Adaptive collaborative management of community forests in Asia ...

10 • Robert Fisher, Ravi Prabhu and Cynthia McDougall
but this offered opportunities for learning and comparisons with the other
countries. However, during the project period, following political changes in
Indonesia in 1998, decentralisation became important; again, the learning
opportunities were significant. Detailed background on the three countries
is presented in the corresponding case study chapters.
Other factors involved in the selection were the existence of willing partners
for research and initiatives to which the ACM project could add value.
ACM was not intended to replace existing programmes, however. Rather,
the ACM researchers sought to develop ways to incorporate conscious
adaptive collaborative learning processes in existing forest management
programmes and projects.
Within each country, several sites were selected based on preliminary
studies and consultations with partners and other stakeholders. Some of
the factors considered during the site selection were the following:
• the presence of a local forest-dependent community and at least
one other stakeholder;
• conflict or uncertainty among stakeholders over how the forest
should be managed;
• the status of devolution policy (the type of decision making allowed
to local communities);
• the nature and power of the other stakeholders (e.g., conservation
organisations, timber interests, government agencies);
• other communities living in or near the forest;
• the willingness of the communities to participate in the study;
• the forest type or quality; and
• the policy or management synergy to be gained by including the
site in the study.
This was not a random sample of sites with different characteristics,
since the aim was to test ACM in situations with real complexities and
real conflicts. The selection did encompass a variety of sites, each with a
different set of complexities.
In each country, partners were identified and teams established to work
in the selected sites. There were two teams in each country. The project
was coordinated and administered centrally at CIFOR in Indonesia, but
each site team exercised a fair amount of freedom in interpreting and
applying the commonly agreed research framework (goals, objectives and
methods) to ensure that the approach remained locally as well as globally