3 results
Search Results
Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
Conference Paper Can Cross-Scale Linkages Increase the Resilience of Social-Ecological Systems?(2003) Berkes, Fikret"Resilience thinking helps commons researchers to look beyond institutional forms, and ask instead questions regarding the adaptive capacity of social groups and their institutions to deal with stresses as a result of social, political and environmental change. One way to approach this question is to look for informative case studies of change in social-ecological systems and to investigate how societies deal with change. From these cases, one can gain insights and construct principles regarding capacity building to adapt to change and, in turn, to shape change. "A number of examples exist to indicate that cross-scale linkages, both horizontal (across space) and vertical (across levels of organization), speed up learning and communication, thereby improving the ability of a society to buffer change, speed up self-organization, and increase the capacity for learning and adaptation (Lee 1993; Young 1999). This paper will deal with two cases, one involving aboriginal co-management in the Canadian North, and the other, cross-scale management of ocean fisheries."Conference Paper How to Keep Commons as Commons in the Long Run: Formation and Distortions of Property Regimes in Chilika Lagoon, India(2008) Nayak, Prateep Kumar; Berkes, Fikret"The paper tries to understand how a regime of de jure ownership of customary fishers is gradually changing into a state of de facto control of non-fishers and outsiders in the Chilika lagoon, a Ramsar site on the eastern coast of India. The paper brings into analysis the historical and current distortions in the access regime of the lagoon. The focus of this analysis is on two processes: one, the shift from a position of legal rights and entitlements to denial of access for customary fishers, and two, from a state of no or thin access to claim of legal rights by the non-fishers. While tracking this changing nature of property regimes in Chilika Lagoon the paper makes two important conclusions. One, commons is not fixed in its own distinct category; rather there often remains a threat that commons can change into other types of property regimes. Two, the immediate challenge is to identify drivers that may cause these changes and even the bigger challenge is how to keep commons as commons in the long run."Conference Paper Better Together: Partnership Building in a Brazilian Coastal Protected Area(2008) Almudi, Tiago; Berkes, Fikret; Kalikoski, Daniela"The Peixe Lagoon National Park was created in 1986 in an area of high environmental significance for the reproduction and feeding of several species of endemic and migratory birds. The implementation of this protected area has been jeopardized due to conflicts between the local population and the federal environmental agency responsible for managing it - the recently created Instituto Chico Mendes. The present research was done to explore the advantages and barriers of including the local traditional fishers in the management and conservation of the protected area and its resources. Participant observation, semi- structured interviews and focus group interviews were the methods used for data gathering during four months in 2007. In that period 36 traditional local fishers and 10 officials from organizations with some stake in the National Park were interviewed. Currently 166 traditional fishers have a temporary license to fish inside the protected area. Despite the growing recognition in Brazil of the rights of traditional communities and the role for resource management, the environmental agency continues pressing them to leave the National Park. The creation of a partnership which integrates environmental conservation and sustainable livelihood maintenance could be the solution for current environmental and social issues. Despite numerous barriers for the implementation of a participatory approach, there exist considerable benefits to be gained through the inclusion of the local fisher communities in protected area management."