World Development 128 (2020) 104837

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World Development
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/worlddev

Is collective titling enough to protect forests? Evidence from

Afro-descendant communities in the Colombian Pacific region
Maria Alejandra Vélez a,⇑, Juan Robalino b, Juan Camilo Cardenas c, Andrea Paz d, Eduardo Pacay e
a
School of Economics and Center for the Study of Security and Drugs (CESED), Universidad de Los Andes, Bogotá, Colombia
b
Escuela de Economía e Instituto de Investigaciones en Ciencias Económicas, Universidad de Costa Rica and CATIE, Costa Rica
c
School of Economics, Universidad de Los Andes, Bogotá, Colombia
d
Biology Program, City University of New York and Graduate Center, City University of New York, United States
e
EfD Central America, CATIE, Costa Rica

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: During the mid-1990s, one of the most ambitious land reforms in recent decades took place in Colombia.
Available online 31 December 2019 The reform recognized collective land rights of almost 6 million hectares to Afro-Colombian communi-
ties, with the dual goals of improving livelihoods and preserving valuable ecosystems. We estimate the
Keywords: impact of this collective land titling program on forest cover using panel data and a difference-in-
Afro-descendants difference empirical strategy. We find that overall, collective titling significantly reduces deforestation
Collective property rates, but the effect varies substantially by sub-region. We observe that the larger effects are in Nariño
Colombia
and Valle del Cauca. Our qualitative analysis suggest that this might be the result of local community-
Land titling
Forest cover
based organization defining the rules for community use of natural resources and the expulsion of private
Impact evaluation companies dedicated to timber exploitation and oil palm plantations. We conclude that under the ade-
quate conditions, collective titling can lead to forest conservation.
Ó 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
The conservation of forests for the provision of ecosystem ser-
vices continues to be one of the most important and difficult chal-
lenges in current times. The short-run rents driving extractive
activities seeking timber and minerals from forested lands, and
pressures from expanding agriculture and livestock, threaten the
capacity of forests to provide valuable ecosystem services such as
sustaining local food, climate regulation, and supporting biodiver-
sity (Geist and Lambin, 2001, 2002; Lambin et al., 2001).
Multiple strategies for conserving forests have emerged. These
include the declaration of protected areas through national or
regional parks, the privatization of land for conservation by indi-
viduals and NGOs, and the assignment of collective property rights
to local communities (Robinson, Holland, & Naughton-Treves,
2014). Today, 27% of forest in the developing world is communal
property or used by communities through joint access arrange-
ments (Agrawal, 2007 citing White and Martin, 2002). However,
there is mixed evidence on how effective these strategies are in
stopping deforestation (see for example Ostrom & Nagendra,
⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: mavelez@uniandes.edu.co (M.A. Vélez), robalino@catie.ac.cr
(J. Robalino), jccarden@uniandes.edu.co (J.C. Cardenas), epacay@catie.ac.cr
(E. Pacay).
2006; Robinson et al., 2014; Blackman, Corral, Lima, & Asner,
2017; Blackman & Veit, 2018).
Using satellite imagery and panel data, our goal in this article is
to analyze whether the assignment of collective property rights to
groups of ancestral Afro-descendant communities in the Pacific
region of Colombia has changed deforestation rates in areas of high
biodiversity and high levels of poverty (Peña, Vélez, Cárdenas,
Perdomo, & Matajira, 2017).
The process of titling land to Afro-Colombian communities in
the Pacific Region began after the 1991 Colombian Constitution
(Velez, 2011). This process has led to the titling of almost six mil-
lion hectares over the last two decades. Created as a social policy
while conserving valuable ecosystems, collective land titling was
based on the premise that Afro-Colombian communities occupying
territories with high ecological value could consolidate sustainable
management of their natural resources (Ng’weno, 2001; Offen,
2003; Plant & Hvalkof, 2001; World Bank, 2005; Sánchez &
Roldan, 2002; Sánchez & García, 2006).
We estimate the impact of collective land-titling to Afro-
descendent communities in Colombia on forest cover using point-
level panel data along with difference-in-difference models. We
use forest data from the 1990–2000, 2000–2005 and 2005–2010
periods. We control for community and period fixed effects, imply-
ing that fixed differences in communities and periods would not
bias our estimations of the effects of titling on deforestation. Our

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2019.104837
0305-750X/Ó 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
2 M.A. Vélez et al. / World Development 128 (2020) 104837
identification assumption is the inexistence of unobservable effects
that vary both over time and by communities, and that are simulta-
neously associated with titling. Therefore, we implicitly assume
that if titling would not have occurred from one period to the other,
the changes in newly titled communities would have been the same
as those in communities were titling status did not change. We also
implicitly assume that the effect of titling is constant over time.
We find that, overall, titling in the Pacific Region has decreased
deforestation by more than a one percentage point. These effects
represent more than 27% reductions of what would have been
the deforestation rates without titling. These results remain robust
with the inclusion of control variables that capture market dynam-
ics, such as distance to navigable rivers, distance to roads, distance
to forest frontiers and the presence of illicit crops. When we sepa-
rate the analysis by sub-regions, our results show that collective
titling did not increase deforestation in any of the regions we stud-
ied. In fact, we find important and statistically significant effects
reducing deforestation in two of the four sub-regions studied:
Nariño and Valle del Cauca.
We also conducted 54 interviews with community leaders in
each of the sub-regions included in our study to understand the
titling process, the drivers of deforestation and the channels through
which collective property might protect forests. Our interviews pro-
vide evidence that the reduction of deforestation in titled communi-
ties is explained mainly by two forces: i) local community-based
organization defining the rules for community use of natural
resources, mainly in Valle as also reported in Velez, 2011; and ii)
the expulsion of private companies dedicated to timber exploitation
in Valle, and mainly oil palm in Nariño, both activities identified as
important drivers of deforestation in the region (Armenteras,
Cabrera, Rodríguez, & Retana, 2013). In the absence of collective
titling and community organization triggered by this collective
titling process, the same trend of resource extraction, and agricul-
tural expansion from previous decades would have continued.
The importance of evaluating the impact of collective titling on
forest cover is immense. First, the Pacific region is inhabited by a
historically marginalized Afro-descendent population (Galvis-
Aponte, Moyano, & Alba-Fajardo, 2016) representing about 4% of
the country’s population and 61.5% of the population in the Pacific1
(DANE, 2005). Second, the Pacific is considered one of the most
diverse regions on the planet, due to its high levels of endemic species
and species variety (WWF, 2002). The natural wealth of the territories
entitled to Afro-Colombian communities, apart from their biodiver-
sity and 5% of the country’s natural forest, includes mineral resources
that have historically been part of the region’s economic culture, as
well as part of its conflict. In addition, it has valuable ecosystems
due to the water cycle and consequently for the provision of environ-
mental services in the region and beyond. Third, the amount of land
that has been titled is quite substantial and some argue that this
effort might be one of the most important land reforms in Latin
America (Offen, 2003). Similar collective titling processes are taking
place in territories occupied by Afro-descendants in Ecuador,
Panama, and Brazil; thus, our results could be useful to promote
and design effective programs. Fourth, our study is relevant for a vari-
ety of branches in academic literature discussing the role of property
rights on conservation (Baland & Platteau, 2003; Schlager & Ostrom,
1992). Finally, at country level, Law 70, supporting the collective
titling process, is currently under public discussion and further devel-
opment in the context of the implementation of REDD+ projects. Sci-
entific data will provide crucial information for this discussion to
design and implement conservation projects in the region.
1
Afro-descendants in the country make up about 10.31% of the total population
according to official records (de Cultura, 2010). In fact, after Brazil and Venezuela,
Colombia is the third country in Latin America with the biggest population of Afro-
descendants (Freire, Diaz-Bonilla, Schwartz Orellana, Soler Lopez, & Carbonari, 2018).
Our results complement previous studies that find that the
titling process had positive impacts on certain socio-economic out-
comes. Peña et al. (2017) estimated the impact of collective land
titling on the well-being of Afro-descendent communities in
Colombia. Their findings suggest that collective land titling creates
more secure property rights and a longer time horizon for house-
holds in collective territories, which leads to investment in their
private physical and human capital. Our results suggest that house-
holds and communities might also be investing in natural capital.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows. In the following sec-
tion, we discuss the literature related to property rights and forest
conservation and propose a theory of change as a theoretical frame-
work. Then, we describe the specific context of the Pacific region and
the scope of Law 70. In the third section, we explain the data used
and our empirical strategy. The fourth section presents and dis-
cusses our results based on both our qualitative and quantitative
data. Finally, our conclusions are included in the final section.
2. Background
2.1. Relevant literature: empirical evidence on collective titling
The relevance of evaluating the impact of conservation policies
is given by the magnitude and greater amount of resources spent
(James, Gaston, & Balmford, 1999; James, Gaston, & Balmford,
2001; Pearce, 2005). However, research focuses on the effects of
restricting land use by using command and control policies such
as protected areas on deforestation outcomes (see Andam,
Ferraro, Pfaff, Sanchez-Azofeifa, & Robalino, 2008; Joppa & Pfaff,
2010; Sims, 2010; Ferraro, Hanauer, & Sims, 2011; Pfaff,
Robalino, Sanchez-Azofeifa, Andam, & Ferraro, 2009; Pfaff,
Robalino, Lima, Sandoval, & Herrera, 2013; Pfaff, Robalino,
Herrera, & Sandoval, 2015; Robalino, Sandoval, Barton, Chacon, &
Pfaff, 2015) and the effects of incentive policies such as payments
for ecosystem services (Alix-Garcia, Shapiro, & Sims, 2012;
Arriagada, Ferraro, Sills, Pattanayak, & Cordero-Sancho, 2012;
Robalino & Pfaff, 2012).
Evaluating the impact of titling (mainly collective) programs on
environmental outcomes and in particular, forest cover, has been
less common. In fact, we have identified few cases, all in Latin
America, that aim to establish causality by controlling for possible
confounding factors (See for example Liscow, 2013 in Nicaragua
and Buntaine, Hamilton, & Millones, 2015 in Ecuador). Similarly
to our study, Blackman et al. (2017) evaluate the impact of titling
collective lands to indigenous communities in the Peruvian Ama-
zon using community-level longitudinal data derived from high-
resolution satellite images and found that tiling reduces both clear-
ing and forest disturbance. Blackman and Veit (2018) extend this
study to other countries in the Amazon region to evaluate the
impact of indigenous community management in Bolivia, Brazil,
Ecuador, and Colombia. Using propensity score matching to ana-
lyze the effects on 2001–2013 deforestation and forest carbon
emissions, they find that indigenous community management
reduces both deforestation and forest carbon emissions in Bolivia,
Brazil and Colombia. They did not find an effect for Ecuador. Also,
for Colombia, Bonilla and Higuera (2016) evaluate the impact of
protected areas, including collective lands owned by Afro-
Colombian communities in the Pacific Region using non-
protected lands as controls. Additionally, Romero and Saavedra
(2018) focus on titling and use different types of control such as
national parks, indigenous lands, forest reserves, and undeclared
lands. Our analysis, however, differs in two important points. First,
our control observations only involve Afro-Colombian communi-
ties without titles. It is important to note that choices of control
observations change the counterfactual and, therefore, the
 M.A. Vélez et al. / World Development 128 (2020) 104837
research questions. In particular, we address how titling affects
Afro-Colombian communities. This implies that our research ques-
tion is related to how individuals in these communities change
behavior by estimating what they would have done in the absence
of titling. Using other forest areas outside Afro-Colombian commu-
nities includes within the counterfactual how other regimes would
have behaved, and the question is related to other regimes. Second,
we explore regional differences within the Pacific to capture the
heterogeneous organizational dynamics and deforestation drivers
in each department.
As Blackman et al. (2017) reviewed, the rest of the literature
exploring the relation between collective titling or community-
based management and forest cover, involves more than 100 pub-
lished papers without aiming at establishing causality but giving
important insights regarding the mechanisms behind land titling
as a conservation tool. Many of the articles also compare the effec-
tiveness of collective lands versus other forms of protected lands.
Focusing on Latin America, mainly Mexico, several studies explore
the variables determining conservation outcomes (See for example
Alix-Garcia, 2007; Barsimantov & Kendall, 2012; Ellis & Porter-
Bolland, 2008; Rodriguez Solorzano & Fleischman, 2018; Tucker,
1999; Vergara-Asenjo & Potvin, 2014; Holland et al., 2014;
Holland et al., 2017).
Aggregate results show overall favorable outcomes for decen-
tralized forest management although it really depends on the local
institutional design. Larson (2011) reports a review from 152 for-
ests in nine countries showing that ‘‘forest degradation is inversely
related to strong collective action and rule enforcement at the local
level” (p.542). Porter-Bolland et al. (2012) present a meta-analysis
of 40 protected areas and 33 community-managed forests in the
tropics and evaluate deforestation rates. They find that on average,
community managed forests present lower and less variable rates
of deforestation than protected areas. Cronkleton and Larson
(2015), report a study across 21 indigenous and mestizo communi-
ties in Napo, Ecuador, and Huánuco and Ucayali, Peru, concluding
that even though formal recognition of rights is an ideal situation,
it is not always a sufficient factor to provide security. Robinson
et al. (2014) reviewed a large set of empirical studies in order to
identify the relationship between the form of tenure, tenure secu-
rity, and deforestation outcomes. They report that results seem to
be context dependent. Referring to communal land, the authors
report positive conservation outcomes for Central America but less
so for Africa, given regional conflicts and/or weak governance2.
Based on the reviewed literature and focusing on the effect of
collective tilting, we next offer a theory of change for explaining
the mechanisms through which the assignment of collective prop-
erty rights to the Afro-Colombian groups could have led to a reduc-
tion in the rates of deforestation observed, compared to those
lands where no collective titling occurred.
2.2. Theory of change: a multi-level approach of incentives and
institutions
Groups that share a common pool resource such as forested
land will have to solve two main challenges. One, to sustain the
capacity of such an asset to produce a stream of net positive ben-
efits for the community over time, and second, the collective action
problem among group members. The first challenge involves a
problem of inter-temporal preferences and the second one implies
a dilemma between individual and group incentives. The assign-
ment of property rights to the members of the group as suggested
by the empirical evidence discussed above, is key to solving these
2
See also Robinson et al. (2018), who present a framework that conceptualizes the
relationship between land tenure, conservation outcomes and land management
decisions.
3
two challenges but the mechanisms may differ depending on
whether the property rights are assigned individually or collec-
tively. Individual property rights, adequately enforced, may reduce
the collective action problem by excluding any other potential for-
est user and leave all possible streams of costs and benefits in the
hands of the owner. When the property rights over the forested
land are assigned to a group, its members have incentives to
exploit the forest, capture the private benefits and spread the costs
over the rest of the group by overexploiting the forest resources
(Hardin, 1968). However, as discussed by Ostrom (1990) and
Ostrom and Nagendra (2006), the institutional arrangements of
the group could eventually deal with this problem. As for the case
of the inter-temporal challenge, both individual and collective
ownership will be subject to the behavioral problem of impatience,
namely that higher discount rates will induce exploiting the forest
resources in the short term, threatening the possibility of sustain-
ing the forest capacity to provide goods and ecosystem services
over longer periods. Further, the community’s institutional
arrangements may include mechanisms that could alter such dis-
count rates through culture, norms, and regulations.
There is broad-ranging agreement that the lack of property
rights becomes an obstacle to economic development and the effi-
cient use of resources. Collective rights over a shared resource cre-
ate incentives for community members to stay vigilant and impede
invasion by intruders, as well as to invest in resources for their
future benefit (Baland & Platteau, 2003; Schlager & Ostrom,
1992). In theory, collective titling constitutes the first step towards
a sustainable use of resources (Ostrom, 1990). It is quite likely that
assigning more secure property rights to these communities will
have a political and cultural impact on allowing the preservation
of traditions and stopping outsiders from threatening their liveli-
hoods and the natural base. However, it is not straightforward
what such titling of lands could lead to regarding the use of the
natural base (See Blackman et al., 2017 for a discussion of these
mechanisms). Internal forces emerging from the now more auton-
omous organizations can generate different processes of land use
change, and interestingly, this can work in either direction. Decen-
tralizing forest management and empowering communities could
lead to greater autonomy in establishing local enterprises based
on cash crops and timber extraction, producing much needed mon-
etary resources, especially if poverty is widespread among its
members. However, this would entail reducing the possibility of
higher levels of governance to impose national agendas, such as,
conservation. One could envision organizations craving fresh cash
resources signing agreements, even within the law, to exploit tim-
ber products with external companies if, for example, the commu-
nity organizations were to participate in value chains active in the
region, leading to higher deforestation rates. Alternatively, such
devolution of power could mean the strengthening of a territorial
occupation model that could align, with the right local institutions,
the goals of forest conservation with cultural and economic sys-
tems based on a more sustainable use of forests. Collective prop-
erty rights over the territories inhabited by these communities
can become crucial institutional determinants of the decisions
made at the level of the community organizations in charge of
defining yearly action plans in various ways. First, these rights over
the land can extend the time horizon for which the community
would evaluate the net present value of the stream of benefits
and costs between conservation and exploitation. Secondly, secure
property rights could deter the arrival of external forces, such as
legal but also illegal sawmills and illegal mining, both of which
drive deforestation. Third, under a more formal property rights
regime, communities could access financial mechanisms such as
the Program on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest
Degradation in Developing Countries (REDD+) by generating car-
bon credits from conservation.
4 M.A. Vélez et al. / World Development 128 (2020) 104837

Our theory of change is based on three layers or scales (micro, of social norms and self-governed institutions to solve the collective
meso, macro) at which these mechanisms interact, and draws action dilemma among the beneficiaries of the land title.
directly from the Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD)
framework (McGinnis, 2011; Ostrom, 2005) and the multi-layer
2.3. Collective titling in the Pacific region
framework developed in Cárdenas and Ostrom (2004).
At the micro-behavioral level, group members make decisions
In Colombia, indigenous groups gained recognition of their col-
about using the shared resources from the forested land pursuing
lective occupation and governance of the territory since 1890 with
their well-being, based on the incentives to exploit or preserve the
Law 89 (Plant & Hvalkof, 2001). Later, during the 1980s, indigenous
forested land. This is the local action arena in the IAD model in which
communities received collective titles of barren lands in the Amazon
interactions between community members and their physical envi-
region under the legal form of ‘‘resguardos” (reserves) (Zabala,
ronment lead to individual and group outcomes. At the meso level, a
2017), but these ethnic organizations were not fully recognized until
number of formal and informal community arrangements will affect
19913. In contrast, Afro-Colombian communities, despite occupying
those incentives for the group members. Social norms, intra-group
the Pacific region since the seventeenth century, did not receive this
regulations, conventions and traditions can all be part of these insti-
formal and legal recognition up until the new Constitution in 1991.
tutional mechanisms that can deter or enhance certain conservation
In fact, until 1991, Afro-Colombian communities inhabited the Pacific
or exploitation activities. The operating and collective choice rules
region, on lands that lacked formal arrangements, regarding individ-
in the IAD framework and the identity and group-context layers in
ual or communal property rights. For the Colombian Government this
the Cardenas & Ostrom model are in operation here. Finally, at
entire region, ranging from Ecuador to Panamá and adjacent to the
macro level, certain legal structures (IAD Constitutional Rules) will
western Andes to the East, which includes mainly four subregions
constrain the meso and micro level decision making depending on
(Chocó, Valle del Cauca, Cauca and Nariño4) was considered a massive
the capacity of the state to enforce such rules.
forest reserve of ‘‘unoccupied lands” with no recognition of the ances-
Let us now put these in operation for the case of these collective
tral presence of Afro- Colombian communities (Plant & Hvalkof, 2001).
titling of lands to the Afro-Colombian communities in case.
Afro-Colombian communities occupied the territory since the
Through the recognition of these rights, several mechanisms enter
colonial period under rather low densities in forested lands with
into operation, altering the use of forests. First of all, the titling
informal arrangements and ‘de facto’ private holdings with no legal
reduces the costs for the group members to signal to outsiders that
titles to support them, but social norms and conventions that
the access to these resources is now limited to the members of the
evolved over time (Velez, 2011). Contrary to indigenous organiza-
group, and increases the probability that authorities intervene on
tions, these Afro-descendent communities did not have hierarchical
behalf of the community assembly to expel or restrain intruders.
structures for governing their internal affairs, although leaders
Secondly, with the assignment of the collective title, the time hori-
played an important role in organizing various community projects.
zon is now extended for the members of the community, in the
Before 1991, the Pacific region was a ‘de facto’ open access land
sense that those interested in staying in this land can be assured
with no resource governance or rules imposed by Afro-Colombian
that the rights of access will remain for a much longer time. In
communities (Velez, 2011) and which was at the mercy of several
our particular case, the legal arrangement, expressed in the consti-
external actors trying to extract resources from the territory. In this
tution itself, precludes the fractioning or selling parcels of the col-
context, lessons from the indigenous movement that had raised
lective title by group members. With longer time horizons, the net
similar concerns and had achieved success in getting their collec-
present value of conservation against exploitation increases
tive rights recognized, led these new Afro- movements to petition
(Baland & Platteau, 1996; De Janvry & Sadoulet, 2001). For shorter
for the recognition of their self-governing structures and their his-
periods and under insecure or undefined property rights, the net
torical occupation of these lands.
present value of extraction of the resources will outweigh the
The new Colombian Constitution included a transitory article
costs, including the opportunity cost of foregone ecosystem ser-
(55), which acknowledged the ancestral occupation of these terri-
vices from the forest. As the timeframe extends, the net present
tories by Afro-Colombian communities and mandated that the
value of those ecosystem goods and services will win over the
State was obliged to recognize and formalize their right to these
opportunity cost of the foregone income from not exploiting the
lands as ethnic groups. In 1993, a new law (Ley 70/1993) was
material resources in the short run.
issued, establishing the path for the titling of these lands to com-
The meso and macro levels will play a fundamental role in deter-
munity organizations that became the authority over communal
mining, first legally, the possibility of extending this time horizon,
land. Law 70 triggered the formation of Community Councils, the
and culturally, through social norms in building agreements among
new political local entity in charge of managing the collective
the community members that a local livelihood based on the
lands. The newly formed Community Councils gained the right to
forested land is possible. A great deal of the initial collective titling
exploit the natural resources in their delimited territory and the
cases (See Appendix 2 for the timeline of historical events in each of
right to exclude outsiders (Velez, 2011). Using the typology by
the four subregions) includes motivations by the original commu-
Schlager and Ostrom (1992) to classify the heterogeneous bundle
nity associations to build a self-determined model of livelihood
of territorial rights, these Afro-Colombian communities gained
based on the Afro-Colombian rural identity. Also, the legal frame-
access, extraction, management, and exclusion rights and only
work will facilitate the exclusion of outsiders competing for extract-
lacked ‘‘alienation rights” for the land5, impeding these communi-
ing short-run rents from these forested lands. In fact, as one can see
in the timeline of these four subregions (See Figs. A5–A8 of Appen-
3
dix 2), several initial collective titling processes were motivated by See an evolution of indigenous rights at http://www.banrepcultural.org/bib-
lioteca-virtual/credencial-historia/numero-146/estado-y-pueblos-indigenas-en-el-
the fear that mining and timber companies were interested in these
siglo-xix.
extraction processes, along with more efficient technologies, threat- 4
In the pacific region, the Community Councils of Afro-Colombian communities
ening the possibilities of establishing a more sustainable livelihood are distributed (by number of councils), according to the shapefiles obtained from the
system for the groups occupying these territories. Agencia Nacional de Tierras (ANT) and the Departamento Administrativo Nacional de
Estadística (DANE), as follows: 34.29% in Choco, 28.57% in Nariño, 22.86% in Valle del
In sum, the collective titling process reduces the cost of excluding
Cauca (mainly in Buenaventura municipality), 10.29% in Cauca, 2.86% in Antioquia
outsiders interested in extractive activities, extends the time hori- and 1.14% in Risaralda.
zon improving the net present value of conservation benefits against 5
Also, they do not have access to the sub-soil that belongs to the state but have
the short-run rents from extraction, and encourages the generation priority to access a mining concession in case one is requested by a third party.
 M.A. Vélez et al. / World Development 128 (2020) 104837
1991 1993 1994
Colombian Constitution Law 70 - Titling Credit by the First
Transitory Article 55: of collective World Bank to collective
Announce creation of lands start titling titling in
new Law to recognize process Chocó
right to collective
property
Fig. 1. Collective Titling Process to Afro Colombian Communities.
ties from fracturing, dividing or selling their lands, nor use it as col-
lateral for credit purposes. These characteristics implied a clear def-
inition of the property rights that prevented a future contra-reform
or pressures to sell their lands.
The process that led to this collective titling reform included a
decade of social organization supported by Catholic missionaries
(e.g. Claretianos) and indigenous organizations that inspired an
Afro-rural movement (e.g. Movimiento Cimarrón and the PCN -
Proceso de Comunidades Negras) aiming to empower the commu-
nities in the region (see Escobar, Pedrosa, Cárdenas, & Correa,
1996; Grueso, Rosero, & Escobar, 1998). Such social movements
emerging throughout the Chocó region (northern sub-region of
the Pacific coast) and Valle del Cauca (mainly in the city of Bue-
naventura), were also responding to an increase in pressures from
industrial logging and mining projects, in many cases authorized
by environmental and governmental authorities. The tension
between these external forces for extracting resources and the
internal ones associated with the subsistence economies of these
ethnic communities set the stage for this land reform.
With the mandate from Law 70 in 1993, the national government
and its recently created Ministry of the Environment requested
financial support from the World Bank in 1994 for the execution
of this law and titling the first 2.3 million hectares (Sánchez &
Roldan, 2002). The first collective title, over half a million hectares,
was issued in 1996, to the peasant organization ACIA, newly orga-
nized as a ‘‘Community Council” under the name COCOMACIA. Dur-
ing the following two decades, this process led to the collective
titling of more than 170 Community Councils accounting for almost
six million hectares (see Fig. 1 for a summary of the process).
The process of issuing these collective land titles, along with the
local rules and structures required from these community organi-
zations, created an entirely new form of local political governance
that increased the visibility and bargaining power of the region
(Velez, 2011). Further, and influenced by the ILO 169 (Indigenous
and Tribal Peoples Convention, 1989 (No. 169)), a later Decree
(1320 in 1998) extended the autonomy and recognition of these
communities by requiring prior consultation to implement any
project that could potentially affect their territories.
3. Methods
3.1. Qualitative data
To explore the mechanisms that could have operated through
these titling processes and evaluate the impacts on deforestation,
we undertook a twofold strategy that included a quantitative panel
analysis of satellite imagery and a qualitative analysis of interviews
conducted with 54 community leaders in each of the sub-regions
included in our study. Interviews aimed to understand the titling
process, the drivers of deforestation, the channels through which
collective property might protect forests and the perceived impact
of the collective titling.
5
1996 1998 2010 2019
Decree 1320 - End of More than
Right to prior period of 170 CC with
Consultation study. Up to collective
141 CC with titles
collective
titles
For each interview, we use the deforestation maps drawn up for
each sub-region for the periods of 1990, 2000, 2005 and 2010 and
asked the interviewees to explain, according to their perceptions
and local views, the drivers of deforestation in each period. Each
interview lasted between 45 and 75 min. We conducted 13 inter-
views in Chocó, 13 in Valle del Cauca, 10 in Cauca, 14 in Nariño,
and 4 with national experts6.
It is important to note that these leaders were not chosen ran-
domly. We relied upon our previously existing network of local
contacts to identify leaders with knowledge of the territory and
deforestation process. We identified leaders that were interested
in discussing the challenges and problems associated to deforesta-
tion in the region. Also, and given the security concerns present
(some drivers of deforestation give rise to security concerns), we
only interviewed leaders recommended by our contacts to avoid
exposing them or the researchers to significant risks.
3.2. Quantitative data
Our area of analysis involves a total of 141 Afro-Colombian com-
munities that received titles between 1996 and 2010 (See Fig. 2). We
obtained information of official forest cover data from 1990, 2000,
2005 and 2010 and forest cover change information for 1990–
2000, 2000–2005 and 2005–2010 developed and provided by the
Instituto de Hidrología, Meteorología y Estudios Ambientales
(IDEAM). Both the forest cover and the forest cover change are devel-
oped by IDEAM based on freely available Landsat imagery at a 30 m
resolution (Cabrera, Galindo, & Vargas, 2011). In a given time period,
a pixel can only go from one state to another (e.g, Forest to Non-
Forest) since only the first and last year of the period are available,
however, a deforested pixel can indeed be reforested in the next time
period. We used official communal titles limits from 2012 from the
Instituto Geografico Agustín Codazzi (IGAC). Within the study peri-
ods, we know that 50, 64 and 27 communities were titled during the
1990–2000, 2000–2005 and 2005–2010 periods respectively.
We intersected the IDEAM forest covers with the official collec-
tive territories provided by IGAC to obtain forest cover both for the
entire region and by community. Within these communities, we
drew 100,000 random points in an area of 53,087 km27. We
focused on 49,193 points that were covered by forest in 1990. This
6
We follow a standard IRB process. We submitted our protocol to the ethical
committee at the School of Management of University of Los Andes. The protocol was
classified as minimal risk and approved (Memo No. 36, 2018). For the interviews we
used an informed verbal consent. We explained participants that answers were
anonymous, that the activity did not imply any risk and that they could leave at any
time without any justification. Interviewed was recorded when authorized.
7
Every point can thus fall within a pixel of ~30m resolution (that is ~30m*30m).
The full dataset contains 136,171,688 pixels at about 30m resolution. This number
makes it computationally impossible to use the full dataset in computing distances
and performing statistical analyses. Furthermore, using a full spatial dataset
generates problems of spatial autocorrelation where neighboring pixels are more
alike than random because of space and thus cannot be considered as independent
observations.
6 M.A. Vélez et al. / World Development 128 (2020) 104837
Fig. 2. Communities per titling period and titling years. Note: The label ‘‘not-
included” in Fig. 2 refers to those communities titled after 2010. We did not include
them in the analysis as we do not have forest cover after that.
means that we have, on average, one sampled point every 0.5 square
kilometers of forest area. For each forest point, we obtained informa-
tion on deforestation during each of the periods. We have 17,835;
23,760; and 7,598 forest points titled in 1990–2000, 2000–2005
and 2005–2010, respectively (see Table 1).
In Table 1, we also describe the dependent variable. We can see
that deforestation rates (e.g. percentage of deforested points) are
different between those communities that received titles in differ-
ent periods, even among communities with the same treatment
status. For instance, during the 1990–2000 period, deforestation
rates are very different for those communities that received titles
during the 2000–2005 period and for those that received titles dur-
ing the 2005–2010 period (Column D).
For each point, we calculated distance to protected areas, rivers,
and roads as well as land slope and precipitation using the infor-
mation obtained from the SIG-OT database from IGAC8. We also
have information about the presence of coca plantations in 2002
per point, using information provided by the United Nations Office
on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). Moreover, we also use a violence
index, which is built from eight different types of crimes (homicide,
kidnapping, threat, sexual assault, enforced disappearance, displace-
ment, torture, and terrorism). This index is a global measure of vio-
lence in Colombia at municipal level that considers both the
frequency and severity of crimes (based on the penalties for each
type of crime) (Martinez, 2018)9. We further compute distances to
8
See information at http://sigotn.igac.gov.co.
9
We did not have information regarding illegal gold mining that could also be
related to deforestation outcomes. However, other studies have reported that an
increase in gold mining caused an increase in violence measures as homicide rates
and victims of massacres which we included in our violence index (Idrobo, Mejia, &
Tribin, 2014).
non-forest areas, which reflects proximity to forest frontiers10. We
can see that the different characteristics between titled communities
in different periods are significant (see columns D, E, and F). This is
important as these variables are highly relevant in explaining the
forces behind deforestation. Those communities not only differ in
terms of their titling status but also in terms of other characteristics
that affect deforestation.
Furthermore, Table 1, shows that the fraction of titled commu-
nities in each period varies considerably among departments. For
instance, during the 1990–2000 period, most titled communities
were in Chocó (47%), while the rest of the states reach, at most,
23% in Nariño. However, during the 2005–2010 period, most of
the titled communities were located in Nariño (39%) and Valle
del Cauca (39%).
3.3. Econometric specification
We estimate the impact of titling on deforestation by compar-
ing deforestation rates in communities that have received their
title with a credible estimate of what would have happened with-
out titling. In order to adequately estimate this alternative scenar-
io, we use a difference in difference (DID) strategy. We compare
changes in deforestation before and after a community receives a
title, to changes in deforestation in communities where no title
has been granted. Because the titling process has taken place over
the last two decades, we take advantage of this expansion of the
process over time when conducting our analysis (see Fig. 3).
In Fig. 3, we describe the identification strategy in detail. Peri-
ods are defined by the moments where forest cover pictures were
gathered. As mentioned previously, we have four forest pictures:
1990, 2000, 2005 and 2010, with which, we define three periods:
Period 1 goes from 1990 to 2000, Period 2 goes from 2000 to
2005, and Period 3 goes from 2005 to 2010. We then divide the
communities into three groups: those that were titled in the Period
1, (g 1 ), those that were titled in Period 2 (g 2 ), and those that were
titled in Period 3 (g 3 ). We drop from the analysis all communities
in the period when they were being titled (in treatment in Fig. 3).
We do so because, for instance, those observations in Group 1, have
both treatment status’ within Period 1. Therefore, assigning these
communities to either treatment status would cause contamina-
tion and, in turn, bias in the estimation. Therefore, we only use
those quadrants with the label pre-treatment and post-treatment
when observations do not change status within periods.
We use fixed-effect panel models. Empirically, the Eq. (1) esti-
mated is the following:
X
S
Y it ¼ sdit þ ac þ dt þ bs Is xi þ uit ð1Þ
s¼1
where Y it takes the value of 1 if a forest point i at the beginning of
period t was deforested by the end of period t, and a value of 0 if it
was not deforested by the end of period t; s is the effect of titling
on deforestation, dit is an indicator variable that takes a value of 1
if pixel i is located in a community that has a title in period t, and
0 otherwise; dt is the period effect; and ac is the cross-sectional fixed
effect. We use two different types of fixed effects in different speci-
fications, one, at the treatment-status by department level and, two,
at community level. The treatment-status by department fixed
effects control for time-invariant unobservable variables belonging
to group j in department k. Community fixed effects control for time
invariant unobservable variables at the community level. By control-
ling by fixed effects, we make sure that unobservable time invariant
variables at community level would not bias our estimates.
10
From each point, we calculate the distance to the closest area that did not have
forest. These could have been a past deforested area or the coast.
 M.A. Vélez et al. / World Development 128 (2020) 104837 7

Table 1
Descriptive Statistics

Variable Total sample Titling year Diff. (C)–(B) Diff. (B)–(A) Diff. (C)–(A)
1990–2000 2000–2005 2005–2010
(A) (B) (C) (D) (E) (F)
Communities
Number of communities 141 51 64 26
Points
Number of points 49193 17835 23760 7598
Dependent Variable
Deforestation rate 1990–2000 4.10 4.35 3.58 5.17 1.59*** 0.77*** 0.82***
Deforestation rate 2000–2005 3.71 3.99 3.29 4.80 1.51*** 0.70*** 0.81***
Deforestation rate 2005–2010 3.05 2.55 3.27 3.34 0.07 0.72*** 0.79***
Community Covariates
Area 29681 30571 33380 18830 14550 2809 11741*
Pixel Covariates
Dist. to National Parks 2012 (km) 45.99 40.87 48.77 49.36 0.59* 7.9*** 8.49***
Dist. to small rivers (km) 0.41 0.53 0.34 0.37 0.034*** 0.19*** 0.16***
Dist. to navigable rivers (km) 3.13 3.46 2.86 3.25 0.394*** 0.6*** 0.21***
Dist. to main roads (km) 73.86 92.90 60.97 69.49 8.52*** 31.93*** 23.41***
Coca zone 2002 (dichotomous) 0.27 0.20 0.21 0.65 0.44*** 0.01 0.45***
Distance to non-forest 2000 (km) 0.76 0.73 0.69 1.03 0.33*** 0.04*** 0.3***
Slope (%) 1.43 1.27 1.54 1.44 0.1*** 0.27*** 0.17***
Rainfall (mm) 5341 4754 5915 4928 987*** 1161*** 174***
Municipality
Violence index 2.99 3.45 2.49 3.48 0.99*** 0.97*** 0.03*
% of points by Departments
Cauca 0.14 0.11 0.17 0.15 0.02*** 0.06*** 0.04***
Chocó 0.47 0.44 0.61 0.09 0.52*** 0.17*** 0.35***
Nariño 0.23 0.30 0.14 0.38 0.24*** 0.16*** 0.08***
Valle del Cauca 0.15 0.16 0.08 0.38 0.3*** 0.08*** 0.22***

Note: Descriptive statistics for pixel covariates are calculated from forests in 1990. ***p < 0.01, **p < 0.05, *p < 0.1

Group 3 (g3) 100

26 communities Pre-treatment Pre-treatment
titled in Period 3 In treatment
90
Percentage of tled communies

80

Group 2 (g2) 70
64 communities Pre-reatment In treatment Post-treatment
titled in Period 2 60
50
40

Group 1 (g1)
30
51 communities In treatment Post-treatment Post-treatment
titled in Period 1 20
10
0
1999

2010
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998

2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009

Period 1 Period 2 Period 3

Note: Group 1, Group 2 and Group 3 contain communities titled during 1990-2000, 2001-2004 and 2005
and 2010 respectively.

Fig. 3. Evolution of titled communities over time and the data structure. Note: Group 1, Group 2 and Group 3 contain communities titled during 1990–2000, 2001–2004
and 2005 and 2010 respectively.

Finally, xi represents a vector of characteristics that affects pixel (Andam et al., 2008; Pfaff, 1995; Robalino et al., 2015). We also
deforestation and that might be associated with treatment. The allow for the effects of explanatory variables to vary by depart-
vector of characteristics includes variables such as community ment. So, that Is is an indicator variable for department s and bs
area, slope, rainfall, distance to small rivers, distance to navigable is the vector of coefficients that capture the effects of the charac-
rivers, distance to main roads and distance to non-forest area teristics in vector x in department s. This is relevant as deforesta-
(see Table 1, pixel covariates), where all the variables do not vary tion patterns and rates vary among these departments (see maps
over time except distance to non-forest areas. There is ample evi- by departments in the appendix), as well as the presence of
dence that these variables are highly correlated with deforestation environmental authorities and other regional characteristics as
8 M.A. Vélez et al. / World Development 128 (2020) 104837
discussed in the next section. The effect of one explanatory vari-
able might be very important in one department and not in
another. By controlling for these variables, we are able to avoid
any potential bias that might have been caused due to pixel char-
acteristics that might be correlated with deforestation and titling
within departments.
Moreover, to avoid biasing the effects of titling by including
variables that might be affected by titling and affect deforestation
(post treatment controls), we use pixel variables measured before
1990 or pixel variables fixed over time only. For instance, if titling
affects infrastructure investment, and then infrastructure invest-
ment affects deforestation rates, when controlling for changes in
infrastructure, the estimated effects will ignore the effects of titling
through infrastructure. As robustness test, however, we include
two variables that might present this problem to test whether
results change: area used for coca crops and violence variables
measured in 2002 and 2000 respectively.
Additionally, one challenge we have is that the first period is
longer than periods 2 and 3. This is due to the lack of data available
for 1995. To some extent, the ‘period dummies’ control for the fact
that the first period is longer. We are using only pre-treatment
observations for that period (see Fig. 3). Thus, as a robustness test,
we also use Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) following Peña et al.
(2017). For this model, we only use periods 2 and 3 when the peri-
ods cover the same time span. The empirical specification (Eq. 2) is
the following:
X
S
Y it ¼ sdit þ dt þ bs Is xi þ qyt1;c þ uit ð2Þ
s¼1
where yt1;c is the deforestation rate at community level in the pre-
vious period.
In sum, with these specifications, we are able to control for fixed
observable factors and unobservable factors that do not change
over time. It is important to acknowledge that we are not able to
control for unobservable factors that vary over time. Our identifica-
tion assumption lies in the fact that after controlling for observable
factors, the unobservable factors that vary over time are not related
to the timing of treatment and deforestation. We show that results
are highly robust to different specifications, so we believe that
these factors do not generate relevant biases. Furthermore, we per-
form placebo tests within Group 3 to test whether communities
titled in later years (2008, 2009 and 2010) have different trends
to those titled in earlier years (2005, 2006 and 2007). This was con-
ducted in periods 1 and 2, before any of those communities were
titled (see Fig. 3). No evidence of the presence of statistically signif-
icant differences between those trends was found (see Section 4.4
for details).
To complement our identification strategy, we use matching
analysis as a robustness test to preselect a comparable sample that
will be used with our identification strategy. Given that we use
only similar observations, we expect our identification assumption
to be more plausible too. As the characteristics of treated observa-
tions vary as new communities get titled, we choose to focus on
those that are similar to the ones titled in the 1990–2000 period.
Therefore, before we conduct our empirical strategies, we select
communities that were titled in the 2000–2005 period that were
similar to those titled in the 1990–2000 period. We then select
communities that were titled in the 2005–2010 period that were
similar to those titled also in the 1990–2000 period. This is an esti-
mate of the average treatment effect on those treated in 1990–
2000. We used neighbor and caliper matching methods to choose
observations with similar characteristics11.
11
We applied propensity-score matching (PSM) with caliper 1% and neighbor=1.
4. Results
We first present the results from the qualitative analysis based
on the interviews conducted with community leaders and regional
experts. We discussed the formation of community councils, the
drivers of deforestation, and the conservation efforts in each region
including the role of regional environmental authorities. These
analyses offer a cohesive story for the understanding of the econo-
metric specification that follows, on the estimated effects of titling
on deforestation. Readers interested in skipping to the quantitative
analysis can go to Section 4.4.
4.1. Formation of Community Councils
The key governance feature from Law 70 was the requirement
to form a Community Council (CC) to gain access to the collective
title and act as the new political and territorial management orga-
nization. A General Assembly constituted by all inhabitants of the
collective territory elects the board of the CC for a three-year term.
There is variation in the mechanisms of participation within this
structure. However, all key decisions need to be deliberated in con-
sultation with the General Assembly and the representatives from
villages within the CC (Velez, 2011).
Different logics regarding the territory followed the creation of
CCs. In the Chocó sub-region, these Councils (Consejos Mayores)
were formed mostly out of river and watershed interactions, merg-
ing settlements along rivers (See Peña et al., 2017 for more details).
In Cauca, accordingly with the interviews conducted for this study,
Community Councils (CCs) were also mainly defined along rivers
and watersheds, but some rivers were divided especially where
communities were historically separated due to different economic
activities. In the Valle del Cauca sub-region, mostly around the
rural area of Buenaventura, two types of CCs were formed: CC by
watershed and CC based on pre-existing settlements or villages.
Organizing by watersheds maintained social, cultural and produc-
tive ties along the rivers while organizing by existing villages, used
the existing community and local political divisions and associa-
tions known as ‘‘Juntas de Acción Comunal” (Community Action
Boards) (See Velez, 2011 for more details).
In Nariño, based on our interviews, Community Councils were
created under the umbrella of three groups (e.g. ASOCOESTNAR,
RECONPAS, and COPDICON) that supported different political and
organizational views in the region. Within each group, each commu-
nity was autonomous in their organization to form the Council. As in
the rest of the regions, many were defined along rivers or water-
sheds, but others were defined by historical productive activities
or ideological differences. Others determined their organization
based on the attachment to or family ties to one specific territory.
4.2. Deforestation drivers
Each sub region or department (Chocó, Valle, Cauca and Nariño)
included in this analysis, relates to regional administrative and
political divisions, which imply, among other things, different
actors and governing structures for environmental regulation. It
also implies different dynamics regarding deforestation drivers.
We include a graphical summary by department in Appendix 2
with differences by sub region. However, based on our field work,
and according to the interviews with local leaders, some drivers
are common to the whole region, and this is consistent with the
information reported in other studies (See for example, Gonzalez
et al., 2018; Leal & Restrepo, 2003; Molano, 2017; Suárez et al.,
2018; UNODC, 2017; IIAP, 2008).
Since the colonial period, various subsistence and commercial
activities such as agriculture, fishing, hunting, gold mining, and tim-
 M.A. Vélez et al. / World Development 128 (2020) 104837
ber exploitation have remained the main economic activities in the
region (Grueso et al., 1998). Private companies, both national and
foreign, have always been interested in accessing the rich natural
resources of the region, including forest and mining resources. Over
the years, deforestation has been mostly driven by timber exploita-
tion (from mangrove and tropical forest) and gold mining by locals
and outsiders. These activities have evolved since the 17th century
with the arrival of mechanized exploitation technologies. In addi-
tion, some commercial plantations such as coconut, plantain, cocoa,
rice, sugar cane and specially oil palm (mainly in Chocó and Nariño)
have been identified as the drivers of deforestation in the region.
Cattle ranching in the north of Chocó and shrimp farming in Nariño
have also been identified as important causes of land use change.
Since the 1990s, but especially after 2000, illegal coca crops
expanded in the region, mainly in Nariño, Cauca, and Chocó. Over
the years, peaks in production of timber, gold, and coca have
responded to market demand and global commodity prices. Differ-
ent actors have entered the region promoting these productive
activities. However, since the approval of Law 70 in 1993, legal
enterprises that did not belong to Afro-Colombian communities
had more restrictions to entering the region, and massive forest per-
mits were no longer issued to private companies, which according to
locals ‘‘generated the greatest deforestation in this region” (e.g., Cartón
de Colombia, Maderas del Darién, Triplex Pizano). The same did not
happen with illegal enterprises, as often, these involve illegal armed
actors that threaten local government structures. Thus, we expect
that titling will have differential effects in places where legal enter-
prises played a more important role in deforestation.
4.3. Conservation efforts and role of regional environmental
authorities
Conservation efforts and the presence of enforcement by regio-
nal governmental environmental authorities in the Pacific vary
across sub regions and hence the need to describe each case below.
4.3.1. Chocó
During the ’80s, the community of the middle Atrato watershed,
supported by the diocese of Quibdó, decided to organize itself, and
created the Asociación Campesina Integral del Atrato (ACIA) in a
reaction against the exploitation permit requested by the Triplex
Pizano Company. Following this, the Ministry of Agriculture sus-
pended the expedition of the permit to the company and, in
1988, the government granted 800 thousand hectares to the com-
munity to implement a management plan to protect the forest, set-
ting an example in the region and a preamble for Law 70.
After Law 70, Codechocó (Corporación Autónoma Regional del
Chocó), the regional environmental authority, suspended the pri-
vate licenses for forest exploitation throughout the territory. How-
ever, Codechocó has been immersed in several scandals regarding
the issuance of illegal forest exploitation permits and the presence
of systematic illegal mining exploitation without any enforcement.
Community Councils in Chocó, supported in many cases by the
Claretian organizations, have played an important role in the envi-
ronmental protection of the territory. A leader mentioned that ‘‘once
the CC appeared, they did reduce the deforestation process a bit, because
they (the community) began to delimit their territory. And in that delim-
itation of the territory, forest extraction no longer occurs in all the sce-
narios, there are some reserve zones, some exploitation zones, and other
zones for conservation”. However, most of the interviewees argue
that collective titling is not enough, and that due to the lack of speci-
fic instruments or programs some communities have been forced to
engage in economic activities that produce a great impact in terms of
deforestation. According to a leader, ‘‘. . . the law told the communities,
’You can exploit, you are the owners of the land, you are the owners of
the forest’. But it only made them believe that it was going to provide
9
the technical, financial and administrative capacities . . . There are no
instruments to implement what the regulations say . . . The absence of
instruments is causing great deforestation problems . . . the lack of
instruments, that gap, is the cause for the arrival of all those actors that
drive deforestation in the territory”.
4.3.2. Valle del Cauca
Before Law 70, some territories such as Bahía Málaga and San
Cipriano, had community action boards that exercised a role of
environmental control. For example, during the ’70s, a forest
reserve was created in San Cipriano as the result of joint work
between the community action board and the State. Still, it wasn’t
until the enactment of Law 70 that the organizations began to
speak loudly about environmental protection. According to some
leaders, ‘‘Since the council was created, people began to see and
respect the territory as a source of work and subsistence for the com-
munities that live there, and so they automatically have to take care of
it”. Others mentioned that ‘‘the formation of community councils had
a huge impact. During this period, the deforestation processes were
greatly reduced. The community was recognized, and reflected in a
government authority to control the territory and the use of the
resources”. In this context, the leaders argue that it was because
of Law 70, that the communities were able to expel the different
actors that indiscriminately extracted natural resources from the
territory. Some leaders also recognized the resistance of some
community councils against the introduction of illegal crops. One
leader affirmed that ‘‘the fact that we had been organized in councils,
allows the community to effect some kind of resistance”; another
affirmed, ‘‘because of our organizational process, the armed groups
stopped cutting down more forest; they stayed in the places that
had already been cut down. It stopped there”.
After Law 70, more actors became involved in the region’s con-
servation efforts. Following the enactment of Law 70, the CVC (Cor-
poración Autónoma del Valle del Cauca) funded communities’
territorial management plans and regulated timber exploitation.
It also enforced the national regulation prohibiting mangrove for-
est exploitation. In fact, the CVC is recognized as the strongest
authority in the pacific region with some level of articulation with
community councils. Also, WWF Colombia, other environmental
NGOs, and the PCN supported CCs in specific projects focusing on
community organization, environmental management, and sus-
tainable productive practices.
4.3.3. Cauca
Before 1990, the environmental authorities in the territory were
the CVC, and INDERENA. However, the interviewees mentioned that
these governmental organizations did not exercise any environmen-
tal control in the territory. On the other hand, the interviews
reported that community elders already practiced conservation by
simple wisdom. One leader argued that ‘‘the black and the indigenous
people have ancestrally managed the territory through wisdom. Our
efforts in development have always been sustainable and included cul-
tural practices, such as letting the territory rest”.
By 1990, the CRC (Corporación Autónoma Regional del Cauca)
became the environmental authority in the region. However, it
was not able to fully monitor the territory. It was perceived as
weak and locals did not really know what it did. During the last
period of study, interviews reported that some CCs began to work
towards conservation. In this respect, one interviewee affirmed
that ‘‘the CCs have been very important actors, because despite all
their limitations, they began to generate a community and cultural
process to highlight the importance of the forest. Although there are
all these actors and the extractive economy, the communities have
started to implement some interesting conservation processes”. How-
ever, leaders reported that despite the locals’ efforts to resist, it is a
10 M.A. Vélez et al. / World Development 128 (2020) 104837

difficult task when their lives are in danger. Further, in central each of the periods. The impact is still negative and highly signifi-
Cauca today, there are still many councils without formal titling. cant. In Column 3, we also include the pixel characteristics men-
tioned in Table 1 and the results are still negative and significant.
4.3.4. Nariño We then control for the presence of illegal crops (coca) and violence
During the ’90s, Corponariño (Corporación Autónoma Regional and the results are still negative and significant. Finally, we include
de Nariño) became the environmental authority in the region. Municipality fixed effects (Column 5) and community council fixed
According to the interviewees, although the environmental institu- effects (Column 6) and results are still negative and significant.
tion attempted to implement training and small conservation pro- When we control for community fixed effects, variables that do
jects, some leaders affirm that it is locally known for issuing forest not vary in time and across communities are not included in the
permits without the support of the Community Councils. A leader analysis since communities fixed effects control at a more
mentioned, ‘‘In our concept, it is a total disaster. Most of its officials disaggregated level. All estimates are negative and above one per-
are more concerned about the money they receive from forest permits centage point in reduction in deforestation rates.
than about conserving forests . . . there has not been a harmonious In Table 3, we show the estimated effects of titling using differ-
joining of the CCs and Corponariño”. ent methodological approaches. In Column 1, for comparisons pur-
However, Community Councils recognized that with Law 70, poses, we include the estimates of the difference in difference
conservation began to gain importance in the territory. A leader approach with community fixed effects and all the control vari-
mentioned, ‘‘companies no longer entered like they used to, like the ables (see Table 2 column 6). Following Peña et al. (2017), we also
own the place, unless they had an alliance with the council”. Yet, include ANCOVA estimates (Table 3, column 2), which show a
others mentioned that due to the Community Council’s delays in higher impact of titling reducing deforestation. Finally, we use
titling, some companies accelerated their exploitation processes matching analysis as a pre-analysis sample selection strategy to
while they waited for formalization. make sure that observations were similar to those that were trea-
In 2000, management plans were implemented in several CCs. ted in the first period of titling as discussed in the methodology
According to some leaders, ‘‘with the creation of the CCs, we began section. With the matched sample, we then run the difference in
to talk about zones of conservation within the same territories . . . then
we preserved more . . . and with the internal regulations, we started
Table 3
talking about specific measures needed to cut a forest, we started to Estimates of the Titling Effects on Deforestation using various empirical strategies.
become more aware”. Others mentioned that ‘‘the councils raise an
awareness among the community, which would otherwise not exist”. DID ANCOVA DID with Matching
1 2 3
In 2008, several agricultural projects were implemented in the
area to try to substitute illicit crops with limited success. In the Effect 0.0123** 0.0141*** 0.0141**
Standard errors [0.005] - [0.003] [0.007]
words of the leaders, ‘‘the CCs have protected the territory, although
# obs. 108,224 76,866 58,781
not as we would have liked . . . We know that there are still many legal # treated obs. 69,270 69,270 37,256
representatives who do not protect the territory, sometimes we allow # untreated obs. 38,954 7,596 21,525
projects and foreigners to enter. Coca permeated the region because Controls
many made it easy for foreigners to cultivate large extensions”. Period Fixed effects+ Yes Yes Yes
Forest cover % per Yes Yes Yes
community+++
4.4. Estimation of the overall and department titling effects Pixel characteristics+++ Yes Yes Yes
Community Fixed effects Yes No Yes
In Table 2, we present the effects of titling on deforestation rates. Lagged deforestation at No Yes No
community level
In Column 1, we use a simple specification to capture titling effects Sample All All Matched
while controlling for period fixed effects and fixed effects of the
group of communities according to the period that they received *** p < 0.01, ** p < 0.05, * p < 0.1 +++ We allowed variables to have different effects
by department by making them interact with department dummies. DID is differ-
the title by department (treatment-status by department fixed
ence in difference. ANCOVA is the analysis of covariance. DID with matching uses
effects). According to this point estimate, receiving a collective title the DID analysis with a matched sample. The matched sample was selected using
reduces the rate of deforestation by more than 1 percentage point. only the first period (before treatment) with propensity score with the closest
We then control the percentage of forest cover per community in neighbor and a caliper of 0.01.

Table 2
Estimates of the Titling Effects on Deforestation using difference in difference by various specifications.

1 2 3 4 5 6
Effect 0.0108** 0.0183*** 0.0129*** 0.0128*** 0.0109** 0.0123**
Standard errors [0.004] [0.005] [0.005] [0.005] [0.005] [0.005]
# obs. 108,816 108,816 108,224 108,224 108,224 108,224
# treated obs. 69,604 69,604 69,270 69,270 69,270 69,270
# untreated obs. 39,212 39,212 38,954 38,954 38,954 38,954
Controls
Period Fixed effects Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Treatment-status by department fixed effects+ Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No
Forest cover % per community+++ No Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Pixel characteristics+++ No No Yes Yes Yes Yes
Presence of illegal crops (coca)+++ and violence No No No Yes No No
Municipality Fixed effects No No No No Yes No
Community Fixed effects No No No No No Yes
Sample All All All All All All

*** p < 0.01, ** p < 0.05, * p < 0.1 and +communities are divided into three groups by department, those that were titled in 1990–2000, those that were titled in 2000–2005, and
those that were titled in 2005–2010 +++ We allowed variables to affect differently by department by interacting with department dummies.
 M.A. Vélez et al. / World Development 128 (2020) 104837 11

Table 4
Titling Effects by departments.

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

All Nariño Valle del Cauca Cauca Chocó
a
Treatment status by department Fixed Effects 0.0129*** 0.031*** 0.015* 0.004 0.009
[0.005] [0.010] [0.008] [0.008] [0.009]
b
Communities Fixed Effect 0.0123** 0.021* 0.021** 0.008 0.000
[0.005] [0.012] [0.010] [0.008] [0.009]
b
Communities Fixed Effect 0.0141** 0.026* 0.029** 0.010 0.001
Matched sample [0.005] [0.012] [0.010] [0.008] [0.009]
# obs. 108,224 23,732 15,484 16,736 52,272
# treated obs. 69,270 14,937 7,789 10,302 36,242
# untreated obs. 38,954 8,795 7,695 6,434 16,030

Standard errors in brackets. *** p < 0.01, ** p < 0.05, * p < 0.1 a: The specification is the same as (5) in Table 2. b: The specification is the same as (6) in Table 2.

difference strategy and show the results in Table 3 Column 3. We
find that the effects lead to an approximately 1.4 percentage point
reduction in deforestation. Again, all estimates are negative and
above one percentage point in reduction in deforestation rates.
For those observations titled between 1990 and 2000, deforesta-
tion was 2.55 percentage points (see Table 1 Column A) and had they
not been treated, deforestation would have been of around 3.78 per-
centage points if we add up the effect found in Specification 6 in
Table 1. This represents a 32% reduction on the deforestation rate.
For those observations titled between 2000 and 2005 with a 3.27%
rate of deforestation, the impact on the 2005–2010 period repre-
sents a 27.3% reduction in the deforestation rate.
In Table 4, we present the same analysis performed in Col-
umns 3 (Groups Fixed Effects), and 6 (Communities Fixed
effects) in Table 2 and Column 3 (community fixed effects with
matched sample) in Table 3. We find that the reduction in defor-
estation due to titling is mainly present in Nariño and Valle del
Cauca, the southern part of the country’s Pacific coast. Estimates
show a reduction of more than 3 percentage points in deforesta-
tion rates in Nariño, which represents a 37% reduction in defor-
estation rate (deforestation in treated observations in Nariño was
5.2 percentage points). While for Valle del Cauca, the estimated
reductions are above 1.5 percentage points, which represent a
55% reduction (deforestation in treated observations in Valle
del Cauca was 5.2 percentage points). For Cauca and Chocó, we
do not find evidence that collective titling affects deforestation
rates. However, we should also mention that for these states,
balances of covariates are off. On average, there are no similar
Community Councils either within or outside those departments
that generate good matches that can allow us to conclude
whether titling had any type of effect. This implies that the iden-
tification of the effects relies heavily on the model specification.
However, as previously shown in Tables 2 and 3 for the general
results, and in Table 4 for Chocó and Cauca, estimates are highly
robust to different specifications.
In conclusion, we do not find any statistically significant
evidence that titling collective lands increases deforestation. We
find that, on average, this policy has decreased deforestation, but
these results are driven mainly by the departments of Nariño and
Valle del Cauca, in the southern half of the Pacific coast12.
12
For Nariño and Valle del Cauca, we also explored heterogeneous effects. We split
the sample and estimate the effects far from and close to non-forest areas, far from
and close to roads, far from and close to navigable rivers and finally with and without
illegal crops (coca).We find some evidence that negative effects of titling on
deforestation are stronger in areas with high deforestation threats (close to the
forest frontier, to roads, and to navigable rivers) as well as in places without illegal
crops. However, these effects are not robust when we use continuous variable and
allow for nonlinear effects (following the specification in Sims, 2010). Further
research should be pursued.
4.5. Placebo tests
The validity of our identification strategy, as we explained in
Section 3.3, depends on the fact that observations with the same
treatment status have similar deforestation trends. If, for example,
communities that receive treatment early on present a declining
deforestation trend compared to of that communities that receive
treatment later on, one could expect that the treatment effect
would capture this even in the absence of a titling effect. Therefore,
we test whether this is the case within communities where treat-
ment status does not change for two periods. Within Group 1, we
test whether communities titled in later years (1999 and 2000)
have different trends than those titled in earlier years (1996,
1997 and 1998). This was done in periods 2 and 3, after all of those
communities were titled (see Fig. 3). There is no evidence of the
presence of statistically significant differences between those
trends (see Table 5). Also, for Group 3, we test whether communi-
ties titled in later years (2008, 2009 and 2010) have different
trends than those titled in earlier years (2005, 2006 and 2007). This
was done in periods 1 and 2, before any of those communities were
titled (see Fig. 3). Again, we find no evidence of the presence of sta-
tistically significant differences between those trends (see Table 5).
5. Discussion
‘‘The community council began to act and say: We are going to
defend; we are going to get organized. Then, there was a change
because not everyone could enter the territory as if they owned
the place”.
The issue of institutional design for assigning property rights to
a group instead of individuals continues to attract attention with
important policy implications for land conservation programs in
the developing world (Agrawal & Ostrom, 2001). The most classical
view against collective titling argues that as the costs and respon-
sibilities are spread around a group, the incentives for free-riders in
terms of monitoring, sanctioning, using and misusing natural
resources can cause the so-called ‘‘tragedy of the commons”
(Hardin, 1968). Even if there are well-organized communities with
strong self-governing structures, they may prefer short-term gains
from extractive activities and bear the cost of future profits from
forest conservation, in some cases, because of their immediate
needs, given the levels of poverty in many of these regions.
Among the arguments in favor, however, is the possibility of
aligning monitoring and control with the possibilities of self-
governed institutions in the communities, which have better infor-
mation about the use and misuse of ecosystems. Another argument
is that collective titling can make use of economies of scale as
opposed to assigning private property, which is highly costly in
terms of transaction costs with a much larger number of individual
owners. Furthermore, within an institutional framework that has
12 M.A. Vélez et al. / World Development 128 (2020) 104837
Table 5
Placebo tests: Tests of different trends in deforestation without changes in treatment status.
Observations Group 1
Communities treated during 1990–2000
Periods included 2000–2005 and 2005–2010
Difference in the trend (placebo effect) 0.006
Standard errors 0.004
Controls
Period Fixed effects+ Yes
Communities treated during 1999–2000 Yes
Communities treated during 2008–2010 – –
Pixel characteristics+++ No
increasingly protected the rights of indigenous and ancestral
groups, which is the particular case of Colombia, and growing
international attention to issues related to protecting the rights
of these ethnic communities, it may become harder for economic
forces favoring extractive activities to enter into these territories
without being noticed.
We find that collective titling to Afro-Colombian Communities
has reduced deforestation in the Pacific by more than a one per-
centage point. These effects represent more than 27% reductions
of what would have been the deforestation rates without titling.
Back of the envelop calculations suggest that titling avoided defor-
estation in around 60 thousand hectares in the area under analy-
sis13. However, when conducting the analysis by region, we only
find evidence that this effect is statistically significant for Nariño
and Valle del Cauca: two regions with different deforestation
dynamics and rates. Nariño had the highest deforestation rates in
both titled and non-titled communities in the whole region. The
rates for Valle were among the lowest.
Based on the findings from the interviews conducted for this
study, our hypothesis is that the reduction of deforestation in titled
communities is explained mainly by two forces: i) local
community-based organization that defines the rules for commu-
nity use of natural resources mainly in Valle, and ii) the cancelation
of forest permits and thus the expulsion of private companies ded-
icated to timber exploitation in Valle, and mainly oil palm in
Nariño. In the absence of collective titling and community organi-
zation triggered by this collective titling process, the same trend of
resource extraction, and agricultural expansion from previous dec-
ades would have continued14. Also, in Valle, it is important to recog-
nize, that the regional environmental authority, CVC, had more
coordinated efforts and synergies with ethnic authorities by for
example financing community councils’ natural resources manage-
ment plans.
The definition of new rules to manage natural resources and the
reduction of legal companies in Valle and Nariño seem to be strong
enough in titled communities that reduction of deforestation in the
area is significant and probably greater than the incursion from
illegal activities15. The same is not occurring in Chocó and Cauca
where titling did not reduce deforestation. Even though in Chocó,
leaders identified new rules to manage the territory and a strength
in community organization, the expulsion of private extractive
13
To estimate this, we assume that the deforestation rate would have been 4
percentage points for a five year period (lower than any of the titled deforestation
rates in Table 1 plus 1 percentage point impact), and consider for each council the
forest area and the years that were titled. After estimating this counterfactual
deforestation per community, we assume that titling saved 27% (the lowest estimated
impact we find).
14
Note that in some parts of Nariño, a plague also affected oil palm plantations
according to some leaders.
15
This is a very intriguing result for Nariño given the increase of illicit crops in this
region. Suggesting that in the absence of collective titling, the spread of coca crops
would probably be even higher. For an evolution of coca crops in the region see
UNODC (2017).
Group 1 Group 3 Group 3
1990–2000 2005–2010 2005–2010
2000–2005 and 2005–2010 1990–2000 and 2000–2005 1990–2000 and 2000–2005
0.004 0.001 0.000
0.004 0.027 0.026
Yes Yes Yes
Yes – –
Yes Yes
Yes No Yes
enterprises was not effective as it was in Valle and Nariño. According
to the interviews with local leaders, in Chocó legal companies con-
tinue exploiting resources without the forest permits issued by the
government. They kept operating illegally in the territory, by buying
land from communities, providing machinery and technical advice to
locals and also buying timber exploited by locals. For example, a lea-
der from Chocó mentioned, ‘‘What happened is that the strategy chan-
ged. The company . . .initially requested the permits and exploited
directly. Then they changed the figure, the community councils exploited
the resource and the company bought it. But the company lent the com-
munity all the machinery and the equipment needed for the exploitation
and paid them for the timber. They changed the strategy to avoid facing
the exploitation process”. Similar strategies were reported in Cauca.
Despite these heterogeneous results at the sub regional level,
collective titling was a first important step in the protection of
the territory, but for greater effectiveness, it must be comple-
mented with other processes, including clarity in the distribution
of conservation costs. Currently, mechanisms such as payment
for environmental services PES or REDD+ could be part of the
answers to these demands, but the development of sustainable
productive enterprises in the region that improve quality of life
in the communities, without putting pressure on natural resources,
is still necessary. Although some regional authorities, such as the
CVC in Valle, have supported new local authorities, in general,
the expected synergies with other levels of environmental author-
ities have not occurred. For example, most of the timber exploita-
tion in the region continues to be illegal. Titling reform was not
accompanied in general by public funding to finance the monitor-
ing needs of local authorities and the implementation of local man-
agement plans.
Methodologically, using a combination of qualitative and quan-
titative methodologies allowed us to improve the estimates and
interpretation of our results. Previous studies do not consider the
fact that deforestation processes vary across sub-regions and this
could play a role in the estimated effects of titling. This insight
was salient within the qualitative interviews.
Further studies should go beyond forest cover as an environ-
mental indicator to study the process of forest degradation,
water pollution and biodiversity impacts, which could be
affected by mostly illegal mining activities in the region and
for whom forest cover is not the most appropriate indicator.
The role of local rules and social norms in managing natural
resources after the titling process should also be studied to gain
more in depth knowledge of the micro institutional mechanisms
behind the effectiveness of collective titling. New research
should also explore the impact of collective titling on hindering
or allowing coca crops and illegal activities such as gold mining.
New instruments to control illegal markets should be developed
since the definition of property rights in a context of a weak
state without the monopoly of violence is insufficient to protect
the forest. As one leader from Nariño mentioned, ‘‘the Councils
have struggled here, but the intimidation has not allowed the
impact to be successful. . . .. people have died here for standing up
 M.A. Vélez et al. / World Development 128 (2020) 104837 13

against certain dynamics: coca, oil palm . . . the councils have
resisted. . ., but it is not enough”.
The titling reform has not been able to fully deter the pressure
from illegal economies, coca crops and gold mining, also present in
the region and exacerbated by the violent conflict associated with
emerging gangs and drug trafficking. In general, these extractive
activities come together with illegal armed actors infiltrating com-
munities through violence and disrupting the local organizations’
capacity to enforce their rules and norms.
Acknowledgments
Quintero and specially to Juliana Unda who conducted the inter-
views in the field. For sharing all their thoughts and ideas to inter-
pret the forest cover maps developed in the project, we are
indebted to Mauricio Cabrera and Carmen Candelo at WWF-
Colombia, and Richard Moreno, Regional Attorney for Choco. In
the regions, for all their support to conduct the interviews, we
thank Alvaro Arroyo and Santiago Valencia in Buenaventura,
Onécimo Gonzales in Tumaco, Victor Candelo in El Charco, and Edi-
son Duque in Guapi. We are grateful to all the leaders interviewed
with whom we discussed the results of this article. We assume
complete responsibility for the final contents.

This work was possible thanks to the financial support from

Appendix 1. Maps of the 4 departments
Environment for Development (EfD), grant MS- 383. We acknowl-
edge the excellent research assistance of Pamela Sanabria, Daniela
Map A1–A4.

Map A1. Chocó Department.

14 M.A. Vélez et al. / World Development 128 (2020) 104837

Map A2. Valle del Cauca Department.

M.A. Vélez et al. / World Development 128 (2020) 104837 15

Map A3. Cauca Department.

Map A4. Nariño Department.

16 M.A. Vélez et al. / World Development 128 (2020) 104837

Fig. A5. Graphical Summary for Chocó.

M.A. Vélez et al. / World Development 128 (2020) 104837 17

Fig. A6. Graphical Summary for Valle del Cauca.

18 M.A. Vélez et al. / World Development 128 (2020) 104837

Fig. A7. Graphical Summary for Cauca.

 M.A. Vélez et al. / World Development 128 (2020) 104837 19

Fig. A8. Graphical Summary for Nariño.

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