Abstract
Research on community-based management system has been often grounded on monolithic institutional, social and ecological perspective with focus on the commoners as the only local actor, collective territorial rights as the only local tenure system, and the managed resource unit or ecosystem as the only contested resource driving collective action. However, CBMSs are embedded in local social-ecological systems usually characterized by multiple ruling systems, different local groups, and heterogeneous ecological systems. In this paper I discuss how the floodplain tenure system is negotiated and rearranged between two local groups – community residents and large landholders. This complex and dynamic arrangement comprises three layers of property rights which are combined according to changing ecological and social context. Based on longitudinal empirical data spanning 20 years of research, I describe the history of contemporary human occupation, and the most recent socioeconomic and institutional changes in the region in order to unpack the dynamics of the floodplain tenure in the region. I conclude that assumptions that integration of local management system into a formal legal framework suffices to achieve an efficient co-management system is rather simplistic. Despite major structural changes in the formal tenure framework, power relations between different local users may remain unchanged unless local perceptions and everyday life practices of power relations are changed. Unpacking the multiple ruling systems and everyday life practices that mediate interactions between different local actors is fundamental to understanding how the commons are appropriated at the local level. Therefore, a local contextualization of the social and ecological structure is crucial to reveal potential barriers to the development of an inclusive and sustainable production system.
Highlights
The local governance of natural resources has undergone major social transformations over the last few decades
community-based management systems (CBMS) are embedded in local social-ecological systems usually characterized by multiple ruling systems, different local groups, and heterogeneous ecological systems
Based on longitudinal empirical data spanning 20 years of research, I describe the history of contemporary human occupation, and the most recent socioeconomic and institutional changes in the region in order to unpack the dynamics of the floodplain tenure in the region
Summary
The local governance of natural resources has undergone major social transformations over the last few decades. Both local users have kept their access to and use of the floodplain resources This dual access is based on two layers of local property rights: the CBMS, emerged more recently, is controlled by the riparian residents while long-lasting local social norms that are controlled by the landholders. Floodplain farms were established with support from sesmarias, a policy that granted land titles to Portuguese immigrants during the Colonization period and was reinforced after the Independency by the Constitution of 1891 (Benatti et al 2005) These landholders grew cocoa, which was suitable for the forest-shadowed levees and the floodplain’s fertile soils, and brought cattle to graze on natural grasslands during the dry season (Gentil 1988; WinklerPrins 2006). The AEP addressed compatibility with the CBMS – fishing accords – it overlooked another layer of the local tenure system, which defines resource allocation and negotiation among residents and landholders
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