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Now showing 1 - 10 of 267
  • Conference Paper
    Information for Decision Making: Challenges for Village Communities
    (2006) Balachander, T.; Venkat Raj, D.
    "The importance of managing common property resources, and the central role of village communities in it is has formed a minor though important part of the Indian Natural Resource Management discourse and practice. The importance of common property resources in the lives of the poor and marginalised communities in India has been well documented. There have been numerous initiatives across the country by village communities of managing their common property resources, particularly land. These initiatives have included village level management of common property resources, as well as federations of a number of villages. "Traditional emphasis on common property resource management in India has been at a village-level where the community is managing the resources adjacent to the village. There have also been well-documented experiences of federations of village communities covering a large area forming the next tier of Common Property Resource management. "Recently however the Ecosystem approach to sustainable development (including natural resource management) has been gaining ground around the world. Cutting across the various boundaries demarcated on land and between different natural resources this approach advocates a holistic understanding of the ecosystem and development. The approach also envisages involvement of a wide variety of stakeholders in ecosystem management including village communities. "The Ecosystem approach recognises the 'Precautionary Principle' and advises management of ecosystems within their limits of functioning. This requires understanding of the dynamics of natural resources at various spatial scales and over time, considering the influences of a large number of external factors. Scientific research, whether participatory or otherwise, would be called for to assess many of these parameters with reasonable accuracy. However, CPR management has traditionally been able to build upon the knowledge base of communities for managing natural resources. There have also been well-documented instances of self-initiated CPR management initiatives in different parts of the country. "The implications of adopting an ecosystem approach, in which the management of common property resources forms an important part, for the knowledge base that is required at the village community level therefore need to be analysed. The complexity of many ecosystem processes, including but not limited to the spatial and temporal dimensions, would present numerous challenges to the village communities in terms of access to relevant and timely information. "The paper proposes to draw upon the experiences of the authors in working with village communities on common property resource management in India and identify the issues involved in generating and sharing information with village communities on aspects such as carrying capacity, resource status etc. The challenges faced by the village communities in accessing such information as well as by organizations involved in supporting them would be analysed. It would also review the experiences of other initiatives to take technical information to village communities, such as agricultural extension, to draw implications for supporting community decision making on common property resources."
  • Conference Paper
    Aquaculture for Rural Development (ARD) in the Philippines: Privatization vs. Community Property Rights
    (2006) Escober, J.E.J.
    "In the Philippines, a de facto open-access situation in fisheries persists despite progressive fishery laws in recent years that allocate use of coastal and inland areas between artisanal fishers on the one hand, and commercial capture fishers and aquaculture operators on the other hand. Weak state institutions and lax implementation of laws have gone hand in hand with a threefold increase in the last twenty years in the population of artisanal fishers eking out subsistence from badly degraded fishery resources and coastal ecosystems. "Advocates and practitioners of community-based coastal resources management (CBCRM) in the country have pushed for the adoption of community property rights (CPR) systems that would address open access, bring cost and benefit decisions together, foster sustainable resource use and mitigate socioeconomic inequities in coastal communities. "However, a cause for concern is the gathering momentum in the implementation of the Aquaculture for Rural Development (ARD) program of the government. There has been widespread criticism to this approach among artisanal fishers, which they see as a reprise of shrimp aquaculture expansion that resulted in the clear cutting of mangrove forests from the 1960s to the mid 1990s. "The ARD program is likely to result in more negative externalities, heightened conflict over coastal resources, and increased income disparity and poverty for artisanal fishers and coastal communities. It will induce the entry of opportunistic "investors" interested in short- term financial gains but not in the sustainable utilization of resources over the long term. Thus, it is a looming threat to community property rights regimes that are still in the early stages of development by local fisherfolk organizations and their allied institutions. "In achieving community property rights, it is envisioned that negative externalities will be minimized or eliminated altogether, and the continuity of benefit streams (to the community and society as a whole) ensured in the long run. This framework can be effectively employed in countering trends towards privatization of coastal resources that is likely to accompany the implementation of the ARD program being bruited by the national government. "Amid projections of a slowdown of production growth in capture fisheries, government is putting priority on the establishment of marine aquaculture parks, initially in selected sites across the country but eventually on a widespread basis. Most, if not all, of these areas are within municipal waters and conflict between mariculture operators and municipal capture fishers is expected "To ensure sustainable and equitable management of fisheries and coastal resources, including both capture and culture activities in nearshore waters, municipal fisherfolk should effectively hold preferential use rights to these areas to which they are entitled based on existing laws. Further, any development leading towards the expansion of marine aquaculture must be within the context of comprehensive coastal resource management plans (RMPs), which would include limits to the extent of these areas, zonation of municipal waters, internalization of environmental costs to be borne by mariculture operators, support services for fisherfolk cooperatives engaged in aquaculture and measures such as environmental bonds to operationalize the precautionary principle."
  • Conference Paper
    Understanding the Dynamics of Land Transaction Practices in Agro- Pastoral Neighbourhoods of the Karrayu: The Cases of Abadir and Merti
    (2006) Gebre, Ayalew
    "Studies indicate that land has been transferred in Ethiopia from one household to another by different arrangements, in addition to inheritances. The foremost arrangements include different variants of sharecontracts, loans, leases, mortgages, sales, pledges and gifts. Of course, these land transactions have been carried out within policy environments both under the military regime and the current government that impose restrictions and prohibitions on such local land deals. Being a transhumant pastoral society, where grazing lands are communally accessed and controlled, land transactions of the kind practiced elsewhere in agrarian communities has had no practical meaning and relevance to the Karrayu until the recent past. However, as a result largely of external pressures, the community is currently undergoing an unprecedented process of transformation in the patterns of its traditional land use and ownership, settlements, and associated institutions. Thus, in the wake of the gradual shift to agro-pastoralism and the evolution of horticultural communities, new sets of values have come about in relation to the meanings attached to land and its various uses as well as the social organization of production. These developments have resulted in the introduction of different kinds of land access institutions into the community that had not existed before. "While this information sheds light on the socio-economic transformation and evolving land access institutions in Karrayu community, a number of important issues still remain to be addressed by way of better understanding and appreciating the dynamics of the process. A comparative analysis of different land access strategies may produce evidences that should be informative and enlightening, thus filling out the exiting gaps of knowledge. Such an investigative approach will enable understand more deeply the strategies, opportunities, and dilemmas that different actors are presented with in their choice of one land transaction mechanism over another. The varying social contexts in which the arrangements are formed, negotiated, executed and renewed also need to be contrastively analysed for greater appreciation of the workings of the arrangements and their implications for those involved. Other issues that deserve further investigation have to do with the social networks used in accessing and channeling information regarding land transactions. Likewise, an in-depth analysis of the aspects and stages of the process such as: contract formulation, negotiation, execution, and renewal - steps necessary to validate or legitimise land transaction agreements - is believed to contribute further insights on the issue. Not least, these 'unofficial' land transaction practices require close consideration vis-à-vis the national land policy and pertinent regional bylaws. As already stated, the arrangements operate despite legal restrictions and prohibitions, which is proof of the characteristics of inventiveness, resilience, and negotiability inherent in the process of local land dealings. This study therefore tries to address the dynamics of land transaction practices in the Karrayu agro- pastoral neighbourhoods from these broader perspectives and intends to furnish research output of wider and more relevant policy implications."
  • Conference Paper
    Watershed Management in New South Wales, Australia: A Case of Constrained Decentralization?
    (2006) Fidelman, Pedro
    "In Australia, catchment management--a watershed management initiative--is an example of moving decision-making for NRM from the State to the catchment (watershed) level. New South Wales (NSW) was the first Australian State to adopt catchment management as a state-wide statutory policy, in the late 1980s. Catchment management has since undergone a number of institutional changes. Specific legislation, for instance, have been introduced and reformed, such as the Catchment Management Act 1989, the Catchment Management Regulation 1999, and the Catchment Management Authorities Act 2003. Consequently, Catchment Management Committees, which operated in the 1990s were replaced by Catchment Management Boards in 2000, which in turn, have recently been replaced with Catchment Management Authorities. "This paper presents preliminary findings from a broader study on the NSW catchment management initiative. The paper examines decentralized approaches to NRM as part of such a NSW initiative. Catchment management institutions are analyzed by applying the Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework in combination with the recent theorizing on decentralization of NRM."
  • Conference Paper
    Role of User Groups and Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) in Strengthening Participatory Forest Management (PFM) in India
    (2006) Bose, Sharmistha
    "Development policy in India has since long recognized the need for decentralized governance and first introduced it in 1882. However the whole concept of local self-governance in the form of Panchayati Raj came only after independence. Democratic decentralisation and involvement of people in the decision-making process was recognized by the Constituent Assembly, which enshrined it in the Constitution as one of the Directive Principles of the State Policy. Several initiatives were taken in the 1950s and 1960s to promote democratic decentralization. The 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendment Acts in 2002 mark a watershed in the history of governance in the country. The 73rd Amendment in 1992 has cast a Constitutional imperative on all the State Governments to come up with appropriate Panchayati Raj Acts detailing meaningful democratic devolution of functions, functionaries and funds. The 73rd Amendment to the constitution in 1992 mandating establishment of PRIs in rural India and its subsequent extension to the fifth schedule areas by virtue of Provisions of Panchayats (Extension to Schedule Areas) Act, 1996 clearly mandated the PRIs in the overall village development, including and significantly the management of natural resources. Specifically, it empowers States to endow Panchayats with such powers and authority to enable them to function as institution of self-government (Article 243-G of the Constitution). So while Local Self-Governance is one of the goals envisaged by the 73rd Amendment, PRIs have been identified as the means to achieve it. Bearing this in mind PRIs were introduced as a distinct third tier of government at the time of the Ninth Five Year plan (1997-2002). As far as forestry in India is concerned, the National Forest Policy (NFP), 1988, and the subsequent circular on Joint Forest Management (JFM) in 1990 created the space for community participation in management of forest resources. Both JFM and Panchayati Raj (PR) represent major steps towards decentralization of power and control over resources. While the underlying idea of both these developments was to empower and involve the community at the lower level in decision making and management of resources that impact them the most, the institutional structures envisaged for them serve different purposes. It is here that these structures and their purposes throw new challenges in the participatory governance of natural resources and especially in participatory forest management. Thus while PRIs are elected representatives of the village populations as mandated by the Constitution to be empowered on certain aspects of forests management, the user groups, (JFMCs in this case) are created specifically to give effect to the concept of participatory or joint forest management, working under the respective state forest departments. Notably the panchayat system has existed in rural India even before the independence, having a marginal role in forest management; similarly JFM was conceived and initiated on an experimental basis around 1970s and was formalized only in 1990."
  • Conference Paper
    Facilitating Conflict Resolution for the Forest Management through Multi Stakeholder Approach in Nipa Nipa and Nanga Nanga Forest in Southeast Sulawasi, Indonesia
    (2006) Wiyono, Agung
    "This paper explains about LePMIL2 experiences in facilitating conflict resolution and forest management since 2002 by using participatory multi-stakeholder approaches in the Murhum and Nanga-Nanga Papalia Forest Parks in Southeast Sulawesi. "The Nipa Nipa forest was designated as Murhum Forest Park by the Indonesian Forest Minister in letter No. 296, in 1995. The forest covers an area of 7,877.5 ha and managed under BKSDA.. Nanga-Nanga forest is a protected forest area as well as a production forest. It is 8,700 ha in size and managed under the authority of The Local Department for Forest and Environment of the city of Kendari. "However, in 1998, based on the decision of the national Forest Minister letter number 62, the authority to manage Murhum Forest Park was taken from the Central government and given to the Province. In fact, the official transfer of the authority was not completed until 2002. Kendari bay is used as a regional center for fishing industry as a regional and local harbor and as a center of development for every other informal economic sector in South East Sulawesi. "There is great potential here, but it is yet to be managed optimally and if the situation does not change, the conditions will surely degrade. This situation has occurred due to extensive conflict involving the management of Murham and Nanga-Nanga Forest Parks which is in urgent need of conflict resolution. "There are many aspects to this conflict originating from the declaration of the forests as Forest Parks and their management plans. Regarding park boundaries, the community claimed they had cultural rights to the land but the management plan called for resettlement of all the people living within the forest park boundaries. "A Reform Movement was held in 1998 empowering the original people, who had been resettled, to flow back into the area and cultivate the fields they had previously left. Conflict between the provincial and city government regarding the management of Murham Forest Park also contributed to the lack of protection provided for the area. For these reasons, LePMIL decided to facilitate steps toward conflict resolution and achieving peace through dialogues. "LePMIL designed and used eight steps of facilitation which include (1) the continuation of developing knowledge and skill of facilitators, (2) identifying and involving of strategic partners from both non-government and government, (3) identifying the resources of conflicts and develop understanding among stakeholders, (4) capacity building through community organizer and government organizer, (5) developing dialog among stakeholders in order to reach a new agreement, (6) developing stakeholders action plan following the new agreement, (7) maintaining and ensuring that stakeholders implement the agreement and action plan, and (8) institutionalizing any agreements into local laws. "On July 18-19, 2002 the first agreement between the community and the government in the conflict resolution process was reached. It is a 7-point agreement and was the successful result of a very difficult negotiation process. It is not the end of the story. More has to be done by applying the on going method in order to reach a 'permanent' solution."
  • Conference Paper
    State Forest Land Management after Deforestation
    (2006) Purnomo, Herry; Guizol, Philippe
    "Global annual rate of deforestation is 13 million ha. Deforestation is mostly located in Southeast Asia, Africa and Latin America. Logging concessions exploit pristine forests in one particular region and then move to another region. Boom-and-bust of logging concessions, with complex credit network, left behind deforested and degraded land, communities with less livelihood opportunities and deeply weakened local institutions. Then wood supply shortage causes the decline of wood-based industries and finally creates massive unemployment in wood industries itself. In Indonesia current statistic shows that at least 60 million ha of State forest are unmanaged. "This land degradation is not the result of a 'tragedy of the commons' but the result of a brutal destruction of former local institutions by the concession systems on state land, which created open access. Based on a large body of field research, scholars criticized this 'tragedy of the commons' theory. They showed that such tragedy outcome is much more unlikely to happen where resources users are able to communicate and develop agreements about the use of the resources and where local users got the opportunity to build their own institutions related to the resources use. "Some government in Asia already attempted to improve the forest management on State land by providing more rights to local people. Chinese and Philippines governments allocated right to manage land to communities to plant trees. In result, the reforestation in China and community forestry in Philippines produces some success stories. By contrast in Indonesia, the government is implementing large national reforestation program without giving rights to manage to local communities. Evidence of failures of this program, which targets 3 millions ha during 2003-2007 in the form of social movement, is already observed. "We tested the following hypothesis, based on the current knowledge about renewable resource management: Indonesian government would give more chance to its own reforestation program by allocating long term rights (and duties) to local communities to manage deforested lands. This right allocation would have multiplier effects: it would benefit the communities, reduce social conflict, fulfill future wood demand, and by consequence also secure future employment in wood industries. "At the national level, we figured out scenarios and policy interventions which would be feasible under the current existing system (Structure-Institution-Actors). Our first results indicate that about up to 12 million permanent jobs could be created by giving more rights to local communities. At the local level, we observed that approaches to revitalized village and district institutions such as developed in our 'Leveling the Playing Field' (LPF) project are feasible. This European Union funded approach aims to improved stakeholders' coordination through facilitating communication, learning, institution building; thus, building on previous research about common pool resources management we expect to find the way to create better conditions for forest management. Such approach can be used to rebuild local institutions after they were affected by irresponsible logging concessions."
  • Conference Paper
    Governance Challenges on the Implementation of Fisheries Co- Management Arrangements in Malawi
    (2006) Njaya, Friday
    "This paper reviews some major challenges experienced following a shift in the management of fisheries resources in Malawi from centralised system to co-management in early 1990s. While the policy and legal frameworks governing management of the fisheries resources were established between 1997 and 2000, several key governance processes remain uncompleted. The decentralisation process has been slow while expectations among the user communities remain high. This is especially the case where the government made promises to the user community to establish a revenue sharing mechanism and gear compensation scheme and yet till now that has not yet been fulfilled. With adoption of the decentralisation policy, the institutional support from the local governments devolved functions like licensing, enforcement and extension is far from being secured. In some areas there is power struggle between the traditional institutions that form informal structures and the local level representative Beach/Village Committees. The principles of good governance that include participation and accountability of the representative committees are lacking in some areas, mainly due to how members are elected. The initiation process is another area of concern especially in cases like Lake Malombe where the government took a leading role to introduce the comanagement arrangement and made several promises as incentives for participation of the user groups. However, ongoing activities like identifying other relevant stakeholders and their specific roles in a broad-based participatory process, developing constitutions, by-laws and management plans is a positive step towards signing of management agreements."
  • Conference Paper
    Adapting Pasture Land Management System of Chotanagpur Tribes
    (2006) Dey, Nabhojit; Dutta, Raka
    "The main purpose of this paper is to evaluate alternative institutional arrangements to redeem the health of Bero's pasture land management and use them to augment the resource base of the poor. Historically, poor people were heavily dependent on these (common) resources. Recent experiences in privatizing these resources and entrusting ownership/usufruct rights to individual poor families does not appear to have produced encouraging results either in restoring productivity of this land or in expanding the resource base of poor families. Establishing the instrumentality between individual reward and quality of effort, and explicit efforts in group action to establish clearly each member's stake, rights and responsibilities in the resource is the way towards gaining sustainability. "This research paper takes into account the case of five Chotanagpur villages, namely Asro, Lamakana, Dumardon, Hutri and Dhauntatoli in the Jharkhand state of India and analyzes the following prominent features of pastureland management system in these villages. The villages are Oraon dominated villages. The Oraons are believed to belong to the Dravidian stock. They generally speak Kurukh language. The Oraons mainly depend on agriculture and have believed to have first introduced plough cultivation in the Chotanagpur Plateau. "It has been observed that apart from minor diversification of occupations there has been rapid dispossession of land, forcing increasing number of them to become a laborer. In spite of protective land laws, a number of them have been rendered landless due to regular and irregular processes of land alienation. Money lending law has not been enforced and moneylenders continue to charge exorbitant rates of interest and fully exploit the tribal people. "This research paper primarily focuses on the pastureland management system of basically this primitive tribe and how it is being adjusted with the changing times. "Further it invites the students from different fields and practitioners to share their level of experiences and give us the fruitful and constructive suggestions."
  • Conference Paper
    Shift to (De)Centralisation Creates Contradictions in Policy of Managing Commons: A Case Study from Semi-Arid Tribal Districts of Western India
    (2006) Bose, Purabi
    "Globally, since 1990's, decentralization has been recognized as important medium for bringing transformation in communities by reducing conflicts, improving livelihoods for indigenous groups, and promoting sustainable management. In 1993, participatory democratic decentralization was introduced in Indian states by Government of India (GoI). The constitution reform aimed to benefit the local political bodies of three-tier systems called 'Panchayats.' "In 2000, preliminary literature review and action research comparative study result indicated that implementation of decentralization through 73rd amendment of 'Panchayat had general acceptance particularly by women and Bhils (Scheduled Tribes) in neighbouring three tribal districts of Gujarat (Dahod), Rajasthan (Banswara) and Madhya Pradesh (Jhabua). It was considered as an effective tool, and expected that participatory and accountability would be inbuilt advantage of decentralization (panchayat), if implemented appropriately. Immediate effects were observed that due to reservation quota, several tribal women were democratically elected as 'panchayat' leaders. However, after five years, are these expectations achieved or it is still a distant dream for bordering districts of three Indian states, and in its implementation of decentralization? "In 2005, ex-post impact study was conducted as a follow-up to above-mentioned study to document implications of decentralization on joint forest management and water cooperatives in semi-arid tribal districts. This paper analyzes and shares outcomes on following main questions: (i) Are administrative, financial and political powers of (73rd Amendments) 'Panchayats' closely knit with the other 'recognized' local forest and water committees and district level communities- 'Zilla Parishads' (ZPs)?, (ii) what were underlying factors associated with successful implementation in one Indian state as against challenges in other neighbouring state?, and (iii) has there been learning of decentralization formal or informally, and management of commons through knowledge sharing among these tribal districts, between states, and regionally or internationally? "Some of the key results show complexities that are created by democratic decentralization on other existing local rural institutions, which govern social and economic development programmes including forests and water management. One of the revealing results of this study explains informal flow of knowledge sharing of 'Gram Swaraj' among the adjoining districts particularly from Jhabua to Dahod, and formal uptake of decentralization policy in Banswara. Briefly, the first part of paper reviews and compares the decentralization policies in these three states; then it analyses the bureaucracy and influence of elite groups on tribal districts; and lastly, if learning from this regions could benefit and be adopted nationally and in other developing countries."