The Property Rights Index (PRIF) can be used worldwide to compare different forest governance systems

Abstract

The bundle of forest landowners' rights largely varies from one jurisdiction to another. On a global scale, the diversity of forest management regime and property rights systems is such that finding comprehensive and standardised approaches for governance analysis purposes is a challenging task. This paper explores the use of the Property Rights Index for Forestry (PRIF) as an analytical tool based on five rights domains (access, withdrawal, management, exclusion, and alienation) to assess how regulatory frameworks impact the owners' forest property rights. We show that PRIF is a reliable index for various governance arrangements, considering its ability to score forest owners' freedom to decide in case studies that range from the Amazon area (Brazil), Misiones province (Argentina) and Quebec (Canada) to community-managed Nepalese and Mexican forests. PRIF scores obtained in these diverse governance arrangements confirm that the governance of forests held by entities other than the state is driven by two factors: the owner's ability to exclude the public from the use of his/her own resource and the owner's freedom to decide on the forest management goals. These factors explained 66.44% of the variance in our sample and should be considered as the main potential drivers while implementing any new international or national policy. Despite having a few limitations, the PRIF is a promising governance indicator and has been proven to perform well for various socioeconomic and legal contexts.

Figure 1

Overview of the Property Right Index in Forestry (PRIF): CA-QCow: Canada-Quebec non-producer; CA-QCpr: Canada-Quebec producer; BR-AM: Brazil-Amazonas; NP: Nepal; AR-MI: Argentina-Misiones; MX-EJ: Mexico-ejido, grouped into five property rights categories (PRCs). Each indicator was assessed on a scale ranging from 0 (“right fully restricted”) to 100 (“no restrictions apply”). The property rights index (PRIF, last column) is the mean of the 5 categories. The jurisdictions are oriented along the vertical axis and are sorted in decreasing order of PRIF values.

Figure 2

Principal component analysis of the property rights distribution in forestry. The analysis considers the values identified for the 10 sub-categories of rights as variable: Access rights (Access), withdrawal rights for timber (Wd_Timber), withdrawal rights for non-wood forest products (Wd_NWFPs), rights of land use change (Mgt_Land use), rights of management planning (Mgt_Planning), rights of operational management (Mgt_Operational), exclusion of public access (Ex_PubAccess), exclusion for the use of NWFPs (Ex_NWFPs), alienation rights for forest land (Alien_Forestland) and alienation rights for timber (Alien_Timber). Part (a) refers to the correlation circle and the individual factor map and part (b) depicts the variables’ contribution. The first factor (F1) is freedom to restrict public access and to restrict withdrawal of NWFPs, and the second factor (F2) is freedom to formulate management goals and to make decisions regarding operational management.