Browsing by Author "Walters, Bradley B."

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4

Integrated Management of Common Property Fuelwood Resources from Natural and Plantation Forests in St. Lucia
(1991) Walters, Bradley B.; Burt, Mathias
"Describes a community based approach to mangrove tree conservation and fuelwood management in the Vieux Fort region of St. Lucia West Indies."
Making History Matter
(2007) Walters, Bradley B.
"The study of collective action and common property resource management could be deeply enriched by research that adopts a more explicit, analytically historical perspective. However, 'the past is another country' presents the study of historical commons as if this remains a distinct disciplinary pursuit from that of contemporary socio-economic approaches. In so doing, it tends to re-enforce a counter-productive and arguably false dualism between the historically 'descriptive' and the contemporary social 'scientific.' It further argues that the value of historical studies be measured in terms of their contribution to the development of general commons theory. In short, historical information is seen as a kind of untapped pool of empirical information that can be put to the test of contemporary theory. But some of us would argue that historical analysis is scientific in its own right, at least wherein it involves the intentional search for and rigorous testing of causal relationships between changes or events over time."
Muddy Intertidal Mangroves and Murky Common Property Theories
(1998) Walters, Bradley B.
"This paper summarizes research on two coastal sites in the Central Visayas region of the Philippines that are widely recognized and show-cased as success stories in community-based mangrove reforestation and management. Investigations of 12 different coastal villages in these two sites revealed considerable within and between village variation, both in the kind and extent of mangrove planting and management. Property rights regimes in mangroves are complex, conflict-ridden and under continuous negotiation between similar and dissimilar resource users. Nonetheless, the most striking pattern across all sites was a clear historical trend towards privatization of open access and common mangrove lands and resources, by poor and rich mangrove users alike. There are important social dimensions to this. In particular,leadership and imitation profoundly influenced the emergence and spread of management innovations like tree planting. But, the direct role of collective action and common property institutions has been small and there is little evidence of sustained community management of mangrove resources. These findings argue for keeping individual actors and private property central in discussions of common property management. As well, lessons from these cases can be used to inform ongoing mangrove management and restoration efforts elsewhere in the Philippines."
Reversing the Degradation of Mangroves in the Caribbean and Philippines
(1993) Walters, Bradley B.
"Mangrove forests are important coastal ecosystems that have been degraded and destroyed throughout the tropics. Two projects are examined--one from the Caribbean and one from the Philippines--that are attempting to halt the degradation of critical mangrove sites. Experiences revealed several key compounding factors that hindered resource conservation in both cases. For one, there has been a tendency to undervalue mangroves, in terms of their critical ecological functions as well as their direct production values to local populations. A corollary of this is a failure to acknowledge and incorporate less visible but nonetheless significant resource users and interest groups in mangrove planning and management. In addition, the unusual ecology and diverse resource values have contributed to ambiguous tenure and administrative arrangements over mangrove areas. Efforts to restore and protect the Caribbean and Philippine mangrove sites have had to address all of these factors. In particular, project work has tried to harmonise the interests of local resource users and various levels of government with the intent of establishing meaningful and lasting comanagement systems. Both communal and household (private)-based strategies have been used with some success, although the short-comings of each are also apparent and discussed."