Resource Management Regimes Research Articles

A decade of adaptive governance scholarship: synthesis and future directions

Adaptive is an emergent form of environmental that is increasingly called upon by scholars and practitioners to coordinate resource management regimes in the face of the complexity and uncertainty associated with rapid environmental change. Although the term governance is not exclusively applied to the of social-ecological systems, related research represents a significant outgrowth of literature on resilience, social-ecological systems, and environmental governance. We present a chronology of major scholarship on adaptive governance, synthesizing efforts to define the concept and identifying the array of concepts associated with transformation toward adaptive governance. Based on this synthesis, we define adaptive as a range of interactions between actors, networks, organizations, and institutions emerging in pursuit of a desired state for social-ecological systems. In addition, we identify and discuss ambiguities in adaptive scholarship such as the roles of adaptive management, crisis, and a desired state for of social-ecological systems. Finally, we outline a research agenda to examine whether an adaptive approach can become institutionalized under current legal frameworks and political contexts. We suggest a further investigation of the relationship between adaptive and the principles of good governance; the roles of power and politics in the emergence of adaptive governance; and potential interventions such as legal reform that may catalyze or enhance adaptations or transformation toward adaptive governance.

Resilient communities? Collapse and recovery of a social-ecological system in Arctic Norway

Broderstad, E. G., and E. Eythórsson. 2014. Resilient communities? Collapse and recovery of a social-ecological system in Arctic Norway. Ecology and Society 19(3): 1. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-06533-190301

Growth of the coconut crab Birgus latro estimated from mark-recapture using passive integrated transponder (PIT) tags

Determination of the growth pattern of a harvested species is an important step toward a proper assessment and suitable management of the stock. Although coconut crab Birgus latro populations in most regions have been severely depleted, few reliable biological data are available. We assessed the growth of B. latro using a mark-recapture method based on the use of passive integrated transponder (PIT) tags on Hatoma Island, located southwest of Okinawa, Japan. Of 781 crabs tagged (337 males, 444 females; 14.89 to 58.03 mm thoracic length (ThL)), 17 males and 20 females were recaptured. The application of PIT tags provided field data for growth of individuals for up to 2326 d and confirmed that coconut crabs molt during the winter dry season on Hatoma Island. The curves relating ThL with age, estimated from data of 29 crabs that had spent one or multiple winter dry seasons at liberty, showed that the coconut crab is an extremely slow growing species, with males showing much higher mean asymptotic ThL (69.87 mm) than females (42.79 mm). The Brody growth coefficient (K)was 0.061 yr �1 for males and 0.091 yr �1 for females. This study is the first to provide growth estimates of wild coconut crabs based on mark- recapture over multiple years. Potentially long-lived, slow growing species such as coconut crabs may be susceptible to overharvesting, and a cautious approach is recommended to the determina- tion of resource management regimes for B. latro.

International fisheries regime effectiveness—Activities and resources of key actors in the Southern Ocean

Many contemporary environmental challenges are truly global and span several organizational and geographical borders. Research on international environmental regimes has, over the last couple of decades, identified several important factors that contribute to a more effective governance of global ecological resources, but few studies have addressed the different roles certain influential individual organizations play in determining regime effectiveness. Here we address this question by studying a relatively successful fishery governance system in the Southern Ocean. By drawing on insights from the research fields of common-pool resource management and international environmental regimes, we demonstrate that organizations engaged in certain combinations of activities, and that have access to certain combinations of resources stand out as important for regime effectiveness. In particular, collaboration with other flag states and being politically well-connected stand out as important explanatory factors. However, access to advanced technology, engagement in public campaigns, and being active in the field are other factors that, in different combinations, also seem to explain organizational importance. Furthermore, governmental and non-governmental organizations tend to perform different sets of activities and possess different resources, thereby complementing each other. Also, organizations doing similar things are often of different types with different mandates and objectives. This could contribute to improved adaptability and responsiveness to change at the larger regime level. Finally, we discuss some potential implications of our results for capacity-building in international environmental governance.

Gender and Resource Co-Management in Northern Canada

An inventory of the nominal representation of men and women on northern co-management boards in the Yukon, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut identified a total of 34 co-management boards. Of their total of 210 members, 176 (84%) were males and 34 (16%) were females. Nine boards were composed exclusively of men, and 18 boards had only a single female representative. The land and resource management regimes created through the settlement of comprehensive land claims have afforded Aboriginal governments equitable representation in co-management but have not promoted gender equity in board membership.

Two Rivers: The Politics of Wild Salmon, Indigenous Rights and Natural Resource Management

This paper compares two rivers, Tana River in Northern Norway and Columbia River on the northwest coast of the United States of America. Both rivers host indigenous populations, the Sámi and the Nez Perce, whose cultural and material existence depends upon salmon. Because these people live indigenously within highly industrial, postcolonial societies, their lives have been part of larger economic, political and legal structures for substantial periods of time. In these rivers, peoples have been, and are currently dealing with the possibility of salmon extinction. This article is concerned with how such a crisis has been interpreted and acted upon within two nation’s natural-resource management regimes. We observe how the threat of extinction has initiated commotion where nature, economies, legal instruments, politics and science have come into play, in ways that reveal differences in the Norwegian and American constellations of interests and powers, manifested as differences in natural resource management regimes’ hierarchies of positions. The outcome is the protection of different entities, which could be labeled cultural and biological sustainability. In the Columbia River, cultural sustainability was promoted while in the Tana, biological sustainability became prioritized. By way of our comparison we ask if the protection of one kind of sustainability has to be to the detriment of the other.

Sustained Dialogue for Ground Water and Energy Resources in Chile

Abstract:Water conflict arises in interconnected ways. As demand increases in one region or industrial sector, the accompanying shifts in water resource management regimes have impacts at the local level and may carry international implications. Insecure water resources are often the root cause of resistance or social conflict across many political and economic sectors. Integrated Water Resources Management is an emerging transdisciplinary approach to science‐based water management that attempts to account for these cross sector effects. This paper presents a case study of Integrated Water Resources Managment methods applied in the El Tatio Geothermal Field basin of northern Chile where tensions from the competing needs of metals mining, tourism, energy development, scientific research, and environmental conservation have created social and political tension. Participatory engagement was conducted with stakeholders in the field through elicitation and group dialogue process. This was combined with design of a cyberinfrastructure system for managing and presenting data. Results suggest that sustained facilitated dialogue and socio‐technical systems approaches provide a framework to implement Integrated Water Resources Managment, improve science communication, and engage stakeholders at the center of resource conflict. In the case study, early results are informing the framing of data collection plans, microentrepreneurial ventures, and spurring communication across sectors.

Extreme archaeological sites and their tourism: a conceptual model from historic American polar expeditions in Svalbard, Franz Josef Land and Northeast Greenland

Differing levels of scholarly study, wide geographic dispersal, tourist visitation and protection by national cultural resource management regimes have left large gaps both in the scholarship and even the possibilities for scholarship at archaeological sites from the history of Arctic exploration. This article summarizes the history of seven American Arctic expeditions, the actual and potential archaeological remains they left behind, and the historic and contemporary use of these sites in Arctic tourism. It then proposes a set of field and cloud computing methodologies for the collection and networking of data to begin to fill the gaps in the records of these expeditions and in the process offer a model for an international scholarly architecture for the interactive study of polar archaeological sites tourism.

Property, possession and natural resource management: towards a conceptual clarification

Abstract:There are few concepts that are more central to natural resource management than those of property and property rights. Given their importance, it might be expected that there would be some consensus in the economic literature about what property and property rightsare. However, no such consensus seems to exist. In fact, different authors use the same terms to denote quite disparate concepts and ideas, impeding rather than advancing progress in understanding natural resource management. As but one example, there is hardly a concept that has been as fundamentally misunderstood as that of the commons. That misunderstanding notwithstanding, there is another, less familiar, more common and even more fundamental one: the persistent confusion of possession with property. This article argues that the distinction between possession and property is of particular importance for comprehending the meaning of institutional shifts from one resource management regime to another. It therefore reviews concepts central to natural resource management, by distinguishing between state, private, common property and possession on the one hand and open access on the other.

Fish and chips: cross-cutting issues and actors in a co-managed fishery regime in the Pacific Northwest

The goal of biological resource management regimes is to balance human uses of resources with their inherent regenerative capacities. While accomplishing this goal, managers usually face a multiplicity of stakeholder groups bringing a suite of different, and at times conflicting, interests and values to the management table. In the case of the migratory Pacific salmon, the resource regimes are comprised of a series of hierarchically nested institutional arrangements, engaged in cross-level and cross-scale interactions. Co-management institutions have emerged, at least in part, to address these challenges, encompassing a diversity of stakeholders, providing a forum for the sharing of different beliefs, values and perspectives and, importantly, an institutional response to a suite of cross-scale challenges. This article examines how institutional innovation, specifically the emergence of the Pacific Northwest salmon co-management regime, created new roles and legitimized the participation of new actors. In turn, this has transformed tribal co-managers into “cross-cutting actors”, active in management arenas at multiple jurisdictional and spatial levels in which they represent different interests or constituents. Wearing “different hats”, these tribal actors mobilize a suite of cross-cutting issues, relevant within different policy subsystems, and create bridges among actors who may be opponents in other fora. This has altered the emergence and trajectory of conflict and cooperation as well as problems of institutional interplay and addressed some of the scale-related challenges that exist within the Pacific salmon management regime.

Environmental Impacts and Scarcity Perception Influence Local Institutions in Indigenous Amazonian Kichwa Communities

Much of the literature on common-pool resources has focused on elucidating the social mechanisms and local institutions that lead to the regulation of common-pool resources. There is much less information about how management regimes translate into environmental impacts or how environmental impacts influence the emergence of management decisions. We use quantitative and qualitative methods to investigate the link between forest condition, agricultural change and the emergence of common-pool resource management regimes in two indigenous Kichwa communities in the Ecuadorian Amazon. We show that forest condition is linked to agricultural production and that the perception of common-pool resource scarcity influences the emergence of management regimes. We argue that population pressure, market forces and resource scarcity, which are usually associated with measures of agricultural change can also promote the emergence of common-pool resource management regimes.

An institutional analysis of the sustainability of fisheries: Insights from FishBanks simulation game

FishBanks, a well-known fisheries management simulation game, was used to test the effect of institutional settings on the biological and economic performance of fisheries. The game was played by 48 groups of between 20 and 25 undergraduate Environmental Science students in two different time lengths (10 years versus 15 years) and institutional settings (open access versus regulated access through a resource management regime). Sessions run under an institutional regime for resource management performed better than those under open access in terms of fish population, aggregate asset value and income distribution amongst competing companies. Fleet size, a proxy for human pressure on the resource, had a more intense effect than the existence or not of an institutional setting. Results also indicate that once a critical threshold is reached in stock deterioration, institutions may be insufficient to revert change, suggesting ultimate environmental limits to the effectiveness of institutions.

Desiccation of the Tarim River, Xinjiang, China, and mitigation strategy

Desiccation of the Tarim River is increasingly severe, as shown by the increases in length affected and time of desiccation. If the tendency is not constrained, the difficulty in water transfer to the lower reach of the Tarim River will be greatly increased, and the ecological security in the river basin and the downstream “Green Corridor” protection will be severely impacted. This paper analyses the desiccation tendency and hydrological regime of the Tarim River, discusses the causes of this condition, the point of zero flow movement, and the influence on the ecological security in the Tarim River basin that may be caused by the further development of desiccation. The relationship between soil and water resource management and hydrological regime change in the Tarim River basin and river desiccation is analyzed. The main causes of the river desiccation were the increase in irrigated area of the headstream section in the upstream region, the rise in water consumption in the upper and middle reaches, and the construction of reservoirs in the mountain areas. Accordingly, possible countermeasures and ideas for mitigating the desiccation tendency are suggested, so as to provide decision-making references for water resource management and sustainable and healthy social, ecological and economic development in the Tarim River basin.

Population status and regeneration of a tropical clumping bamboo Schizostachyum dullooa under two management regimes

Schizostachyum dullooa (Gamble) Majumder ‘dolu bamboo’ is a thin walled sympodial moderate sized to large tufted bamboo, dominant in the successional fallows of northeast India. The impact of resource management on productivity and sustainability of the species was evaluated by investigating the population status and regeneration in Cachar tropical semi evergreen forest under private property resource management (PPRM) and common property resource management (CPRM) regimes. Population status revealed current-year, one-year, two-year and three-year-old culms contribute 54%, 24%, 16% and 6% of the total culms per clump, respectively, under PPRM. Three-year-old culms were absent in CPRM and population status was thus represented by current year (83%), one-year (16%) and two-year (1%) old culms. Net change, rate of change and % gain in population for different age classes showed the prevalence of management practices under CPRM was unscientific. Efficiency of new culm production per clump used as an index of regeneration was 69.7% in PPRM and 59.88% in CPRM. New culms produced under CPRM were small and thin. We conclude that CPRM is inappropriate for a long term economic and ecological sustainability of the species and alternative management protocols are needed for conservation of the species.

Finding general patterns in complex water governance regimes

The requirements for sustainable governance of environmental resources in general, and of water in particular, have been a topic of continued concern (Holling and Meffe 1996; Gleick 2003; Pahl-Wostl 1995, 2007). This ongoing debate has been fueled by prospects of climate and global change that render the conditions under which governance has to perform increasingly unpredictable (Bates et al. 2008). Globalization exhibits breath taking dynamics and leads to large-scale changes with unprecedented speed. Climate change and the concomitant increase of extreme weather events have exposed vulnerability of water resource governance and management regimes (Pahl-Wostl 2007; Pahl-Wostl et al. 2007; Opperman et al. 2009). At the same time, it is not clear how to achieve effective water governance, and many problems have not primarily been associated with the resource base but have to be attributed to governance failures. Improving our understanding of how to achieve water governance is of paramount importance. There is increasing recognition that simplistic panaceas like privatization or decentralization as one-fit-all solutions to any governance problem are highly inappropriate (Ingram 2008; Ostrom 2007; Pahl-Wostl 2009). The papers in this special issue make a contribution to develop more general insights into governance approaches based on empirical evidence from a comprehensive assessment of case studies. They are based on papers given at the Conference on Adaptive and Integrated Water Management, which was the first major international scientific event from and for the social science water community. The authors use different approaches from standardized comparative analysis to the in depth exploration of a single case study applying a general conceptual framework. All contributions explore the need to address complexity, the role of institutional diversity and the involvement of actors. The paper by Huntjens et al. (2010) on ‘‘Climate change adaptation in European river basins’’ contains an assessment and standardized comparative analysis of the water management regimes in four case studies in three European river basins. This comparative analysis has an explorative character intended to identify general patterns in adaptive and integrated water management and to determine its role in coping with the impacts of climate change on floods and droughts. Despite its explorative character, the analysis offers very interesting insights. As expected from conceptual considerations (Pahl-Wostl 2007, 2009), the analysis showed a strong interdependence of the elements within a water management regime. For example, a lack of joint/ participative knowledge is an important obstacle for cooperation or vice versa—the two mutually dependent regime elements that were found to be of key importance. Furthermore, the research suggests that bottom-up governance is not a straightforward solution to water management problems in large-scale, complex, multiple-use systems, such as river basins. Instead, all the regimes analyzed were identified to be in a process of finding a balance between bottom-up and top-down governance. This is a clear indication of the need of a more balanced view of the interplay between different processes. The contribution of Nikitina et al. (2010) on ‘‘Towards better water governance in river basins: some lessons learned from the Volga’’ focuses on the problems of water C. Pahl-Wostl (&) Institute for Environmental Systems Research, University of Osnabruck, Osnabruck, Germany e-mail: Pahl@usf.uni-osnabrueck.de

Resource Rents and Management Regimes: The Case of the Western Channel Sole Fishery

Understanding the economic and biological status of a fishery resource is critical to designing efficient management policies. In one such attempt, this article assesses current and potential rents in the sole fishery in the English Channel. The sole fishery is found to experience rent dissipation due to significant disinvestment in the stock and substantial fleet overcapacity. The analysis also investigates alternative paths of attaining the optimal stock level.

Choppy waters ahead in “a sea of peace cooperation and friendship”?: Slow progress towards the application of maritime joint development to the East China Sea

Abstract China and Japan’s June 2008 agreement in principle on maritime cooperation in the East China Sea raised hopes of a significant breakthrough in the parties' complex and long-standing disputes in the area. Subsequent progress towards the realisation of a legally binding, formal treaty on, for example, offshore petroleum joint development has been slow to materialise. In fact, the area under dispute appears to have become more rather than less extensive. This paper examines competing maritime and sovereignty claims in the East China Sea together with progress towards maritime cooperation in the context of overlapping jurisdictional claims. The paper identifies some of the key challenges that need to be overcome in realizing a functioning joint resource management regime in the East China Sea.

An Integrated Theoretical Approach to Understanding the Sociocultural Basis of Multidimensional Environmental Attitudes

Various disciplines have contributed to knowledge about complex and multifaceted attitudes about natural resource management regimes. The vast array of previous research has resulted in disparate approaches to understanding and evaluating environmental attitudes and related constructs, which make comparisons across studies and the advancement of knowledge difficult. Drawing on multiple theoretical perspectives, I outline an integrated approach for assessing critical dimensions of environmental attitudes based on underlying values, ecological worldviews, and sociopolitical orientations. With a cognitive hierarchy framework, I specify a variety of attitude objects toward which evaluative judgments should be examined, focusing on the goals, entities, and strategies involved in resource governance. My intent is to enhance the conceptual clarity of research on environment perspectives while providing a comparable but flexible approach to assessing attitudes and their sociocultural basis in a variety of contexts.

Understanding the Lessons and Limitations of Conservation and Development

The lack of concrete instances in which conservation and development have been successfully merged has strengthened arguments for strict exclusionist conservation policies. Research has focused more on social cooperation and conflict of different management regimes and less on how these factors actually affect the natural environments they seek to conserve. Consequently, it is still unknown which strategies yield better conservation outcomes? We conducted a meta-analysis of 116 published case studies on common resource management regimes from Africa, south and central America, and southern and Southeast Asia. Using ranked sociodemographic, political, and ecological data, we analyzed the effect of land tenure, population size, social heterogeneity, as well as internally devised resource-management rules and regulations (institutions) on conservation outcome. Although land tenure, population size, and social heterogeneity did not significantly affect conservation outcome, institutions were positively associated with better conservation outcomes. There was also a significant interaction effect between population size and institutions, which implies complex relationships between population size and conservation outcome. Our results suggest that communities managing a common resource can play a significant role in conservation and that institutions lead to management regimes with lower environmental impacts.

Climate change policy responses for Canada's Inuit population: The importance of and opportunities for adaptation

We identify and examine how policy intervention can help Canada's Inuit population adapt to climate change. The policy responses are based on an understanding of the determinants of vulnerability identified in research conducted with 15 Inuit communities. A consistent approach was used in each case study where vulnerability is conceptualized as a function of exposure-sensitivity to climatic risks and adaptive capacity to deal with those risks. This conceptualization focuses on the biophysical and human determinants of vulnerability and how they are influenced by processes and conditions operating at multiple spatial-temporal scales. Case studies involved close collaboration with community members and policy makers to identify conditions to which each community is currently vulnerable, characterize the factors that shape vulnerability and how they have changed over time, identify opportunities for adaptation policy, and examine how adaptation can be mainstreamed. Fieldwork, conducted between 2006 and 2009, included 443 semi-structured interviews, 20 focus groups/community workshops, and 65 interviews with policy makers at local, regional, and national levels. Synthesizing findings consistent across the case studies we document significant vulnerabilities, a function of socio-economic stresses and change, continuing and pervasive inequality, and magnitude of climate change. Nevertheless, adaptations are available, feasible, and Inuit have considerable adaptive capacity. Realizing this adaptive capacity and overcoming adaptation barriers requires policy intervention to: (i) support the teaching and transmission of environmental knowledge and land skills, (ii) enhance and review emergency management capability, (iii) ensure the flexibility of resource management regimes, (iv) provide economic support to facilitate adaptation for groups with limited household income, (v) increase research effort to identify short and long term risk factors and adaptive response options, (vi) protect key infrastructure, and (vii) promote awareness of climate change impacts and adaptation among policy makers.