Biodivers Conserv DOI 10.1007/s10531-007-9286-z

ORIGINAL PAPER

Preservation or degradation? Communal management and ecological change in a southeast Michigan forest

Fred Nelson · Elisa Collins · Alain Frechette · Cynthia Koenig · Mosé Jones-Yellin · Brihannala Morgan · Gita Ramsay · Gautam Rao · Claudia Rodriguez · Zewdie Jotte Tulu · Cristy Watkins · John Zinda

Received: 28 May 2007 / Accepted: 24 October 2007© Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2007

Abstract Local communities play an increasingly important role in the management andconservation of forests at local and global scales. Conventional analyses of community for-est management tend to view the outcomes of these eVorts, as with common pool resources(CPRs) more generally, as contingent on the ability of local institutions to control collec-tive levels of extractive use and enforce group rules. This paper provides a case study of acommunity forest in southern Michigan, in the Midwestern United States, that challengesthese assumptions about community-based forest management. The factors driving changein this forest are not tied to excessive extraction or disturbance by human agents but ratherthe proliferation of shade-tolerant invasive species. The community institutions and valuesthat made it possible for the forest to grow and mature now threaten its very existence. Bydiscouraging any form of active management, the forest has become susceptible to thegrowing pressures of human-induced environmental change such as the introduction ofexotic plant species. Biodiversity conservation in such contexts consequently relies notonly on restraining local forest utilization practices or the preservation of land from devel-opment, but on active management interventions by local forest users. Understanding theimpact of community management on CPRs in human-dominated ecosystems will requirebroadening the scope of analysis to account for the importance of active management andthe potentially deleterious eVects of preservationist approaches on native biota.

Keywords Community-based forest management · Common pool resources · Michigan · Quakers · Oak savannas · Preservation · Local institutions · Forest conservation

F. Nelson · E. Collins · A. Frechette · C. Koenig · M. Jones-Yellin · B. Morgan · G. Ramsay · G. Rao · C. Rodriguez · Z. J. Tulu · C. Watkins · J. ZindaSchool of Natural Resources and Environment, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

F. Nelson (&)P.O. Box 8372, Arusha, United Republic of Tanzaniae-mail: fnelson@habari.co.tz

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AbbreviationsCBFM Community-based forest managementCPR Common pool resourceDBH Diameter at breast heightFLCC Friends Lake Cooperative CommunityIFRI International Forestry Resources and Institutions

Introduction

Local communities play an increasingly prominent role in global forest conservation strate-gies. Contemporary estimates suggest that 420 million hectares of forests around the worldare locally owned and managed—nearly as much as is contained in public protectedareas—and that based on current trends about half of all forests in developing countries willbe managed by communities within the next decade (White and Martin 2002; Molnar et al.2004). While the growth of community-based forest management (CBFM) has largelyoccurred in tropical parts of Africa, Asia, and Latin America, community-based approachesare also becoming more widespread in North America (Baker and Kusel 2003; WyckoV-Baird2005). This shift is being driven by a range of factors, including the economic interests offorest-dependent communities, a collective desire to resolve long-running forest manage-ment conXicts, and dissatisfaction with the socioeconomic and environmental performanceof centralized management institutions (Wondolleck and YaVee 2000; WyckoV-Baird2005). Community-based natural resource management practices are also emerging inNorth America in non-forested landscapes, particularly the multiple-use rangelands of thewestern United States (Curtin 2002; Sayre 2005).

While CBFM’s spread globally and locally is being driven by a range of livelihood, gov-ernance, and ecological concerns, its conceptual foundations lie within the body of knowl-edge on common pool resource (CPR) management (Arnold 1998; Gibson et al. 2000; seealso Ostrom 1990; Bromley et al. 1992; McKean 2000; Dietz et al. 2003; Dolsak andOstrom 2003). The basic challenge that confronts eVorts to sustainably manage CPRs isthat such resources are ‘subtractable’, meaning that an individual’s use removes that quan-tity of the resource from use by other community members, but exclusion of users (‘freeriders’) is often diYcult due to the collective nature of resource ownership (Berkes 1989).Locally devised rules and institutions are often best able to prevent over-extraction of CPRsand thereby sustain them over time (Ostrom 1990). The core assumption underlying CBFMregimes is thus that self-governing communities are able to sustainably manage forests bycollectively devising and enforcing rules regarding forest use.

Much of the CBFM discourse focuses on the diVerent characteristics that sustainablelocal management regimes possess (e.g., Agrawal and Gibson 1999; Gibson et al. 2000;Agrawal 2001; Poteete and Ostrom 2004; Carter and Gronow 2005). For example, Ostrom(1999) summarizes attributes that eVective self-governing community forest managementregimes possess, based on experiences with forests as well as other CPRs.

This CBFM discourse generally assumes that forest condition is most threatened byforms of over-extraction or disturbance such as logging, burning, and clearing. This reXectsthe general global concern with deforestation as the primary threat to forests and their asso-ciated biodiversity and ecological services (e.g., Bryant et al. 1997; Contreras-Hermosilla2000; FAO 2005). Thus CBFM studies generally base their evaluations of forest conditionon relative levels of disturbance, modiWcation, or clearing, with ‘undisturbed’ conditionsequated with better forest management. For example, the International Forestry Resources

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and Institutions (IFRI) research program has generated an extensive database and growingbody of scholarship on forests in both tropical and temperate areas under a range of socio-economic conditions and institutional arrangements (Gibson et al. 2000). IFRI analyses ofthe impacts of diVerent institutional arrangements on forest condition use variables such asvegetation density in order to compare the condition of diVerent types of forests across arange of geographic and ecological settings (e.g., Hayes 2006).

We provide a case study of a small community-owned and managed forest in southeast-ern Michigan, in the Midwestern United States, that challenges conventional ways of eval-uating community forest management and conservation outcomes. Here, a small intentionalcommunity of about 200 people formed 45 years ago manages a regenerating oak-hickoryforest using its own rules and institutions. Collective decision-making institutions are well-established and grounded in norms of consensus and shared values. The community’s prin-cipal forest management objectives are not extractive or economic, but rather spiritual andesthetic, and management is consequently driven by a ‘hands-oV’ or preservationistphilosophy. While this has served to protect the forest from the fragmentation and suburbandevelopment that characterize land use patterns in the surrounding area, it is also facilitat-ing changes in the forest’s composition. Our study demonstrates a nascent shift fromregenerating oak-hickory to an understory dominated by exotic invasives (e.g., Europeanbuckthorn, Rhamnus cathartica) and native successional species (e.g., red maple,Acer rubrum).

Our case study thus provides an illustration of the way that community values and insti-tutions can inXuence processes of ecological change and the biological composition oflandscpaes in ways that are not necessarily anticipated by forest users and owners. In thisparticular forest, conserving native species in an endangered ecological community (oak-hickory savanna) requires active intervention to control invasive species and promote pat-terns of forest disturbance that enable indigenous species to regenerate. Forest conservationis thus not contingent, as in most conventional CBFM analyses, on local institutions beingable to restrain utilization but rather on their being able to motivate and sustain active man-agement interventions. Forest conservation in this ecological context may depend not onpreventing extraction or disturbance but on encouraging more disturbance. Many forests,particularly those situated in heavily modiWed landscapes where human inXuences areprevalent at a range of scales, similarly depend on active management interventions if bio-diversity and ecological processes such as Wre are to be maintained. Assumptions thathigher levels of forest protection and lower levels of use or disturbance are equivalent toimproved forest quality or positive conservation outcomes are thus often inappropriate inthe contexts of human-dominated ecosystems. Evaluating the eVectiveness and impacts oflocal forest management practices and institutions in such contexts will accordingly requireamending conventional analyses of CBFM, and CPR management more generally.

In exploring these issues, our case study serves to bridge a gap between biological stud-ies of the impacts of invasive exotic species and social science analyses of communityresource management values and institutions. Given that after habitat loss, invasive speciesrepresent the single greatest threat to the survival of native biota in the United States (NISC2006), these empirical and conceptual linkages are important in terms of understanding theeVectiveness of conservation eVorts.

Finally, our study highlights the incongruence between preservationist environmentalvalues, which have been a core component of historical conservation values in the UnitedStates and elsewhere (e.g., Fox 1986), and contemporary ecological realities. This high-lights the importance of active and adaptive management and local ecological knowledge,if forest biodiversity is to be sustained.

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Methods

This study was carried out using the IFRI methodology, which provides an integratedframework for analyzing the interaction between forest ecological conditions and commu-nity institutions and utilization practices (Gibson et al. 2000; IFRI 2005). Data was col-lected in September and October, 2006, and includes both biophysical forest mensurationdata as well as a range of social and institutional variables. Data was recorded on ten formsused in all IFRI studies and submitted to the IFRI database held in Bloomington, Indiana.

Biophysical data was collected from randomly selected plots within the forest. Plots wereselected using a scaled grid overlaid on a topographical map of the property, and divided into1 inch £ 1 inch grids. Plots were chosen at random until a total of 30 plots were selected.Vegetative ground cover was recorded within a 1-m radius around the center of each plot.Stems were counted individually, and the percentage of ground cover for herbaceous plantssuch as moss or grasses was calculated. Saplings which had a diameter at breast height (DBH,measured at 1.37 m from the ground) of 2.5 cm or greater were recorded in a 3-m-radius cir-cle from the plot’s center and all trees with a DBH of 10 cm or greater were recorded within a10-m-radius circle from the plot’s center. Height measurements for trees with a DBH greaterthan 10 cm were also recorded. The forest data provides a basis for analyzing relative speciesdensities and distributions, as well as overall forest structure.

Social and institutional information was collected through interviews with communitymembers in person and by phone. A brief electronic survey was also sent by email to com-munity members unable to participate in an interview. Interviews (n = 54) conducted inperson were based on a semi-structured format aimed at obtaining information on individ-ual member characteristics, values, and activities related to the community forest and prop-erty, changes observed within the forest and community, management challenges,decision-making processes, and conXict resolution mechanisms. Additional data was col-lected from community records and archives, including the provisions of bylaws, decision-making histories, maps of the area, and Wnancial records.

Results

Natural beliefs: Friends Lake Community

Friends Lake Cooperative Community (FLCC) owns a 93-acre patch of forested land in thetown of Chelsea, Michigan (see Fig. 1). FLCC was founded in 1963 as an intentional com-munity in order to establish a physical space where like-minded people could cometogether for recreational and spiritual purposes. The community is structured as a member-ship-based non-proWt corporation. FLCC’s founding members were Quakers and thebeliefs and norms of this religious community have been central to FLCC’s goals and struc-ture throughout its history.1 Environmental stewardship and a sense of communion with thenon-human world are central components of this ethic and motivated the property’s acqui-sition and subsequent preservation as a nature reserve. The land originally acquired was an80-acre property; an additional 13 acres have been purchased since then.

1 The Society of Friends (‘Quakers’) was founded in Europe during the mid-17th century as a response to dis-satisfaction with Christian dogmas and institutions. Individuality and an awareness of the higher power withineach of us (‘that of God’ within), rather than Biblical literalism, are central Quaker beliefs.

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Membership of FLCC currently stands at around 200 individuals (community by-lawsimpose a limit of 220 members), including both Quaker and non-Quaker members with thelatter increasing in proportion during the past 20 years.

There are 13 sites within the property leased to community members as permanenthomes or vacation cabins. This arrangement is central to the Wnancial viability of the com-munity and protection of the property from the suburban development that characterizesland use in the surrounding area. Purchase and sale of these properties are governed bycommunity rules and collective approval processes, which serves to screen the entry andexit of these site owners and forest residents. All property developments must avoid signiW-cantly damaging the environment and in at least one instance a proposed construction pro-ject was rejected by the community. With membership stable or expanding, communityWnances have generally been healthy since the 1960s.

Friends Lake Cooperative Community is managed by an elected Board of Directorswhose monthly meetings are open to participation by all community members, and annualgeneral meetings are also held. All board members serve 2-year terms and elections arestaggered to limit turnover. FLCC has had 18 Presidents (Chairperson of the Board) sinceits inception and thus has a broad and diverse leadership experience.

All community decisions operate according to the Quaker principle of consensus. Deci-sions require a modiWed consensus, where the members feel that a ‘way forward’ has beenidentiWed. In contrast to some forms of consensus decision-making, in which groups strivefor decisions that all group members accept wholeheartedly, Quaker consensus involvessearching for the will of God and working through issues until that will is found.

The consensus process contributes to a relatively strong sense of shared norms and val-ues, and some new members join FLCC explicitly to become part of this community. Com-munity rules emphasize group conduct that is respectful of other people and of theirphysical surroundings. Although the community employs a permanent caretaker who liveson the property and exercises most basic administrative functions, enforcement of rules(referred to as ‘guidelines’) is principally voluntary and self-governing. Compliance is

Fig. 1 Geographic location of the study site

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generally high and few instances of internal violations are evident. The community also hasa voluntary work requirement for all members of 3 h per year, although this can be pro-vided by payment in lieu of time if desired, and many members prefer paying to working(see FLCC 1994, 1998).

The FLCC forest provides a range of spiritual and recreational values to communitymembers. Members describe forest values in terms of being provided with an opportunityto practice environmental stewardship and to retreat ‘to Nature’ from the more typical sur-roundings of suburban southeastern Michigan. Forms of meditation and explicitly spiritualcommunion with natural surroundings are important to many members and are linked tocore Quaker values and beliefs. Recreation in the forest is centered on a designated camp-site, the lakeside beach, and a number of trails within the forest. The only forms of resourceutilization permitted in the forest are harvesting wild berries and mushrooms. Until about20 years ago there was also a signiWcant annual harvest from the portion of the forest(»10% of the total forest area) dominated by non-native white spruce (Picea glauca),which were planted in the 1950s, for sale as Christmas trees.

Community use and management of the forest is thus principally non-extractive andgoverned by a strong ethic of environmental conservation. This ethic includes a beliefamong a signiWcant proportion of the membership that people should not interfere with‘Nature’ and a resultant reticence to actively manage the forest. Tensions between this ethicof non-intervention and alternative notions about biodiversity conservation have character-ized several community management decisions and choices.

By the mid-1990s some community members were expressing concern about the spreadof exotic species such as R. cathartica and Autumn olive (Elaeagnus umbellata) in the for-est as well as purple loosestrife (Lythrum salicaria) in the lake (see following section).From about 1997 to 2002, a sub-group of community members spearheaded an eVort tocontrol invasive species, particularly along the main entrance road and around the maincampground, which had become overgrown with invasive R. cathartica and E. umbellata.These eVorts involved physical clearing and cutting of these species but also use of herbi-cidal chemicals, as are often prescribed for combating the spread of these fast-growinginvasives (e.g., IPAW 2007).

During the past 5 years, the eVort to control invasive species in the forest has beenlargely discontinued, mainly because of two fundamental barriers. First, some communitymembers disapprove of actively cutting and killing plants, regardless of whether theseplants are native species or not. This disapproval stems from the non-interventionist preser-vationist ethic that some members of the community hold, and the belief that preserving theforest is synonymous with ‘leaving it alone’.2 Some community members Wnd the use ofchemical herbicides particularly objectionable on these grounds. Second, the communityhas found it diYcult to motivate members to make the labor contributions necessary tocarry out the time-consuming invasive control activities in the forest. As a result, the eVortto control invasive species lost momentum and then halted.

The community’s consensus-based decision-making process may play a role in terms ofthese eVorts to motivate more active forms of management. In instances where there aredivergent opinions about how or whether to take action, a consensus process implicitlyfavors the choice not to take any action. For an action to be taken, either the dissenters mustrelent, or the group must reach unanimity. In the case of actively intervening in the

2 This debate is as old as the American conservation movement, and the split between the preservationist ideasof John Muir and the utilitarian or ‘wise use’ philosophy of U.S. Forest Service Founder GiVord Pinchot (Fox1986).

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management of the forest, such consensus has proven diYcult to attain, and this appears tobe an important factor in the outcomes of community management decisions.

Forest composition and change in southeast Michigan

The FLCC forest is located along the southern shore of Long Lake at an elevation ofapproximately 300 m asl. Soils are a sandy loam mixture common to dry mesic and xerichabitats (i.e., moderately dry and well-drained soils) with a moderately hilly topographywith slopes ranging from 0° to 38°, with a mean of 10°. This part of southeast Michigan isheavily settled, with 82.5% of land in Washtenaw County considered ‘developed’ by 2000,and undeveloped land in the county declining by 22.9% from 1990 to 2000 (SEMCOG2004). For example, the northern side of Long Lake is covered by housing developmentsand all forest has been cleared.

The forests in this region are a product of both natural and human-induced disturbancesoccurring over the past several centuries. Prior to European settlement, tall grass prairiesdominated by bluestem (Andropogon geriardii), Indian grass (Sorghastrum nutans) andswitch grass (Panicum virgatum) occupied much of the Eastern Midwest (Abrams 1992).In the upper Midwest from the Dakotas to Michigan, oak savannas composed of bur oak(Quercus macrocarpa), black oak (Q. velutina), white oak (Q. alba) and northern pin oak(Q. ellipsoidalis) were a common feature of mixed forest-grassland prairie landscapes(Barnes 1991; Abrams 1992).

Prairie and oak savannas dominated much of the landscape of southern Michigan,including present day Chelsea, in pre-settlement times (Comer and Albert 1998). Theseecosystems were maintained by a number of natural and anthropogenic factors. Prairie andoak savannas are drought-adapted systems characteristic of dry-mesic to xeric soil condi-tions (Barnes 1991; Dickmann and Leefers 2003). In the absence of prolonged droughts orrecurrent disturbances such as Wre, grasslands convert to oak woodlands. If subsequent Wre-induced disturbances fail to occur, mixed mesophytic forests eventually replace the moreshade-intolerant oaks (Burns and Honkala 1990). While lightning-induced Wres played arole in creating the conditions necessary for the establishment of prairies and oak savannasin southern Michigan, the landscapes observed by the early settlers resulted primarily fromthe actions of indigenous human inhabitants. Open grasslands facilitated travel, ensuredforage for wildlife, and provided a strategic advantage in times of conXict with neighboringcommunities. Native communities customarily set Wres in the fall, after the frost-killed veg-etation had cured (Curtis 1959, cited in Dickmann and Leefers 2003, p 104).

Following the arrival of the European settlers in the early 1800s, these Wres largelyceased. Taking advantage of the fertile and relatively Xat landscape, settlers converted prai-rie and savanna ecosystems to agricultural use. While farming and grazing by livestockmaintained much of the open character of earlier savannas and grasslands, without human-induced or natural disturbances many areas soon converted to oak-hickory forests with anunderstory of Acer rubrum and black cherry (Prunus serotina) (Dodge and Harman 1985).

By the mid-20th century, demographic and socio-economic changes in the area resultedin a broad transition from rural to more urbanized settlements and the abandonment of agri-cultural lifestyles. Combined with the ongoing suppression of wildWres, mandated by bothstate and federal laws, these changes enabled forests to reclaim many previously openareas. The regenerating forested landscapes of the region today are, however, dramaticallydiVerent from previous landscapes’ forest structure and composition (Dyer 2006). Forexample, the dominance of red oak (Q. rubra) in contemporary southern Michigan’s forestslikely results from the harvesting patterns of early settlers. In pre-Columbian times, red oak

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was found only in Wre-protected upland areas of old growth Q. alba forest that dominatedmuch of the eastern United States (Abrams 2003). It was relatively rare in the pre-settle-ment forests of the northern hardwood regions (Abrams 1992), which included the upperhalf of Michigan’s Lower Peninsula (Comer and Albert 1998). The felling of Q. alba andQ. velutina and other hardwoods prized for their valuable lumber, followed by the tillingand burning of cleared land, favored the recruitment and expansion of faster-growing Q.rubra (Abrams 1992, 2003).

As a result of these changes, particularly the near-elimination of Wre as a form of ecologi-cal disturbance, oak savannas and prairie ecosystems now occupy less than 5% of their formerrange in the Midwestern United States and southern Canada (MacDougall et al. 2004). Oaksavannas, due to their disturbance-dependent nature, tend to be relatively vulnerable to inva-sion by exotic Xora and their restoration through the use of Wre and control of invasives hasbecome a widespread regional conservation priority (Henderson 1995; Nielsen et al. 2003).

The FLCC forest provides a small window on these broader regional processes ofecological change. Aerial photographs of Long Lake taken in 1949 by the United StatesDepartment of Agriculture’s Soil Conservation Service show that about 95% of the prop-erty was open farmland or prairie at that time. Another photograph taken in 1963, at thetime of the property’s acquisition by FLCC, reveals that regenerating forest had begun toreclaim the landscape (Fig. 2a, b).

Over four decades later, the FLCC forest is now primarily an oak-hickory successionalforest.3 The forest canopy is dominated by of Q. rubra, Prunus serotina, sassafras (Sassafrasalbidum) and pignut hickory (Carya glabra) (see Fig. 2). Acer rubrum, while not yet part ofthe forest canopy, is a common understory species, interspersed with an assortment of hard-woods including white ash (Fraxinus americana) and American elm (Ulmus americana).Isolated stands of eastern red cedar (Juniperus virginiana) are found throughout the prop-erty and several stands of white pine (Pinus strobus) have been planted within the easternportion of the forest (Fig. 3).

The composition of the understory reveals processes of change continuing within theforest. As depicted in Figs. 4 and 5, saplings and seedlings in the forest are dominated byAcer rubrum and two exotic species, R. cathartica and E. umbellata.4 R. cathartica is the

3 About 10% of the FLCC forest is dominated by introduced white spruces which were planted by the previousowner in the 1950s.4 Ironically, the now ubiquitous presence of E. umbellata throughout Michigan can be traced to practices ofthe Michigan Department of Natural Resources which for decades used the plant to provide food for wildlife.

Fig. 2 The FLCC property in 1949 (a) and 1963 (b). Notice the regeneration of forest in the land south of thelake by 1963

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most widely distributed sapling, occurring in over a quarter of all 3 m plots (Fig. 4), and isalso the most abundant seedling in the forest, with 2.1 stems found per 1 m plot (Fig. 5).

Acer rubrum is a widespread native invasive in a range of mesic conditions in the Mid-western and eastern parts of North America, and its expansion is often linked to changes inWre regimes (Whitney and DeCant 2001; Abrams 2003). R. cathartica is one of the mostprevalent exotic invasives in the Midwest and its control is a widespread managementpriority. A number of other invasive species are also found in the FLCC forest, includingOriental bittersweet (Celastrus orbiculata) and Tree-of-Heaven (Ailanthus altissima),which are particularly widespread along roads, trails, and other light gaps.

The changes in species composition within the FLCC forest are the result of the lack ofdisturbances such as Wre or clearance by humans which would enable shade-intolerant oaksand hickories to regenerate. Invasive species are opportunistic colonizers and may also out-compete native seedlings through the use of allopathic chemicals and changes in soil com-position. For example, soils in areas invaded by R. cathartica have increased levels ofnitrogen and carbon, pH value, and soil moisture compared to adjacent areas free of buck-thorn (Heneghan et al. 2006).

Forest composition in FLCC in the near to middle-term future will primarily be deter-mined by the ongoing suppression of wildWre, the absence of human-induced disturbancesthat could promote oak-hickory regeneration, coupled with the expansion and further intro-

Fig. 3 Distribution of main tree species in FLCC forest. Proportions based on sample of 30 10-m radius plots

Fig. 4 Distribution of woody saplings in the 3 m radius plot

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duction of exotic species. While the full implications of these changes are largely unknown,the spread of exotic species is often associated with signiWcant losses of biological diversityand high mortality rates among native species (Rossman 2001).

Discussion

Community values, passive management, and ecological change

The FLCC community displays many core characteristics of eVective local self-governingforest management organizations (Ostrom 1990, 1999). The community has strong sharednorms and values, which largely emanate from the collective identity of the Quakerreligion and the values it promotes. The community has a range of rules which serve topromote collective norms and adherence to these decisions, particularly the use of an egali-tarian consensus-based deliberative process, meetings open to all community members, andfrequently rotating leadership positions. Clear rules for screening members and regulatingindividual home and vacation properties in the forest also promote a membership withshared values and reduce the potential for conXicts (cf. Gibson and Koontz 1998).

The eVectiveness of FLCC’s collective governing institutions is evidenced by the factthat the community’s membership and Wnances continue to be healthy, whereas many otherintentional communities founded in the region by progressive or counter-cultural move-ments in the 1960s have disappeared or struggle to maintain their viability today (cf.Khamaganova et al. 2001). FLCC’s organizational health has enabled the community tonot only maintain their forest, but expand it by purchasing additional land. Without FLCC,this patch of forest would almost certainly have been converted to suburban housingdivisions, as has occurred on most of the private land surrounding the property. FLCC isthus directly responsible for the maintenance of this forested landscape as one of the fewremaining privately owned undeveloped lakefront properties of its size in southeastMichigan. Although the property is relatively small, it is nevertheless a notable example ofcommunity-based conservation in the region.

Fig. 5 Abundance of seedlings in FLCC forest based on the average number of individual seedlings per 1 mradius plot

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Although the community has been able to preserve the forest, in a generic sense andwith respect to coarse land use patterns, it has also facilitated changes in the forest’s com-position. Indeed, since the property’s acquisition the forest has been constantly changing,from the oaks and hickories that initially reclaimed the abandoned agricultural land to amore shade-tolerant and increasingly exotic composition. Today, change is continuing asthe regenerating oak-hickory forest continues to mature, but the forest’s future is reXectedin the dominance of Acer rubrum and exotics such as R. cathartica in the understory. Whilethere is limited research on the long-term impacts of exotic species such as R. cathartica onhardwood forests, it is reasonable to surmise that their spread will have a negative impacton the forest’s native biodiversity. Certainly, R. cathartica and other rapidly spreadinginvasives are treated as a prominent threat to native forest communities, particularly oaksavannas, elsewhere in southern Michigan and throughout the Midwestern United States.

Thus while the forest-owning community’s values and institutions have preserved theforest as a piece of land, they have also facilitated its ecological transformation in wayswhich are not the product of intentional management decisions and which may not bedesired by community members. Forest management at FLCC is anchored in a strong pres-ervationist belief that, if left untouched, forests will naturally tend toward self-correctingequilibria, and thus the community has sought to avoid active management of the forest.This attitude toward the forest has its heritage in the prevalent western Judeo-Christianview of ‘Nature’ as fundamentally separate from humanity (Nash 1982; Cronon 1995;Callicott and Nelson 1998); it is perhaps not surprising that this ethos is relatively strong ina community founded on explicitly religious values and beliefs about nature. As with muchenvironmental discourse in the United States, this value system views active managementintervention in natural systems as inherently deleterious and negative (Cronon 1995). Theresult is non-intervention, or ‘passive’ management that seeks to let ‘Nature’ take its coursewithout explicit or deliberate human intervention (cf. Agee 2002).

This aversion to active forest management has been challenged by some FLCC mem-bers concerned about the eVects of invasive species, but has been reinforced by a generallack of motivation to invest time and resources in managing the forest on the part of thecommunity. The relatively generic, rather than species-speciWc, nature of the non-extrac-tive values that the community enjoys from the forest also serves as a disincentive toinvestments in active management. Although the community values the forest in a genericsense, there are no members or users whose livelihoods depend on the survival of anyparticular species or ecological community. Thus the on-going changes in the forest alsoreXect the absence of any inherent need to maintain particular beneWt streams linked to spe-ciWc forest products. Consensus-based decision-making processes also impede collectiveaction on subjects where there is a division of beliefs or opinions, as exists with respect toactive management of invasive species at FLCC. This has clearly been an impediment tothe eVorts of some members to control invasives.

The overall impact of the community’s values and institutions on its forest are thus com-plex, and somewhat paradoxical. The community has protected the forest, and evenincreased its area, but the passive management strategies adopted as a result of the commu-nity’s ethical beliefs and institutional characteristics have facilitated unintended changes inthe forest’s composition and ecology. What is notable in relation to the global discourse onCBFM, is that in this case the threats to the forest’s condition come not from human extrac-tion of forest products (e.g., logging, clearing), but from human inaction and a lack ofplanned disturbances such as the use of Wre or physical removal of invasives. The spread ofinvasive species occurs because these changes are facilitated by human actions at higher

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ecological scales, while at the local scale the community’s management culture and objec-tives are not speciWcally targeted at preventing such changes.

When the full range of human impacts on forest condition are understood in this way, itbecomes apparent that conventional ways of analyzing CPR management regimes in forestenvironments are inadequate, if not misleading, in such contexts. Analyses of these man-agement systems, and particularly the growing global literature on CBFM, generally asso-ciate low levels of forest disturbances with good forest conditions or high levels ofbiodiversity conservation (e.g., Bruner et al. 2001; Hayes 2006). Sustainability is viewed interms of the eVectiveness of community institutions in imposing collective restraint onindividual desires to maximize their own levels of utilization or extraction. Prominent bar-riers to eVective forest management within this conventional CPR framework include thecosts of excluding other users and preventing ‘free riding’ by members of the community(Ostrom 1990, 1999; Arnold 1998). Forest degradation is thus typically associated withcollective action failures in terms of the inability—due to either internal or externalfactors—of forest users to develop mutually agreeable and enforceable rules governingutilization, and resultant ‘open access’ resource depletion (Gibson et al. 2000). But atFLCC the assumption that low levels of resource extraction are associated with goodresource conditions—in terms of biological diversity and ecological integrity—is not valid.In this case, the changes observed result from insuYcient local investments in managementrather than excessive rates of use. The collective action failure in this context is thus notone of preventing extraction but of failing to encourage adequate investments in manage-ment. This illustrates how the analysis of resource use outcomes needs to consider howeVective institutions are in limiting ecosystem degradation from both direct and indirecthuman actions (e.g., actions occurring at higher scales than the physical landscapeinvolved). CPR management in such contexts must consequently be analyzed and evalu-ated according to not only the conventional concerns with subtractability and excludability,but also what may be called their ‘permeability’; the reality that resource conditions areaVected by human use and human-induced changes in the broader environment withinwhich a given ecosystem is nested.

Adjusting conceptual frameworks and methodologies for analyzing CPR regimes inthese ways is particularly important in highly humanized landscapes such as much of NorthAmerica, where the inXuence of these higher-scale environmental factors on local biota andecological processes is relatively high (Vitousek et al. 1997). For example, in much ofNorth America the focus of conservation eVorts is increasingly on ecological restoration,rather than preservation (DellaSalla et al. 2003). Forests, in particular, are widely threat-ened by the lack of active management interventions and restorative eVorts related to pro-cesses such as Wre (e.g., Pyne 2004). Such challenges also apply when conservationobjectives focus on single species rather than entire landscapes. The recovery of many ofthe species listed under the Endangered Species Act can only be achieved through activeinvestments in habitat management and modiWcation, rather than solely through regulatoryprotection from exploitation (Bean and Wilcove 1997; Bean 1998).5

Largely as a result of the need to approach conservation in a way that addresses thedemands of local restoration and active management in an environment of complex andmulti-scale ecological inXuences, much of North America is presently experiencing

5 For example, the bog turtle (Clemmys muhlenbergii) the smallest turtle in North America, is native to thenortheastern United States and threatened by the spread of invasive species such as purple loosestrife and redmaple, and requires active management interventions by private landholders in order to maintain its habitat(Bean et al. 2003).

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something of a renaissance in community-based natural resource management practices(Boyce and Shelley 2003; Meine 2004, pp 210–211; Sayre 2005; Child and Lyman 2005).Many of these nascent initiatives face challenges that are fundamentally restorative ratherthan preservationist, and, like FLCC, operate in ecological settings where ‘protection’ and‘degradation’ are not necessarily inversely related concepts. These eVorts thus rely on man-agement approaches that are active, adaptive, and which promote ecological awareness andlearning. In an increasingly human-dominated world, hands-oV preservationist beliefswhich may have served the interests of biodiversity conservation in the past are increas-ingly unsuitable as a basis for managing complex social-ecological systems. The sustain-ability of CPR management systems, in forests and other landscapes, will often depend onhow local management values and institutions serve to maintain, rather than restrain, localinvestments in active ecological management.

Conclusion

This case study of a small community forest in the Midwestern United States illustratesseveral important practical and conceptual issues central to the understanding of the rela-tionship between biodiversity conservation outcomes and community management institu-tions. The FLCC forest is situated in a landscape where broad-scale human inXuence haslong been a principle determinant of forest composition. While the oak savannas that oncefeatured prominently in the region, and the Wres that sustained them, have almost entirelydisappeared, today’s regenerating oak-hickory forests are also changing as shade-tolerantspecies and exotic invasives increasingly dominate the understory. While the environmen-tal ethos and collective institutions of the FLCC community have protected the tract of landfrom suburban development, their values and management institutions have also served todiscourage active forms of management. As a result, the forces needed to maintain distur-bance-dependent plant communities are largely absent, fostering the changes occurring inthe forest’s composition.

The outcomes witnessed in this case study are relevant to a broader understanding offorest conservation strategies and practices, particularly emerging community-based eco-system management approaches. The case illustrates how forest condition in human-domi-nated landscapes, including the maintenance of biodiversity and ecological processes, maydepend on active forest management by local communities, rather than simply protectingan area from clearance or conversion. In North America, mainstream public ways of think-ing about conservation, which emphasize centralized forms of regulation and protectionand have been skeptical of sustainable use-based arguments, are increasingly challenged bynew community-based approaches (e.g., Daggett 2005). Globally, similar debates over sus-tainable use and preservationist strategies continue in relation to forests, wildlife, and otherresources (Hutton and Leader-Williams 2003). In a context where conservation depends onactive management rather than protection from over-use, the analysis of community-basedmanagement systems will need to take account of these realities and adapt its analyticframework accordingly. In human-dominated systems such as those that cover much ofNorth America, biodiversity conservation depends largely on creating incentives for localsto utilize and shape their forest, rather than a retreat to the illusory shelter of preservationistmanagement strategies. The numerous CBFM experiments currently spreading across theworld’s forested landscapes may thus serve to catalyze an important shift in conventionalways of understanding and evaluating the ecological sustainability of local natural resourcemanagement institutions.

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Acknowledgments We are extremely grateful to the Friends Lake Cooperative Community for supportingthis study by welcoming us onto the property, into their homes and board meetings, and sharing a wealth ofinformation and perspectives. We would like to particularly express our gratitude to Pam and Phil HoVer,Renée Heberle, and Helen Current. Valuable suggestions and comments on this study and previous editionsof this paper were provided by Michael Hathaway. The collection of forestry data greatly beneWted from theknowledge of Nancy Walker. We are also grateful to Natalie Dushane for supporting the FLCC research pro-ject’s logistics. Finally, we would like to extend our deepest appreciation to Arun Agrawal, who guided usthrough this study.

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