Abstract
Under present conditions of economic globalization, social-ecological systems undergo rapid changes. In this context, internal and external forces put heavy pressure on the governance systems of commons to adapt effectively. While institutional learning has been identified as a key element for the adaptive governance of social-ecological systems, there is still limited knowledge of what roles communities and governmental actors play in these processes. In this study, we take the case of yarshagumba (English: caterpillar fungus), a formerly non-valued product in the Himalayas, which has recently been transformed into a highly valuable resource within a short time. We compare the governance systems in collection sites in the Kailash Landscape in India and Nepalby using an analytical framework developed by Pahl-Wostl (2009). Our findings show that in these remote mountain areas, communities and community-led organizations are highly flexible in responding to immediate resource value changes by establishing communal management arrangements. At the same time, however, communities have difficulties to enforce their newly developed informal and formal arrangements. During the process of learning the link between the amendment of arrangements on community-level and the revision of formal policies and frames at the state or national level is only partly established. Against this background, we argue that in the context of rapid change, adaptive governance requires the concerted interaction of actors at the local and the national levels in order to enable the sustainable use of common pool natural resources.
Highlights
While institutional learning has been identified as a key element for the adaptive governance of social-ecological systems, there is still limited knowledge of what roles communities and governmental actors play in these processes
They note, “our knowledge about resource governance systems and how they change [to deal with present and future challenges] is [still] quite limited” (Pahl-Wostl 2009, 254). Contributing to this on-going research area, we focus our analysis on the adaptive capacity and learning processes of resource governance systems in remote mountain areas using the case of yarshagumba collection
During learning processes the link between the amendment of actions, in our case initiated by communities, and the revision of the formal policies and the frame is essential to ensure that innovative approaches reach the policy level and can spread across administrative boundaries
Summary
Like forests and grazing grounds, are common pool resources (Acheson 2006). Researchers have argued for more complex governance systems such as ‘adaptive co-management’ and ‘adaptive governance’ (Dietz et al 2003; Folke et al 2005; Olsson et al 2006; Plummer et al 2013; Karpouzoglou et al 2016), ‘polycentric institutions’ (Ostrom 2005) or ‘hybrid institutions’ (German and Keeler 2010) These approaches have in common the idea that, for governance to be effective, it “should employ mixtures of institutional types that employ a variety of decision rules to change incentives, increase information, monitor use and induce compliance” (Dietz et al 2003, 1910). The interplay of these elements determines the adaptive capacity of governance systems to alter processes and structures (Pahl-Wostl et al 2013) This leads us to a comparative analysis of roles of communities and governmental actors in learning processes when sudden changes occur, using the case of yarshagumba collection in remote Himalayan regions of India and Nepal
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