Common-Property Transformations and Market Integration

Chapter 5 combines perspectives from political ecology and studies of common property to analyze the dramatic transitions in economic strategies, property rights, and forest management that occurred following the prohibition of logging. The analysis follows the rise of private property as farmers moved to coffee, a new land-titling program privatized much of La Campa’s communally titled lands, and people doubted whether communal resources were safe from state expropriation. Farmers cleared mountain forests to plant coffee, road improvements accelerated market integration, and the growing population demanded land for fields and houselots. These processes are usually associated with deforestation; however, satellite image data show expanding forest cover during the 1987-2000 interval. The chapter indicates that despite market incentives to clear forests, deforestation was slowed by counteracting factors, which included the logging prohibition, natural successional processes in forests, and a transition to permanent agriculture.