FARMERS, FORESTS, AND THE STATE Essays on the Political Economy of Illegal Forest Use in Tanzania

Abstract

This series of essays explores risk perceptions and decision-making vis-Ã -vis state-owned and protected forests from the perspective of the rural agriculturalist. With comparative case studies of villages in Tanzania’s Kilombero Valley, I ask two overarching questions: 1) what are the costs and benefits agriculturalists consider when deciding whether to illegally cut from protected state forests? And 2) how do overlapping social, economic, and political institutions influence those calculations? Using extensive primary survey and interview data, as well as a list experiment to capture estimated rates of illegal forest cutting, I explore: 1) how and under what conditions community monitoring programs influence illegal forest use when monitors exist but are inactive; 2) how land titling processes, which are increasingly common throughout SSA, send signals of state capacity that spill over onto the forest sector, engendering forest policy compliance; and 3) how local knowledge and experience can be thought of as a form of power enabling locals to better evade forest restrictions. Together, these essays help explain, from the perspective of forest users, the signals that shape perceptions of state coercive capacity and elucidate important household behavioral trends in forest use.