0706-C1
Hemant Ojha, Krishna Paudel, Bharat Pokharel and Cynthia McDougall 1
Because of their global environmental significance and direct contributions to local livelihoods, the management of natural resources has been a priority for policy discourses in recent years. There have been a variety of policy and programme initiatives to achieve these twin livelihood and conservation goals, including community-based natural resources management (CBNRM) approaches. While there have been successes in CBNRM policies and programmes as they have developed in many countries, there is not yet consistent progress in achieving the two goals. Unfortunately, CBNRM institutions are often characterized by institutional traits such as elite domination, limited creativity and innovations, limited sense of ownership, free-riding, unbounded conflicts, lack of transparency, unequal representation, or inequity in benefit sharing.
Taking evidence from community forestry in Nepal, this paper seeks to promote an understanding of how social learning processes take place in the context of CBNRM. The paper analyses the problems, and the key challenges and opportunities, and offers strategies to address these. From a social learning perspective, the evolution and enforcement of appropriate institutional arrangements is shaped by the way various stakeholders: engage in the process of learning, negotiate rules, divide responsibilities, monitor each other; devise incentive structures, and, get engaged in political processes. The case of Nepal is presented to demonstrate how such knowledge building and political processes within and between key CBNRM institutions are related to the success in achieving the two goals of environmental conservation and poverty reduction. Three key components of social learning are used as a basis for analysis: adaptive management; bounded conflict and social capital; and micro-macro governance linkages. Some conclusions and policy suggestions are then made as contributions to the wider contexts in which CBNRM approach is practised.
In recent years, there have been a range of attempts to engage the state, markets and local communities in managing natural resources in different temporal and spatial contexts. Many of these have placed an increasing emphasis on the roles and rights of local communities as a means to achieve the twin goals of conservation and poverty reduction. The shift towards a greater (acknowledged) role of communities in what is commonly known as Community Based Natural Resources Management (CBNRM) reflects an understanding of the links between the sustainability of human and resource systems (Agrawal 2001).
While CBNRM has generated several successful outcomes in some parts of the world such as Nepal (Mahapatra and Khanal 2000; Sharma 2002), there is not yet satisfactory and consistent progress in both resource sustainability and enhanced livelihoods of the poor. A number of researchers and policy analysts have advanced general understanding of how people and resources relate, through analyzing institutions governing common pool resources at the local level, including factors related to their successes and failures (Ostrum 1990, Bromley 1991). However, there is still a limited understanding of the dynamic aspects of these institutions, such as how social actors within and across institutions learn, and improve rules, practices and technologies relating to natural resource management (NRM), and what policy instruments facilitate development and use of new learning in policy arena. This paper seeks to analyze the latter aspects of CBNRM institutional development.
Three key inter-related concepts are explored here as the basis for grounding a social learning perspective in CBNRM. The first concept is adaptive management2, which relates to the processes and praxis of learning through experience in a more conscious way. It can be understood as a process of enhancing learning for improved management outcomes, by incorporating explicit learning plans into management actions. A key element of adaptive management is monitoring, which has different meanings to different people (Abbot and Guijt 1998). Adaptive management relates most closely to learning-oriented monitoring3, which has an explicit focus on enhancing learning within organizations.
The second concept we address is the dual one of bounded conflict and social capital, which refers to how, and the degree to which, people and groups manage diverse interests to form collaborative associations4 involving trust and reciprocity. CBNRM situations are characterized by a multiplicity of actors, both within and outside the community. Recognizing this, a social learning perspective espouses that NRM is always associated with conflicts of interests, along with opportunities to form collaborative relationships or social capital5 from which to address resource management and livelihood goals. In fact, since learning is not confined to one individual, and since issues of resource governance are shared in common by many, conflicts and cooperation can be seen as related, unavoidable and essential processes.
Finally, since NRM crosscuts different layers of governance, the concept of micro-macro governance linkages is significant. This concept refers to how resource governance is shaped by power relations and joint learning processes between different layers6, from community to national government. There are almost no local NRM situations that are fully independent of the state; decisions at macro and meso levels of governance affect costs, benefits, risks and opportunities at local level7. Sharing of power and flow of information among these different layers is therefore a crucial aspect of social learning.
The processes of joint and deliberate learning, as well as negotiation or managing bounded conflicts, are the key elements of 'social learning' (Lee 1993: 8; Wollenberg et al 2001). Social learning involves the engagement of multiple actors, which is necessarily a political process; it also involves a learning process that is conscious (not merely incidental), and responsive to environmental pressures.
Nepal's community forestry has come a long way. Following the enactment of the Forestry Sector Master Plan in 1988, over 12 thousands Forest User Groups (FUGs) have been formed, and over 850, 000 hectares of forest areas (or nearly 17% of the country's forests) have been handed over to these groups (HMG/N 2002). The range of stakeholders has expanded to include users, government, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), international institutions and private sector, all of whom sustain, support, facilitate, and enable community forestry at different levels. Legal arrangements are already in place that recognize the perpetual sovereignty of FUGs, and the majority of benefits of forest management are guaranteed to users (HMG/N 1993).
Nepal's community forestry policies have been subject to constant, and sometimes swift, changes. Having evolved from the assigning of some limited rights to Local Governance Units (Panchayats) in 1978, the current legal arrangement recognizes local resource user groups as squarely in the center of NRM. This change took place through an iterative practice of piloting in the field and amending national forest policies based on feedback from the experiences over several years. This indicates a relatively active policy-making and management process during the evolutionary phase of community forestry.
After 1995, with well-established community forestry legislation in place, a series of critical `second generation challenges' have emerged, including issues related to: post-formation support; equity in decision making and benefit-sharing; and commercial use (Gilmour 2002). Yet, despite earlier practice of active and iterative policy formulation, recent studies indicate that currently at all levels, from FUGs to the Ministry of Forest and Soil Conservation (MOFSC), decision-makers often follow an `unmonitored experience' approach (sometimes simply casual observation) to devise solutions to these types of problems (Ojha et al 2002, Pokharel et al 2002). Policies, programs and targets are often treated as certitudes, with little or no monitoring to assess whether the assumptions about goals, actions, and effects are correct, or if they can be improved upon. Rather than being used as a mechanism for feedback to policy, `monitoring' is often perceived as a tool for `punishment by superiors'. In some cases, significant amounts of data are collected, but most of that passes unanalyzed and unused through the hands of decision-makers at various levels.
Currently, staff of MOFSC - the main service provider and policy-making and implementing body - have limited incentives, and time to learn together with FUGs. Thus, many FUGs feel they are not getting adequate support from the MOFSC (Ojha et al 2002). In some cases, there are clear indications of contradictions between the knowledge systems of local communities and those of formally trained forestry officials. At the same time, there are promising cases of innovative young forestry staff who are increasingly committed to engaging in a process of collective learning with forest users.
Within FUGs, unfortunately it is fairly common that learning opportunities are traditional in nature (such as trainings), and that those and other opportunities tend to be dominated by elite FUG members (usually committee members). However, there are also currently some innovative cases of FUGs members conducting experiments in resource and institutional management, and using these as the basis for future improvements. Furthermore, where practiced, self and collaborative monitoring has made strong contributions in both learning and relationship aspects of FUGs, including through assisting decision-making under conditions of uncertainty, maintaining transparency, and facilitating decision-making and planning (Malla et al 2002, Cynthia et al 2002, Pokharel et al 2002, Paudel and Ojha 2002). While these are promising, to date there is still limited sharing, synthesis and scaling up of such current innovative initiatives across various levels of governance.
Conflicts and collaboration in community forestry in Nepal center around the diverse interests and the power relations of individuals and groups, within and outside communities. In a study of 8 FUGs across the country, Ojha et al (2002) identified as many as 12 different interest groups within single FUG, based on nature of dependency in forest management, institutional roles they occupy, occupations, socio-economic status and physical access to forest. The interests or visions of members in these FUGs were found to be as diverse as access forest products to becoming a political leader using FUG as the platform. Such diverse interests, along with concomitant power differentials, have given rise to conflicts and resistance, along with some limited communication and often inequitable negotiation of rules relating to resource use across the country8.
Recognizing this, and the increasing complexity of management, some FUGs have started to adopt various innovative institutional arrangements to facilitate internal communication, manage conflict situations and develop social capital. Key arrangements relate to decentralizing decision making processes, developing more systematic office systems, including accounting, creating sub-group level units for discussion, negotiation, and action. A key lesson emerging in this regard is that the recognition of sub-groups (such as interest groups or toles (hamlets)) and their roles in FUG level processes can facilitate the expression of subsumed interests, leading to more effective and more equitable negotiations (Malla et al 2002, McDougall et al 2002b). This implies a need for actors in FUGs and those involved in policy-making, implementation and/or support to FUGs to incorporate some form of stakeholder analysis at all levels, as a part of on-going conflict management, and building of social capital.
Similarly, in the cases involved in the Ohja et al (2002) study, about a dozen different categories of external stakeholders were found to be associated with an FUG directly or indirectly - central government agencies, local governments, civil society, bilateral projects, and private sector. These institutions vary in terms of interests and power to influence FUG decision processes. External interactions of the FUGs were mostly with District Forest Officer (DFO)/Range Posts, and were primarily governed by the existing patron-client relationships (Malla 2001). As such, despite the benefits of practical support provided to FUGs in the short term, interactions within this relationship context may limit the scope of FUGs' long-term independence and capacities. The interaction of FUGs with civil society organizations is still limited in Nepal in general, as there is limited space for the latter to work in the forestry sector. The development of networks at different levels, and `nested networks' (i.e., from the very local to district level), appear to be promising platforms for addressing conflicts, information sharing and building collective action for addressing power imbalances and knowledge gaps, and accessing resources and influencing policy.
The overall analysis of stakeholder relationships within and outside FUGs indicates that conflicts, resistance and collaboration are common, and sometimes essential, processes in building social capital. At the same time, this capital formation is not inevitable; it needs to be facilitated and nurtured through efforts and innovations, such as those noted above.
Experiences indicate that, despite breakthroughs of participatory policies, approaches and practices in community forestry, there is still not adequate nor effective linkage9 among the three layers of governance (Pokharel et al 2002). A number of challenges in community forestry - including weak outcomes in livelihoods, equity and productivity of community-managed forest areas - are rooted in part in the weak linkages among the difference layers of governance (Ojha et al 2002), and the corresponding lack of responsiveness of decision makers, such as FUGs, DFOs and MOFSC. One of the factors relating to this linkage is the extent to which relevant information flows across the levels in both the directions. The current system of communication is primarily driven by upward extraction of information through numerous `formats' with limited downward information flow and feedback, particularly to FUGs (Pokharel et al, 2002). Currently information needs at various levels have not yet been clearly identified. The key lesson is that the very limited and uncoordinated information flow and communication between different layers of forest governance has limited the possibility for learning in, and responsiveness of, different levels of governance to feedback about policy and policy implementation.
In the Nepal case described briefly here, we noted the multi-layered scenario, in which there was diversity both within the different layers (especially at the local level), and across layers. Although the basic policy was well-established, the analysis indicated that much current policy-making was happening in isolation from applied learning and systematic feedback. In terms of conflict and social capital, we noted the significant power differences at the local level, and indicated the potential passivity or dependency within and amongst groups of actors or institutions. In terms of macro-micro linkages, one point of note was the imbalance in information flow, and that many decision-makers at all levels were operating with piece-meal information.
In each of these aspects of social learning, we also noted a variety of innovations that have emerged, including various learning-oriented monitoring practices (especially at the local level), decentralizing decision-making within FUGs, and the emergence of networks at all levels. Innovations such as these suggest that social learning approaches are beginning to take root at different levels; we suggest that if the social learning perspective is used in understanding CBNRM issues, and even nurtured, observed, and engaged in as an approach, that it may provide a strong foundation for meeting second generation challenges of CBNRM.
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1 Team Leader, Forest Resources and Livelihoods, ForestAction P O Box 12207, Kathmandu, Nepal. [email protected]
2 According to Lee (1993: 9), "adaptive management is an approach to natural resource policy that embodies a simple imperative: policies are experiments; learn from them. Adaptive management assumes that organizational policies and plans are based on incomplete knowledge, and takes this uncertainty seriously, organizes actions on experimental mode, taking special care to collect information so that action yields knowledge, even when what occurs is different from what was expected (ibid: 1993:9).
3 At least three different approaches to, or `conceptual threads' of, monitoring have evolved over time: a) control-oriented monitoring; b) monitoring designed to meet project requirements; and c) learning-oriented monitoring (for more detail see Paudel and Ojha 2002). This is based on the premise that: a) what we plan to achieve through some action is in fact an assumption (i.e we cannot know it to be certain) regarding the relationship amongst a complex set of factors and variables; and b) there is a great scope for learning if such assumptions are made explicit and tested during the course of actions.
4 According to Riley (2002), a collaborative relationship involving two or more stakeholders addressing a given problem is based on a set of mutual perceptions, which state that _ a) each is a legitimate actor, b) each is capable of contributing the solution of that problem, c) it is to the greater advantage of all parties to work in partnership than to work separately, and d) stakeholders have agreed to share the authority to both define the problem and its solutions.
5 Social capital generally refers to the "institutions, relationships, and norms that shape the quality and quantity of a society's social interactions" (World Bank Group, 2002). This includes the horizontal and vertical associations between people, consisting of social networks and associated norms and behaviors within and among groups, that have an effect on community productivity and well-being (ibid). As Ostrom (2000) highlights, not only communication and interaction can add to social capital, but even conflict - constructively managed - can build it.
6 Three distinct layers include: a) micro level i.e., within the community; b) meso level such as district or provincial layers; and c) macro level which refers here to national governance.
7 This is also true of the meta level. Because of global externalities of natural resources as well general globalization processes, international agreements and inter-- and supra-national forces also influence the boundaries and directions of macro level governance.
8 Our analysis indicates that in many FUGs, directions are set largely by visions of dominant people, while those of less powerful groups such as women and the disadvantaged, are mostly subsumed in the elite-led decisions (Ojha et al 2002; McDougall et al 2002a).
9 The effectiveness of the linkages refers to a combination of governance-related issues across levels, including clarity of rights and roles, sharing and balance of power, flow of communication, transparency of procedures, and extent of participation and consultation of lower layers in decision-making
10 The studies by Pokharel et al (2002), Ohja et al (2002), Paudel and Ohja (2002), that form the basis of this paper, as well as McDougall et al (2002a) and (2002b), were supported by CIFOR and a grant from the Asian Development Bank under RETA 5812 (Planning for sustainability of forests through adaptive co-management). The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not in any way express positions held either by CIFOR or the Asian Development Bank.