Indigenous Land Tenure Insecurity Fosters Illegal Logging in Nicaragua

—Titling of Indigenous common-property lands in eastern Nicaragua is a necessary base for forest management. Titling alone will not be sufficient to assure sustainable practices, and the success of demarcation programmes rests on processes of negotiation leading up to tenure decisions; nevertheless, a review of decades of history in Indigenous territories suggests that key problems in forest resource administration are inextricably linked to tenure insecurities, as explorations of current resource disputes in seven villages demonstrate. Analysis also suggests that ineffective implementation of Nicaragua's multiethnic autonomy fosters illegality and resource mismanagement. Fundamental structural changes to improve inclusion, accountability and transparency are necessary. Remediation also requires inclusive multiscale negotiations of land claims and participatory mapping to resolve tenure disputes. INTRODUCTION In the North Atlantic Autonomous Region (RAAN) of Nicaragua unsustainable forestry practices spawn from land tenure insecurity and incomplete or conflictive devolution of authority after regional autonomy reforms in 1987. While illicit extraction does not only occur in Indigenous territories or in areas of tenure conflict, illegal hotspots often exhibit both traits. Land titling is not a magic bullet that can eliminate illegal logging, but it is an essential starting point. However, on a cautionary note, tenure insecurity may dampen legal harvests (Bohn and Deacon 2000). Thus, tenure resolution may encourage future commercial extraction, meaning that along with the need to strengthen institutions to carry out socially-equitable titling, reforms are also necessary to assure sustainable forest management (SFM). Illegality in the forest sector involves a multitude of activities that violate international, national or subnational legislation from the point of initial extraction to the final marketing of timber products (Ravenel and Granoff 2004, World Bank 2006b). It is a dynamic process with complex economic and political roots; as such, it cannot be dealt with merely through punitive measures as practices will continue to evolve to bypass norms (Casson and Obidzinski 2002). There may be justifiable interests that spur illegal logging, especially in areas of tenure insecurity. Moreover, inappropriate or unrealistic policies may make seemingly legitimate activities illegal. Simultaneously, forest sector corruption, defined as the unlawful use of public office for private gain (Smith and Walpole 2005), can lead to cynicism about and even outright rejection of governmental authority to oversee extraction. These caveats all exist in eastern Nicaragua and while they are often supported by legitimate criticisms of individual and institutional practices they are also grounded in tenure conflicts whereby Indigenous leaders have …