Local Governance of Forests and the Role of External Organizations: Some Ties Matter More Than Others

► Most user groups in Bolivia have created their own forest governance arrangements. ► Support from external organizations can increase the likelihood of local governance. ► Bolivian forest users report a wide variety of relationships with external actors. ► Users facing high uncertainty prefer working with municipalities over other actors. ► Municipal support improves the prospects for self-governance by Bolivian forest users. Local efforts to govern forests can benefit from support from organizations operating at broader governance scales. This paper investigates why local users value the support from some organizations more than others, and the extent to which these preferences matter for governance choices. Analyzing data from 200 forest user groups in Bolivia, I find that users rate their relationships with nongovernmental organizations and municipal governments equally high, but only relationships with municipalities affect the probability of establishing local governance institutions. I attribute these results to differences in the external actors’ motivation and ability to respond to local governance needs.