Information for Decision Making: Challenges for Village Communities

Abstract

"The importance of managing common property resources, and the central role of village communities in it is has formed a minor though important part of the Indian Natural Resource Management discourse and practice. The importance of common property resources in the lives of the poor and marginalised communities in India has been well documented. There have been numerous initiatives across the country by village communities of managing their common property resources, particularly land. These initiatives have included village level management of common property resources, as well as federations of a number of villages.

"Traditional emphasis on common property resource management in India has been at a village-level where the community is managing the resources adjacent to the village. There have also been well-documented experiences of federations of village communities covering a large area forming the next tier of Common Property Resource management.

"Recently however the Ecosystem approach to sustainable development (including natural resource management) has been gaining ground around the world. Cutting across the various boundaries demarcated on land and between different natural resources this approach advocates a holistic understanding of the ecosystem and development. The approach also envisages involvement of a wide variety of stakeholders in ecosystem management including village communities.

"The Ecosystem approach recognises the 'Precautionary Principle' and advises management of ecosystems within their limits of functioning. This requires understanding of the dynamics of natural resources at various spatial scales and over time, considering the influences of a large number of external factors. Scientific research, whether participatory or otherwise, would be called for to assess many of these parameters with reasonable accuracy. However, CPR management has traditionally been able to build upon the knowledge base of communities for managing natural resources. There have also been well-documented instances of self-initiated CPR management initiatives in different parts of the country.

"The implications of adopting an ecosystem approach, in which the management of common property resources forms an important part, for the knowledge base that is required at the village community level therefore need to be analysed. The complexity of many ecosystem processes, including but not limited to the spatial and temporal dimensions, would present numerous challenges to the village communities in terms of access to relevant and timely information.

"The paper proposes to draw upon the experiences of the authors in working with village communities on common property resource management in India and identify the issues involved in generating and sharing information with village communities on aspects such as carrying capacity, resource status etc. The challenges faced by the village communities in accessing such information as well as by organizations involved in supporting them would be analysed. It would also review the experiences of other initiatives to take technical information to village communities, such as agricultural extension, to draw implications for supporting community decision making on common property resources."