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Conference Paper Building Knowledge about Variability in the Abundance and Distribution of Natural Resources: A Case Study on Berry Harvesting from Northern Canada(2004) Parlee, Brenda; Berkes, Fikret; Teetlit Gwichin Renewable Resources Council"Local and traditional knowledge is disappearing at an alarming rate, however, there are examples in many parts of the world, including northern Canada, where new knowledge is being created. This case study on berry harvesting provides valuable insight into how knowledge is generated; specifically knowledge about variability in the abundance and distribution of a common pool resource. Knowledge is created when observations about changes are interpreted and shared from year to year within a family group, the community or across the region. When this knowledge is shared and interpreted over many generations, traditional knowledge is generated. It is argued that the success of berry harvesting in any given year, is dependent upon feedback between what is observed and interpreted and the decisions women make about where, when and with whom to harvest."Conference Paper Community-Based Use of Mangrove Resources in St. Lucia(1992) Smith, Allan H.; Berkes, Fikret"The sustainable use of mangrove forests can effectively contribute to their conservation. The experience with an integrated conservation-development project in St. Lucia showed that charcoal producers using mangrove fuelwood resources in a Marine Reserve Area have successfully changed their harvesting practices, reversing a trend of mangrove destruction. The conditions under which this change occurred included strengthening the organization of local users and their resource-use rights, and building a community-based management system, leading to the avoidance of open-access conditions. Surveys of the mangrove, undertaken before and after management intervention, showed that while the mean stand diameter of the fuelwood trees did not change significantly, there was an increase in the density of stems and in total basal area of timber."Conference Paper The Interface Between Natural and Social Systems(1993) Berkes, Fikret"This is a background paper on the focus area, interface between social and natural systems. Following definitions, the paper attempts to present some perspectives on the linkage between social and natural systems, and to cover some aspects of the state of knowledge about how natural resource systems and social systems interact under different property rights regimes, and how that interaction affects the performance of natural resource systems."Conference Paper Resilience and the Co-Evolution of Ecosystems and Institutions(1995) Folke, Carl; Berkes, Fikret"Resilience is the ability of a system to cope with change without collapsing. It is the capacity to absorb external perturbations, by actively adapting to an ever changing environment. Reduction in resilience means that vulnerability increases, with the risk that the whole system flips from one equilibrium state to another. Such flips are often a consequence of the misuse of the environment and the inertia of institutions to change. Smaller unpredictable perturbations that previously could be handled turn into major crises when extreme events intersect with internally generated vulnerability due to loss of resilience. To avoid such situations there is a need for institutions with the ability to respond to and manage environmental feedbacks, institutions that can cope with unpredictable perturbations before they accumulate and challenge the existence of the whole social-ecological system. This implies that it is not enough to only understand the institution in question. The dynamics of the ecosystems that form the biophysical precondition for the existence of the institution need to be taken into account as well. This study focuses on the linked social-ecological system, and its dynamic interrelationships. We regard it as one system with its social and ecological components co-evolving over time. It is in this context that we study traditional and newly-emergent social-ecological systems. We are analyzing 1) how the local social system has adapted to and developed a knowledge system for dealing with the dynamics of the ecosystem(s) including the resources and services that it generates, 2) specifically, how the local system maintains ecosystem resilience in the face of perturbations, and 3) those combinations of property rights arrangements, institutions, and knowledge systems which accomplish the above successfully. Examples will be presented from the Cree Indians of the Canadian eastern subartic and their resource management, and pastoral herders and rangeland management in semi-arid Africa."Conference Paper Community-Based Management and Sustainable Development(1989) Berkes, Fikret; Kislalioglu, Mina"Should a fishery be managed by limiting the number of licenses? Should it be managed by harvest quotas? How should the resource be allocated? How can conflicts among groups of fishermen be settled? What is the role of territorial use rights (TURFS)? How and on what basis can decisions be made about such management measures as mesh sizes and closed seasons? Research in the area of management interventions does not fall clearly into the realm of any one discipline: biology, oceanography, economics, political science, geography, planning, sociology, anthropology."Conference Paper The Problematique of Community-Based Conservation in a Multi-Level World(2006) Berkes, Fikret"Community-based resource management or community-based conservation is not just about communities. It is about governance that starts from the ground up and involves multi-level interactions. Complexities of this multi-level world create problems but also provide opportunities to combine conservation with development. I unpack the problematique of community-based conservation and deal with four aspects of it. The first is the inability and discomfort of our conventional science and resource management to deal with multiple objectives. Many projects are either primarily about conservation or primarily about development, but rarely both. Second, community-based approaches to conservation have rarely employed strong deliberative processes. 'Conservation', as conceived at the local level, tends to be different from 'conservation' as conceived by international conservation organizations. A multi-lens approach is needed whereby communities become partners (and not the objects) of conservation projects. Third, the field of conservation has not made good use of the lessons from commons theory. Much of so-called community-based conservation of the last 10-15 years has been half-hearted, misdirected, and theory- ignorant. Finally, we can do a better job conceiving, researching and analyzing community-based conservation in terms of scale, organization, uncertainties and dynamics. Community-based conservation in a multi-level world is a complex systems problem and should use the tools and approaches appropriate for dealing with complexity."Conference Paper Cultural and Natural Capital: A Systems Approach Revisited(1998) Berkes, Fikret"This paper does not claim to provide an 'ecological perspective' on social capital. Ecology has little to say directly on social capital. But the paper does emphasise social system-ecosystem interactions, along the lines of our recent book. First, let's place social capital in perspective. There is a spectrum of concepts on the social dimensions of sustainability. These include social indicators, as used for example in Robert Allen's new book still in press, and a diversity of concepts of social and cultural wellbeing: -- equity: fairness, social justice, distributional issues; -- empowerment: ability of people to exert a degree of control over decisions affecting their lives; -- sustainable livelihoods: capacity to generate and maintain one's means of living; -- cultural sustainability: ability to retain cultural identity, and to allow change to be guided in ways consistent with the cultural values of a people; -- social cohesion: shared values and commitment to a community - as the foundation stone of social order, as used by Jane Jenson and others; and as social capital: -- social organisational features, such as trust, norms and networks."Conference Paper Co-Management Across Levels of Organization: Concepts and Methodological Implications(2003) Carlsson, Lars; Berkes, FikretFrom Page 2: "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?"Conference Paper Livelihood Systems, Adaptive Strategies and Sustainability Indicators in the Western Indian Himalayas(1996) Berkes, Fikret; Duffield, Colin E.; Ham, Laurie"The paper is based on an interdisciplinary team project in Kullu District, Himachal Pradesh, in the Western Indian Himalaya, and concentrates on three themes: land use and property-rights systems through which the local people interact with their environment; adaptive strategies used for sustainable livelihood security in the face of ecological, social and economic change, with focus on women's roles; and changes in the forest ecosystem and 'signs and signals' of sustainability as perceived by the people of the area. Local villagers are recognized as actors who define what is important and relevant, rather than merely the objects of study. Their perspectives provide two important findings: (1) adaptive strategies used by households and villages are diverse and contribute to the resilience of the social system and the natural system, and (2)villagers recognize a complex array of signs and signals, that are biophysical, social and economic in nature, and that may be seen as indices of sustainability. Village institutions are 'fuzzy' and resilient, and are the basis of both the system of adaptive strategies and the system of signs and signals. These institutions seem well adapted to fit into a decentralized, integrated, participatory resource management framework."Conference Paper The Common Property Resource Problem: Sustainable Development and the Fisheries of Barbados and Jamaica(1986) Berkes, Fikret"The primary aim of this paper is to examine alternative approaches to solving the commons problem as relevant to sustainable development. First, an attempt has to be made to address the confusion created by differences in the definition of 'common property resources'. Second, the different formulations of the commons problem need to be analysed. This will be followed by a case study of Caribbean fisheries to explore the dimensions of an inshore commons problem (Jamaica), and an international commons problem (Barbados), and their possible solutions. Finally, some emerging principles of common property resource management will be offered towards a practical framework for sustainable development."
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