Empirical linkages between devolved tenure systems and forest conditions: Challenges, findings, and recommendations

•Articulation of advances made, research challenges and knowledge gaps•Future work needs to better delineate baselines for different forests.•It is also key to select more representative sites and innovative models.•Try to capture the relevant socioecological and institutional variables as well.

This final article summarizes the research advances that have been made, discusses challenges facing the research community attempting to link devolved forest tenure to forest condition, articulates the knowledge gaps that still remain, and suggests ways forward to improve knowledge and facilitate action on policy and practice. It is found that despite the achievements in defining the relevant variables and testing the causality between forest condition and devolved tenure, large empirical gaps exist in terms of quantity and quality of the evidence. Future research will need to better delineate baselines for different forests, select more balanced and representative sampling sites, capture the relevant biophysical and socioeconomic as well as institutional variables, and seek innovative modeling frameworks and methods.