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Conference Paper Why and How Blue Mussel Growers Succeeded in Developing a Long Term Co-Management Process to Use Marine Open Access Resources?(1998) Fontenelle, Guy; Bailly, Denis; Le Mao, Patrick; Gerla, Daniel"The large marine ecosystem in the Bay of Mont St. Michel has been utilized by mussel (Mytilus edulis) growers for more than 40 years (10,000 metric tons.yr-1). Mussels are grown in bags attached to wooden stakes which are supported in the sediment. Despite the prevailing semi-privatized system to allocate the public tidal flats to growers, most of them initially behaved as free-riders, increasing the number of stakes to take advantage of the fugitive marine productivity. Water circulation and plankton productivity were sufficiently altered to weaken mussels feeding together with parasitic over-infestations, resulting in a drastic decline in production and rapid dissipation of the resource rent. To challenge this tragedy of open access, leaders of the grower association together with State managers and scientists developed a co-management process. By regulating the use of space and providing appropriate technical support and financial incentives, they succeeded in counterbalancing this dramatic backlash. The dilemma was solved by: (i) expanding the available space allowed for settling new stakes further to the East bay and (ii) removing forty percent of the stakes within each lot. Mussel growth increased so that the total production doubled between 1970 and 1990."Conference Paper Moral Ecological Rationality, Institutions and the Management of Communal Resources(1998) Cleaver, Frances"This paper considers theories of collective action in relation to the management of communal water resources in Nkayi District, Zimbabwe. Taking a critical view of institutional explanations of common property resource management, it illustrates how the addition of social theory can enrich such approaches. The prevalence of rational choice premises in defining the problem of collective action and the persuasiveness of institutionalism in apparently offering solutions to it is questioned. The paper rejects simple evolutionary theorising about institutions in favour of an embedded approach that allows for complexity, for the social and historical location of collective action and for an examination of the interface between agent and structure. It is argued here that collective management of water supplies does exist in a variety of forms but that it is more partial, changeable and evolving and less attributable to single factors than suggested in much of the literature. "Drawing on ideas of the interaction of agent and structure (Long 1992, Giddens 1984, 1989) of the embeddedness of economic transactions in social life (Granovetter 1992) and of the role of institutions in shaping individual perception and action (Douglas 1987) I explain how, in the case of Nkayi, a form of moral ecological rationality links individual and collective action to environmental well-being and provides a framework within which communal resource management can be explained. This model of decision making and action is deeply enmeshed in culture, history and agro-ecological conditions but nevertheless susceptible to modification and change. Incentives to cooperate are based on the exigencies of daily life, on the primacy of reproductive concerns and on complex and diffuse reciprocity occurring over lifetimes. Although subject to structural constraints individuals adopt varying strategies in relation to resource management and reciprocity, gender, age, kinship relations and wealth being key factors in shaping such strategies. "Use of water resources is shaped by a number of principles derived from the historical convergence of environmental and political conditions, such principles being access for all, multiple use and conflict avoidance, the importance of preserving good condition and minimal management. Decision making about resource use is similarly based on a number of key principles which are sometimes contrary to those suggested in the literature. These are the desirability of lowest level incorporative consensus based decision making, minimal management associated with approximate compliance and conflict avoidance and sanctions based on social and supernatural relationships. The boundaries of resource management systems in Nkayi are permeable, based on fluctuating networks, the authority supporting it derived from strong notions of the right way of doing things and the perceived links between human, natural and supernatural worlds."Conference Paper The 'Instituted Process' of Groundwater Exchange in Gujarat, India(1998) Dubash, Navroz K."The agricultural economy of South Asia and the livelihood of millions are tied to current patterns of groundwater use. Groundwater currently irrigates between one half and three quarters of irrigated land in South Asia. This development has not, however, been brought about by the state, whose program of public tubewells has been widely acknowledged as a failure (Dhawan 1995). Instead, 95% of this water is pumped from privately owned wells, which supplies a burgeoning market in groundwater. In the ongoing ideological tussle between state and market-led approaches to resource development, this has been hailed as a victory by market triumphalists. Today, there is a chorus of support for private ownership of wells in conjunction with sales of groundwater, a form of groundwater development that has reaches its most sophisticated expression in the state of Gujarat, India (Shah 1993). Advocates of this approach argue that the role of policy makers is simply to nudge the market toward greater competition. "In this paper I take issue with this interpretation of groundwater markets in Gujarat, I argue that the system of exchange for groundwater in Gujarat is deeply embedded in social relations. I describe exchange systems that do not follow abstract laws of supply and demand nor bend completely to competitive forces, but that are forged collectively in the crucible of local politics. Markets for groundwater in Gujarat are, in Polanyi's terms, an 'instituted process'. To make policy, we need to understand this process. To understand this process, we need to explore the social and hydrological context of water exchange, and place this in historical perspective. This paper will undertake this task in two villages in North Gujarat. "In this paper I do not explore the merits and demerits of the provision aspects of the problem which rests on the question of private property rights. Instead, I explore the contention of the Gujarat model that the 'assignment problem' familiar to students of common pool resources (CPRs) has been effectively addressed by market discipline, and the corollary that the role of public policy is merely to stimulate market competition. "I begin by introducing the primary case village. I then describe the patterns of purchase and sale for water in this village and the degree of dependence on purchased groundwater. The next section describes the rules under which water is exchanged. A description of rules sets the stage for a discussion of how those rules are constructed and contested. Next, I briefly, sketch the operation of water markets in a nearby village that provides a stark contrasting case. The final selection concludes by drawing implications for policy and theory."Conference Paper Holding and Managing Resources in Common: Issues of Scale in Mekong Development(1998) Hirsch, Philip"This paper investigates common-pool resource tenure and management issues in the Mekong Basin. Tenure is particularly fluid in this region due to rapid political-economic change and an accelerated infrastructure and resource development agenda. The paper looks at tenure questions with regard to resources managed in common at a number of levels, from basin-wide to national and local scales, and within a number of resource sectors, including water, forests, fisheries, and land. "The paper begins with a discussion of several key political-economic contexts of change that form a backdrop to management of common-pool resources in the region. These include: * privatisation of resource and infrastucture development * decollectivisation of resources previously held and managed in common under socialist regimes in four of the six countries within the Basin * the agenda of thoroughgoing policy reform with regard to resource tenure and management, specifically with respect to devolved resource management rights and responsibilities from bureaucratic to community levels * the large scale resource development agenda that has helped to bring common property into the policy arena "Resources managed in common are then considered at a range of scales. At the regional level, issues of common management between riparian states are discussed with reference to water and fisheries. At the national level, a comparison is made between policies of riparian states with regard to co-management of forest resources. At the local level, the paper discusses management issues within a single country, Lao PDR, drawing on case studies."Conference Paper Negotiating Water Rights in Contexts of Legal Pluralism: Priorities for Research and Action(1998) Bruns, Bryan; Meinzen-Dick, Ruth"Strengthening negotiated approaches to water allocation is a priority for research and action. Institutional reforms should be grounded in an understanding of the complexity of how water allocation is practiced at the local level in contexts of legal pluralism. Water resource projects need to be capable of explicitly renegotiating rights among old and new users. Formalizing water tenure should be studied and developed as only one of several relevant approaches for improving water allocation institutions. More effective institutions are needed for enabling stakeholders to participate in basin water governance. Farmers and rural communities require defensible access to water as a crucial asset for their livelihoods. Alternatives to water expropriation need to be developed which can equitably and efficiently respond to the challenges of intersectoral reallocation. Action research should help develop appropriate institutional innovations for negotiating water rights in these contexts."Conference Paper Water Rights and Legal Pluralism: Some Basics of a Legal Anthropological Approach(1998) Spiertz, H. L. Joep"The case of irrigation in the Balinese village of Blahpane serves to introduce concepts of legal pluralism. This kind of legal anthropology critiques and reconceives the relations between law and social behavior. The conceptual tools of legal pluralism can improve understanding of water rights, starting from study of local experience amid multiple legal and normative repertoires. The strategic maintenance of subak irrigation rituals, by farmers and government, further illustrates the processes of legal pluralism."Conference Paper National and Sub-national Consequences of a Regional River Basin Agreement: The Case of the Mekong River Agreement(1998) Ojendal, Joakim; Torell, Elim"This paper concerns itself with the risk for malevolent change in development cum exploitation of natural resources in international watersheds. More concretely, it focuses on the Lower Mekong River Basin and on water as an indispensable and valuable asset. It scrutinizes the risk for ecologically damaging interventions and the absence of public participation in the process. It assesses, finally, and in the light of the above, what difference the 1995 MRC-Agreement has made in this regard for the two core countries in the Lower Mekong River Basin, Laos and Cambodia."Conference Paper Kiss Here and a Kiss There: Conflict and Non-Confrontation in a Multi-Stakeholder Environmental Partnership in Belgium(1998) Poncelet, Eric C."While the long term effects of the 1992 United Nations 'Earth Summit' have yet to be seen, one notable short term product has been the increased promotion of multi-stakeholder environmental partnerships as an alternative tool for environmental decision-making.... These collaborative efforts, which bring together stakeholders from the business, governmental and non-governmental sectors for the purpose of achieving consensus-based solutions to specific environmental problems, have helped to institutionalize consensus-building practices and participatory dialogue into the environmental policy process (Glasbergen 1996a). "Given the diverse interests represented by the various participants and the history of contentious relations between the sectors ... one might assume, as I did going into my research of these types of partnerships, that they would be characterized by a high degree of contestation and opposition. Instead, I found antagonistic debate and overt conflict among the participants to be the exception rather than the norm. I was even left with the impression that conflict was being purposefully avoided at times. This paper asks: Why is this the case? And what do these partnerships portend for the future of environmental decision making? "A number of different analytical perspectives exist for explaining this pattern of behavior in multi-stakeholder environmental partnerships. To date, the predominant approach comes from the field of environmental politics and treats the partnership process as an encounter between competing political or economic interests. Here, decision- making is seen to be the result of zero-sum bargaining efforts among policy actors rationally pursuing their respective preferences, desires, or goals (Schwarz & Thompson 1990). While it may certainly be true that some actors choose to avoid conflicting relations with other partners as a means of achieving any of a number of personal or organizational objectives, I contend that such a 'politics of interest' perspective, though important, is insufficient to fully explain what goes on in these complex social processes (see Poncelet 1997). It suffers from a tendency to reduce the participants to one-dimensional actors mechanically acting out the Western model of rationality and a proclivity to decontextualize the assumed goal maximizing behavior from its social and cultural settings (Majone 1985). "Interjecting a more anthropological perspective, I propose that we view multi-stakeholder environmental partnerships less as battlegrounds between conflicting interests and more as sites of opportunities, within specific contexts of unequal power relations, for the production of social and cultural forms. I suggest that these initiatives produce 'partners' who tend to adopt certain ways of understanding, talking, and acting within the partnership setting. Moreover, the 'privileging' of specific discourses and practices has the effect of promoting certain types of environmental actions over others. With respect to the topic at hand, I argue that these types of partnerships encourage non-confrontational practices which have the effect of restricting or evading debate and conflict among the stakeholders. "To address these issues, I will start by describing the multi-stakeholder environmental partnership upon which my argument is based and then move on to an exploration of the practice of non-confrontation commonly encountered. Next, I will propose socioculturally-based explanations for why debate and conflict tend to get diffused in these types of partnerships and then explore why this practice of non-confrontation remains dominant. Finally, I will conclude with some comments regarding the possibilities of these new instruments in the environmental policy arena."Conference Paper Representing Communities: The Case of a Community-Based Watershed Management Project in Rajasthan, India(1998) Ahluwalia, Meenakshi"In the Indian development policy context there is increasing concern about why community-based natural resource management projects fail to achieve their expected levels of equity or sustainability (Saint, 1995; Kerr, 1996). Such community-based approaches are themselves a departure from earlier policies which tended to be based solely on state priorities, treating natural resource management as a technical and administrative issue, rather than a socio-economic and political one (Pretty and Shah, 1996), and focusing on large-scale projects such as large dams, reservoirs and canal systems (CSE, 1985). The high social and environmental costs of such schemes, now well- documented, have been an important stimulus in a shift evident since the 1980's towards small-scale community based projects. "In this context, donors, governmental and non-governmental organisations (NGO's) are currently investing heavily in participatory watershed development. Widely cited project examples include the Sukhmajri project (Chopra, 1990) and the Relagaon Sindhi Project (Deshpande and Reddy, 1991). NWDPRA is a well-funded endeavour undertaken by central and the state governments with the objective of involving people in project planning, implementation and maintenance, over 99 districts in 16 states. World Bank-funded integrated watershed development projects have also been launched, covering 94 watersheds. "Emerging critiques of such projects highlight how, for instance, farmers are used as labourers for construction or the interests of the weaker sections of society are overlooked so that they bear the labour burden of the projects for little benefit (Sharma, 1995). Some schemes have floundered in the face of local resource conflicts. In other cases, farmers accept otherwise unsuitable programmes because they offer a short-term source of income and access to subsidies, but resource management efforts are not sustained beyond the departure of the implementing agency (Sanghi, 1987; Pretty and Shah, 1996). Many of these problems can be traced to the misleading assumptions about 'community' and 'participation' informing these approaches. Certain commentators are now urging the need for greater attention to local ecological specificity, social organisation and institutions in natural resource management in the Indian context (e.g. Mosse, 1997). "This paper focuses on a community-based watershed project in Rajasthan to provide a better understanding of how social, institutional and ecological dynamics affect practical efforts to achieve community-based sustainable development. The paper applies the tools of environmental entitlements analysis in a project evaluation mode to explore how people's different endowments and entitlements to natural resources, as influenced by institutions, affect their experience of watershed development interventions. The paper also considers whether social actors' differential abilities to overcome the transaction costs that they face make it viable for them to invest in institutions and environmental management in the ways expected by the project."Conference Paper The River Basin as Common Pool Resource: Opportunities for Co-Management and 'Scaling Up' in Northeast Thailand(1998) Sneddon, Chris"In the post World War II era, planners within Thailand's development agencies perceived water resource development as a key strategy toward stimulating modern economic development. Despite more than three decades of planning and the construction of numerous large-, medium- and small-scale water projects intended to increase water availability and improve standards of living, the river ecosystems and human communities of Northeast Thailand are instead experiencing a host of interrelated problems including water shortages, pollution and social conflict centered on water. These problems are readily evident in the Nam Phong river basin. "Since construction of the Ubolratana Dam in 1966, the Nam Phong river basin has been the focus of intensive planning and management initiatives carried out by an assortment of state agencies in the hopes of stimulating regional economic development. Results have been mixed. Most recently, controversy over environmental degradation erupted after several industries released toxic substances into the river in the early 1990s. Galvanized by these highly publicized incidents, a coalition of state agencies, academics, business leaders and non- governmental organizations (NGOs) have spearheaded efforts to develop an effective action plan for management of the river's water quality. The action plan, in effect, calls for cooperative management, or co-management, of the river among a set of stakeholders with diverse interests toward and interactions with the biophysical processes and structures that comprise the river basin. "Specific details relating to implementation of the action plan and creation of institutional mechanisms to manage the river basin remain to be worked out. Local village organizations in coordination with a variety of local and regional NGOs have promoted an alternative set of actions based on local control over resources and, in the future, a network of village organizations responsible for stewardship of the Nam Phong. Both state officials within specific agencies (resource managers, water planners) and NGOs are in effect advocating that the Nam Phong river basin be perceived as a common pool resource and that this conception will lead to ecological sustainable resource use and meet livelihood needs. "Several questions emerge from this apparent move towards co-management in the Nam Phong basin. How might administrative and bureaucratic boundaries of multiple agencies be rearranged in order to be compatible with watershed-based resource management? In the absence of clearly designated property rights and in the presence of a rapidly changing socio-ecological context, what are the prospects of instituting a resource management approach founded on co-management ideas? Is it possible to forge an effective co-management regime for a river basin at the scale of Nam Phong? How can the aims of the state with regard to water resource development (e.g., energy for industrialization, irrigation development) be reconciled with the livelihood needs of basin residents (e.g., fisheries, drinking water)? "In this paper, I explore the prospects for and obstacles to co-management of a medium-scale river basin within a rapidly changing socio-ecological context. Thinking of a river basin on the scale of Nam Phong as a common pool resource has certain conceptual and practical advantages. However, the political and socio-economic obstacles to creating an effective management framework for the basin are substantial. One of the thorniest dilemmas is how to create effective and democratic institutions for managing water resources in a river basin characterized by environmental conflict and within a national (and international) political-economic context that demands ever more rapid resource exploitation."