Adaptive collaborative management of community forests in Asia ...

Chapter 3: Adaptiveness and Collaboration in Community Forestry in Nepal • 53
This chapter highlights the experiences and lessons of an innovative
participatory action research (PAR) project of the Center for International
Forestry Research (CIFOR) and the Nepal Ministry of Forests and Soil
Conservation, with funding from the Asian Development Bank (ADB).
Known as the Adaptive Collaborative Management of Community Forests
project, it was implemented from 1999 to 2002. The project sought to
enhance equity, sustainability and livelihoods in community forestry by
identifying, developing and critically assessing institutional arrangements,
processes and other factors to enhance community forest governance
and management, especially at level of the community forest user group
(CFUG). Because of the complex and dynamic nature of the community
forest context, the innovations that were generated and assessed during this
project were based in adaptive and collaborative management (ACM).
The ACM approach to governance and management blends ideas of
communication, relations and social learning amongst a diverse range of
actors. At its core, the approach integrates two related themes: adaptive
management and collaborative interaction amongst actors. The adaptive
management aspect emphasises that all management and governance can
be an opportunity for learning and continual adjustment and improvement
in generating knowledge and taking action in the field. As Lee (1993:
9) suggests, ‘all policies are experiments—learn from them’. Adaptive
management is especially important in dynamic and complex contexts that
require responsive management. The concept of collaboration 2 —far from
a naïve presupposition of constant cooperation—can be used as a window
for insights into the effective and synergistic ‘bounding of conflict’ that
takes place in successful natural resource management and governance
(Ojha et al. 2003). An ACM approach creates space for groups to negotiate
their inevitably diverse interests and unequal power relations as they make
and implement natural resource decisions over the long term. Although it
recognises differences and disparities, ACM also stresses opportunities to
form collaborative (and more equitable) relationships among the actors.
In fact, in an ACM approach, conflict is seen as unavoidable and even
a constructive part of transformation towards cooperation. Conflict and
cooperation are potentially linked through the linchpin of social learning 3
processes.
The experiences of this initial project were powerful for researchers and
forest user group members alike, and they provide important foundational
lessons. Following the ACM project, CIFOR and Nepali research
partners Forest Action and NewERA and others 4 built on these lessons