Conflict and Cooperation in Participating Natural Resource Management

STEPHEN BIGGS Senior Lecturer, School of Development Studies, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK RABINDRA NATH CHAKRABORTY German Development Institute, Berlin JOHN DE MARCO BirdLife International, Project Manager, Ijim Mountain Forest Project ANNE GARDNER BirdLife International, Ijim Mountain Forest Project NGETA KABIRI Ph.D. Student, Political Science Department, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill MAX KELLY Ph.D. Student, School of Geography, Kingston University PAUL KERKHOF Research and Development Worker specialised on Forest Resources ANNA LAWRENCE Senior Research Associate, Centre for Natural Resources and Development, Green College, University of Oxford HARRIET MATSAERT Social Anthropologist, Harare ADRIENNE MARTIN Social Development Group, Natural Resource Institute, University of Greenwich, Chatham, Kent MARYAM NIAMIR-FULLER Land Degradation Advisor and Task Manager, Biodiversity Conservation, GEF/UNDP DEVAKI PANINI Lawyer and Specialist in Environmental Law BACKSON SIBANDA Chief of Evaluation, United Nations Environment Programme FRANK SIMPSON GIRISH SOHANI DAVID THOMAS BirdLife International, Projects and Project Manager

Over the past one hundred years in particular, there has been a steady process by which natural resources (such as ground-water, forests, fishing grounds and grazing land) have been increasingly managed by centralised institutions.Over the past one hundred years in particular, there has been a steady process by which natural resources (such as ground-water, forests, fishing grounds and grazing land) have been increasingly managed by centralised institutions. Governments and other national agencies have argued that this promotes efficiency, equity, and other wide national goals. Recently this orthodoxy has been challenged by rising numbers of experiments that show how centralised management tends to fail. Global, national and local goals are more likely to be met, at lower cost and with other benefits (such as promoting better democratic institutions) by involving local populations in collaborative management agreements. This volume, based on detailed case studies from around the world, subjects some of these experiments to critical study, and suggests limits to the participative approach as well as ways it can be improved and made suitable for new contexts.