Exploring Conditions for Success of Community Forest Management Institutions - A Meta-Analysis of Social and Ecological Factors in (Sub-)Tropical Forests Across Africa, Asia, and Latin America

Abstract

Community-based Forest Management (CFM) can be seen as a solution for both global ecological issues and local human welfare. It has been carried out by many institutions around the world for centuries. Since this decentralised approach to managing a forest is found to be more effective than a centralised one, governments and organisations are now (re)introducing new decentralised forest management institutions. The Ostrom Principles were found to be present in sustainable, long-existing institutions, and thus form a standard of criteria for successful and robust CFM institutions. These principles are often used to review the institutions, and when institutions fail to meet the principles, the community is labelled as unsuitable for a CFM institution. Yet, research has shown the success of CFM is not as straightforward and is influenced by the regional Social-Ecological System. However, no study has been conducted yet on the specific social and ecological factors that contribute to this. Therefore, this research aimed to identify the specific social and ecological factors influencing the success of a CFM institution. Based on this prior information, in combination with the developed theoretical framework, this research was expected to find a positive relationship between the identified social and ecological factors and the institution’s score on the Ostrom Principles. This research has utilised data from 47 CFM institutions to determine whether they meet the Ostrom Principles, thereby defining their level of success. Data on social and ecological indicators provided an overview of the regional landscape for each Community Forest Management institution. These datasets were then used to identify relationships in the data. This resulted in the conclusion that there was no statistically significant influence of the identified indicators on the success of CFM institutions, however, due to methodological limitations, this assumption should be treated with caution. This research offers insights for CFM stakeholders to enhance their management practices in accordance with the Ostrom Principles. Opportunities for future research exist in expanding the data for social and ecological indicators on subnational levels and incorporating additional factors that may be influential accordingly