malfeasance should lead to more serious sanctions that included modest fines or compensatory labor, a contribution of fines and labor, or jail time. Today, the local authorites mete out fines and jail time most commonly for disorderly conduct, willful destruction of property, irresposible supervision of domestic animals, and illegal sales of alchoholic beverages. An examination of municipal records shows few cases of sanctions applied for misuse of communal forests.The sanctions that appear in the records were apparently applied only when violators behaved in an exceedingly avaricious and recalcitrant manner. |
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Problems Faced by Institution |
| Given the increasing land pressure and population growth, one might expect that conflicts over land would be increasing. Formerly, a contradiction existed between customary practice and municipal law. In practice a plot of fallow land was regarded as belonging to the original claimant until all signs of use vanished. By contrast, municipal law allowed unused fields to be reassigned as long as it did not bear signs of current use. Thus, if land was desirable, disputes could erupt between an original claimant or descendants, and new postulants who argued that the land was legally abandoned and therefore available for another claim. To resolve these disputes, the council considered whether evidence of fencing remained on the land. This required some interpretation, scattered rocks where a stone fence may once have stood might be considered proof of occupation from the original claimants perspective, while a new claimant could argue that no fence was standing, therefore the land was unused. The council generally bestowed the benefit of doubt upon then first claimant, particularly if other witnesses came forward in support. (see CHANGE) |
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Changes in the Institution over time |
| The council now follows the letter of the law more rigorously, so that fallow fields are considered eligible for a new occupant if a fence is not found standing (refer PROBLEM). The change benefits a large number ofr young people and growing households, and people know that if they wish to maintain a claim they must maintain the fences. The council concluded that their consistent rulings in accordance with the law have reduced the number of disputes, because everyone knows the rules and understands how they will be enforced. |
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Purpose |
| Conservation of forest resources |
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Country |
| Honduras |
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Region |
| La Campa |
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Date Of Publication |
| RS:6\01\2000 |
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