A multi-level perspective on conserving with communities: Experiences from upper tributary watersheds in montane mainland Southeast Asia (original) (raw)
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River basin development and management: Scales, power, discourses
RGS-IBG annual international conference, 2006
Interventions on hydro/ecological systems by different categories of stakeholders characterized by different political, decision-making and discursive power, and varied access to resources, tend to generate costs, benefits and risk which are distributed unevenly across spatial and temporal scales and across social groups. This is due to the interconnectedness of users through the hydrologic cycle entailed by their dependence upon the same resource. As pressure over resources increases and basins "close" this interdependence becomes more critical, increasing the frequency and seriousness of water shortages and conflicts. A political ecology approach seeks to identify and understand these mechanisms to promote governance patterns which enhance equity and the integrity of ecosystems. The historical development of the Chao Phraya river basin, Thailand, is considered here through such a lens. The paper shows how land and water resources have been, and are being, appropriated, identifies the different interest groups and their related discourses and power, examines how they have adapted to socio-environmental changes, and highlights how risks, costs and benefits have been distributed.
Diagnosing Watersheds in India: Integrating Power and Politics in the Analysis of Commons Governance
Water Alternatives, 2021
The experience of watershed development and management in countries of the Global South highlights significant challenges to governance. Establishing the overlap between watershed and commons, this paper identifies some of the most critical challenges to watershed governance in India, which follow from the uneven power relations and politics among diverse watershed actors. Common issues are faced in the implementation of the adaptive, polycentric governance regimes that are recommended for governing complex social-ecological systems like watersheds. Popular approaches in the commons literature that are focused on institutional analysis, however, do not adequately engage with the power and politics in natural resource governance; indeed, power relations and politics around a watershed can be better analysed using a social constructionist approach to natural resource governance. As has been attempted in some recent commons scholarship, this should include perspectives from political ecology, feminist political ecology, and critical human geography. Such an approach can help explain the historical emergence of the watershed through multiple socially constructed processes. It can also facilitate investigation into the relationship between watershed governing institutions and the changing human subjectivities of watershed actors that underlie dynamic scalar commoning. This paper discusses the potential, challenges and limitations of a social constructionist approach to the comprehensive diagnosis of watersheds; it also highlights some key questions that can be addressed through future research.
Conservation and Society
Environmental impact assessments (EIAs) are generally considered an important component of formal decision-making processes about development, serving to ensure that a project's environmental impacts are considered in decisions about whether and how it will proceed. Scale is an important part of the narrative built into the assessment. Building on a rich literature at the intersection of human geography and political ecology, I focus on the way that scale is remade through the environmental impact assessment process for the Hatgyi hydroelectric dam proposed on the Salween River. Proposed near the stretch of the river that makes up the Thai-Burma border, the scales of governance for this cross-border project challenge assumed definitions of 'local' impacts for 'national' decision-making. By illustrating how scale-making is accomplished through producing and mobilising ecological knowledge, I illustrate how the scale of the local and the nation are at stake in these projects. [Open Access]: http://www.conservationandsociety.org/text.asp?2014/12/4/386/155582
Governance Lessons from Two Sumatran Integrated Conservation and Development Projects
Governance issues are at the heart of successful biodiversity conservation and sustainable development. This article examines two Integrated Conservation and Development Projects (ICDPs) conducted in parks on Sumatra, to better understand the foundations of effective biodiversity conservation programmes. The ICDP centred on a networked and multiscalar approach to governance issues seems to have had a longer-term positive impact on truly protecting biodiversity than the one that focused elsewhere. The fi ndings from this research support the notion that an overarching spotlight on institutions and multilevel governance matters (ranging from spatial planning and policy making to arresting poachers to battling corruption) can help in addressing many conservation and development dilemmas. Grounded in fi eld research, this paper calls for a model of biodiversity conservation based on multilayered, networked governance structures, proper law enforcement, and an emphasis on the development of institutional capacity, especially at the local level. These networks should be nurtured by long-term partnerships between governments, communities, and NGOs. Donors and planners should focus on these key areas in conservation design.
Land Use Policy, 2019
Forest landscape restoration (FLR) has received substantial attention in recent years, partly as a result of ambitious restoration targets set by many countries around the world, including those in Southeast Asia. While achieving these targets can potentially bring about numerous benefits, there are also various risks, largely determined by governance, including decision making processes, in these landscapes. We used a case study in northern Thailand to understand what determines landscape collaboration, and adherence to principles of FLR. We developed an assessment framework and worked with landscape stakeholders to understand their interests and capacities to effectively engage in FLR processes. Although there is strong willingness to collaborate among stakeholders, there is limited space for local communities to participate. This issue is especially problematic considering the state's hesitation to recognize customary rights to natural resources, which has produced a deep imbalance in power relations among stakeholders. This contributes to the disenabling environment for effective collaboration, a precondition for the success of FLR. We argue that the source of imbalances need to be addressed to promote the participation of local communities, particularly marginalized groups, to minimize risks of sub-optimal and unsustainable outcomes from the collaboration. This requires the devolution of decision making power through supportive legal frameworks and creation of platforms cutting across scales (i.e. landscape to national), and sectors (e.g. forestry, agriculture, infrastructure and finance), as well as being multi-stakeholder. This also highlights the urgent need to percolate the lofty commitments on FLR to the national and landscape scales, accompanied by resources and capacity development support.
Landcare on the poverty - protection interface in an Asian watershed
Integrated natural resources management: linking productivity, the environment and development, 2003
Serious methodological and policy hurdles constrain effective natural resource management that alleviates poverty while protecting environmental services in tropical watersheds. We review the development of an approach that integrates biodiversity conservation with agroforestry development through the active involvement of communities and their local governments near the Kitanglad Range Natural Park in the Manupali watershed, central Mindanao, the Philippines. Agroforestry innovations were developed to suit the biophysical and socioeconomic conditions of the buffer zone. These included practices for tree farming and conservation farming for annual cropping on slopes. Institutional innovations improved resource management, resulting in an effective social contract to protect the natural biodiversity of the park. The production of fruit and timber trees dramatically increased, re-establishing tree cover in the buffer zone. Natural vegetative contour strips were installed on several hundred sloping farms. Soil erosion and runoff declined, and the buffer strips increased maize yields by an average of 0.5 t/ha on hill-slope farms. The scientific knowledge base guided the development and implementation of a natural resource management plan for the municipality of Lantapan. A dynamic grass-roots movement of farmer-led Landcare groups evolved in the villages near the park boundary, which had a significant impact on conservation in both the natural and managed ecosystems. Encroachment in the natural park was reduced by 95% in 3 yr. The local Landcare groups also restored stream-corridor vegetation. This integrated approach has been recognized as a national model for the local management of natural resources and watersheds in the Philippines. Currently, the collaborating institutions are evolving a negotiation support system to resolve the interactions between the three management domains: the park, the ancestral domain claim, and the municipalities. This integrated systems approach operated effectively with highly constrained funding, suggesting that commitment and impact may best be stimulated by a "drip-feed" approach rather than by large, externally funded efforts. Conservation Ecology 6(1): 12.
Scales and power in river basin management: the Chao Phraya River in Thailand1
Geographical Journal, 2007
Interventions on hydro/ecological systems by different categories of stakeholders characterised by different political, decision-making and discursive power, and varied access to resources, tend to generate costs, benefits and risks that are distributed unevenly across spatial and temporal scales and across social groups. This is due to the interconnectedness of users through the hydrologic cycle entailed by their dependence upon the same resource. As pressure over resources increases and basins 'close', this interdependence becomes more critical, increasing the frequency and seriousness of water shortages and conflicts. A political ecology approach seeks to identify and understand the mechanisms that underpin the transformations of aquatic socioenvironmental systems. Basin interconnectedness, with its hydrological, ecological and social dimensions, and three instances of the concept of scale are shown to be relevant to the understanding of these transformations. The paper analyses the case of the Chao Phraya river basin, in Thailand, and shows how land and water resources have been appropriated and identifies the different interest groups and their related discourses and power; it examines how they have adapted to socio-environmental changes, and highlights how risks, costs and benefits have been distributed.
Scales and power in river basin management: the Chao Phraya River in Thailand
Interventions on hydro/ecological systems by different categories of stakeholders characterised by different political, decision-making and discursive power, and varied access to resources, tend to generate costs, benefits and risks that are distributed unevenly across spatial and temporal scales and across social groups. This is due to the interconnectedness of users through the hydrologic cycle entailed by their dependence upon the same resource. As pressure over resources increases and basins 'close', this interdependence becomes more critical, increasing the frequency and seriousness of water shortages and conflicts. A political ecology approach seeks to identify and understand the mechanisms that underpin the transformations of aquatic socioenvironmental systems. Basin interconnectedness, with its hydrological, ecological and social dimensions, and three instances of the concept of scale are shown to be relevant to the understanding of these transformations. The paper analyses the case of the Chao Phraya river basin, in Thailand, and shows how land and water resources have been appropriated and identifies the different interest groups and their related discourses and power; it examines how they have adapted to socio-environmental changes, and highlights how risks, costs and benefits have been distributed.
The political ecology of participatory conservation: Institutions and discourse
Journal of Political Ecology
Increasingly, natural resource conservation programs refer to participation and local community involvement as one of the necessary prerequisites for sustainable resource management. In frameworks of adaptive comanagement, the theory of participatory conservation plays a central role in the democratization of decisionmaking authority and equitable distribution of benefits and burdens. We observe, however, that the institutions of state, society, and economy shape the implementation and application of participation in significant ways across contexts. This paper examines the political ecology of participation by comparing and contrasting discourse and practice in four developed and developing contexts. The cases drawn from Central Asia, Africa, and North America illustrate that institutional dynamics and discourse shape outcomes. While these results are not necessarily surprising, they raise questions about the linkages between participatory conservation theory, policy and programmatic efforts of implementation to achieve tangible local livelihood and conservation outcomes. Participation must be understood in the broader political economy of conservation in which local projects unfold, and we suggest that theories of participatory governance need to be less generalized and more situated within contours of place-based institutional and environmental histories. Through this analysis we illustrate the dialectical process of conservation in that the very institutions that participation is intended to build create resistance, as state control once did. Conservation theory and theories of participatory governance must consider these dynamics if we are to move conservation forward in a way that authentically incorporates local level livelihood concerns.