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Conference Paper Maps, Metaphors, and Meanings: Boundary Struggles and Village Forest Use on Private and State Land in Malawi(2000) Walker, Peter A.; Peters, Pauline E."Recent studies have begun to closely examine social and cultural perceptions of spatial relationships, with particular attention to contests over boundaries. Counter mapping has emerged as a technique to represent local claims, but this approach creates tension between efforts to empower social groups and recognition that Western cartographic methods may inadequately represent complex socio-spatial ideas among non-Western peoples. Specifically, whereas recent studies emphasize contests over the legitimacy or location of boundaries, this paper presents case studies from Malawi illustrating equally important non -territorial contests over the meanings , the de facto rules and practices of boundaries. Complex strategies, embedded in local history and culture, have emerged involving efforts to untie resource rights from territorial claims. These strategies, which effectively seek to create a kind of de facto commons for specific resources on private and state land, would be poorly represented or even obscured by mapping efforts focused on (re-)drawing linear boundaries. This suggests a need for critical examination of the use of mapping and map metaphors in social analysis and practice."Conference Paper Traditional Transmission as Cultural Commons: The Conflicts and Crisis of Commodification(2000) McCann, Anthony"This paper represents a reframing of aspects of common property debates in an attempt to come to a better understanding of the commons as a cultural system, and of commodification within the cultural commons, specifically focusing on transmission processes within Irish traditional culture. Starting from the assumption that rational choice theory, game theory, and neo-classical economic analyses are inadequate when faced with systems within traditional culture, this paper seeks to outline an alternative; Traditional Standpoint Theory. In a belief that privileging the voices of those who are not in a dominant position may lead us to a less false representation of their activities, this particular take on Standpoint Theory will draw on traditions within Marxism, Feminism, Social Interactionism, Anthropology, Sociology, Folklore, and Ethnomusicology. "Outlining ways in which intellectual property, spectacle, commercialism, technology, and academia all contribute to spatial mapping of the traditional transmission processes through processes of commodification and reification, the analysis will show how each of these is working within dominant epistemic structures that emphasise and support damaging assumptions about individuality, authorship, creativity, originality, and property. These assumptions feed dichotomies of tradition-modernity, tradition-progress, tradition-innovation, public-private, professional-amateur, gift-commodity, oral-literate in ways which undermine and enclose transmission processes, leading to a condition of crisis within the cultural commons of Irish traditional culture. "Following Bourdieu's emphasis on practice, and in mind of the political imperative of praxis, it is hoped that this focus on local, subjugated knowledge and transmission will lead to a re-evaluation of music, reciprocation, identity, trust, property, community, time, and tradition. It is hoped that the conclusions of this paper will add to theoretical debates within Common Property Studies, leading us to re-examine the nature and definition of Common Pool Resources, and bringing us to a fuller understanding of the central requirements of tradition and sustainable transmission within increasingly commodified transmissional spaces."Conference Paper Towards a Participatory Approach in Developing Environmental Education Programs: Reflections in Cape Peninsula National Park, South Africa(2000) Songelwa, Nomvuselelo C."In the new democratic era in South Africa (SA), South African National Parks (SANP), as with all other government-related organizations, has had to undergo a restructuring and transformation process. In the process of reviewing policies and transforming the organization and its corporate image, the Social Ecology (SE) department was established in 1994, to play a key role in implementing the new mission and vision of the organization. While from the point of view of bio-diversity management SANP parks are regarded as the best managed in the world, the SANP is, however, influenced by the legacy of colonialism and apartheid (SANP Corporate plan, 1998). The SE department has thus been mandated to develop appropriate policy frameworks, to build the capacity of SANP personnel in articulating and implementing economic, cultural and educational empowerment initiatives that will benefit the local communities neighboring national parks. Recognizing the significance of community participation in conservation (SE policy, 1995), the department has continually strived to influence the SANP policies and practices to accelerate a shift from the traditional expert-driven conservation practices to a more holistic, community-oriented management of natural and cultural heritage resources. "From a practitioner's perspective, with an experience of working in two of SANP parks and involvement in various debates of unravelling the concept and the philosophy behind SE within and outside the organization, the presenter will share her experiences on the challenges of implementing this relatively new approach in SA. In particular, the presentation will focus on challenges experienced in the process of developing Environmental Education (EE) programs in Cape Peninsula National Park (CPNP), a recently established park. It will further explain how these challenges have been transformed into a research opportunity."Conference Paper Rehabilitation of CPRs Through Re-Crafting of Village Institutions: A Comparative Study from Ethiopia and India(2000) Wisborg, Poul; Shylendra, H. S.; Gebrehiwot, Kindeya; Shanker, Ravi; Tilahun, Yibabie; Nagothu, Udaya Sekhar; Tewoldeberhan, Sarah; Bose, Purabi"The study examines approaches and experiences of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) working with social and ecological rehabilitation of common pool resources (CPR), specifically the Joint Forest Management (JFM) programme in India and the 'area enclosures' programme in Tigray, Ethiopia. The paper is based on comparative field-research in the marginal, semi-arid project areas of N. M. Sadguru Water and Development Foundation (SWDF), Dahod District, Gujarat, India and the Relief Society of Tigray (REST), Wori Leke Woreda, Tigray, Ethiopia. A multidisciplinary team of practitioners and researchers carried out field observations, mapping and interviews with households and key informants in two villages from each of the project areas. "Similarities were observed in histories of resource depletion through increasing economic pressures and institutional break-down, as well as present-day community-initiatives to revert negative trends. In both India and Ethiopia the government claims ownership to the village commons, and in both situations people refer to lack of or unclear property rights and short-sighted CPR policies as the explanation for resource depletion. However, within similar institutional frameworks, local specific histories and empowerment processes shape contrasting outcomes. "The comparison of the two study villages in India showed a considerable achievement, but also vast untapped potential, for regeneration of commons. Major reasons for the depletion of forest resources and absence of appropriate institutions appeared to be the lack of long-term resource security through CPR ownership or well-defined and substantial user rights. People favoured the re-framing of rules, practices and remuneration patterns which the JFM framework provides. JFM appears to be the major avenue for the NGO to support management of CPRs. Yet, in spite of the formal instruments, conflicting interests and uneven motivation among government officials continue to create hurdles, uncertainty and conflict. "The area enclosures in Tigray, Ethiopia evolved through a grass-root process. Local people support it as a positive initiative for soil and water conservation, and it has had a clear bio-physical impact on large parts of the degraded commons. The local government institution (the baito) is empowered to control the management of commons, unlike in India where the formal local government body (Gram Panchayat) is not involved in CPR management under the JFM. "Differences in the empowerment of local institutions is interpreted as one of the main factors responsible for the varying processes and outcomes observed in the two study areas. "The political and institutional contexts of the two countries present NGOs with contrasting rules and opportunities, creating a need for a thorough, local-specific understanding of the processes of CPR management. The present South-South research cooperation has documented and analysed similarities and differences, and will further pursue their context-specific implications for NGO strategy, advocacy and policy. The study confirmed that partners gain from joint learning and experience sharing on CPR approaches, but also showed that institutional, cultural and economic differences make transfer of models and practices challenging."Conference Paper The Convention on Biological Diversity: An Ambivalent Attempt to Reconcile Communal Rights and Private Property(2000) Boisvert, Valerie; Caron, Armelle"Biodiversity became a global issue in the mid 1980s, under the pressure of converging forces: the threatening increase in species extinction, the changes in the theory as well as in the practice of nature conservation, but also the expansion of genetic engineering and the intrusion of industrial interests into areas from which they had been hitherto excluded. These elements participated in the integration of utilitarian perceptions of nature, reduced to a set of resources thanks to new technologies that enabled its extensive economic exploitation. Therefore, the Convention on Biological Diversity, adopted in 1992, stressed the notion of sustainable use of biological resources as a means to finance conservation but also to foster development in the South and to benefit pharmaceutical and agricultural industries. The property rights on resources were presented as the cornerstones of biodiversity conservation. "Prior to the enforcement of the Convention, transnational corporations had free access to indigenous resources-- including knowledge--and after screening they could patent parts of these resources, depriving their former holders of their traditional use rights. The definition of rights to bring this despoilment to an end and turn it into bioprospecting, an activity allegedly profitable to all parties, was one of the main stakes of the Convention. It has resulted in a compromise between economic efficiency as portrayed by the theory of property rights, that is the promotion of privatisation through the development of intellectual property rights on biotechnology products, equity through the recognition of the rights of indigenous peoples and communities embodying traditional lifestyles and a political concession to developing countries in securing their sovereignty on their resources. "Our purpose lies in stressing the contradictions of such an attempt, aiming at reconciling communal and private rights, maintenance of traditions and incentives to innovate, cultural differences and the homogenising forces of globalisation into a market framework. "The model favoured by the Convention is the one propounded by the Coase theorem. Once the rights are established, direct negotiations should take place between the holders and the users of genetic resources to determine the terms of exchange. The possibility for communities or indigenous peoples to define de jure communal rights on their biological and intellectual resources is a delusive counterpart to the extension of intellectual property rights. As outlined in the Convention, these rights are mostly intended to favour the alienation of indigenous resources and knowledge, not to prevent it. The endeavour to build up commons out of cultural knowledge, that is often denied the status of resource by its very holders, is controversial. Moreover, technical obstacles, the imbalance of power and legal status make it difficult for local and indigenous communities to sign contracts on their own terms with transnational corporations. "Similarly, international competition for the supply of resources and world trade regulations do not leave the governments of developing countries much room for manoeuvre in the definition of laws of access to their biological heritage so that they cannot reckon on large benefits from bioprospecting. "On the plea of defending at the same time the varied interests of the parties, the Convention on biological diversity has resulted in favouring the status quo. Bioprospecting has acquired legitimacy though its benefits are dubious. The obvious bent for private property and market regulation in the negotiations concerning biodiversity stems from the theory of property rights; the legitimacy of such application is however questionable given the context."Conference Paper Negotiated Autonomy: Transforming Self-Governing Institutions for Local Common-Pool Resources in Two Tribal Villages in Taiwan(2000) Tang, Ching-Ping; Tang, Shui-Yan"The current literature on common-pool resources suggests that appropriators autonomy in determining access and harvesting rules is a pre-condition for successful local self-governance. Yet few studies have been done to examine how local communities that are faced with outside intrusion can regain such autonomy. This paper examines this issue by studying how two mountain tribal villages in Taiwan have attempted to rebuild their indigenous rules governing the use of their local stream fisheries. One village, Shan-Mei, has been more successful than another village, Li-Chia, in restoring its indigenous rules and fishery, because villagers in Shan-Mei were able to attain a negotiated autonomy by developing mutually beneficial relationships with external stakeholders."Conference Paper People, Place and Season: Reflections on Gwich'in Ordering of Access to Resources in an Arctic Landscape(2000) Johnson, Leslie Main; Andre, Daniel"It is a tenet of common property theory that local groups of people tend to evolve institutions to allocate common pool resources among community members in ways which are economically and ecologically sustainable. We are interested in the applicability of this type of analysis to subsistence systems of non-agricultural indigenous peoples. This paper is a preliminary examination of informal institutions of the Gwich'in of the Northwest Territories in Canada and how they contribute to ordering access to resources through the seasons by Gwich'in. This analysis is based on conversations by Johnson with Gwich'in and other people who have worked with Gwich'in people, and her fieldwork with Gwich'in from Fort McPherson and Tsiigehtchic in 1999 and 2000, and the insights and experiences of Andre regarding Gwich'in seasonal use of land and resources. This paper considers the resource use of the people of Fort McPherson and Tsiigehtchic. It does not deal with the mixed Gwich'in-Inuvialuit-non-Indigenous communities of Aklavik and Inuvik, which are historically more complex. We will consider three principal areas in this analysis: fishing, trapping, and caribou. "It must be emphasized that this discussion uses an analytic framework which differs in important ways from the usual perspective of Gwich'in people. The conceptualization of diverse elements of traditional subsistence as 'resources,' for example, and the discussion of these as things separate from a seasonal flow of life is not an indigenous perspective. Nonetheless, this approach can reveal aspects of Gwich'in life that allow us to compare aspects of the Gwich'in way of living on their land with that of other peoples in diverse areas of the world."Conference Paper Shifting Cultivation in Eastern Himalayas: Regulatory Regime and Erosion of Common Pool Resources(2000) Sadeque, Syed Zahir"Historically much of Eastern Himalayas (constituting part of present-day Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Myanmar, and Nepal) remained outside the sphere of direct influence of the larger South Asian Empires including the latter day Colonial forces. Largely due to this vacuum in central authority that did not necessitate development of complicated land revenue system as elsewhere in South Asia, land in much of Eastern Himalayas remained under customary rights and as open access resource. Therefore shifting cultivation developed as the principal mode of production for the indigenous ethnic groups inhabiting the Eastern Himalayas. Roaming kin groups have traditionally demarcated their area where family or kin groups practiced shifting cultivation without any interference from external authorities. Local governance structure mediated conflicts and reinforced the traditional practices. Over generations the land resources have thus been transformed into common pool resources for sub-groups of tribes and ethnic groups legitimizing shifting cultivation as the accepted and viable means of livelihood. In recent times however to harmonize with national land rights and revenue system and to forestall perceived threats of environmental degradation, state authorities are enacting laws, regulations to abolish shifting cultivation. Although legal prohibitions exist in all the regional countries, the practice continues and has often merely moved into inaccessible areas to avoid governmental censure. "This paper attempts to examine the implications of legal and governmental regulatory framework discouraging shifting cultivation in the Eastern Himalayan countries of Bangladesh (Chittagong Hill Tracts), Bhutan, India (8 Northeastern states), and Nepal (Eastern Zone). Recent research indicates the presence of the system despite the governmental prohibition and the underlying issues are far more complex than the simplistic regulatory effort to suggest otherwise. The overriding cause of environmental degradation in the region can be attributed to large-scale logging allowed and often tolerated by state authorities rather than the traditional practice of shifting cultivation. Other governmental policies like resettlement of outside people, conversion of traditionally held land under reserve forest, and governmental support to create alternative leadership and governance structure is continually eroding the common resources of the Eastern Himalayas. While environmental degradation goes unabated in tandem with such policies the indigenous people are threatened with their livelihood practices. The underlying philosophy of such policy points towards national integration and mainstreaming of people and resources, and eroding the common resources seems to be strategy to achieve such goals. This paper will look into two major issues: (i) marginalisation of indigenous people and the practice of shifting cultivation due to various governmental policies, and (ii) privatization of erstwhile common resources for the obsolescence of the practice itself. The current state of knowledge indicates that such practices are eroding the control over common resources by the indigenous people who have been practicing shifting cultivation for centuries. Such disenfranchisement impinges upon equity and sustainability issues of land management in the Eastern Himalayas. The paper is based on recent empirical research on the region to sift through the complex arguments centering on shifting cultivation from the perspective of common property resources."Conference Paper Understanding Interdependencies: Stakeholder Identification and Negotiation as a Precondition to Collective Natural Resource Management(2000) Ravnborg, Helle Munk; Westermann, Olaf"The complex and subtle nature of the bio-physical interdependencies at play in determining many natural resource management problems are circumstances complicating improved natural resource management. What happens at one point in time or in one part of the landscape affects and is affected by what happens at other times or parts of the landscape. Some of these temporal and spatial interdependencies are immediately visible while others, such as the relationship between landscape diversity and structure, and the occurrence of specific crop pests and diseases (Altieri 1987; Barrett 1992), are more complex and subtle. "However, these are not the only factors at play. Particularly in hillside regions, agricultural landscapes are fragmented among numerous individual decisionmakers. Thus, even if recognising the biophysical interdependencies related to a specific natural resource management problem, effectively managing these requires the individual farmer to coordinate his or her resource management with that of neighbouring farmers. "This brings a second set of interdependencies into play, namely the social and economic interdependencies which exist between individual landscape users. Some farmers depend fully or in part on others for their livelihood, e.g. through their provision of employment as day labourers or of informal loans; farmers may belong to different ethnic or religious groups which may complicate communication and thus coordination between them; previous experiences of cooperation among farmers may have failed. These and other factors shape the individual farmers' willingness to engage in coordinated or collective natural resource management and thus the ability to manage the bio-physical interdependencies involved in many natural resource management problems. "This paper argues that recognising and understanding not only the interdependencies which exist between different parts and resources within the landscape but also between the individual resource managers is crucial to solving natural resource management problems which require coordinated or collective management. "Illustrated by field work based case studies carried out in Nicaragua and Colombia, the paper builds its findings on a stakeholder analysis methodology (Ravnborg et al. 1999), which through a process of continuous and iterative eliciting of individual farmers perceptions and interests with respect to their own resource management their constructions and contrasting of these with those of other farmers forms the basis for joint appreciation and analysis of the biophysical as well as social interdependencies involved in natural resource management. "In addition to the manual (Ravnborg et al. 1999), a teaching material has been developed on the basis of the stakeholder analysis methodology (Westermann et al. 1999) which has been used to teach the methodology in courses held for local development workers in Nicaragua, Honduras, the Dominican Republic and Colombia. "Underlying the methodology is the assumption that it is the individual farmers perception of a variety of factors such as bio-physical processes relating to natural resource management problems, security of land tenure, market developments, etc. which combined with his or her resource endowments and obligations make him or her act, that is pursue a specific resource management strategy. Thus, an important element in efforts to improve natural resource management is the eliciting, contrasting, enriching or deepening (by information from elsewhere, e.g. research) and negotiation of these individual understandings of natural resource management. "The paper consists of two parts. The first part presents the stakeholder analysis methodology and its theoretical basis, while the second part presents examples of its application and particularly how understandings of biophysical and social interdependencies emerged and were negotiated."Conference Paper The Role of Macro-Political Economic Systems in CPR(2000) Lindayati, Rita"This paper focuses on the role of macro political-economic influences on common property regimes (CPR), with specific reference to Indonesia. The thesis of this paper is that macro political economic structures shape property rights patterns of common pool resources. Accordingly, structural changes in the political system--as has recently occurred in Indonesia--are bound to significantly impact on a countrys CPR dynamics. The discussion will be approached by looking at Indonesias Outer Island forest management history, from the colonial era to New Order and post New Order governments. In each historical period two interrelated trends are highlighted: 1) the states economic development orientation, with particular attention to forestry and 2) policy making processes that shape property systems legal frameworks. First, the linkage between CPR and the broader political economy structure, from which the papers argument is predicated, will be presented."