Forestry & Industry Development Programme in Bolivia (FIBOL)

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Institutional framework

The role of the public institutions as regards the forestry sector is defined in the forest legislation. The following public institutions are involved:

-    Ministry of Sustainable Development (Ministerio de Desarrollo Sostenible)
-    Forest Superintendence (Superintendencia Forestal)
-    Regional Governments (Prefecturas Departamentales)
-    Municipalities (Municipios)

The Ministry of Sustainable Development is responsible for forest sector policy development, forest resource monitoring and definition of technical norms for forestry-related activities. Within the Ministry, the responsibility for the forestry sector lies on the Vice-ministry of Renewable Resources and more specifically on the General Direction of Forestry.

The Forest Superintendency is a technical institution with responsibility to grant forest concessions rights, review and approve forest management plans and operations plans, and to supervise the compliance to the plans and the technical norms. The head-office is in Santa Cruz, with several regional and local offices.

The Regional Governments are responsible for granting the use of public forces (police and military) in order to protect the forest concessions from encroachment. They also hold the responsibility to develop and execute reforestation and forestry research projects. Furthermore, they are supervising the compliance with the Environmental legislation.

The Municipalities are responsible for identifying available forestland that can be conceded to the Local Forestry Associations (se below). They also give technical assistance to these associations so they can formulate their management plans.

The private companies are mainly organized within the Forestry Chamber of Bolivia (Cámara Forestal de Bolivia), a business institution that is looking after their members' interests. Promabosque is an independent technical branch of the Forestry Chamber that provides technical services to the affiliated members. The Forestry Chamber has about120 members ranging from forest concession holders, sawmills, secondary processing enterprises, carpentries and trading companies.

Apart from the organized forest companies, local rural people can also get together and form Local Forestry Associations (Agrupaciones Sociales del Lugar, ASL). Once constituted, these associations can be granted forestry concessions where they can operate within the framework of a forest management plan and annual operational plans.

Indigenous communities are granted Indigenous Community Forestland (Tierras Comunitarias de Origen, TCO). Like forest concessions, the TCOs need forest management plans and annual operation plans in order to operate their forests.  The indigenous people have their own organizations representing them, like CIDOB.