Mainly funded by the Swiss Network of International Studies www.snis.ch/call-proposals-2010_237_rist  GOFOR-Bolivia is a research project started in September 2010 by a consortium of Universities from different countries (Swiss, Bolivia and USA) whose main focus is to study multiple outcomes community forest management.

Community forests play an important role in world forestry, especially in developing countries where they have been expanding considerably.  Experience with previous carbon sequestration programs in Bolivia and other Latin American countries have been very controversial. The current focus on reducing emissions from forest carbon tends to overlook the compatibility of such programs with other livelihood-relevant outcomes of community forests, such as non-timber products, agriculture or livestock. Very little attention has been given to the complexity and site-specific dynamics of local institutions and related specific livelihood strategies that define resource use by local actors. Consequently, one main gap in research concerns the question of how the institutional arrangements of local forest stakeholders shape multiple forest outcomes and trade-offs between livelihoods, biodiversity conservation and carbon sequestration.

 More specifically, the project aims to:
1) create understanding of how institutional arrangements are linked to site-specific patterns of Land Use, Land Cover and Forestry Changes (LULCFC);

2) assess the livelihood outcomes related to different forms of forest and agricultural practices, considering their implications for biodiversity conservation and carbon sequestration;



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