Status differences in collective action and forest benefits: evidence from joint forest management in India

Does status matter in community-based forest management? If so, are the high-status households more benefited than the low-status households? What drives status differences, if any, in the appropriation of forest resources? To address these questions, we draw on a theory of status and resource use that defines one’s status as one’s relative position in a group on the basis of power, prestige, honor and deference. Following this perspective, we surveyed the heads of 341 forest-based rural households in India from 2009 to 2010. We find that collective actions themselves are status-driven and the high-status households are more interested and involved in status-maintaining collective actions such as decision-making and implementation, while the low-status households perform general tasks like forest patrol. Moreover, the high-status households derive benefits from local forest significantly more than the low-status households. Further, decomposition analysis shows that a household’s prestige and honor measured by its access to social resources, problem faced and useful contacts explain about 56 % of the status gap in forest benefits, while socioeconomic characteristics explain only 16 % of the gap. Thus, due emphasis on household status from a broader socioeconomic perspective is required to reduce inequality in participation and the distribution of forest benefits in co-management.     

Community action for environmental restoration: a case study on collective social capital in India

In southern India, tens of thousands of village-level irrigation systems (‘tanks’ and feeder channels) are in disrepair. This paper analyses the results of a local NGO effort that focused on awareness-raising and advice to bring about self-sustained community action for irrigation system restoration. After designing a model structure that contains both motivational and capacity (social capital) factors, it is found that (pre-existing) collective social capital, as measured through five simple indicators, strongly correlates with success of the NGO strategy. The intensity of the NGO’s effort shows a negative correlation with success, however. The discussion focuses on issues of social capital definition and measurement and the practical implications of the concept for environmental action, especially the difference between using existing social capital for environmental management versus the construction of social capital as a basis for later self-sustained environmental work. Readers should send their comments on this paper to BhaskarNath@aol.com within 3 months of publication of this issue.     

Threatened access, risk of eviction and forest degradation: case study of sustainability problem in a remote rural region in India

Degradation of common pool resource (CPR) in developing countries has often been traced to high rate attached by poor people in discounting future flow of benefits, market failure, pressure on carrying capacity or sometimes property right failure. However, the concept of poorly enforced property right and particularly risk of eviction as a measure of insecurity of land tenure has not been adequately examined in the context of degradation of CPR. A game theoretic framework is developed where degradation of forest grazing land is explained in terms of changes in perceived risk of eviction from the encroached land. Logit regression is applied to empirically analyse the impact of perceived fear of reduced access and other variables on the state of degradation. For this purpose, a sample of seven villages is considered in tribal dominated region in West Bengal, India. It is observed that apart from a number of socio-economic variables like poverty, mutual trust and other incomes, perceived fear of eviction (represented as a dummy variable) arising from insecurity of forest land tenure, has a significant impact on forest degradation status in the study region.     

Managing common pool resources without state support: insights from Shisholeka community in Central Zambia

Increasingly, emphasis is being placed on the role of indigenous or locally crafted natural resources management systems in sustainable natural resources management. While it is generally agreed that their potential to sustain and protect natural ecosystems exists in large measure, such systems are increasingly facing diverse internal and external pressures that threaten their viability. These pressures include demographic and economic change, land privatisation policies, renewable energy investment projects and large-donor-driven livelihood projects. Such pressures and their complexity raise the need to understand how local communities organise to protect resources they collectively value in the face of both internal and external pressures. Based on empirical data collected through interviews, participant observations, focus group discussions and a questionnaire survey conducted with local level actors in Shisholeka village of Central Zambia, this paper shows how local actors, in the absence of state support, react to internal and external pressures to develop robust and locally suited governance and institutional arrangements that best suit their interests in order to sustain their resource base.     

Relations between innovation management and organisational sustainability: a case study in a Brazilian higher education institution

Environment, Development and Sustainability - The objective of this work was to analyse the relations between innovation management and organisational sustainability in a Brazilian higher education...     

From economic to environmental sustainability: the forest management debate in 20th century Finland and Sweden

The issues of sustainability, efficiency, and profitability in private forestry dominated debate on Finnish and Swedish forest policy throughout the 20th century. The management and utilization of private forests have been significant for these countries since more than half of productive forest land has been owned by families. Forests have also played an important role in Finland’s and Sweden’s national economies. There was however no consensus among forest owners and forestry experts—forest scientists and forestry authorities—about the methods of achieving forestry sustainability and profitability, particularly in the early 1900s. This article focuses on the types of argument on which perceptions of good forest management were based, and the reasons for their use. The article also explores how disagreements and occasional open conflicts between private forest owners and forest authorities were solved, and what kind of regulative means were developed to avoid such differences. There are three main reasons for making a case study of Finland and Sweden: Firstly, the forest sector has played an important role in their national economies, secondly, the objectives and content of their forestry laws are quite similar, and thirdly, the tradition of family forest ownership has remained strong. The debate on good forest management in this period revolves around the two silvicultural paradigms: even-aged and uneven-aged systems. The former concerns formal, scientific knowledge of forest management, and the latter takes a traditional approach.     

EFA-CFA integrated approach for groundwater resources sustainability in agricultural areas under data scarcity challenge: case study of the Souassi aquifer,Central-eastern Tunisia

Environment, Development and Sustainability - Water resources become more and more threatened by the increasing request related to the population growth, especially in agricultural regions. This...     

The role of remittances and decentralization of forest management in the sustainability of a municipal-communal pine forest in eastern Guatemala

At the national scale, forest cover in Guatemala declined at an annual rate of 1.2% during the past quarter century because of settlement that removed primary forests in the northern region of the country; however, the majority of the population of Guatemala still resides in the densely populated central highlands and has extracted timber and fuelwood from adjacent forests for centuries. Using baseline data recorded in 1987 and 1996, this article reexamined the sustainability of a municipal-communal pine forest in San José La Arada, a municipality in eastern Guatemala. The pine forest declined from the period 1987 to 1996 because of overextraction of timber and fuelwood. Forest structure and forest use were reexamined from the period 1996 to 2007 to test the hypothesis that the forest continued to decline. Forest characteristics such as stand density, basal area, tree height, and evidence of forest use were measured to replicate the procedures from previous work at the study area. To understand changes in forest structure and forest use in the context of the rise in remittances and the introduction of decentralized forest governance that emerged since 1996, a household survey was conducted in two adjacent villages. Forest structure improved from 1996 to 2007. From 1996 to 2007, forest characteristics such as stand density, basal area, tree height, and forest regeneration improved and evidence of forest use decreased in the municipal-communal pine forest. The influence of large amounts of remittances from the United States and other regions of Guatemala to households in the adjacent villages and the decentralization of forest governance largely explains the shift toward forest sustainability in San José La Arada.     

Environmental impacts of land management on the sustainability of natural resources in Oriental Erg Tunisia,North Africa

Environment, Development and Sustainability - In southwestern Tunisia, the intense exploitation of the natural resources (soil, water, hydrocarbons, etc.) bears unrecoverable consequences on the...     

Exploring decentralized forest management in Ethiopia using actor-power-accountability framework: case study in West Shoa zone

Decentralized forest management is a pivotal approach in Ethiopia for balancing biodiversity conservation with demand for economic development, and for improving forest-dependent local peoples’ livelihoods. With the aim of filling the literature gap on Ethiopia, this paper explores the dynamics of decentralization in the forestry sector using the actor-power-accountability framework. Generally, three forms of decentralization are practiced: deconcentration to government administrative branches, devolution of selected decision-making power to local people, and delegation to enterprises. Although transfer of meaningful discretionary power to local people or to downwardly accountable lower-tier governments is a precondition for achieving positive outcomes from decentralization, this prerequisite has been realized in none of the three forms decentralization. Overall, three important trends emerged from the latest decentralization reform, which was a switch from the conservation-oriented deconcentration form of decentralization to the income generation-oriented delegation form of decentralization. Those trends are as follows: monetary income generation for local people through enterprise, albeit with possible risk of being deprived of income and subsistence opportunities on which local people depend for their livelihoods; moving decision-making power away from the grassroots; and lack of incentive to manage natural forests, a major source of biodiversity.     

Developing joint educational programs in sustainability science across different universities: a case study from Japan

The challenge for sustainability educational programs lies in how to imbue students with the strong motivation necessary to move the world in a more sustainable direction. Five universities in Japan have mutually collaborated in the design and development of a unique curriculum and education system for sustainability science since 2008. Specifically, they have developed a common and remote lecture system called the “Frontier of sustainability science” (FSS). This paper discusses the concepts and challenges of FSS and how it was organized to teach students to actively learn how to work with people of various disciplines to realize interdisciplinarity.     

Long-term sustainability of groundwater resources in the central Ganga Alluvial Plain,India: Study from Gomti River Basin

Environment, Development and Sustainability - Groundwater is the major primary source of drinking and irrigation water for nearly 500 million inhabitants in both rural and urban areas of the Ganga...     

Water resources planning and management based on system dynamics: a case study of Yulin city

Water security is an integral aspect of the socio-economic development in China. Nevertheless, water resources are under persistent pressures because of the growing population, heavy irrigation, climate change effects and short-term policies. Traditional management approaches narrowly focus on increasing supply and reducing demand without considering the complex interactions and feedback loops that govern water resource behaviour. Whereas these approaches may provide quick fix solutions, they often lead to unanticipated, sometimes catastrophic, delayed outcomes. Therefore, water management needs to take a holistic approach that caters to the interdependent physical (e.g. water inflows, outflows) and behavioural (e.g. decision rules, perceptions) processes in the system. Unlike reductionist approaches, System Dynamics (SD) takes a system-level view for modelling and analysing the complex structure (cause–effect relationships, feedback loops, delays) that generates the systemic behaviour. Simulating the SD model allows assessing long-term system-wide impacts, exploring leverage points and communicating results to decision makers. In this paper, we follow an SD modelling approach to examine the future of water security in Yulin City. First, we present a conceptual model for integrating water supply and demand. Based on this, we build an SD model to simulate and analyse the dynamics of water resource over time. The model output is tested to ensure that it satisfactorily replicates the historical behaviour of the system. The model is used to quantitatively assess the effectiveness of various supply/demand management options. Three scenarios are designed and examined: business-as-usual, supply management, and demand management. Results show that current management regime cannot effectively meet the future water demand. Whereas supply acquisition provides short-term benefits, it cannot cope with the growing population. A combination of conservation measures and demand-management instruments is regarded the most effective strategy for balancing supply and demand.     

Outdoor recreation planning and management considering FROS and carrying capacities: a case study of forest wetland in Yeongam-gum,South Korea

Environment, Development and Sustainability - Since demand for outdoor recreation in forests has been increasing, a structural planning framework for sustainable use while minimizing ecosystem...     

Cross-scale and multi-level mismatch problems in marine natural resources management: case studies in the Penghu Archipelago,Taiwan

Humans utilize natural resources for their livelihood and form institutions that are meant to manage the resources. However, many institutions tend to mismanage the natural resources and fail to solve the natural resources crisis because mismatches occur between the institutions and the systems to be governed. Although mismatch problems on temporal, spatial and functional scales are recognized in many natural resources management cases, a need remains to understand how mismatch problems emerge in complex humans in nature systems. This study used social–ecological system (SES) as a framework for conducting a cross-scale assessment of multi-level linked systems for better understanding of mismatch problems. Both bottom-up and top-down institutions regulating the utilization of marine natural resources were examined to unveil the cause of temporal, spatial and functional mismatch problems in Penghu Archipelago, a regional SES in Taiwan. Results of the assessment indicated that the single-level design of conventional institutions in marine natural resources management was a primary cause of mismatch problems. Thus, for better governance, adaptive and cooperative management systems of the marine natural resources in Penghu Archipelago, a more integrated institutional design is recommended.     

A survey-based evaluation of community-based co-management of forest resources: a case study of Baishuijiang National Natural Reserve in China

Community-based co-management (CBCM) mechanisms for forest management have matured through the development of new economic analysis and common property theory. However, while many local CBCM mechanisms have been initiated in Chinese Natural Reserves, there are few objective, data-based evaluations of whether these mechanisms improve forest conservation and local livelihoods. This research uses Baishuijiang National Natural Reserve (BNNR) as a study case to evaluate China’s current CBCM mechanisms. The evaluation is based mainly on three criteria: efficiency, equality and sustainability of project operation. Survey data indicate that local CBCM mechanisms provide a wide-participation platform for local villagers, associated administration managers, research institutions and NGOs to join in forest resource protection work while improving local livelihood. CBCM projects have also facilitated a reduction in forest resource dependency, the improvement of household income and encouragement of local people to participate in forest resource protection. Our analysis suggests that most CBCM organizations have made progress in efficiency, equity and sustainability. However, further study should focus on how to deal with the lingering problems of inequity in responsibility and rights among CBCM committee members, poor distribution of benefits, insufficient program-design and management expertise, faulty information dissemination, and insufficient capital investment.     

An integrative negotiation model to deal with conflicts toward water resources management: a case study in Brazil

Environment, Development and Sustainability - An integrative negotiation model is proposed so that watershed committees (WSC) can deal better with conflicts over alternatives for protecting water...     

Governance objectives and instruments,ecosystem management and biodiversity conservation: the Chianti case study

The complex relationships between governance processes, ecosystem management and biodiversity conservation are receiving growing attention by the scientific community. The scope of research in this field is generally that of identifying main governance factors leading to success or failure in the sustainable management of ecosystems and biodiversity conservation, so to develop appropriate sectoral and intersectoral policies fostering sustainable use of natural resources. In this paper, a methodological approach is first presented and then applied to analyse the impacts of agriculture and rural policies on agro-ecosystem services and biodiversity conservation in the central hills of Tuscany, the Chianti area. This approach is focusing in particular on governance objectives and instruments used in the management of ecosystem services. A share-farming system based on multifunctional agriculture ruled Chianti until World War II. Then, after the abandonment of rural areas by share-farmers, governance objectives and ecosystem management were oriented towards the production of commodities such as wine and olive oil almost ignoring the provision of public goods such as soil erosion and water run-off control and biodiversity conservation. In order to achieve a more sustainable ecosystems management in Chianti, there is the need to develop a multifaceted governance strategy to reward appropriately the supplying of environmental goods and services by farmers.