Co-Management Across Levels of Organization: Concepts and Methodological Implications

Abstract

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"There is a growing literature on social-ecological linkages and sustainable use of natural resources. This research can be divided into two broad categories. The first category consists basically of case studies that reveal the existence of an extremely rich variety of systems of management of common-pool resources. The second type of research sets out to find empirical and theoretical support for the prospects of suggesting, and deliberately building management systems that fulfill well-known criteria for sustainable use (Burger et al., 2001; Berkes and Folke, 2002). In both types of research, the concept and principles of co-management have been an integral part. This paper is based on the presumption that the two lines of research could be merged and synthesized. The paper deals with three broad questions: 1) What is co-management and how should the phenomenon be understood?; 2) What is co-management good for?; and 3) How can real-life instances of co-management be investigated and analyzed?"