Collective action and conservation behavior: A comparison of two coffee organizations in the Peruvian Amazon

Background/Question/Methods

In recent years, conservation institutions in the Amazon region have focused increasingly on the urgency of changing present land use patterns to ameliorate rates of primary forest clearing by involving agrarian producer groups in sustainable forest management. However, a poor understanding of dynamic institutional arrangements of local forest user groups has impeded practical community-based conservation efforts. To address this problem, I conducted a study in the San Martin region in the northern Peruvian Amazon Basin, where coffee producers are implementing sustainable agro-ecological practices to combat deforestation.

I developed a model for collective action to explore relationships among group cohesion, collective identity, governance, and conservation behavior. I used a cross-sectional comparative design to compare these relationships in two large coffee-producer organizations: C.A.C. Oro Verde and APROECO, which differ in organizational orientation. The former emphasizes social development while the latter prioritizes eco-marketing. I developed an index to measure group cohesion, a questionnaire to measure collective identity and governance, and a follow-up interview to assess individual variables. The accessible population is comprised of farmers who migrated in the last 25 years due to the lack of cultivatable land in their region. A population of 102 farmers answered the questionnaire, 35 of whom were selected for a subsequent interview and farm visit.

Results/Conclusions

C.A.C. Oro Verde displayed a higher median score than APROECO on all variables. I found that collective identity and group cohesion (r = 0.46) and collective identity and governance (r = 0.44) were strongly correlated (p<0.05), but only for APROECO. Logistic regression confirmed that the two comparison groups are independent (p<0 .05), and that the only significant predictors of membership in the comparison groups are both collective identity (p<0.01) and group cohesion (p<0.01). Both governance (0.24) and conservation behavior (0.96) were insignificant in the model.

My results indicate a discrepancy in the correlations among variables between comparison groups, whereas the themes from interview responses support these observations. They demonstrate that organizational sustainability requires strong leadership, which in turn promotes the involvement of individuals in the decision-making processes pertaining to particular conservation behaviors. The observed differences in the degree and style of conservation as well as group motives may relate to differences in group orientation, both political and social in nature. In sum, community-based conservation efforts must consider the diverse social institutions which guide individual stakeholder groups in making decisions about sustainable forest management.