Adaptive collaborative management of community forests in Asia ...

Chapter 1: Introduction: People, Forests and the Need for Adaptation • 7
The project attempted to answer three basic research questions:
1. Can an adaptive collaborative management approach be
effectively catalysed and sustained in community forestry systems?
If so, under what conditions is it needed and what factors and
conditions affect its uptake, impacts and institutionalisation?
2. What strategies, processes, arrangements and tools can catalyse
and sustain management and governance based in social learning
and collaboration among diverse stakeholders?
3. What are the influences of an ACM approach on people and
forests in community forestry systems, including effects on
institutions, social capital, livelihoods and forest condition or
value?
In each country and each site, the three questions were nested among
several other, more site- and stakeholder-specific questions. The project
used action research because it makes little sense to study questions
about collaboration, learning and improvement passively. ACM is a
relatively new approach. Although closely related to other learningbased
approaches to management (and explicitly based on a combination
of collaborative management and adaptive management), ACM seeks to
test a unique concept and identify, develop and test practical processes
and tools for its application. Without taking specific action to introduce
and facilitate local implementation of the approach and its supporting
processes, we could not have critically assessed its utility.
An initial problem was to identify a research methodology that would
enable the project to combine action and rigorous observation and
analysis of processes and outcomes. In fact, the ACM project used a
mixture of methods, from conventional surveys through action research
and participatory action research (PAR). Of the three, PAR was probably
the most important and characterised much of the outcome of the three
years of research.
Action research consciously attempts to combine research with action.
It can be thought of as a form of applied research. However, applied
research typically separates research and application into distinct phases:
the research is carried out and then applied (Fisher and Jackson 1999). In
action research, the learning part (research) is carried out as part of the
action: the action leads to learning, and the new learning informs future
action steps. This process is generally thought of in terms of repeated
cycles of planning, action, observation and reflection, leading to new