Factors driving deforestation in common-pool resources in northern Mexico Gustavo Perez-Verdin a, * , Yeon-Su Kim b , Denver Hospodarsky b , Aregai Tecle b a MSU, Department of Forestry, Box 9681, Mississippi State, MS 39762, USA b Northern Arizona University, P.O. Box 15018, Flagstaff, AZ 86011-5018, USA Received 1 November 2006; received in revised form 2 August 2007; accepted 12 October 2007 Available online 20 February 2008 Abstract The theory of collective action has been extensively used to explain the relationship between common-based property regimes and the con- servation of natural resources. However, there are two key components of the theory that literature reports as puzzles in which no consensus exists about their effect on the performance of common-pool resources. These are group size and heterogeneity. This study analyzes the effects of these two key components on the effectiveness of community-based forestry, called ejidos, to protect their forest resources in northern Mexico. We used a multinomial logit model to determine the contribution of 16 explanatory variables to the dependent variable, a measure of success of ejidos defined by the presence of deforested, degraded, or forested conditions. The results show that corn yield, marginality, percent of forest area, total population, a forest value index, distance to markets, roads and towns, were all statistically significant in driving deforested conditions. Deforestation becomes more attractive for poor communities and as corn yield and distance to towns, roads, and markets decrease. In general, group size and heterogeneity had no significant effects on the presence of deforested conditions. Deforestation is driven by resource- specific characteristics, such as location and soil productivity, not by ejidos’ attributes, such as total area or number of members. We argue that current institutional policies focusing on the structure of property right arrangements should be shifted (1) to provide better technology for land cultivation; (2) to reduce the marginality problem in poor communities; and (3) to strengthen local institutions. Ó 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Collective action; Deforestation; Durango, Mexico; Ejido; Multinomial logit model 1. Introduction The Tragedy of the Commons (Hardin, 1968) suggests that common-pool resource institutions are likely to fail under un- limited access to natural resources. Hardin proposed that the solution to this problem was to impose some form of govern- ment or private ownership from the outside, but neglected the possibility that users could agree on common rules and en- force them collectively (Burger et al., 2001). The enforcement of common rules became the basis of the theory of collective action, with applicability to almost any common-pool resource (Ostrom, 2001; Gibson et al., 2005). With the increasing use of game theory, various theoretical frameworks have been developed to more effectively overcome the prisoner’s dilemma or coordination failure problem (Hardin, 1968; Baland and Platteau, 1996). The possibility that members can find ways to organize themselves in consideration of their complex composition is now some of the typical topics in com- mon-property regimes (Sandler, 1992; Baland and Platteau, 1996; Klooster, 1999; Becker and Leo ´n, 2000; Agrawal, 2000; Schwartzman et al., 2000; Ostrom, 2001; Johnson, 2004; Gibson et al., 2005). The theory of collective action (TCA) suggests that sustaining common-based resources in the face of demographic and economic pressures depends upon successful coordination and cooperation among members (Poteete and Ostrom, 2004). However, the structure and attributes of the users as well as * Corresponding author. Tel.: þ1 662 325 6822; fax: þ1 662 325 8726. E-mail addresses: gperez@cfr.msstate.edu (G. Perez-Verdin), yeon-su. kim@nau.edu (Y.-S. Kim), denver.hospodarsky@nau.edu (D. Hospodarsky), aregai.tecle@nau.edu (A. Tecle). 0301-4797/$ - see front matter Ó 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jenvman.2007.10.001 Journal of Environmental Management 90 (2009) 331e340 www.elsevier.com/locate/jenvman