Adaptive collaborative management of community forests in Asia ...

Chapter 3: Adaptiveness and Collaboration in Community Forestry in Nepal • 83
Reflections: challenges, insights and preliminary
lessons
The positive changes in forest governance and management practices
observed in the four CFUGs during the first phase of the research project
(1999–2002) suggest that an adaptive collaborative management approach
could add significant value to community forestry in Nepal. The transaction
cost identified--time cost increases--appear to be acceptable to CFUG
members. The surfacing of latent conflicts was ultimately positive, and
potential increases in protectionism were offset through the feedback loops
on equity. At the same time, challenges remain. The first is that a successful
ACM approach, and positive outcomes from it, relies on the ability of forest
users and other actors to be critically reflective upon their own attitudes and
capacities and their resulting behaviours and governance and management
practices. Furthermore, they need to be able to respond to this learning
by, for example, shifting attitudes or behaviours or policies identified as
unconstructive. Thus, having ‘structural’ and even process aspects of an
ACM approach in place, such as tole divisions and self-monitoring, is not a
sufficient basis for a CFUG to function optimally; intangible elements, such
as attitudes, must drive the approach. The Manakamana CFUG was a case
in point. This CFUG had tole divisions and, briefly, a form of (nonlearningbased)
monitoring prior to the ACM research project, but these were
essentially inactive and/or ineffective. It took the development of a greater
understanding of, and interest in, learning and inclusive management to
bring about some meaningful shifts in governance in that CFUG.
The key insight regarding this challenge is that the critical reflection, and
the related collaboration and learning-oriented attitudes, capacities and
behaviours, do not need to be in place prior to starting an ACM approach;
they can be generated by it. Specifically, the process of mindfully engaging
in an ACM approach—with effective facilitation—appears to provide
‘breaks’ in thinking that occur through shared critical reflection on patterns
of perception and behaviour. This reflection is based on the CFUGs’ own
experiences and processes and is sparked through collaborative interface
with facilitators or other actors, such as members’ social networks. This
interface, as experienced in the research project, can introduce different
worldviews, outside perspectives on a situation, and critical questions
or observations. The interface may reveal latent conflicts or power
imbalances that need to be addressed for the CFUG to progress in its
desired direction.