Participatory Land Use Research Articles

Participatory land use planning for community based forest management in South-Eastern Nigeria

Participatory land use planning for community based forest management in South-Eastern Nigeria

Integrating Slum Upgrading and Vulnerability Reduction in Mozambique

Due to its location, Mozambique suffers from cyclical flooding associated with heavy rains and cyclones. In recent years, extreme flood events affected millions of people, disrupting the economic recovery process that followed the peace agreement in 1992. Despite this natural threat, most of the population continues to live in flood prone areas both in rural environment, due to the dependency on agricultural activities, and in urban environment, since unsafe zones are often the only affordable option for new settlers. This paper presents a brief analytical review on different issues related with urban informal settlements, or slums, based on different project activities developed by the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT) in Mozambique. The aim is to identify applicable strategies to reduce vulnerability in urban slums, where approximately 70 percent of the urban population live. The implemented project activities target different organisational levels in an integrated manner, seeking for active involvement of the Government, local authorities and communities at each implementation stage, from decision-making to practical implementation. They consist of three main components: 1) supporting policy-making in order to ensure sustainable urban development, 2) delivering a comprehensive training and capacity building based on the mainstreaming concept of “Learning How to Live with Floods” as valid alternative to resettlement, and 3) facilitating participatory land use planning coupled with physical upgrading interventions at the local level. In the long-term, the intention of UN-HABITAT is to progressively focus on community-based slum upgrading and vulnerability reduction activities, coordinated by local authorities and actively monitored by central institutions, in improving and managing basic services and infrastructures (i.e. water supply, drainage, sanitation, waste management, road network, etc). This type of bottom-up experiences should then represent a basis for setting up a slum upgrading intervention strategy to be applied at the national level.

ＧＩＳを使用した土地利用の適正分析 長野県飯田市座光寺を事例として

This paper is research on the development of the Suitability support system ofparticipatory land use planning. It was analyzed suitability by using GIS in this paper. A vegetation, soil and inclination of landscape factors were laid, and a proper analysis was done in participatory land use planning. It found out the problem and so on which the inhabitant who participated in the decision of the land use plan by laying the landscape factors on participatory land use planning should take into consideration. The land use zone, which was suitable for the use could be presented as that result The suitability analysis of the land use by GIS of this paper is the technique which participatory land use-planning supports.

GEO-INFORMATION SYSTEMS FOR DECISION MAKERS

The notion of a Stakeholders' Forum was discussed at a United Nations Economic Commission for Africa Ad Hoc Expert Group Aleeting held in November, 1998. Such a Forum should be set up to develop the Land Information Management system of Member States, because there have been few success stories in regard to GIS/LIS systems in Africa, and decision makers often have had to make decisions based on little or no information. The paper discusses who should sit on such a Stakeholders' Forum, its functions in relation to the creation and maintenance of a country's LIM system, its structure, and its role in undertaking a Users' Requirement Analysis. Some of the outcomes from such a Forum should be an LIM system that primarily serves decision makers, facilitates decentralization, participatory land use planning and network connectivity (institutional and technical) and develops an integrated information and mapping system.

GEO-INFORMATION SYSTEMS FOR DECISION MAKERS

The notion of a Stakeholders' Forum was discussed at a United Nations Economic Commission for Africa Ad Hoc Expert Group Aleeting held in November, 1998. Such a Forum should be set up to develop the Land Information Management system of Member States, because there have been few success stories in regard to GIS/LIS systems in Africa, and decision makers often have had to make decisions based on little or no information. The paper discusses who should sit on such a Stakeholders' Forum, its functions in relation to the creation and maintenance of a country's LIM system, its structure, and its role in undertaking a Users' Requirement Analysis. Some of the outcomes from such a Forum should be an LIM system that primarily serves decision makers, facilitates decentralization, participatory land use planning and network connectivity (institutional and technical) and develops an integrated information and mapping system.

An ecological economic approach to forest and biodiversity conservation: The case of vanuatu

The paper presents an ecological economic approach to forest and biodiversity conservation. Constructivist philosophy of social science is critically reviewed and adopted as the methodological basis of the approach. The paradigmatic basis of ecological economics is discussed and a model of human behavior suited to ecological economics is presented. This model accounts for altruistic, normative/affective, and irrational behavior, as well as the role of institutions. A discussion of participatory land use planning, which also accounts for intergenerational equity issues, completes the presentation of the ecological economic approach. Its application to the conservation of forests and biodiversity in Vanuatu demonstrates the operational applicability of the proposed approach.

Democratising Nature? The Political Morality of Wilderness Preservationists

Deep ecological appeals for wilderness preservation commonly conjoin arguments for participatory land use decision-making with their central championing of natural areas protection. As an articulation of the normative meaning of participatory democracy, the discourse ethics advanced by Jürgen Habermas is employed to highlight the consistency and justifiability of this dual claim. I argue that Habermasian moral theory reveals a key tension between, on the one hand, an ethical commitment to wilderness preservation informed by deep ecological and bioregional principles that is oriented to a naturalistic value order and, on the other, the procedural norms of democratic participation. It is claimed that discourse ethics thereby raises critical philosophical and practical questions concerning the political legitimacy of deep ecology. In examining the progressive claims of environmental philosophers and wilderness activists embracing this perspective, I draw empirically upon Canadian arguments for natural areas protection and associated radical prescriptions for a democratisation of land use decision-making.

Democratising Nature? The Political Morality of Wilderness Preservationists

Deep ecological appeals for wilderness preservation commonly conjoin arguments for participatory land use decision-making with their central championing of natural areas protection. As an articulation of the normative meaning of participatory democracy, the discourse ethics advanced by Jürgen Habermas is employed to highlight the consistency and justifiability of this dual claim. I argue that Habermasian moral theory reveals a key tension between, on the one hand, an ethical commitment to wilderness preservation informed by deep ecological and bioregional principles that is oriented to a naturalistic value order and, on the other, the procedural norms of democratic participation. It is claimed that discourse ethics thereby raises critical philosophical and practical questions concerning the political legitimacy of deep ecology. In examining the progressive claims of environmental philosophers and wilderness activists embracing this perspective, I draw empirically upon Canadian arguments for natural areas protection and associated radical prescriptions for a democratisation of land use decision-making.

Rethinking the economic analysis of forests: theory and practice

The principles for the economic analysis of forests presented by Godoy are reviewed here and are found to be flawed. A more satisfactory formulation of the neoclassical economic approach to the analysis of forest management options is presented. The ethical and distributional implications of this approach are criticised. Some theoretical and empirical problems faced by the neoclassical valuation methodology are also outlined. This paper argues for the adoption of a participatory land use planning (which may eventually employ the neoclassical valuation approach in a constrained fashion) to the distribution and allocation of forest resources.

Conservation of Scottish estuaries: D. Raffaelli, Proceedings - Royal Society of Edinburgh, Section B, 100, 1992, pp 55–76

Shrinking natural resources and high population growth over last 60 years have been a matter of concern for the Indian planners. The situation is getting especially critical for communities solely dependent on common property resources (CPRs) associated with marginal lands, leading to major problems of impoverishment. The present study was carried out in a cluster of three villages in Deori taluka (administrative unit) of Gondia district of Maharashtra state, India, listed as a backward district by Planning Commission of India. Livelihood in these villages is characterized by their dependence on declining non-timber forest produce (NTFP), shrinking CPRs, low agricultural productivity, lack of soil and water conservation measures, low productivity of livestock, high rate of migration, and lack of infrastructure and credit institutions. Based on information obtained through a baseline survey, participatory land use plan (PLUP) aimed at improved management of available resources for sustainable tribal livelihood and conserve forests was formulated and implemented. Interventions like optimal rainwater management thorough community action, pisciculture, and diversified cropping were introduced. Quantitative and qualitative evaluation of NTFP was done. As a result of scientific interventions, significant improvement in land productivity and consequently economic development was noted. Two years of implementation of the plan has indicated that sustainable land use plan could not be implemented effectively without mobilization of a proactive community. The ideal way to ensure a proactive participation is to create an impact by starting with interventions where economic benefits are quickly realized and their potentials could be easily perceptible.

The ecology of Humboldt Bay, California, an estuarine profile : R. A. Barnhart, M. J. Boyd & J. E. Pequegnat, Biological Report — US Fish & Wildlife Service, 1, 1992, 121 pp.

Shrinking natural resources and high population growth over last 60 years have been a matter of concern for the Indian planners. The situation is getting especially critical for communities solely dependent on common property resources (CPRs) associated with marginal lands, leading to major problems of impoverishment. The present study was carried out in a cluster of three villages in Deori taluka (administrative unit) of Gondia district of Maharashtra state, India, listed as a backward district by Planning Commission of India. Livelihood in these villages is characterized by their dependence on declining non-timber forest produce (NTFP), shrinking CPRs, low agricultural productivity, lack of soil and water conservation measures, low productivity of livestock, high rate of migration, and lack of infrastructure and credit institutions. Based on information obtained through a baseline survey, participatory land use plan (PLUP) aimed at improved management of available resources for sustainable tribal livelihood and conserve forests was formulated and implemented. Interventions like optimal rainwater management thorough community action, pisciculture, and diversified cropping were introduced. Quantitative and qualitative evaluation of NTFP was done. As a result of scientific interventions, significant improvement in land productivity and consequently economic development was noted. Two years of implementation of the plan has indicated that sustainable land use plan could not be implemented effectively without mobilization of a proactive community. The ideal way to ensure a proactive participation is to create an impact by starting with interventions where economic benefits are quickly realized and their potentials could be easily perceptible.