Forest Policy Reform and the Organization of Logging in Peruvian ...

Forest Policy Reform and the Organization of Logging inPeruvian Amazonia

Robin R. Sears and Miguel Pinedo-Vasquez

ABSTRACT

Reform in the forest sector in Peru resulted in a new forestry law, developedwith substantial input from international conservation and donor organiza-tions. While it incorporates the principles of sustainable forest management,biodiversity conservation and livelihood improvement, inconsistencies re-main between the regulatory mechanisms and actual practices and outcomesin the field, leading some to consider the legal framework a failure. Thisarticle suggests that problems in the sector persist because the legal andregulatory frameworks do not incorporate existing local institutions, normsand practices — all of which are rooted in complex historical social, politi-cal and economic relationships. Based on information from interviews, dataon movement of timber and analysis of secondary information, the authorsexamine the local structure, actors and dynamics of the concession forestrysystem in the Peruvian Amazon. The article focuses on how financial, so-cial and political relationships in the network of actors, and particularly thepatronage system, have helped actors in the sector adapt to the new policyframework. It is proposed that any further reform in the forest sector mustbe based on a keen understanding and appreciation of the praxis of timberextraction in the region.

INTRODUCTION

Amazonian countries have engaged in forest policy reform relatively re-cently, starting with Bolivia in the 1990s, and more recently with Peru in2000, and Brazil in 2006. All three countries have adopted a concessionforestry system (Cock, 2008; ITTO, 2003; Karsenty et al., 2008; Medinaet al., 2009). Reform in the forest sector in Peru began with a Forest andWildlife Law enacted in 2000 (Law No. 28308) and implemented in 2001.The law, developed with substantial input from the international donor sec-tor and conservation organizations (Medina et al., 2009; Silva et al., 2002),

This research was supported by two Tinker Foundation grants to the two authors and by the PeruFulbright Commission to Robin Sears while at Columbia University. Field research involvedmany interviews with loggers, resource owners and woodsmen in the field, and with officialsin local, regional and national agencies. We acknowledge their willingness to share sometimessensitive information. We gratefully acknowledge the input to and review of the manuscript byChristine Padoch and Louis Putzel, and the comments from three anonymous reviewers.

Development and Change 42(2): 609–631. C© 2011 International Institute of Social Studies.Published by Blackwell Publishing, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and350 Main St., Malden, MA 02148, USA

610 Robin R. Sears and Miguel Pinedo-Vasquez

incorporates the main principles of sustainable development: sustainableforest management, biodiversity conservation and rural livelihoodimprovement.

Despite the seemingly comprehensive nature of Peru’s forest legislation,and the volumes of ever-evolving associated regulations, illegal or unsus-tainable logging practices are still widespread in the country (Galarza andLa Serna, 2005; Smith et al., 2006). It is estimated that up to 90 per cent oftimber originating in the Peruvian Amazon is illegally extracted or traded(Hidalgo and Chirinos, 2005). Some experts suggest that the persistenceof illegal logging indicates that the concession system and other incentivesfor sustainable logging practices, such as certification schemes, are failing(Galarza and La Serna, 2005). This comes as no surprise, as failure to ef-fectively regulate logging of natural forests is not unique to Peru, despiteattempts at regulation in multiple countries (Barr, 2002; Putz et al., 2000;Silva et al., 2002; Smith et al., 2003; Tacconi, 2007).

Reasons cited for the failure of forest reform in tropical countries in-clude weak governance, corruption, and lack of monitoring and enforcement,among others. We believe that while those factors may be responsible for thepersistence of illegal logging, an underlying condition for that persistenceis that the legislative and regulatory frameworks demonstrate little regardfor or understanding of the historical and existing social, cultural, economic,geographical and bio-physical realities in which the timber industry operatesin the Peruvian and other Amazonian regions.

We do not deny that illegal forest activities are a source of serious environ-mental, social and economic problems both worldwide (Tacconi et al., 2003)and in Peru (Galarza and La Serna, 2005; Gutierrez-Velez and MacDicken2008). However, it is not our intention to examine the legality or illegalityof the practices of extractive forestry in Peru. In fact, we argue that the le-gal/illegal discourse sets up a false dichotomy (cf. Larson and Ribot, 2007).We suggest rather that informal logging persists in the Peruvian Amazonbecause the legal framework is deeply flawed, especially in that it does nottake into account the de facto institutional arrangements that truly support theindustry. The regulations also fail to deal appropriately with the particulargeography and distribution of timber stocks in the Peruvian Amazon region.

In the absence of good governance and strong monitoring and enforcementin the sector, and in the face of a challenging geography, an extensivenetwork of actors has developed de facto institutional arrangements in thesector, as McCarthy (2002) found in Indonesia. Our aim is to show hownetworks of actors working within and outside the formal system governtimber operations in the Peruvian Amazon. We examine the structure andfunction of the concession forestry system, focusing on how financial, socialand political relationships in the network of actors have helped the sector tocontinue to operate, largely in extra-legal ways and in spite of the rigidity ofthe new policy framework. At the centre of our discussion is a critical analysisof an informal patronage system in Peru called habilitacion that provides

Forest Policy Reform and Logging in Peruvian Amazonia 611

actors with legal documents in an increasingly complex regulatory system,drives the negotiations for access to timber, and underlies the financingof logging operations. Habilitacion drives the timber industry, one that hasalways relied on informality. We describe the network of actors, highlightingthe critical role of this system of informal patronage in supporting the loggingsector.

We make recommendations that will help policy makers introduce prac-tical reforms in the forestry sector through incorporating local institutions,norms and patterns of resource use and establishing mechanisms for par-ticipation of different resource users. We suggest that such reform can bemade under the existing legal framework, rather than by replacing the lawwith yet another ‘paper reform’, the term used by Rudel (2008) to describepolicy that legislates but does not implement. The content of this article istimely, since the Peruvian government has delegated the implementation ofthe forest law and the regulation of timber extraction and other forest-relatedactivities to regional governments as part of the process of decentralization.

The primary study area is the central Peruvian Amazon, on the rivers andin towns along the Ucayali River and its tributaries. Study subjects workedin two of the largest provinces of the Peruvian Amazon: Ucayali Province,with its capital Contamana, within the Region of Loreto, and Coronel PortilloProvince, with its capital Pucallpa, within the Region of Ucayali. Pucallpais the most important mill town in the Peruvian Amazon and is a hub formovement of timber by road to Lima and to international markets.

Material for this article was collected during multiple field visits to thestudy area in the period 2005 to 2009 and since the concession system was im-plemented in the region. Information is drawn from a variety of sources andusing mixed methods, combining qualitative and quantitative methodologiesused to triangulate and corroborate information. Key informant interviewswere conducted with actors in forestry operations and natural resource pol-icy. We targeted forest concessionaires (three), transporters (two), loggersand other forest workers (seven), private forest owners (twenty) and others,such as financiers, forest authorities and mill owners. Multiple interviewswith the same individual and interviews with multiple individuals in similarroles in the network resulted in corroboration and triangulation of narrativeson events and regulations.

Information gathered through interviews with actors is supported by dataon the origin of logs transported to Pucallpa, which was generated duringeighteen months of field observation by a trained research assistant andspot interviews with workers accompanying the logs. Data related to spe-cific logging and timber transport permits were provided by regional anddistrict offices of the national forest authority (INRENA) in Pucallpa andContamana. We also draw on information about the frequency and nature ofconflicts between loggers and communities in 2007 provided by the provin-cial judiciary office in Contamana.


FOREST POLICY REFORM IN PERU

The cornerstone of Peru’s forest policy is the Forest and Wildlife Law en-acted in 2000 (Ley Forestal y de Fauna Silvestre No. 27308), which enteredinto force the following year (Decreto Supremo, No. 014, April 2001). Thislaw introduced a new regime for access to forest resources, overhauling theformer regulatory framework in place since 1975 under Forest Law 21147.The 2000 legislative framework was developed in an effort to establish clearrules for the sustainable extraction of timber from Peru’s extensive natu-ral forests, to promote the participation of small and medium extractors ina competitive timber market, to modernize the forestry regulatory mecha-nisms, and to gain control of a renegade industry (INRENA, 2003). The lawaims to reduce and control deforestation and promote sustainable manage-ment of forest resources to guarantee the future development of the sector,while integrating goals of conservation and protection of biological diver-sity. The Peruvian forest policy emphasizes ‘scientific forestry’, which hashistorical roots in colonialism (Ruzicka, 2010) but nevertheless is commonin tropical countries today (Medina et al., 2009). The new policy demon-strates attention to the sustainable development discourse through inclusionof concepts of sustainability, poverty alleviation and conservation, whichresults in a policy framework that has a little something for everyone. Theprocess of crafting the law involved multiple stakeholders and was hailedas a sign of a ‘new era in participatory forest management’ in Peru (ITTO,2006), but was admittedly heavily influenced by international actors such asdonor agencies and conservation organizations, as is often the case in forestsector reform in tropical countries (Cock, 2008; Medina et al., 2009; Searset al., 2001; Silva et al., 2002).

Cock (2008) and others have strongly criticized the reliance on the conceptof ‘sustainable forest management’ in the international forest regime, sug-gesting that its multidimensionality (conservation and exploitation) lendsit an ambiguity that leads to, we would suggest, less accountability in thesector. In Peru, the geographic distances logs are moved, the difficulty oftravelling to locations where logs are extracted, and the active informal mar-ket for logging documents present major obstacles for forest authorities toverify the sustainability of any element of logging operations.

It should be noted that in late 2008, purportedly to comply with condi-tions of the US–Peru Trade Agreement, the Garcia administration proposeda series of amendments to the 2000 forest law through a legislative decree(Decreto Legislativo No. 1090) (El Peruano, 2008). The two main changessuggest a trend toward privatization of forestry and criminalization of infor-mal logging and other forestry activities. The proposed amendments havestimulated critique by civil society and environmental organizations, partic-ularly from indigenous federations, since the amendment of the law providesthe legal basis for privatizing communally held forests and lands.


Table 1. Forestland Zonation in Peru Accordingto Peruvian Forest Law No. 27308.

Production forestsPermanentReserve

Forests for future usePlantationsSecondary forestAreas for recuperation

Protected forestsNatural protected areasCommunity forestsLocal forests

Policy Framework: A Concession-based Forest Regime

The current Peruvian forest law is based on a system of concessions, permitsand authorizations, representing a suite of mechanisms that relate individualsor permitted groups to quantities of timber extracted and transported fromdelimited areas. The system is designed to allow the State to capture rent inthe form of administrative fees and taxes from public resources.

While a comprehensive description of the forest policy framework is notthe subject of this paper, readers are referred to Table 1, which outlinesthe types of forests recognized by the law, and Table 2, defining the typesof authorization available to access forest resources. Concession contractsfor public lands are formally obtained from the Peruvian forest authoritiesthrough a bidding process, and are valid for up to forty years. These con-cessions are granted for forest areas of two sizes: very large (10,000–40,000ha) and large (5,000–10,000 ha). Smaller forest units, such as small privatelandholdings and forests adjacent to rural communities or on indigenouslands, are eligible for timber extraction through ‘permits’, which may berenewed every five years. A third mechanism for gaining access to timber isthrough ‘authorizations’, which are one-time logging permits, usually givenfor logging on unstable riverbanks. Different kinds of actors engage in log-ging under the three types of authorization, though to some degree all seemto be supported by the informal credit system.

The regulatory framework is designed to set limits on timber extractionthrough documentation required for the extraction and transport of timber.It effectively focuses on monitoring the product, emphasizing species andvolumes, rather than processes such as logging practices and negotiation ofaccess to timber. Documents are generated by the forest authority officesfor all modes of access to timber — concessions, private landholdings, andcommunity and local forests — and may be obtained only upon submissionof a general management plan and an annual operating plan (POA). Theteam needs a logging permit, authorizing a certain volume of timber to be


Table 2. Types of Authorization to Access and Use of Forests and ForestResources Under 2000 Forest Law No. 27308, with Amendments in 2008

Legislative Decree 1090.

Authorization of access to forest resources Spatial aspects Timeframe

1. Forest concessionsa. Timber

i. Public auction 10,000 – 40,000 ha 40 years, renewableii. Public tender 5,000 – 10,000 ha 40 years, renewableiii. Private initiativea TBD 40 years, renewable

b. Non-timberi. NTFP Case specific 40 years, renewableii. Conservation, tourism and environmental services ′′ 40 years, renewable

2. Authorizations and Permitsa. Permits ′′ 5 years

i. Private propertyii. Secondary forestiii. Local forestsb

iv. Forestry plantationsa

b. Authorizations ′′ Single authorizationi. Dry forests of the coastii. Riverbank salvageb

iii. Plant nurseriesa

Notes:a. New option in 2008.b. In Law 27308, but not in 2008 revision.

felled in an area. Then they need a transport permit to move the round logsor processed timber from felling to market. The objective of this processis to define the sustainable volume of timber that could be removed fromauthorized logging areas, with checks in place along the supply chain.

STRUCTURE OF THE LOGGING INDUSTRY: AN ADAPTIVE ANDFLEXIBLE NETWORK OF ACTORS

Extractive forestry in the Peruvian Amazon functions through a complex andflexible network of actors, each of whom plays a critical role in the supplychain that feeds the expanding local, national and international markets. Themany actors along the timber chain of custody operate independently, ratherthan as members of the same enterprise, and the relationships among themare tenuously based on trust, or perhaps more accurately on management ofdistrust and uncertainty. One of the main goals of creating the new forestrylaw in Peru was, in fact, to stimulate the vertical integration of actors inthe timber industry, centralizing the forestry planning and operations toachieve economies of scale (Bauch et al., 2007). The expectation was thatintegration would promote efficiency in the supply chain and operations andenable easier regulation. While the concept has at least theoretically been


shown to improve economic efficiency in the sector (ibid.) and make it easierto regulate, in practice this progress is less obvious.

The actors involved in accessing, extracting and moving timber logs fromPeruvian forests to the mills and markets can be grouped into four broadcategories: concessionaires, financiers, loggers and resource owners. Theconcessionaire provides timber documents, the financier provides capital tologgers, and the resource owners provide access to the timber. Table 3 definesthese groups, including several subcategories of actors. This very largenetwork of actors, and the categories we use to define them, is flexible andmutable. For example, a government forestry agent by day may double as apaperwork facilitator (tramitador1), arranging for the acquisition of falsifieddocuments after hours. The tramitador group has only recently emergedin the sector since the new law entered into force, providing the serviceof explaining and strategizing with other actors around the complexity andperiodic modification of the regulatory system. There is also variability inthe categories of actors we have defined. Moneylenders may be wealthybusiness owners or politicians, or they may be people with a steady incomeand a penchant for venture capitalism.

Operations in the sector are based on a system of informal credit, hopesand promises, and are regulated through the de facto regional institutionalarrangements and the long-standing practice of habilitacion (‘enabling’), asystem of credit and access to resources that underpins the relationships andpractices in this and other industries (Bedoya Garland, 1997). The sheer num-ber of actors, coupled with the social, economic and geographic distancesthat separate them, helps spread risk throughout the network.

The habilitacion system is akin to the aviamento system in Brazil (Barhamand Coomes, 1994; Schmink and Wood, 1992), which is ‘a system of creditthat emerged during the nineteenth-century rubber boom and involved largenumbers of intermediary merchants moving capital’ between distant places(Raffles, 2002: 50). Raffles (2002: 20) refers to aviamento as ‘tangle ofeconomized personalist relations’, a characterization that fits the habilitacionsystem in Peru as well.

There are multiple modes of habilitacion: a person is enabled, habili-tado, when provided with financial resources, formal documents or politicalcapital. An individual with financial or political resources, the habilitador,provides funding or documents to someone who can convert those resourcesinto valuable timber. The habilitado then enlists a set of other actors whoare to access and deliver timber to the habilitador. These actors are mainly

1. The Spanish word tramite means a procedure, or steps in a formality. Because the paper-work burden is so great in this sector, people in the sector talk about a new professionaldiscipline — ‘tramitologia’, or figuring out the formal procedures and applications relatedto the new timber regulations.


Table 3. Actors and their Roles in the Logging Sector in Ucayali, Peru

Actors Identity and role

1. Concessionaires(habilitadores)

1.1. Timber industrialist(empresario)

Business people who largely control the timber market in Ucayali.They provide their concession documents and capital to selectedloyal loggers with whom they have worked in the habilitadosystem for a long time.

1.2. Patrons (apadrinados) Individuals well connected to high level politicians. They rent theirconcession documents to loggers who work independently oftimber companies.

2. Mill owners Mainly families involved in timber processing for generations; theysource timber from independent loggers and timber thieves. Invery few cases do they finance expeditions of independentloggers.

3. Moneylenders(prestamistas)

Individuals who finance the extraction activities of independentloggers to mainly extract the most valuable timber species.

4. Facilitator (tramitadores) The tramitador plays a key role in connecting loggers andhabilitadores, and loggers and lenders, as well as helping them toobtain the required paperwork to extract and transport the timber.

5. Logger (maderero orextractor)

5.1. Logging boss(encargado)

Individual who is enabled by the habilitado and assembles and leadsthe logging team.

5.2 Loyal loggers (madererosde confianza)

A subset of loggers that works exclusively for the timber companies.

5.3. Independent loggers Comprising the largest number of loggers in the Peruvian Amazon,they are financed by moneylenders and depend on tramitadoresto obtain official documents.

5.4. Wood cutters (leneros,cuartoneros andtabloneros)

This group specializes in ‘recycling’ residual raw materials left byloggers. They transform branches and other residual wood intovarious types of sawnwood, usually blocks of wood three to sixfeet long.

6. Workers (revolcadores,extractores, andtrabajadores)

Mainly composed of poor people from the cities, many of whomhave migrated to the cities in search of employment andeducational opportunities.

7. Contractors Owners of large machinery and transport vehicles who are employedby loggers to provide specific services in the extraction andtransport of logs to buyers in the city.

8. Woodsmen (materos,monteras, or maquetes)

Local people who sell their knowledge of location and access totimber to loggers. Their role is critical for supplying timber,particularly high value species.

9. Private landholders(parceleros) andcommunities

Individuals and communities are sitting on a great deal of timber.Loggers develop informal agreements with them to access timberand sometimes help them to obtain formal documents forextraction.

10. Cheaters10.1. Log middlemen

(cutreros)Individuals specialized in stealing logs from log landings or barges,

recover run-away logs in the river, or convince loggers en routeto sell all or a portion of their logs to them before they arrive tothe port.

10.2. Chancheros Individuals specialized in buying logs that are stolen by cutreros orfrom madereros de confianza.

10.3. Informers (chismosos) Members of communities along the river who use radios to sellinformation to cutreros and buyers about the volume and speciesthat loggers transport to Pucallpa.


recruited from shanty-towns, peri-urban settlements and other poor neigh-bourhoods in the cities (Pinedo-Vasquez and Padoch, 2009) and includeloggers, heavy machinery contractors, cooks and drivers, among others.

In all cases of habilitacion there is a strong expectation of a return onthe favour, but because it supports a sector that carries a high degree ofrisk at all levels of activity, the habilitados often find themselves trappedby mounting debt to the habilitador. In this way, the system is consideredby some to be akin to debt peonage or bonded labour (Bedoya Garland andBedoya Silva-Santisteban, 2005). We suggest that habilitacion differs fromdebt peonage in that the system today is not used so much for forced labourrecruitment as it was in the past, but rather for providing capital in a sectorbereft of formal credit (Santos-Granero and Barclay, 2000).

The current habilitacion system as practised in the Peruvian Amazon is aflexible and adaptable system that appears to deal successfully with the chal-lenges posed by the distinct political, social and geographical characteristicsof Amazonian society and environments as well as the inherent challengesand risks of logging and other extractive activities. For instance, we recordedan average of 153 trees per month sold by two ribereno communities to log-gers in 2009. Neither community had permits or other legal document toextract, transport or sell timber, but the documents were facilitated by log-gers who managed to extract, transport and deliver the logs to habilitadoresin Pucallpa. Communal leaders have mentioned that in order to get the legaldocuments for extracting, transporting and selling logs they needed approx-imately US$ 1,750 to pay tramitadores and officials in Iquitos and Pucallpa.Since loggers provide all the legal documents, the communities did not needto get them, and each community made an average of US$ 4,000 sellingtheir trees directly to loggers.

As mentioned above, habilitadores largely define the de facto rules oflogging and control the movement of timber in the region, operating anextra-legal system that by appearances does comply with the regulationson paper. Although regulations are ever more carefully designed to controlactivities on the ground, and non-compliance carries increasingly seriouspenalties (Peru, 2008), the habilitacion system persists and is widely used byrural people and communities to extract, transport and sell timber. Even newtimber investors who might otherwise be expected to base their practiceson the established legal structure are forced to adopt the system or faileconomically, politically and socially.

PRACTICE OF LOGGING: GAINING ACCESS TO TIMBER

Most logging operations in the Amazon contain some elements of extra-legality, or informality. Once financing is secured, successful logging op-erations depend on access to official documents, labour and timber. Within


each of these components of the system there is a great deal of risk, and dif-ferent levels of risk for different actors. Sometimes the financing is related tothese other elements, but more often it is not. This separation of credit fromthe product is one way of managing risk in this sector. In this section wedescribe each of these essential elements of the habilitacion system — doc-uments, capital, labour and timber — and discuss the relationships amongactors and sources and management of risk.

Concession Documents: A Tradable Commodity

As indicated earlier, the regulatory system depends on a system of docu-mentation for logging and transporting timber. The actors who have formalaccess to official documents to log on public lands are the concessionaires.The two main groups of concessionaires are the timber industrialists (em-presarios madereros) and patrons (apadrinados) (see Table 3). The formergroup gains access to concession documents through leasing the concessionor through purchasing concession documents from another lessee. These arethe most influential actors in the timber sector and often hold concessions,own sawmills and manage logging teams. The patrons are individuals whoare well connected to high-level politicians, but are not necessarily involvedin the forest sector. They are often granted one or several concessions byelected officials as payment for political favours. They may either sell theircontract to a timber industrialist or ‘rent’ their contract to loggers who willmanage the extraction process, providing the patron with a percentage ofprofits. The industrialists provide their concession documents as well ascapital to selected loggers with whom they have developed a strong relation-ship of trust, while the patrons tend to provide their concession documentsto independent loggers.

Because of the complexity and high administrative burden of the currenttimber regulations, a new group of actors has recently emerged: the tramita-dores, who are indispensable to the concessionaires, private landholders andloggers alike. Tramitadores play a key role in facilitating connections andagreements between habilitadores and loggers, as well as helping them toobtain the required paperwork to extract and transport logs. These individu-als must have experience and expertise in government bureaucracy and theability to obtain the appropriate documents from the forest authority. Actorsin this group are often former employees of the national forest authority,timber companies, NGOs, or international cooperation projects. In their roleas facilitators, tramitadores can serve any number of clients with a varietyof services, from introducing different actors to each other to obtaining andproviding the documents necessary to extract and transport timber.

Tramitadores also have access to independent certified forestry consultantswho can provide, for a fee, falsified forest inventories, concession manage-ment plans and annual operational plans. Professional foresters charge in the


region of US$ 9552 for an operational plan, including the stock inventory,for a private landholding, while they charge anywhere from US$ 2550 to3200 for an annual operational plan for a concession. A tramitador chargeson average US$ 600 to provide the necessary documentation to a logger.

Authorities most commonly check the documents against the timber whenit is in transport, or when it arrives at the port. Rarely do they verify theorigin of the timber, which would require them to go out to the field, usually amulti-day journey. The forest authority in Peru is not well supported by eitherpolitical backstopping or government funding, and so district offices oftendo not have a motorboat, much less funding for fuel or food for field visits(World Bank, 2006). Because of this, logging documents are disengagedfrom the geographic place for which they authorize timber extraction. Rather,they become tradable documents that, regardless of whether they are rentedor owned, provide legal status to loggers to extract, transport and sell logs. Inthis way, loggers are able to operate outside of authorized areas, to harvestwherever they can gain access to commercial trees.

Capital and Labour

Financing for large logging operations often comes directly from a conces-sionaire, either a timber industrialist or a patron, but for most mediumand small operators, the independent financier plays a critical role bylending money. Prestamistas, or moneylenders, are individuals with ac-cess to cash through a business enterprise, not necessarily timber related.They finance small and medium expeditions, particularly those targetingthe most valuable timber species, including mahogany (Swietenia macro-phylla), tropical cedar (Cedrela odorata), and lupuna (Chorisia spp.), andmore recently, capirona (Calycophyllum spruceanum), quinilla (Manilkarabidentata), estoraque (Myroxylon balsamun) and shihuahuaco (Dipteryxspp.). While independent moneylenders do not provide concession docu-ments to loggers, as part of their risk management strategy, they do ask tosee the logger’s transport documents before making an agreement to lendmoney.

Logging teams are the key suppliers of raw timber material to industrialtimber businesses, sawmills and other timber buyers in the cities of Pucallpa,Puerto Maldonado and Iquitos. The logging boss, or encargado, enabled bya concessionaire, a patron or a moneylender, leads the timber extractionexpeditions, employing a team of workers for periods of one to six weeks.Loggers comprise a diverse group of actors of different social and eco-nomic means. The majority of loggers operating in the Amazon are small tomedium independent urban operators with strong links to rural people, and

2. Rate of exchange in late 2007 was 3.14 Peruvian nuevo soles to the US dollar.


financed by moneylenders. Some loggers work exclusively with the timberindustrialists and are known as madereros de confianza (loyal loggers).

A logging expedition team comprises a diversity of workers, includingboat captain, cook, camp guards, and the sawyers themselves, and manymembers play multiple roles. This group is usually made up of poor peoplefrom cities, many of whom are riberenos3 who have migrated to the cities insearch of employment and educational opportunities. They are often attractedto the promise, often exaggerated by the boss, of large gains from workingwith valuable timber resources. Every position on the team carries economicand personal risks, and few of these workers earn what they consider to bea fair wage. Economic risks for the loggers include loss of timber duringtransport by thievery, river and climate challenges, or confiscation by forestauthorities; or having their logs undervalued by the buyer. Many on theexpedition, especially the sawyers, become ensnared in the sector when notable to fulfil their debts to the expedition boss or to moneylenders.

Despite the harsh conditions and high risks involved, and because ofwidespread unemployment and poverty in the Amazon cities and rural ar-eas (Padoch et al., 2008), there are plenty of individuals willing to obtainlogs by any means possible and the timber empresarios have no qualmsabout relying on those people when a deal falls through with anotherlogger.

Access to Timber: Leakage and Negotiation

Once the financing for the logging operation is secured, documents obtainedby the logging boss, and the logging team assembled, the loggers must findand access commercial timber. One of the main characteristics of forestconcessions in lowland forests in Peru is that they contain limited stocks ofthe most valuable species, mahogany and tropical cedar (AIDESEP, 2007).One reason for this is that they have been high-graded by selective loggingin the region during the past fifty or so years (Pinedo-Vasquez et al., 2001).These forests still have commercial value, however, as the national andinternational timber markets absorb an ever-increasing list of hardwoodspecies (INRENA, 2001, 2007).

Experts have reported timber leakage as one of the main problems lim-iting the success of forest policies promoting sustainable timber extractionfrom natural forests and reduction of carbon emissions in tropical countries(Fearnside, 2001; Kremen et al., 2000). Timber leakage seems to be a com-mon feature in the timber market in Peru, and it takes several forms withinthe concession regime. The annual operating plan (POA) for a concession,private landholding, or community forest states the allowable volume oftimber, by species, to be extracted from that area. The POA accompanies the

3. Riverine inhabitants, non-indigenous.


Table 4. Locale, Number of Trips, Source of Logs and Trips from AuthorizedDistricts for Five Concession Contracts Authorized by INRENA, Contamana

Port (data collected over 18 months)

Authorized District of Number of Origin of Logs Number of Sources (trips)Transporter Authorization Trips (areas) in Authorized District

Concession 1 Sarayacu 19 7 1Concession 2 Sarayacu 2 1 0Private 1 Sarayacu 1 1 0Private 2 Sarayacu 1 1 0Private 3 Inahuaya 2 2 0

timber and the serial number is written on the logs. The problem with thissystem, however, is that there is no regulatory or administrative mechanismin place to verify the origin of the logs. Once issued, the POA becomesa tradable document disengaged from the registered locality. Because noone is watching, it allows loggers to transport timber from anywhere in theregion.

Following eighteen months of monitoring of roundwood on barges thatstop in the port of Contamana, we found regular inconsistencies between thelocation of the authorized logging areas, as indicated by the serial numbermarked on the logs and registered with the forestry office, and the actualorigin of the round logs, as revealed in an interview with the loggers accom-panying the timber. Of the twenty-five barges that stopped in Contamanawith logging permit numbers registered for the Ucayali Province, interviewsrevealed that only three of those barges originated in that province (Table 4).One log series number referred to a concession located upriver from the port,in the direction of travel of the barge. Similarly, a single series number for aconcession in neighbouring Sarayacu District was cited on nineteen differenttrips sourcing logs from seven distinct locales, only one of which was evenin the same district as the concession. In this same dataset, none of the timberregistered under permits for logging on a private landholding originated inthe same district in which it was registered. These data support the claim thatmuch of the timber coming out of Amazonia is sourced outside of authorizedareas (Galarza and La Serna, 2005; Hidalgo and Chirinos, 2005).

Until there is vastly improved monitoring of field activities in the loggingsector it will remain difficult to determine how much timber comes fromwithin designated and authorized logging areas. What is evident from fieldobservations and interviews with woodsmen, loggers and rural residentsis that in the Ucayali region, logging occurs everywhere. The region iscriss-crossed with logging roads. These observations are supported by astudy using remote sensing data that showed that while deforestation insideconcession areas increased less than forest disturbance, presumably fromlogging, between 2004 and 2005, there was an increase of between 300 and


470 per cent in deforestation and disturbance rates outside, and especially inareas neighbouring concessions (Oliveira et al., 2007).

There are three main motives for loggers to stray outside delimited ar-eas: many concessions are situated far from main transport routes (Salo andToivonen, 2009), rendering them too costly to manage, monitor and usefor the value of the wood; forests in concession areas close to routes havealready been high-graded; and concessionaires often find that their desig-nated area overlaps with settlements, which generates costly negotiation anddelays for the logger. Thus, Peru’s new concession regime, developed ex-pressly to provide access to high volumes of public forest resources, hasbeen implemented in an environment where most valuable trees and specieshave been logged and where ownership and rights to the remaining forestresources are unresolved.

Because of these conditions, concessionaires recognize that to run a prof-itable operation, they will have to access timber from multiple areas. Andbecause of the weak formal institutional structure and strong informal mar-ket providing loggers with the documentation they need to move timber,loggers extract timber from wherever they can find and access it. To find andaccess the timber, loggers often require the assistance of local woodsmen, ormateros.4 The empirical information on timber stocks provided by materoshas more value than the forest inventories provided by foresters and requiredby law. The woodsman is a critical actor in the industry today, and one thatis becoming indispensable as valuable trees become scarce.

The woodsman may work independently, serving any number of clients,but may also be employed on a regular basis by a single logging boss. Aswith most of these actors, there are many opportunities for the woodsman tocheat the logger by ‘selling’ information about the same set of timber treesto several logging bosses. While some woodsmen are widely travelled inthe region, many source timber in the forested areas behind their own andneighbouring villages, often without the consent of the other villagers.

There are rich timber stocks in these private and community landholdings,and each year more private landholders and communities are taking advan-tage of the new regulations to acquire permits to extract timber from theirland. In 2005 in Ucayali Province private landowners controlled twenty-five permits and native communities had four, while there were five areasregistered as forest concessions. In 2006 the figure for private landhold-ings jumped to sixty-one permits, and one native community was dropped,with concessions staying the same at five. The applications for permits bymany of these individuals and communities are backed by loggers, in ex-change for the exclusive right to log on their property (Medina et al., 2009).

4. Materos know the landscape and the forests very well from having spent much of their livestravelling through the forests hunting, collecting forest resources, fishing and exploring.They are experts at identifying timber species in the forest and easily navigating the difficultand varied terrain and waterways.


Communities without permits are also selling timber to loggers. In UcayaliProvince in 2006 logging permits were issued for only three communities,but documents from local authorities reveal that loggers were operating inninety-seven communities in the province.

This surge in permits for logging on private landholdings, however, iscomplicated by a lack of clear property rights in the Peruvian Amazon,particularly in relation to areas under customary ownership and managementby communities (Granoff, 2007) and is exacerbated by the differential accessto capital, credit and permits by rural people and more powerful commercialinterests (Larson and Ribot, 2007). Loggers exploit this situation and areprimarily interested in obtaining the legal documents to use for negotiatingwith communities for extracting timber, as is common practice in othercountries (ibid.). This practice leads to the disruption of ecological andsocial values of the forests that lie behind riverine communities. Thesesafety net forests are important for villagers as hunting and fishing groundsand collection areas for non-timber forest products such as medicines, vinesand palm fronds (Pinedo-Vasquez et al., 1995; Pyhala et al., 2007). Suchforested areas also provide many environmental services such as habitat forgame animals, regulation of water quantity and quality, and erosion control,among others. They have not historically been used for commercial timberextraction. Serious social conflict and environmental degradation arise whena local woodsman works with the logger without consideration of the socialand environmental costs of the logging activities in the safety net forests.

There are two situations in which loggers negotiate with communitiesand private landowners. In one, the logger is simply negotiating access tostanding timber but without a formal permit to log in that area. In the secondsituation, a logger may be helping or encouraging a community or landownerto obtain formal permits to extract timber in exchange for exclusive rights tothe wood. Whether they are ribereno or indigenous settlements, in both casesan agreement is usually arranged between the logger and village authoritiesthat stipulates an exchange of cash or goods and services for the timber.

Also common, however, are formal complaints lodged with provincialauthorities, either by community authorities for non-compliance on the partof the logger, or by community members complaining that the village leadernegotiated with the loggers unilaterally, without consultation with the othervillage members. Unless the community holds a formal permit authorizingtimber extraction, a prerequisite of which is an approved management plan,the agreements do not have legal force. Thus, if either party does not holdup their end of the agreement, the other party has no power to adjudicate.Nevertheless, community members insist on reporting infractions to districtauthorities, including the forest authority. Conflict management is one of themain limiting factors for logging in forests held by communities traditionallyused as safety nets. Some villages are refusing to negotiate with loggers inthe interest of preserving their forests and livelihoods (Salo and Toivonen,2009).


The extent of timber leakage, informal negotiations, falsified documents,and other underhanded activities suggests that the emphasis by the forestauthorities and national police on monitoring the movement of logs ratherthan on the process of extraction provides conditions in which actors maysubvert the law.

REFORM OPTIONS

The forest policy reform in Peru follows the framework of the global agree-ments and processes that have emerged since the early 1980s (Cock, 2008;Karsenty et al., 2008), and has been shaped by development aid condi-tionality, international conservation agendas and trade agreements (Sheikh,2008). The result of the imposition of these agendas and conditionality inthe Peruvian forest sector is a forest policy that conceptually recognizes thevalue of the multiple products, functions and services of Peru’s forests —including timber, non-timber forest products, biodiversity conservation andhydrological resources — but that, after almost a decade, has stimulatedvery little change in forestry practice and governance. The stated goal of the2000 forest policy reform is to promote and support a competitive extractivetimber market in Peru based on principles of sustainability and equity. Thepersistence of informal logging arrangements, the high estimates of illegallogging, and the high degree of conflict among loggers and resource ownersall indicate that the reform has fallen short of achieving its goal (Butler,2010).

This is already becoming a broader problem than achieving conservationand poverty alleviation goals nationally. The negotiation of the bilateral tradepromotion agreement between Peru and the United States has been met withresistance as US legislators have called for an end to illegal logging in Peru(Villarreal, 2007). The Peruvian government has attempted to respond tothis challenge by passing a modification to the Forest Law 27308 throughthe Legislative Decree 1090 that appears to be designed to directly addressUS concerns about illegal logging.

Policy makers and timber authorities must acknowledge the limitationsof the current forest legal framework, both in terms of monitoring and ruleenforcement, and in terms of how realistic the rules are for concessionairesand loggers in the Peruvian Amazon. In order to understand and reformthe forestry sector in the Peruvian Amazon an approach is called for that isinformed by the results of in situ practice of forestry and logging, a systemwhich is supported through habilitacion.

Several authors have signalled that ‘shifting the agenda toward equity’(Barr, 2002: 215), and away from the ever-elusive goal of achieving sustain-able forest management in the tropics, is a critical step not only in the attemptto achieve sustainable forest management, but also to help to improve rurallivelihoods. Likewise, Larson and Ribot (2007: 192) suggest that radical


reform in the forestry sector should address the issue of rural livelihoodsthrough an ‘access approach’, whereby the ‘power dynamics of access arealtered and access to livelihood assets are improved for formerly excludedand marginalized groups’. Barros and Uhl (1995) cite several factors thatare necessary for the development of sound forestry practices in the Brazil-ian Amazon, including uncontested dominion over forest resources for localpeople, well-designed economic incentives that encourage management, andnew bottom-up administrative models.

Reform of the sector will require a widespread initiative to formalize prop-erty rights for rural people, attention to labour rights and worker protection,and better management of risk, both economic and physical. Fundamentally,finance reform may be the most effective way to make changes in the sec-tor. Recent reports on the extractive timber sector in Peru suggest that theprovision of formal credit is one of the important steps for overcoming theinformality (Bedoya Garland and Bedoya Silva-Santisteban, 2005; ITTO,2006; Smith et al., 2006).

Are these approaches to reform — focus on equity through an access ap-proach, economic incentives that encourage forest management, and bottom-up administrative models — possible in Peru? The ground has been laid bythe decentralization policy in Peru which has already taken effect in the forestsector. While it is too early to tell what impact decentralization is having inthe sector, we predict that there are two potential outcomes. One is that withexpanded authority over access to natural resources, regional and municipalgovernments will be able to incorporate at least some elements of the existinginstitutional arrangements of the habilitacion system. Regulations should besite-specific in their development and enforcement, and rural municipalitiesshould be enabled to determine the local rules and regulations for logging.Thus, local stakeholders, from resource owners to forest authorities, wouldhave more say in and control over forest regulations. Similarly, municipal-ities should play a role in co-management of timber resources. Their roleshould not be only in enforcing national regulations and prohibiting actions,but also in promoting and overseeing the movement from extractive forestryto production forestry. Timber management in forests and fallows in Ama-zonia (Pinedo-Vasquez et al., 2001; Sears and Pinedo-Vasquez, 2004) couldbe better supported through policies that clarify and support resource tenurefor small, private landowners and communities.

The outcome of strengthening regional and municipal authority over localnatural resources could be positive for both forest management and conser-vation and for improving rural livelihoods. Giving some power in decisionmaking to local authorities can help to reform regional and municipal finan-cial mechanisms for development. It could transform timber from a naturalresource that currently does not provide revenues to any local developmentinitiatives to a natural resource that can provide economic resources thatlocal authorities can engage in development programmes that are aimed toreduce poverty in rural Amazonia. Local decision making can also have an


impact on the status of local forests. Andersson and Gibson (2006) foundthat municipal governance systems in Bolivia have influenced deforestationpatterns in some positive ways. However, they caution that their influenceis highly variable, and dependent on other local institutional arrangements,and it is unlikely to be sufficient to achieve sustainability goals. Anothernecessary condition for sustainability in the forestry sector is effective mon-itoring and enforcement systems. In an analysis of forests and institutionsthat govern them, Gibson et al. (2005) found that rule enforcement by usergroups — be they local users or government foresters — is correlated to for-est conditions, and they suggest that it is a necessary condition for effectiveresource management.

A second possible outcome of decentralization in the forest sector is that itwill strengthen the role of the logging financiers. These private sector actorsin Amazonia may gain even more control in the sector as they are able toinfluence decisions more readily at the local and regional levels than whendecisions and permits were dispensed by the national offices. Should thisbe the outcome, it is unlikely that the dual goals of sustainable forestry andpoverty reduction will ever be met.

CONCLUSIONS

The forestry law demonstrates an apparent concern for the status of thecountry’s forest resources, but accomplishes little in the way of ensuringsustainable forestry operations or improvements in the lives of local com-munities. The policy does not translate effectively into practice for severalreasons. One is that the agencies responsible for monitoring and enforcementin the sector do not have the resources necessary to operate in the remote anddiverse environments of the Peruvian Amazon. Therefore, forestry agentsin underfunded regional offices focus what little resources they have onmonitoring logs and lumber in transit — the products of forestry — whilelargely ignoring the underlying operations along the entire chain of custodyrelated to accessing timber, forest management and timber extraction. Thisis a fundamental problem for a forest policy based on a concession systemfor access to timber that is by nature based in geography. The challenges forregulating logging in a geographically complex region (Salo and Toivonen,2009) are compounded by the prevalent structure of the timber sector, whichis supported by a diverse and socially and geographically distant networkof actors. Understanding the structure and relationships of the habilitacionsystem is a first step to fulfilling any reasonable expectations for controllinglogging in the Peruvian Amazon.

A second reason for the impasse between policy and practice is that prac-tising timber management in a concession system in a geographically remoteand socially complex region may very well not be economically viable. Thevery high costs of transport of equipment and logs in remote areas, the


environmental engineering necessary to comply with environmental regula-tions, and negotiation with settlers inside or near concessions are cripplingto the profit margin of loggers who try to comply with regulations. Thesecosts are compounded by high risks in the sector that derive from multiplesources, from unpredictable weather to equipment failure to thievery. Thehabilitacion system in the forestry sector helps actors to deal with those risksbut necessarily operates under considerable informality and at a certain costto the actors on the margins of the network.

Under the habilitacion system engagement in the timber sector carries theappearance of regulatory compliance, but the extra-legality of operations ishidden within a complex network of national and regional political, socialand financial relationships that lie just outside state control. The adaptiveand flexible nature of the system makes it difficult to establish a boundarybetween illegal and legal activity and difficult for formal institutions to detectillegal activity. The principal actors are extremely powerful and the rulesof the game are complex and constantly changing. The system deals withthe lack of information about timber stocks in natural forests, lack of formalcredit in the forest sector, lack of professional training, and the high inherentrisks in logging and transport operations. Many of the actors operating inthe habilitacion system, from veterans with decades of experience runningsmall Pucallpa sawmills to communities that have been using or managingforests for nearly a century, would have no other means to participate inthe industry in the absence of the habilitacion system. If the national forestauthorities did indeed shift the agenda toward equity, and better supportedthe production of timber by rural smallholders, they may at least succeed inpromoting timber from managed forests. As it stands today, incentives areslim for both logging operators and farmers to engage in forest management.

In the meantime, logging operations continue, largely unregulated,throughout the region. They continue because of the existence of the ha-bilitacion system, a complex network of social, political and financial rela-tionships among the powerful timber empresarios, local woodsmen and theurban poor seeking work (Pinedo-Vasquez and Padoch, 2009). As thingsstand today in the Peruvian Amazon, the practicality of the current legalframework is questionable, and the sustainability — ecological, economicand social — of forestry practices seems untenable.

Forest reform through decentralization could be a positive first step to-wards achieving the dual conservation and development goals in the PeruvianAmazon. A necessary second step will be to address finance in the sector.The habilitacion system of informal patronage persists despite the forestpolicy reform in 2000. What drives the habilitacion system now is both asurplus of money acquired through illicit means and high unemploymentin urban areas, exacerbated by agricultural policies and global food pricesthat result in rural farmers giving up farming. Habilitacion will continue toprovide the basis for logging operations in the Peruvian Amazon until thesystem is recognized by policy makers and attempts are made to integrate


those norms into policy. Reform of the sector will only work when regu-lation honestly takes into account local social, political and environmentalrealities in the Peruvian Amazon, and when legislators turn their attentionto equitable financing in the forest sector. In this article we have focused onthe upper levels of the pyramid of actors, those who provide the documentsand financing in the sector. A thorough treatment of the habilitacion systemfrom political economy and political ecology perspectives would providevaluable information and analysis about labour and economy in the rapidlychanging demography and environment of the Peruvian Amazon.

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Robin R. Sears is Dean of The School for Field Studies, 10 Federal St.,Salem, MA 01970, USA. Her work centres on forests and people, and focusesspecifically on smallholder timber management and the conditions for theirengagement in markets. She works mainly on the floodplain landscapes ofAmazonia.

Miguel Pinedo-Vasquez is Director of International Programs, Center forEnvironmental Research and Conservation (CERC), Columbia University,1200 Amsterdam Ave, New York, NY 10027, USA, and senior scientist atthe Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR). He is conductingresearch on the socio-ecological impact of climate change, globalization andurbanization on livelihoods and environments of smallholders in Amazoniaand other tropical regions.

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