This paper explores to what extend Lipsky's street-level bureaucrat (SLB) model fits forest-level bureaucrats implementing environmental policy. Based on the research of a state-led payment for an ecosystem services scheme in the Peruvian Amazon, the common features of SLBs – discretion, distance from power, and closeness to public policy users – are key analytical tools to understand the work of SLBs in rural contexts, where the presence of the state is usually precarious. Results suggest that, for this case study, SLBs use their discretion to reshape formal regulation and procedures and even relegate the accomplishment of environmental activities to cope with the burden of bureaucracy and accountability reporting. The political but also geographical distance from the center of power is fundamental for SLBs to use their discretion. However, applying the SLB model to the margins also requires paying attention to alternative elements. SLBs are better understood as brokers rather than gatekeepers since they assume responsibilities to close the bureaucratic and administrative gaps between the state as provider of public services and the real capacities of indigenous peoples as policy users. It also demands paying better attention to the role of public accountability and the effect they produce on bureaucratizing the communities where they work.

中文翻译：

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保护秘鲁亚马逊的社区级官僚

本文探讨了 Lipsky 的街道级官僚 (SLB) 模型在多大程度上适合实施环境政策的森林级官僚。基于对秘鲁亚马逊生态系统服务计划的国家主导支付的研究，SLB 的共同特征——自由裁量权、与权力的距离以及与公共政策用户的接近——是了解 SLB 在在农村环境中，国家的存在通常是不稳定的。结果表明，在本案例研究中，SLB 使用他们的自由裁量权来重塑正式法规和程序，甚至降低环境活动的完成，以应对官僚主义和问责制报告的负担。与权力中心的政治距离和地理距离是 SLB 使用其自由裁量权的基础。然而，将 SLB 模型应用于边缘还需要注意替代元素。SLB 被更好地理解为经纪人而不是看门人，因为它们承担着缩小作为公共服务提供者的国家与作为政策使用者的土著人民的实际能力之间的官僚和行政差距的责任。它还要求更好地关注公共问责制的作用及其对他们工作所在社区官僚化的影响。