Citizen monitoring promotes informed and inclusive forest governance in Liberia

Global forest loss depends on decisions made in the rural, often poor communities living beside the Earth's remaining forests. Gov-ernance problems in these forest-edge communities contribute to rapid deforestation and household vulnerability. In coordina-tion with experimental studies in 5 other countries, we evaluate a program that recruits, trains, and deploys citizens to monitor communal forestland in 60 communities in rural Liberia. The year-long intervention is designed to promote more informed and inclusive resource governance, so that that citizens' preferences (and not just leaders' interests) are reflected in forest manage-ment. In our control communities, households are uninformed and disengaged; leaders' authority is unchecked. The program both engages and mobilizes community members: households are better informed and participate more in the design and enforce-ment of rules around forest use. They also report receiving more material benefits from outside investors' activities in their com-munity forests. The chiefs who lead these communities attest to strengthened accountability. Using both on-the-ground environ-mental assessments and remotely sensed data, we find no effects on forest use or deforestation. Households do not favor more con-servation, and, thus, more inclusive management does not reduce forest use. Conservation likely requires compensating community members for foregoing forest use; citizen monitoring, we argue, could ensure that such schemes enjoy popular support and do not just benefit local elites.

Automated summary

The study evaluates a program aimed at increasing citizen participation in forest resource governance in rural communities, finding that households are better informed and participate more in rule design and enforcement, but do not reduce forest use. Conservation may require compensating community members for foregoing forest use, and citizen monitoring could ensure popular support for such schemes.