From Community Forest Management to Polycentric Governance: Assessing Evidence from the Bottom Up

Abstract

Decentralization of governance is an emerging trend in many natural resource sectors in both developed and developing countries. Despite the normative agenda of community-based natural resource management for social and ecological outcomes, a shift to multilevel or polycentric theorizing is warranted. Polycentric governance recognizes the importance of cross-scale interactions, as well as the horizontal and vertical institutional linkages of authority, networks, and markets in which community institutions are embedded. Based on qualitative community forestry research in Revelstoke, British Columbia, Canada, this article explores the themes of livelihood and local economy, collaborative forest planning and participation, and environmental governance. Bottom-up empirical evidence suggests that viewing community forestry through a polycentric governance network is necessary for theorizing complex cross-scale dynamics. Incentivizing policies that encourage the development of polycentric systems for natural resource governance is important for maintaining local benefits, while increasing adaptive capacity to deal with complex social–ecological challenges.