Community-based timber comanagement and the boundaries of people-centered conservation in Brazil

Brazil's protected areas for sustainable use represent a massive shift in conservation policy that operationalizes the widespread global trend for governments to share resource management rights, responsibilities, and benefits with local communities via comanagement. ICMBio's Normative Instruction 16/2011 guides communities in comanagement of timber in the protected areas in which they live. We assessed this norm operationalization and governance in 7 timber comanagement projects in 3 Amazonian extractive reserves. We conducted 52 semistructured interviews with 39 community and 13 external actors who represented government, timber market operators, private forest service providers, and nongovernmental organizations. Interviews were complemented with archival research, participant observation over 15 months, and assessments of timber comanagement processes and outcomes in 5 community workshops. The state consistently fulfilled its administrative role to approve community forest management plans and subsequent annual timber operational plans. It approached its more ambiguous comanagement responsibilities on a case-by-case basis. When complementary and supportive external actors were part of timber comanagement decision-making, better organizational, operational, and socioeconomic outcomes ensued, particularly in cases with strong intracommunity organization. Where trusting partnerships were cultivated, community members and external actors reported more positive perceptions of timber comanagement processes and outcomes. We also found that different actors influenced active and horizontal community engagement in governance, management of conflicts, integration of local management know-how, and hybrid benefit-sharing that satisfied reserve residents. While our results illustrate timber comanagement complexities, insights extend well beyond operational timber technicalities, shedding light on comanagement pathways for other biodiversity products (e.g., fisheries, non-timber products) within sustainable use protected areas that epitomize people-centered conservation.