Community Natural Resource Management Research Articles

Participatory Mapping as a Didactic and Auxiliary Tool for Learning Community Integration, Technology Transference, and Natural Resource Management

Participatory mapping is a tool for community work linked to natural resource management. It is an auxiliary for diagnosis and data acquisition from communities and their natural resources. In Baja California, there are several indigenous communities, some close to urban areas but still unknown to most people in cities as well as visitors. These communities are fighting to restore and maintain their language, tradition, territory, biological, and cultural diversity. This work was carried out by linking members of the indigenous community of San Jose de la Zorra with bachelor’s and graduate degree students, to obtain information on the biological, cultural, and economic activities of the community through participatory mapping. The learning experience was significant for all participants; although it was not the intention in this study, students had the unique opportunity to exchange information and learn culture and biodiversity from indigenous people. The indigenous community was involved in field data acquisition and the use of some information and communication technology resources developed for this approach, and used it for natural resource management and decision making. The main results of this experience were wide format printed maps that were placed on several sites inside and outside the community, digital mapping that gave information about natural, cultural, and economic resources of the community for local and foreign visitors, and technology transference to solve problems identified by the community.

Evaluation of Community Livelihood and Natural Resource Management - A Case in Largest Riverine Island of the World (Majuli), Assam-India

Community-based initiatives as a potential win-win solution for improving conservation and livelihood outcomes of the riverine community. Land, forests, water bodies, orchards around homestead of families form some of the basic resources at the household level through which a family can sustain their livelihood. However, close access to the river, may provide opportunity for fishing activities and allied activities. The affinity of the community to the river and water, especially suited them with a variety of opportunistic occupations based on rather complex ecology that the Island provided, but also required the community to develop special skills and strategies to deal with a vigorous and unpredictable river and the fragile ecosystem built in the Island. Floods and erosions were not new, but are to be dealt with year after year. In the present paper an attempt has been made to access the nature and extent of depleting natural resources on Majuli Island due to flood and erosion by the River Brahmaputra and how the operational adaptive and coping livelihood strategies of the tribal communities are effective in dealing with the changing resource complexes and ensuring both the inter and intra generational sustainability.

Sequential power analysis framework in assessing social forestry outcomes

We extend the Actor-Centred Power framework to consider dimensions beyond the life of community natural resource management partnership initiatives by examining social forestry partnership projects in Indonesia. We do this by examining how power constellations realign across the temporal phases that operationalize project partnerships. We propose a sequential power analysis framework that examines power in three parts. The framework first proposes a method for historicizing actors into their power background. Second, we present mode for examining the arrival of a partnership scheme, which we call the power delivery phase. Third, we highlight approaches for examining the way power relations are adjusted, whether reinforced or reconfigured, by introducing an approach for examining programmatic outcomes of social forestry partnership schemes. This article thus provides broadly applicable but targeted guide for the researchers collecting data and seeking to make sense of power relations on community forest partnership schemes in various contexts. This framework is particularly useful for analysing equity and justice dimensions by highlighting who benefits and who loses.•Sequential Power Analysis (SPA) methodology is rooted in interest based and historical power framework.•SPA is consisted of three parts: power background, power delivery, and power adjustment•SPA framing provides a protocol for researchers to collect data

Challenging formal accountability processes in community natural resource management in Sub-Saharan Africa

Africa is endowed with vast natural resources. It is equally labelled a cursed continent due to a plethora of conflicts emanating from the use and sharing of gains from these natural resources. For the past decades, accountability has been thought of as an anecdote to natural resources conflicts. However, these challenges have persisted across the Sub-Saharan African region. Using Ghana and South African communities, the study revisits the relationship between accountability of natural resources and community development with the aim to strengthen accountability processes in Africa. The paper revealed that accountability in natural resources management should extend beyond reports and opinions of the technocrats, bureaucrats, experts and political elites. We argue that accountability should be participatory, inclusive, and embody elements of trust and social justices. It therefore proposes the adoption of negotiated accountability, to strengthen the governance of natural resources in Africa. Negotiated accountability should holistically address four main accountability elements: the normative, relational, decisional and behavioural element.

Using the systemic-resilience thinking approach to enhance participatory collaborative management of natural resources in tribal communities: Toward inclusive land reform-led outdoor tourism

Community participation is at the heart of environmental governance as it facilitates and promotes a sense of ownership in a society's decision making and social development issues. This paper, using both primary and secondary data collected through methods inspired by participatory research, set out to discuss a methodological approach aimed at understanding how common pool natural resources are managed by multi-actors and stakeholders in a developing country context in an effort to promote inclusive land reform-led outdoor tourism. It combines two ‘soft-systems’ schools of thought, systemic thinking and resilience thinking, to analyse the effectiveness and efficiency of collaborative management of natural resources in tribal communities established through land reform processes in South Africa. It is argued in the paper that the two schools of thought can play key roles in identifying and informing the development of appropriate intervening measures and strategies that can contribute towards the adoption of effective and sustainable systems of community natural resource management and bring about more meaningful community development through community-based tourism. These observations have been made within the broader and contemporary arguments of sustainable environmental management and community development. Management implications•The systemic-resilience approach appears to be critical for increasing stakeholder participation in conservation endeavours aimed at outdoor recreational activities and tourism.•The intervention approach in complex tribal communities is key for establishing accommodations that will enable developing action plans to enhance stakeholder participation in co-managing common pool natural resources earmarked for community-based ecotourism.•The systemic-resilience approach promotes strong and genuine grassroot-grown community participation in environmental management decision making, thereby promoting stakeholder participation of interested actors in outdoor recreation and tourism.•Systemic-resilience facilitates the attainment of social capital elements which are key to the successful co-management of natural resources, i.e. participation, transparency, reciprocity and effective communication.

Community Natural Resource Management and Poverty in India: Evidence from Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh

Community Natural Resource Management and Poverty in India: Evidence from Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh

Socio-Economic Strategy of Sustainability and Post-Mining Land Use in South Sumatra

This open-pit mining activity has a very helpful environmental potential, soil chemistry, erosion and sedimentation. Change in land use from mining actively after mining requires land and energy closure to ensure that the land is safe for and returned. In accordance with the local spatial pattern in Muara Enim, South Sumatra, the transfer of post-mining land after the dismissal of mining operations will be used as a conservation area managed by the mining community. The concept is an environmental addressing plan to determine the sustainability of various aspects of community life, including local sustainability, food environment, awareness, biodiversity, and sustainability. This study aims to ensure community sustainability after mining operations. The methodology that is an interview with Experts. The results of this research indicate that community empowerment in mining area can use one of the community's natural resource management strategies to ensure social sustainability with land use as agroforestry and integrated agricultural industries.

English-Language Documents and Old Trucks: Creating Infrastructure in Nagaland's Coal Mining Villages

ABSTRACTIn Nagaland, state attempts to control coal mining are framed as efforts to stop practices labelled ‘unscientific’ by the government. In this article we explore the ways in which communities create their own mining infrastructure built on networks of relations—materialised in English-language documents—and everyday technology—demonstrated in the prevalence of old trucks and improvised machinery. These objects enable livelihoods and supplementary incomes in this region. At the same time, they are also ways of challenging state attempts to control natural resources and for tribal communities to make claims on territory. We focus on coal mining infrastructure, technology and territorial claims in a frontier described variously as remote, inaccessible and underdeveloped, and explore the ways in which practices considered ‘unscientific’ endure and undergird an alternative system of community natural resource management and exploitation.

Adoption of soil conservation through collective actions in southwestern Uganda

In developing countries, access to and use of renewable natural resources are essential for rural livelihoods to thrive. Hence, cooperation in the management of natural resources is increasingly an important strategy that can enhance long-term socio-ecological resilience. In most cases, collective actions have widely been recognised as an alternative institutional arrangement to centralised governance for the management of natural resources, but their success largely depends on factors that are specific to localities where they are implemented. In this study, factors that influence adoption and extent of adoption of natural resource conservation activities were identified using two case studies: Bubaare and Bufundi Innovation Platforms in Uganda. The drivers of adoption of community natural resource management strategies are analysed using an Ordered Logit Model while extent of adoption is analysed using a truncated regression model. The education level of a household head, membership in collective action group, and perception of plot slope and relevance of bye-laws were factors associated with likelihood of adoption. Value of livestock, membership in collective action group, access to credit and off-farm income were found to positively influence the level of investment. Thus, collective action increases opportunities for adoption; hence farmers should be supported to work collectively. Keywords: Adoption, collective action, natural resource management, soil conservation

Transaction costs and the organization of CFEs: Experiences from ejidos in Quintana Roo, Mexico

Forest areas owned by indigenous people, families, and communities are increasingly linking to markets and attempting to harness the benefits of timber commercialization by setting up community forestry enterprises (CFEs). The interaction between markets and commonly owned forests is only until now enjoying greater attention from researchers. Common property scholarship has normally been used to study community natural resource management but currently it is deemed insufficient for understanding market interactions. This paper adds to this growing area of scholarship through the application of transaction costs economics (TCE) to the organization of community forest enterprises. TCE proposes that under certain circumstances and depending on the nature of the production process and context of exchange, different forms of organization play a role in reducing transaction costs in market exchange. Through fieldwork carried out in the state of Quintana Roo, Mexico, this paper finds that hierarchical, collective organization is not the only way to reduce transaction costs for CFEs. Although market transactions can expose communities to opportunistic behaviour and hazards in many jurisdictions, capacity-building and skilling will decrease information costs and asymmetries for CFEs of organizational forms that rely on market contracting for production. Additionally, this research found that CFEs and their business partners value relationships that reduce the range of transaction costs even if this represents trade-offs in prices and making concessions such as informal loans. We recommend that policy should not focus on driving specific organizational forms in communities that attempt to eliminate intermediaries, contractors and service providers. Efforts should concentrate primarily on creating enabling environments by reducing transaction costs, particularly information costs and asymmetries that hinder productive relations between CFEs and their exchange partners. Better commercial relationships, social innovation and entrepreneurship can develop in conditions in which both CFEs and trading partners stand on even footing. Transaction cost theory should further investigate the role of learning in reducing transaction costs and its effect on organizational choice. It should consider that transaction costs may be experienced differently by individuals with different skills and abilities.

Operationalizing analysis of micro-level climate change vulnerability and adaptive capacity

This paper explores vulnerability and adaptive capacity of rural communities in Southern Laos, where households are highly dependent on climate-sensitive natural resources and vulnerable to seasonal weather fluctuations. The speed and magnitude of climate-induced changes may seriously challenge their ability to adapt. Participatory group discussions and 271 household surveys in three villages highlight the current level of vulnerability and adaptive capacity towards climatic variability and risks. This paper visualizes three dimensions of the vulnerability framework at two levels using the Community Climate Vulnerability Index and household climate vulnerability cube. Results show that not only poor households are most at risk from climate change challenges, but also those better-off households highly dependent on specialized agricultural production are locally exposed to climate change risks. The majority of vulnerable households are characterized by low adaptive capacity. Floods and drought regularly put the poor under stress, which has led to various coping mechanisms; but capability of applying long-term adaptive strategies remains low among all households. The outcome of the participatory consultation underlines local community preference for an integrated approach to mainstream climate change adaptation into community natural resource management and livelihood improvement that may lead to better adaptive capacity building.

Do regional natural resource management leaders reflect the attitudes of the landholders?

In the South Australian Murray Darling Basin Natural Resource Management (NRM) region, our case study site, decision-making and implementation of state NRM policy rests with a relatively small number of NRM leaders, advisors and support staff. In this paper we explore whether these community NRM leaders reflect the values and attitudes of landholders in the wider region. Our interest in the potential for shared values derives from NRM and the wider literature of the importance of shared values for driving institutional trust and NRM outcomes. A set of scales was used to measure key values and attitudes which shape participation in NRM programs. Data were collected from community NRM leaders and landholders from across the region. Through statistical testing, this study demonstrates that the values of the community NRM leaders differ to those of landholders on four out of the six values and attitudes examined. Landholders are more economically motivated, have a stronger sense of tradition, are more capital constrained and have a different set of environmental attitudes than community NRM leaders. Alternatives for building trust, given significant differences in shared values, are discussed.

‘Crying for our Country’: eight ways in which ‘Caring for our Country’ has undermined Australia's regional model for natural resource management

The Australian Government's ‘Caring for our Country’ program has undermined Australia's ‘regional model’ for natural resource management, and eroded gains made under the precursor Natural Heritage Trust and related programs, in eight significant ways. Contrary to expectations that Caring for our Country, established in 2008, would build on the foundations established by the Natural Heritage Trust, it has adopted a narrower agenda, increased central government control, and compromised buy-in by state and territory governments. In reaction to the difficulty of assessing the cost-effectiveness of natural resource management program investments, priority has been given to discrete projects capable of demonstrating short-term, measurable outputs. Implementation of Caring for our Country has failed to realise the aspirations of regional organisations for core funding, substantially increased transaction costs and diminished success rates under competitive funding arrangements, and prejudiced the goodwill of many in the natural resource management community. Commitment to local community natural resource management movements like Landcare has been inconsistent, and largely unsuccessful. Retracting investment in relevant research and development, notably the termination of Land and Water Australia in 2009, has severely limited knowledge creation and sharing to inform and strengthen the regional model. We contend that the Australian Government should revisit its strategy for enabling and sustaining natural resource management investment, and that there is a substantial body of evidence in favour of approaches based on the regional model.

Placing the commons at the heart of community development: Three case studies of community enterprise in Caribbean islands

This paper examines experiences in developing, supporting and sustaining community-based enterprises that are based on the use of forest, coastal and marine resources in the insular Caribbean, with a focus on the eastern Caribbean, and draws lessons from that experience. The three cases reviewed include community-based enterprises involved in forest conservation, turtle protection, tour guiding and fisheries. Other experiences are also used to inform the lessons and conclusions of the paper. The paper first identifies some of the cultural, social or economic factors that have favoured or hindered the development of these enterprises, highlighting the conditions that are specific to Caribbean societies, where the majority of the people have throughout history been denied access to valuable natural resources, where production is largely driven by external markets, and where there is not a long tradition of community natural resource management. It then examines the extent to which the economic success of individual business ventures contributes to or hinders the achievement of the broader community social, political, cultural and environmental goals. On the basis of these analyses, the paper proposes a number of enabling conditions that may be required, in the context of the insular Caribbean, for these initiatives to flourish.

Placing the commons at the heart of community development: Three case studies of community enterprise in Caribbean islands

This paper examines experiences in developing, supporting and sustaining community-based enterprises that are based on the use of forest, coastal and marine resources in the insular Caribbean, with a focus on the eastern Caribbean, and draws lessons from that experience. The three cases reviewed include community-based enterprises involved in forest conservation, turtle protection, tour guiding and fisheries. Other experiences are also used to inform the lessons and conclusions of the paper. The paper first identifies some of the cultural, social or economic factors that have favoured or hindered the development of these enterprises, highlighting the conditions that are specific to Caribbean societies, where the majority of the people have throughout history been denied access to valuable natural resources, where production is largely driven by external markets, and where there is not a long tradition of community natural resource management. It then examines the extent to which the economic success of individual business ventures contributes to or hinders the achievement of the broader community social, political, cultural and environmental goals. On the basis of these analyses, the paper proposes a number of enabling conditions that may be required, in the context of the insular Caribbean, for these initiatives to flourish.

Who knows, who cares? The determinants of enactment, awareness, and compliance with community Natural Resource Management regulations in Uganda

ABSTRACTAt the community level, bylaws and other regulations are commonly used to manage natural resources. However, there is limited research on how communities enact these regulations and what determines awareness and compliance with these regulations. A survey of 273 communities was conducted in Uganda with an objective of analyzing the determinants of enactment, awareness and compliance with community Natural Resource Management (NRM) regulations. Presence in the community of programs and organizations with focus on agriculture and the environment increases the probability to enact and to be aware of NRM regulations. The probability to comply with regulations enacted by village councils was greater than the case with such regulations passed by higher legislative bodies, suggesting the important role played by decentralization in NRM. Poverty is associated with lower compliance with NRM regulations. This supports the poverty-natural resource degradation trap hypothesis, and suggests that measures to reduce poverty can also improve NRM.

Bray, D.B., L. Merino-Perez, and D. Barry 2005 (eds.): The Community Forests of Mexico, Managing for Sustainable Landscapes

Mexico has advanced farther than any other country when it comes to commercially-oriented community forestry. Communities have owned a large share of the country’s forests for over half a century and since 1986 they have been able to manage those forests directly. Mexico’s government has devoted large sums to help community enterprises prepare forest management plans, get independently certified, and finance investments. As a result, hundreds of communities are now able to harvest timber and other products from their forests legally, and a significant number operate their own processing facilities. Many community enterprises seem financially viable and to manage their forests well. Nonetheless, recent international debates about community natural resource management have paid surprisingly little attention to the Mexican example. It is hard to say exactly why that is, but one reason has probably been the lack of any serious studies that provide a good overview of Mexico’s community forestry enterprises. This new volume edited by David Bray, Leticia Merino, and Deborah Barry does an admirable job of filling that gap. The volume brings together research from various disciplines by 21 of the most knowledgeable academics and practitioners from Mexico and the United States. The authors provide the clearest picture to-date of how community forestry has evolved in Mexico, its present characteristics and the impact it has had on rural livelihoods and landscapes; and they compare Mexico’s experience with other countries. The material is mostly well-written and goes directly to the point without too much repetition. Chapters by Leticia Merino, and Gerardo Segura and Christopher Boyer ably track the history of Mexican forestry policy, showing how well-intentioned but misguided technocrats and powerful private interests kept communities from truly controlling their forests between 1940 and 1985. However, beginning in the 1970s procommunity reformists within government, social movements demanding community control of forests, and the broad trend towards less government intervention came together to change that. In the mid-1980s, President Miguel de la Madrid stopped giving concessions to private companies to harvest timber on community-owned lands. The two following Presidents were not particularly supportive of community forestry, but that changed during the administration of President Vicente Fox (2000–2006). Despite Fox’s conservative origins, community forestry progressed greatly during the first few years of his presidency. Several chapters highlight community forestry’s successes. Antinori presents survey data from 42 communities in Oaxaca which shows their forestry enterprises have been relatively profitable. Remote sensing data from parts of Guerrero and Quintana Roo presented by Duran, Mas, and Velazquez demonstrate that community forests have been just as effective at maintaining forest cover in those regions as protected areas. Other chapters document some of Mexico’s better known success stories, such as El Balcon in Guerrero, the forestry ejidos of Southern Quintana Roo, and the Union de Comunidades Zapoteco–Chinanteca (UZACHI) in Oaxaca. Still, the book certainly doesn’t downplay community forestry’s weaknesses or the difficulties going forward. Corrupt leaders, conflicts among villagers, poorly planned initiatives, resistance by outside vested interests, overexploitation of timber resources, and on-going clandestine harvesting all get significant attention, with several case Hum Ecol (2007) 35:511–512 DOI 10.1007/s10745-006-9073-6

Human and Ecological Dimensions of Conservation Controversy

Human and Ecological Dimensions of Conservation Controversy

Community natural resource management: the case of woodlots in Northern Ethiopia

This paper examines the nature of community management of woodlots and investigates the determinants of collective action and its effectiveness in managing woodlots, based on a survey of 100 villages in Tigray, northern Ethiopia. Despite limited current benefits received by community members, the woodlots contribute substantially to community wealth, increasing members' willingness to provide collective effort to manage the woodlots. We find that benefits are greater and problems less on woodlots managed at the village level than those managed at a higher municipality level, and that the average intensity of management is greater on village-managed woodlots. The factors that do significantly affect collective action include population density (higher collective labor input and lower planting density at intermediate than at low or high density), market access (less labor input, planting density and tree survival where market access is better), and presence of external organizations promoting the woodlot (reduces local effort to protect the woodlot and tree survival). The finding of an inverse U-shaped relationship between population density and collective labor input is consistent with induced innovation theory, with the increased labor/land ratio promoting collective effort to invest in resources as population density grows to a moderate level, while incentive problems may undermine collective action at high levels of population density. These findings suggest collective action may be more beneficial and more effective when managed at a more local level, when the role of external organizations is more demand-driven, and when promoted in intermediate population density communities more remote from markets. In higher population density settings and areas closer to markets, private-oriented approaches are likely to be more effective.

Environmental Policy, Land Rights, and Conflict: Rethinking Community Natural Resource Management Programs in Burkina Faso

In this paper I will examine the effects of the implementation of the Gestion des Terroirs approach in several villages in the cotton-growing region of southwestern Burkina Faso, an area of both extensive immigration and fast-paced socioeconomic change. Efforts to restructure land-tenure relations have failed, despite the rhetoric of participatory development, because projects misunderstand the nature of changing land rights, agricultural practices, and village social relations. Failures of efforts to zone land have been exacerbated because land has become a major site of conflict. Population growth and agricultural growth have led to land shortages, intensified competition, and overt conflict. Efforts to restructure landholding by using participatory development methods have had unintended consequences as individuals and groups manipulate meanings and representations about rights to land and land-management strategies in order to lay claim to land. On the one hand some local farmers are attempting to expel migrant farmers from land by invoking notions of who is and who is not using environmentally sound management practices. Migrant farmers, on the other hand, are fearful of leaving land fallow because they fear that the project or their local hosts will take it away from them. Both of these outcomes have increased tension among ethnic and generational groups and fostered mistrust of the motivations of environmental projects. Instead of homogeneous cooperative entities, villages are often based on conflict and competition. Projects, therefore, should focus on conflict resolution and reconciliation when attempting to restructure how natural resources are allocated.