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Journal Article Emery Roe on Complexity: Avoiding Triangulation-Strangulation(2000) Bessey, K. Michael"Emery Roe (1998) makes a smooth segue in this collection of revised journal articles (from Transition, Ecological Economics, International Journal of Sustainable Development, World Ecology, Philosophy and Social Criticism, Economic and Political Weekly, and Environmental Management) to examine the pitfalls of one-dimensional policy analysis in a multidimensional world, and to propose triangulation as a useful alternative."Journal Article Water Rights Arenas in the Andes: Networks to Strengthen Local Water Control(2008) Boelens, Rutgerd"The threats that Andean water user collectives face are ever‐growing in a globalising society. Water is power and engenders social struggle. In the Andean region, water rights struggles involve not only disputes over the access to water, infrastructure and related resources, but also over the contents of water rules and rights, the recognition of legitimate authority, and the discourses that are mobilised to sustain water governance structures and rights orders. While open and large‐scale water battles such as Bolivia’s 'Water Wars' or nationwide mobilisations in Ecuador get the most public attention, low‐profile and more localised water rights encounters, ingrained in local territories, are far more widespread and have an enormous impact on the Andean waterscapes. This paper highlights both water arenas and the ways they operate between the legal and the extralegal. It shows how local collectives build on their own water rights foundations to manage internal water affairs but which simultaneously offer an important home‐base for strategising wider water defence manoeuvres. Hand‐in‐hand with inwardly reinforcing their rights bases, water user groups aim for horizontal and vertical linkages thereby creating strategic alliances. Sheltering an internal school for rights and identity development, reflection and organisation, these local community foundations, through open and subsurface linkages and fluxes, provide the groundwork for upscaling their water rights defence networks to national and transnational arenas."Journal Article Impact of Cropping Methods on Biodiversity in Coffee Agroecosystems in Sumatra, Indonesia(2004) Gillison, Andrew N.; Liswanti, Nining; Budidarsono, Suseno; van Noordwijk, Meine; Tomich, Thomas V."The sustainable management of biodiversity and productivity in forested lands requires an understanding of key interactions between socioeconomic and biophysical factors and their response to environmental change. Appropriate baseline data are rarely available. As part of a broader study on biodiversity and profitability, we examined the impact of different cropping methods on biodiversity (plant species richness) along a subjectively determined land-use intensity gradient in southern Sumatra, ranging from primary and secondary forest to coffee-farming systems (simple, complex, with and without shade crops) and smallholder coffee plantings, at increasing levels of intensity. We used 24 (40 x 5 m) plots to record site physical data, including soil nutrients and soil texture together with vegetation structure, all vascular plant species, and plant functional types (PFT's readily observable, adaptive, morphological features). Biodiversity was lowest under simple, intensive, non-shaded farming systems and increased progressively through shaded and more complex agroforests to late secondary and closed-canopy forests. The most efficient single indicators of biodiversity and soil nutrient status were PFT richness and a derived measure of plant functional complexity. Vegetation structure, tree dry weight, and duration of the land-use type, to a lesser degree, were also highly correlated with biodiversity. Together with a vegetation, or V index, the close correspondence between these variables and soil nutrients suggests they are potentially useful indicators of coffee production and profitability across different farming systems. These findings provide a unique quantitative basis for a subsequent study of the nexus between biodiversity and profitability."Journal Article Equally Spaced? Public Space and Interaction between Diverse Communities: A Report for the Commission for Racial Equality(2007) Lownsbrough, Hannah; Beunderman, Joost"This report aims to address the deficit in the current arena by offering one analysis of how public spaces can contribute to building positive relationships and bridges between different communities. Drawing on expertise from the fields of regeneration, community activism and education, the report works with a broad conception of public space that will elicit a response from beyond the usual confines of the planning and design sector. "The report explores peoples motivations for entering public spaces, and assesses the potential for interaction that can be found herein. In particular, it explores some of the specific dimensions of public space - those that are most salient for people working in communities affected by tensions and misunderstandings. The report ends with a series of practical recommendations for those working in the field, drawn from the case studies and from an analysis of existing literature."Journal Article People, Parks and Poverty: Political Ecology and Biodiversity Conservation(2007) Adams, William M.; Hutton, Jon"Action to conserve biodiversity, particularly through the creation of protected areas (PAs), is inherently political. Political ecology is a field of study that embraces the interactions between the way nature is understood and the politics and impacts of environmental action. This paper explores the political ecology of conservation, particularly the establishment of PAs. It discusses the implications of the idea of pristine nature, the social impacts of and the politics of PA establishment and the way the benefits and costs of PAs are allocated. It considers three key political issues in contemporary international conservation policy: the rights of indigenous people, the relationship between biodiversity conservation and the reduction of poverty, and the arguments of those advocating a return to conventional PAs that exclude people."Journal Article A Tool and Process that Facilitate Community Capacity Building and Social Learning for Natural Resource Management(2013) Raymond, Christopher M.; Cleary, Jen"This study presents a self-assessment tool and process that facilitate community capacity building and social learning for natural resource management. The tool and process provide opportunities for rural landholders and project teams both to self-assess their capacity to plan and deliver natural resource management (NRM) programs and to reflect on their capacities relative to other organizations and institutions that operate in their region. We first outline the tool and process and then present a critical review of the pilot in the South Australian Arid Lands NRM region, South Australia. Results indicate that participants representing local, organizational, and institutional tiers of government were able to arrive at a group consensus position on the strength, importance, and confidence of a variety of capacities for NRM categorized broadly as human, social, physical, and financial. During the process, participants learned a lot about their current capacity as well as capacity needs. Broad conclusions are discussed with reference to the iterative process for assessing and reflecting on community capacity."Journal Article Man-Animal Relationships in Central Nepal(2010) Lohani, Usha"Nepal is small in size but rich in bio-cultural diversity. The rugged terrain of the country is home to a number of unique assemblages of fauna, some of which are endemic. Not only faunal resources the country also harbors some very ancient populations whose interrelationship with these diverse faunal resources is very intimate and thus demands scientific study. Animals play important role in both material and spiritual spheres of their life. There are more than hundred groups of such populations in the country and the group Tamang is one of these. The present paper studies Tamang-animal relationships in central Nepal. There is a growing trend of scientific ethnozoological studies all across the globe, but this field is yet in its infancy in Nepal. The country is losing important fauna as well as ancient human cultures at the advent of development processes. As a result, ethnozoological knowledge is also teetering on the brink of extinction."Journal Article Claims on Natural Resources: Exploring the Role of Political Power in Pre-Colonial Rajasthan, India(2005) Kumar, Mayank"The issue of claims over natural resources has been debated for a long time. With its growing powers, the state has increasingly claimed prior proprietary rights over natural resources. It is generally proposed that traditional societies were able to resolve the issue of claims over natural resources and state intervention was minimal. Early writings have sought to establish a 'golden age' approach to Indian environmental history. The interventionist attitude of the state has been attributed to the British. The state tried to control and manage the natural resources not for conservation but to enhance revenue collection. However, it might be incorrect to attribute interventionism only to colonial and post-colonial administrations. Medieval states were also very eager to ensure continuous and regular appropriation of revenue and were thus actively involved with the management and appropriation of natural resources. Here, an attempt is made to examine the necessity and extent of intervention in the management and appropriation of natural resources. The role of traditional rights and claims of the common man have also been examined."Journal Article Access and Resilience: Analyzing the Construction of Social Resilience to the Threat of Water Scarcity(2006) Langridge, Ruth; Christian-Smith, Juliet; Lohse, Kathleen A."Resilience is a vital attribute that characterizes a system's capacity to cope with stress. Researchers have examined the measurement of resilience in ecosystems and in social-ecological systems, and the comparative vulnerability of social groups. Our paper refocuses attention on the processes and relations that create social resilience. Our central proposition is that the creation of social resilience is linked to a community's ability to access critical resources. We explore this proposition through an analysis of how community resilience to the stress of water scarcity is influenced by historically contingent mechanisms to gain, control, and maintain access to water. Access is defined broadly as the ability of a community to actually benefit from a resource, and includes a wider range of relations than those derived from property rights alone. We provide a framework for assessing the construction of social resilience and use it to examine, first, the different processes and relations that enabled four communities in northern California to acquire access to water, and second, how access contributed to their differential levels of resilience to potential water scarcity. Legal water rights are extremely difficult to alter, and given the variety of mechanisms that can generate access, our study suggests that strengthening and diversifying a range of structural and relational mechanisms to access water can enhance a community's resilience to water scarcity."Journal Article How Deep Are Our Treaties(2009) Pictou, Sherry"Faced with the commodification of food and livelihoods in the fishery of Canada's Bear River First Nation, a Mikmaq community displays remarkable resilience."