The forest dwellers of Pando, Bolivia’s most forested region, fall into both categories.

The fortunes of the forest people of Pando have gone through dramatic ups and downs in history. For most of the 20th century, the poor people of Pando worked deep in the jungle on large estates called barracas, harvesting rubber from the natural forests. Global demand made the owners, called barraqueros, rich, while the workers for the most part hovered in debt-servitude in the isolated barracas. But when the bottom fell out of the rubber market in Amazonia about 15 years ago, most barraqueros abandoned their forest estates. The poor families were left to fend for themselves by collecting other forest products, chiefly Brazil nut. The price for Brazil nut was low, and life was a struggle. But there was a market, and the people did the best they could to support themselves and their families.

During the 1990s, families began organizing themselves into village-level communities to petition the government for title to forest land abandoned by the barraqueros. Each community could request the equivalent of 500 hectares of forest per family. At first the process was fairly smooth, with little resistance from the barraqueros. But the stakes rose in early 2004, when the price of Brazil nut skyrocketed. Sudden wealth streamed into the area. Overnight, people accustomed to counting every centavo had more money than they knew what to do with.

Itinerant merchants came up with imaginative ways to empty people’s wallets, touting DVD players stereos and frozen chickens in villages without electricity, or motorcycles where there were no roads. “It was bizarre,” said Patricia Miranda, a CIFOR researcher working in local villages. “People bought whatever the merchants had at inflated prices, like expensive perfume and hair perms, simply because they felt they had nothing else to do with their money.”

With the forest important once again, former barraqueros tried to reclaim control of their estates. They brought in their own workers to intimidate local nut collectors. In January, 30 men destroyed the offices of an NGO that had been defending the land rights of El Tigre, an indigenous community. The communities themselves even started fighting each other over control of the forest. People were beaten up and some killed. Violence and conflict erupted throughout Pando.

Other barraqueros, whose traditional rights had never been formalized, organized to maintain their hold on the forest, and argued for new legislation that codified them as legal users of the forest, guaranteeing up to 15,000 hectares per family. While this was a compromise for some barraqueros who had to relinquish hundreds of thousands of hectares, this was still 30 times more than the 500 hectares per family earlier decreed for peasant families.

Providing access to resources is the first step to empowerment and moving people out of poverty. But what happened here? The door was opening for the poor people of Pando, but just when they were organizing themselves and about to receive title to their forests, the price of Brazil nut shot up, and the situation became complicated. The communities were unprepared to defend their claims, either against the barraqueros or other communities.

Rudy Mora is president of the community of San Roque, a small village consisting of only 12 families. San Roque recently formalized their community as a bonafide legal entity and is now waiting for legal title to more than 5000 hectares of forest. However, Rudy was unable to read the maps that the government sent him, and is intimidated when negotiating with neighboring villages.

On one side, a barraca hires harvesters who enter San Roque territory to collect nuts. On the other, a neighboring community claims part of San Roque’s land for themselves. This story has several lessons. One is that governments cannot empower poor people just by endowing them with ownership of natural resources. They also need to follow through with training and conflict resolution processes.

“This is a clear case where empowerment efforts just went half-way,” says Kristen Evans, a CIFOR researcher working with San Roque. “Yes, the community received title to the forest, but without training in how to manage and protect it, they could quickly lose their rights to more powerful stakeholders.”

The other lesson is that while the high Brazil nut price has been a tremendous economic incentive to conserve the natural forests of Pando, it has played havoc with the people. Will this just be another boom-bust cycle, like rubber? Or can the price be stabilized to ensure steady and sustainable benefits for the local people? The people of Pando must develop a strategy to ensure they are not simply buffeted by global markets and that the riches of their forest provide more than just short-term prosperity for a few.

Establishing a forest product futures market or developing an industry of Brazil nut products such as oils and cookies have all been proposed. But it remains to be seen if the local people will be able to overcome their infighting to take advantage of the price boom.