We evaluated how governmental forest regulation in Costa Rica, Guatemala, and Nicaragua has succeeded or failed in fostering changes in forest owner and user behavior that enhance the sustainability of tropical forest management. As expected, sufficient resources and capacity for forest policy implementation are crucial for attaining governmental forest policy objectives, but innovative arrangements for promoting, enforcing, and verifying policy compliance can compensate for limited regulatory

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... esources and processes. The findings also indicate that: the level of governmental commitment to sustainable forest management (SFM) was as important as total funding levels; a mix of government rules and incentives enhanced adoption of SFM; the incorporation of professional forest regents offset limited agency capacity; and forest certification enhanced SFM on forest concessions.