Community Forest Management: conditions for its success in the Maya biosphere reserve in Petén, Guatemala

This master’s thesis analyses the conditions for successful Community Forest Management (CFM) in the Maya Biosphere Reserve in Petén, Guatemala. Following a comparative case-study, this thesis adopts the research question ‘Under what conditions does CFM in the Ma-ya Biosphere Reserve in Petén, Guatemala appear to be successful?’. By applying the theory of common-pool resource management, especially by Ostrom (1990, 1999), Agrawal (2003) and Pagdee et al. (2006), the conditions for successful CFM are ex-plained as having low cost collective action. The thesis reveals that the MBR has communities with successful and unsuccessful CFM. Conditions for successful CFM are low cost collective action, which include forest-dependency and a long and shared history (homogeneity) of the community, a small group size and clear property rights among other characteristics. Conditions for unsuccessful CFM are high cost collective action, which include a non-forest-dependency and heterogeneity among group members, a big group size (population pres-sure) and unclear property rights among other characteristics.