Adaptive collaborative management of community forests in Asia ...

120 • Trikurnianti Kusumanto
Strengths and limitations of ACM
Social processes emerged as we applied ACM and changes in terms of
people’s livelihoods resulted, but now it is necessary to ask about strengths
and limitations of ACM. First, a strength: ACM addressed the significant
lack of social organisation among local stakeholders in a context of complex
social and ecological change: this was a strength. Before the intervention
began, social structures in the two sites were ‘underorganised’—a term
Brown (1980) uses to describe situations where social networks are
limited or nonexistent, or where actors do not belong to established social
structures. Although there were some organisations in both sites, these
were predominantly hierarchical, authoritarian structures, with limited
room for communication for learning and action. The existing coordination
structures for natural resource management—associated with the customary
and formal governance structures—were of this nature. Such circumstances
were conducive neither to conceptualising problem situations beyond the
individual level, nor to seeking and organising collaborative solutions.
The ACM approach was helpful in developing more linkages and cohesion
in the social organisation in several ways:
• ACM’s reiterative learning and consequent increased frequency
of contact amongst actors intensified communication. This in
turn generated a sense of interdependence and more structured
interactions, even outside facilitated settings.
• Because the collaborative relationships we facilitated were voluntary
(rather than mandated or contract-based), ACM was expected to
build the mutual appreciation and trust necessary for actors to
work out the distribution of resources and responsibilities in their
collaborative efforts. In mandated or contract-based relationships,
in contrast, the roles and responsibilities are predetermined.
• ACM enhanced the legitimacy of shifts and redistribution of
decision-making power amongst actors. As a consequence, social
relations became more systematic and organised.
A second strength: ACM addressed the prior inability of local actor to
sustain learning over time—as reflected in their reversion to old behavioural
patterns—and generated change processes. Despite externally driven
motivations in the past 9 , new understandings neither sufficiently encouraged
people to take action nor challenged prevailing ways of valuing and acting.
Past government programs 10 were unable to provide useful context-specific
insights. Most of these programs deployed what learning theorists call an