Adaptive collaborative management of community forests in Asia ...

Chapter 3: Adaptiveness and Collaboration in Community Forestry in Nepal • 73
management approach 17 . For example, the following attitudes appeared to
enable ACM approaches to take root and enhance livelihood outcomes:
• a ‘learning attitude’ to management, including a willingness to
experiment, and the perception of ‘failures’ as opportunities to
learn;
• openness and understanding between gender and caste and wealth
groups, or at least a willingness and ability to question the existing
hierarchy and forms of domination (empowered questioning);
• confidence to participate and to try new ways of operating;
• openness to participation, cooperation, sharing of information and
communication;
• honesty and transparency in leadership and fund management;
• a willingness to share power and benefits; and
• a sense of ownership of the forest.
Note that although such attitudes are important to the successful functioning
of ACM, they are not a prerequisite to initiating it. Rather, experiences in
this project indicate a positive feedback loop between the attitudes and
behaviours and the ACM approach—in other words, cogeneration of these
intangibles is possible (Box 3-3). We elaborate on this and other causal
forces under ‘Reflections,’ below.
Box 3-3. Changing attitudes towards participation
Village development committee-level FECOFUN Chairperson Mr Rikhi
Bahadur Rana said, ‘I am retired army staff and I believed only law and order
before and initially I felt some difficulty to come up with the ACM Process for
more democratic decision-making and planning process. Now I am gradually
changed towards the participatory decision-making process’. (Kaski ACM
Team 2002: 3-27)
In terms of skills, effective facilitation of participatory processes and
leadership skills within or accessible to the group (to initiate change,
generate vision and momentum, and support other capacity building)
can be considered necessary for an ACM approach. As with the attitudes
above, a positive feedback loop is involved here, too: in the research sites,
these skills tended to be enhanced and reinforced by the application of
the ACM approaches, including the identification of capacity-building
needs and active seeking of support from external actors. Other skills and