The Benefits and Drawbacks of Community Resource Management
Kevin W. Kirk
San Diego State University
Resource management regimes are used in order to prevent overexploitation and degradation while still allowing current and future resource users to receive benefits. Resource management regimes are typically divided into three categories: state-owned regimes typically have regulations set in place in order to reduce resource degradation and prevent over-extraction, private owned regimes have individual or corporate ownership and community resource management regimes do not have official institutions set in place to regulate resource ownership. The last two decades have witnessed a paradigm shift in conservation and natural resource management away from costly state-centered control into community approaches where local people regain more control of regulation (Shackleton et al. 2002). It will become increasingly important in order to promote biodiversity and resource conservation by relying on traditional indigenous intergenerational knowledge.
Community-based resource management allows the users of the resource to create rules within their own community on the management of resources and can further be divided into several categories: customary, de facto, de jure, and both de jure and de facto. In a customary regime, regulations and rules are passed down from generation to generation. The rules follow a traditional arrangement between members of a group. The users of the resource have had time to fine-tune its arrangements through trial and error. (Ostrom, 1990). Customary law is popular for providing legitimacy for access, and according to Agarwala, “90% of poor rural users in Africa access resources through customary tenure regimes” (2017). De facto regimes lack historical precedent and are typically established after a community has taken initiative to establish a community management system and are typically developed in practice. These regimes are commonly established in the face of institutional neglect, or legal opposition. For example, even though watersheds are legally State property in Thailand, villagers consider them common property and have rules for governing their use. The village community developed rules for its own resource use and monitoring in order to oppose state regulations. (Wittayapak & Dearden, 1999). De jure regimes are legally managed by the community, however, de facto management regimes may also be present. An example of a de jure management regime is in Ecuador; “Distance of fruit and timber trees from habitation made enforcement of rules difficult for the Kichwa community, which led to open access conditions. (Siren, 2006). Finally, regimes can exist that recognize the existing de facto regime and the de jure regime that has been implemented. De jure regimes that are implemented to undermine an existing de facto regime or to create parallel administrative structures can contribute to resource degradation, however, if it enhances previous de facto regimes it can create positive impacts. (Fuys & Dohrn, 2010). De jure and de facto regimes interact in many different ways. De jure regimes can allow for new organizational structures to be put in place within a community, which can allow for equal access to the resource. If elites become the controlling force behind resource management, access becomes unequal.
Examining successful and unsuccessful cases of community-based resource management has allowed for clear design principles to become apparent. Borgerhoff-Mulder describes many of the similar features that are present within different community management regimes. Small-scale societies are conductive towards community resource use, as relations are stable and people communicate on a daily basis. The community needs to have legitimate rights to their resource base, and rules must be enacted to govern harvest practices, timing, and limits. There also must be mechanisms to interpret rules and to modify regulations as community and resource conditions may change. Equitable costs and benefits and participatory management decision making are necessary for stakeholders. Enforceability of rules is necessary to ensure that violators of regulations are effectively disciplined, and low-cost conflict resolution alternatives must be available. The resource needs easily defined boundaries, while still excluding outsiders.
Communities that have a local management regime installed can receive many direct and indirect benefits according to Shackleton et al (2002). Communities have increased access to subsistence and commercial products and can generate income from hunting, tourism concessions, sales of timber, sales of non-timber forest products, and from permit and license fees. Employment in communities can increase, and alternate livelihoods can become available and infrastructural development can increase in the community. Indirect benefits also can become present such as community organizational development strengthening, new alliances with non-government organizations, and political empowerment. Communities may experience diversification of their livelihoods and can receive a greater sense of pride and identity. New channels of communication with the government become possible, and the community can become more visible towards outsiders. De facto regimes that are developed within the community typically have a positive effect on the environment. According to Agarwala, “Regimes with de facto community management but with some other de jure management regime also had a higher proportion of positive sustainability outcomes” (2017). Indigenous people with historical records of resource use practices have obtained a broad knowledge of local ecological systems because the diachronic knowledge indigenous people have access to has been passed down from generation to generation. Western science typically relies on a synchronic approach, where it is looked at from a specific point in time. (Berkes et al. 1993). Some community management regimes are inferred to be successful due to their long-term resiliency and ability to recover from various crises. In Canada, traditional fishing management patterns have been incorporated into fishery management policy. The Chisasibi Cree fishermen used shorter cycles when coastal fishing near their dwellings. If the catch per unit effort fell below a certain threshold, the fishermen would move along to a different fishing location. According to Berkes in 1993, “Biodiversity conservation is an indirect effect of maintaining the general productivity of the habitat, whether it is grazing land or fishing area.” The management techniques employed by the Cree are proven to be sustainable, so much that it has been adopted into current fishery management policies.
There are a number of drawbacks that become present in many community management regimes. Growing evidence suggests that community-based management is not easily implementable in many areas, and are less successful if outsiders cannot be physically excluded from resource use. A resource with low excludability would be migratory pelagic fish such as bluefin tuna. The Northern Pacific bluefin migrates over 5,000 miles to either spawn or feed off the coast of numerous countries, including Japan, China, Australia, The Southeast Pacific, Mexico, and The United States of America (Hall, 2018). Effectively regulating bluefin harvest is a challenge, as countries that enact regulations off their coastlines cannot affect bluefin fishing of the same population in a different fishery. Therefore, international treaties are the main way of regulating pelagic fish,however, treaties are difficult to enforce. Small-scale societies are not immune to internal and external factors that can affect self-governance. Fikret Berks describes four scale related issues that impact sustainable resource management:
In summary, overemphasis on community-based management runs the risk of defining issues at one level instead of many. Communities may be complex and embedded in further complexity due to intervening layers and external drivers, and because of the problem of fit between institution and ecosystem boundaries. It is difficult to find a resource management system that does not have some cross-level linkages and drivers at different levels, especially in a globalized world (2006).
Community-based resource management needs to deal with multiple levels of self-governance, and be able to adapt to internal and external changes. Many community resource regimes have failed due to state and community leaders having different expectations of what state deregulation is to achieve. Shackleton (2002) explains that in some cases, state interests in timber production, revenues, and environmental conservation clashed with villagers’ interests in livelihood security and income.
Despite de facto regimes typically having positive environmental impacts, they are fragile when faced with unregulated markets and population pressure (Agarwala 2017). It is important to not generalize and to understand that local resource degradation problems may not be able to be solved in the same way as many global issues. The global movement to create community management regimes may address inequality and produce better outcomes, however, long-term sustainability is not ensured and the users of the resource may become marginalized. Governments must create community resource regimes that allow resource users to have the power to bring about a division of control, responsibility, and benefits shared evenly. Holistic management is crucial, and allowing for traditional resource users to be able to provide input during the management process is detrimental to the success of the regime. Learning from traditional environmental practices and including local populations will be key to creating solutions for resource management problems.
Works Referenced
Agarwala, M., & Ginsberg, J. R. (2017). Untangling outcomes of de jure and de facto community-based management of natural resources. Conservation Biology,31(6), 1232-1246. doi:10.1111/cobi.12954
Berkes, F., Folke, C., & Gadgil, M. (1993). Traditional Ecological Knowledge, Biodiversity, Resilience and Sustainability. Biodiversity Conservation Ecology, Economy & Environment,151-156. doi:10.1007/978-94-011-0277-3_15
Berkes, F. (2006). From Community-Based Resource Management to Complex Systems: The Scale Issue and Marine Commons. Ecology and Society,11(1). doi:10.5751/es-01431-110145
Hall, D. (2018, May 09). Smithsonian Ocean. Retrieved November 27, 2018, from https://ocean.si.edu/ocean-life/fish/great-pacific-migration-bluefin-tuna
Mulder, M. B., & Coppolillo, P. (2005). Conservation: Linking ecology, economics, and culture. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Ostrom, E. (1990). Governing the Commons: The evolution of institutions for collective action. Cambridge, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Shackleton, S., Campbell, B., Wollenberg, E., & Edmunds, D. (2002, March). DEVOLUTION AND COMMUNITY-BASED NATURAL RESOURCE MANAGEMENT: CREATING SPACE FOR LOCAL PEOPLE TO PARTICIPATE AND BENEFIT. Retrieved from https://www.odi.org/resources/docs/2811.pdf
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