Adaptive collaborative management of community forests in Asia ...

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218 • Cynthia McDougall, Ravi Prabhu and Robert Fisher Although the increased interest in forest sustainability is positive for forests (and in the long term, for livelihoods), researchers in the Nepal case study raise warning flags about the possible effect of protection of natural capital and on equity: if the desire to improve forest condition leads to increasingly protectionist regulations, marginalised groups may suffer. The researchers therefore emphasise the need for monitoring-based planning to include a focus on equity and take place in a forum in which all groups can influence decisions and mitigate potentially harmful outcomes and uncertainties. Some households in sites in all countries have started to see small-scale returns from income-generating activities. Probably more important, all the communities increased the number and activeness of remunerative initiatives, thus laying the foundation for future gains. Whether the communities will in fact benefit depends on market conditions and continued resource availability. In Nepal, the new transparency and accountability of user group fund management were an indicator of financial asset enhancement, especially for middle-income and marginalised users. In Palawan, the higher guaranteed purchase price for almaciga resin most certainly would augment the incomes of resin collectors. In most other cases, however, weak markets and market infrastructure as well as inadequate organisation in the production and value chains meant that little impact on financial capital could be expected during the project period. Indeed, this suggests that the ACM model (Chapter 2) lacks sophistication in terms of a hierarchy of ‘empowerment through material gains’. It would seem that a safety net or improvements in subsistence living can be expected in early iterations, but it will take increasing sophistication in all three phases and several iterations before we can expect to see significant impacts on financial capital as a result of empowerment through material gains. On the whole, more material gains were achieved in Nepal and the Philippines than in Indonesia. Using the model in Chapter 2 once more, the relative strength of Nepal’s and the Philippines’ ‘axle’ of community forestry norms, rules and institutions may be the explanation. Indonesia was just exploring what community forestry meant, and the ACM research team entered Malinau, Pasir and Jambi to help facilitate some of this discussion by opening new channels of communication, exploring mental models and encouraging the emergence of ‘shared visions, meaning and purpose’ for community forestry. In Nepal and the Philippines, these questions had been answered, at least sufficiently to establish a foundation for innovation and community gains. In these cases, the communicative
Chapter 7: Discussion and Conclusions • 219 action (or strategic action) was more about how to improve community forestry than about how to embark upon it. Social learning and collaboration When the ACM project was first conceptualised, considerable emphasis was placed on the development and testing of supportive tools, such as participatory mapping, visioning and various games. Such tools did prove useful in the ACM projects. Box 7-1 outlines the primary tools, and further readings on the approach and the tools are listed at the end of the chapter. However, tools are not the essence of ACM. Always regarded as merely supportive, they receded even further in importance as routinely shared reflection and learning came to the fore as the basis for adaptation in community governance and forest management. Box 7-1. Tools developed during ACM project Several innovative tools were developed and tested by the project team and found successful: methods for identifying stakeholders and understanding their perceptions; tools to support the process of translating visions into ‘models’ that can be interrogated; tools and approaches for developing indicators; methods for supporting participatory decision making centred on multicriteria analysis; approaches for developing collaborative monitoring; and finally, the articulation of an adaptive collaborative management approach. Although structured differently in each case, shared—or social—learning by stakeholders was the engine of the approach in the Philippines, Indonesia (Pasir and Jambi) and Nepal. In some cases (e.g., the forest user groups in Nepal), social learning received more emphasis within community institutions; in others, it took place between community institutions and other stakeholders. In some contexts, it was embedded in the ongoing governance and planning of community forestry; in others, it was used in problem-solving initiatives. In all three of these case studies, however, this learning was facilitated with the intention of making it transformative and thus the engine for addressing conflicts and stagnation in governance or management. In Malinau, on the other hand, the emphasis was on communicative learning and the sharing of information amongst stakeholders, especially in relation to policy.
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Copyright © 2007 by Center for Int
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iv • Contents Chapter 5. Muddling
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vi • Foreword problem solving. Th
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viii • About the Contributors God
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Acknowledgements In early 1999, two
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Chapter 1. Introduction: People, Fo
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Chapter 1: Introduction: People, Fo
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Chapter 2: Adaptive Collaborative M
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Chapter 4: Improving Forest Quality
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