ARI Working Paper Series

The emergence of diverse forest governance arrangements during the last two to three decades is changing forest tenure patterns in developing countries. An aspect of these arrangements that has yet to be studied adequately is the conferral of forest tenure to shifting cultivators and the rural poor in the interest of social equity. This conferral requires changes in forestland use from shifting cultivation to commercial plantations. This article assesses whether this private forest tenure model realizes policy intentions and is based on two case studies of state-sponsored rubber and teak plantations in shifting cultivation areas in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. The evidence indicates drawbacks to this model, such as the exclusion of the poor—the targeted beneficiaries—and the state-enforced commoditization of subsistence agricultural production, which fails to secure local livelihoods when beneficiaries show a preference for traditional tree-based agricultural or agroforestry systems. This discrepancy raises questions about the rationale of private forest tenure arrangements that extend beyond good governance and forest conservation.