Abstract
This study adopts Ostrom’s Social-Ecological Systems (SES) framework in empirical fieldwork to explain how local forestry institutions affect forest ecosystems and social equity in the community of Mawlyngbna in North-East India. Data was collected through 26 semi-structured interviews, participatory timeline development, policy documents, direct observation, periodicals, transect walks, and a concurrent forest-ecological study in the village. Results show that Mawlyngbna's forests provide important sources of livelihood benefits for the villagers. However, ecological disturbance and diversity varies among the different forest ownership types and forest-based livelihood benefits are inequitably distributed. Based on a bounded rationality approach, our analysis proposes a set of causal mechanisms that trace these observed social-ecological outcomes to the attributes of the resource system, resource units, actors and governance system. We analyse opportunities and constraints of interactions between the village, regional, and state levels. We discuss how Ostrom’s design principles for community-based resource governance inform the explanation of robustness but have a blind spot in explaining social equity. We report experiences made using the SES framework in empirical fieldwork. We conclude that mapping cross-level interactions in the SES framework needs conceptual refinement and that explaining social equity of forest governance needs theoretical advances.
Highlights
It is widely acknowledged that there is no simple blueprint for sustainable governance of natural resources (Ostrom 2007)
They differ with the kind of encountered cross-level interactions (Cash et al 2006) and with the normative criteria used for assessing the sustainability of social-ecological systems
Its detailed conceptual map compiles (i) attributes of resource systems, resource units, actors, and governance systems that were found to shape the sustainability of natural resource governance; (ii) contextual factors in which a social-ecological system is embedded; and (iii) variables that capture the multiple facets of social interaction and outcomes
Summary
It is widely acknowledged that there is no simple blueprint for sustainable governance of natural resources (Ostrom 2007). Its detailed conceptual map compiles (i) attributes of resource systems, resource units, actors, and governance systems that were found to shape the sustainability of natural resource governance; (ii) contextual factors in which a social-ecological system is embedded (e.g. globalization pressures, technological change); and (iii) variables that capture the multiple facets of social interaction and outcomes. This catalogue of variables is an answer to the question: Which factors account for diverging trajectories and outcomes of resource governance?
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