Timber market actors' values on forest legislation: A case study from Colombia

Tropical forest of the world is home of several species of flora and fauna and it serves as a source of income for thousands of people. To maintain the current forest covers is a complex endeavor, there is a wide variety of ecosystems that compete with other land uses, there is also large volumes of tropical timber sold in the market that serve to reduce poverty, and a large number of forest dwellers pursuing different benefits from the forest. The objective of this study was to understand stakeholders´ values about Colombian forest legislation and its implications for legal timber trade. Participants of this study represented stakeholders from the three forest regions that produce 71% of the total timber from natural stands. By using Q methodology, a technique that combines qualitative and quantitative methods to systematically study subjectivity, four distinct perspectives were found. These perspectives show the complexity to enforce the law because this does not include regional particularities, there are high levels of bureaucracy as a product of the previous factor; there is also a lack of quality in the forest management plans and government transparency. Although the management of natural resources of Colombia is decentralized, forest legislation is part of a comprehensive national legal system that does not consider the wide variety of forest types that require different forestry practices and serve several social needs. This implies that effective compliance with forest law rests on a devolution of the legislation that could include particularities of each forest productive region.