Learning from the actors: the rise and demise of a CBNRM initiative in Mexico

Abstract

Advocacy and support for community-based natural resource management initiatives offers a possible solution to the impasse between conservation and development goals. This has resulted in a mushrooming of communal initiatives – yet most of them seem to fail. To explain these failures, experts resort to a variety of theoretical frameworks that bias the understanding of the dynamics underlying such initiatives from the outset. In this chapter we refrain from doing this and stick to the events leading to the rise and demise of a community-based producer organisation in Mexico as narrated and explained by the actors themselves. We do not pass judgement on what may retrospectively be considered to be a ‘success’ or ‘failure’, and invite the reader to associate the story with his or her own experiences. In so doing we hope to attract attention to the fundamentally uncertain nature of community-based natural resource management initiatives.