Sharing Power -- Learning-by-Doing in Co-Management of Natural Resources throughout the World

This volume is designed to support professionals and others interested in collaborative management initiatives towards a better understanding of co-management of natural resources for conservation, livelihoods, and development purposes. It brings together accounts and reflections on a variety of partnerships for managing natural resources in different social and ecological contexts around the world, and draws from these experiences to synthesise the key features and components of co-management with a practical menu of examples, tools, reminders and checklists to promote action. The book also addresses important questions of governance, the impacts, tensions, inequalities and opportunities around the co-management of natural resources. It is constructed in four parts.

The first part uses five case studies to explore natural resource management at the historical interface between traditional and 'modern' societies, and illustrate some complex combinations of the old and new devised by communities as a response to current challenges (Chapter 1). There follows a discussion on the issues of actors, entitlements and equity in natural resource management (Chapter 2); then a brief panorama of contemporary forms of co-management in different places and cultures with examples from agricultural research, water management and pastoral societies, forest resources, fisheries and coastal resources, mountain environments, and the management of wildlife and protected areas (Chapter 3).

Part II analyses the co-management process in detail through its different steps: where and when it should start and with whom (Chapter 4), the preparatory requirements to the negotiation phase (Chapter 5), the development of a common vision and the negotiation of the co-management agreement and organisation (Chapter 6). Although these ought to be adapted to particular situations, they provide important experience-based recommendations, tools and methods for practice.

Part III covers the form and functioning of co-management plans, agreements and organizations, with examples and a discussion on what makes them effective and sustainable (Chapters 7 and 8). Institutionalising co-management requires, in addition to the creation of rules and organisations, that behaviour and ideas become spontaneously pluralist and respectful of a variety of entitlements and concerns in society. Chapter 9 explores the experience of social actors engaged in the dynamics of this ‘learning-by-doing’ process, as part of co-management institutions.

Finally, Part IV discusses the policy contents and instruments supportive of co-management processes. These comprise elements at various levels, from the specific deeds of local level bureaucrats and leaders to the principles of national legislation or the wording of global conventions (Chapter 10). Recognising that policy making generally reflects and reinforces the interests of the powerful, Chapter 11 considers approaches to fostering greater inclusion and democratic pluralism, with an emphasis on participatory democracy, citizen deliberation and social inclusion mechanisms. The volume ends with concluding remarks from the authors’ own observations.