Effects of a policy-induced income shock on forest-dependent households in the Peruvian Amazon

- We compared household incomes in two communities before and after a logging reform.
- Local logging incomes declined sharply despite assistance securing logging permits.
- Rules promoting sustainable harvest by enterprises were untenable for smallholders.
- NTFP harvest intensified, but for some, timber and NTFP incomes were interdependent.
- Age, origin, residence time, and boat assets predict high NTFP incomes post-logging.

This paper describes how forest-dependent communities in the Peruvian Amazon responded to forest policy changes meant to improve sustainability. These new laws emphasized block-based, collectivized extraction - a strategy incompatible with local communities' logging traditions and technical capacity. Field surveys before and after the policy change revealed a drastic reduction in local logging activities for households at all income levels. Non-Timber Forest Products (NTFPs) subsequently became more important to household cash incomes. However, only some households were able to shift to a more intensive and far-ranging pattern of NTFP harvest, particularly households with boats and motors. Others lost income from both logging and NTFP extraction because for many households, these income sources were interdependent. An increasing Gini coefficient signals potentially escalating household income inequality. Key lessons for biodiversity and forest-carbon interventions in tropical forests include 1) regulations designed to control large-scale extraction can lead to unnecessarily restricted access for small-scale extractors, and 2) potential shifts in extractive pressure should be taken into account when access to forest resources is curtailed.