Institutional conflict and forest policy effectiveness: The case of the Costa Rican institutional reform

This article presents a qualitative analysis of the reasons why Costa Rica, despite its advanced forest policy, still has problems in implementing forest-friendly management practices. A multi-stakeholder analysis shows that the Costa Rican institutional reform fails to modify the payoffs that private stakeholders obtain from not complying with laws and regulations. Deficient monitoring mechanisms at the governmental and private levels reduce the efficacy of formal sanctions. Informal norms lead private stakeholders to comply with conventional logging rather than with forest-friendly or sound logging practices.