Community-based Co-management Mechanism of Forest Resources: A Case Study of Baishuijiang National Natural Reserve, China

Abstract

"Research on community-based co-management mechanism of forest resources is essentially an academic research proposition of mechanism design on common property resource. Although a group of community-based co-management (CBCM) mechanisms in forest resources has been constructed in Chinese Natural Reserves at the very beginning step, but there is a blind area in its mechanism operation evaluation in local level. This research mainly focuses on the evaluation of the current China’s CBCM mechanism and its program implementation effect, especially through the case study of Baishuijiang National Natural Reserve (BNNR), from three evaluation perspectives: the operation efficiency, equality and sustainability. The survey data has approved that, generally speaking, local CBCM mechanisms have provide a good wide-participation platform for local villagers, relative administration managers, NGOs and other stakeholders. And it also has ensured and facilitated the execution of a series of CBCM projects which has help to greatly decline the forest resource dependency, improve the household income level and encourage local people to join forest resource protection work. Meanwhile gaps are identified to exist in institution-building, which noticeably appear to the inequity of responsibility and right for CBCM committee members, unscientific resource distribution, insufficient program-design and management experiences, and the defective information and capital sources. Based on these gaps, relative recommendations are provided for improvement of CBCM mechanism in CNNR."