Environment-CLD Article References & Abstracts
Rowena Asugeni, Michelle Redman-MacLaren, James Asugeni, Tommy Esau, Frank Timothy, Peter Massey & David MacLaren. 2019. “A community builds a ‘bridge’: an example of community-led adaptation to sea-level rise in East Kwaio, Solomon Islands,” Climate and Development, 11:1, 91-96, DOI: 10.1080/17565529.2017.1411239
Abstract: Sea-level rise is negatively impacting many Pacific Islands Countries and Territories. In Solomon Islands, sea-level rise is particularly acute due to current movements, the geography of low-lying islands, and the physical structure and locations of villages on the islands. In East Kwaio, Solomon Islands a community-based response to rising sea-levels has meant that men and women from two villages have worked together to independently fund and build a raised walkway, and build seawalls in areas that are regularly inundated. This article describes community-based action, including the processes involved in building the walkway (“bridge”) and seawalls, and reports a community discussion with women about the impact of sea-level rise. Changes resulting from the bridge and seawalls, along with recommendations for future action, are reported. Local responses to local concerns underpin this community-based adaptation to sea-level rise in Solomon Islands.
Bass, Steve, David Annandale, Phan Van Binh, Tran Phuong Dong, Hoang Anh Nam, Thi Kieu Le Oanh, Mike Parsons, Nguyen Van Phuc, and Vu Van Trieu. 2010. “Viet Nam: Achievements, Challenges and next Steps.” Report in Integrating Environment and Development; International Institute for Environment and Development. 15-42.
Abstract: [3.1] Worldwide over the last two decades, one particular norm has evolved in order to meet the challenge of linking environment and development primarily: this is to get environmental issues reflected in the national plan. The 1992 Rio Earth Summit produced Agenda 21, which expressed the agreement that all countries shall prepare ‘national sustainable development strategies’. Since then, another emphasis has been on integrating the environment into Poverty Reduction Strategies.
The subsequent failure of many such strategies to lead to real change – beyond getting the right words into planning documents – has begun to focus attention on the institutional and behavioral constraints to implementing integrated plans. From a more positive perspective, it has also convinced us of the value of looking for several ‘pathways’ through which environment and development have become constructively linked in practice – looking at ‘upstream’ policy reforms and ‘downstream’ procedures, budgeting and investments, and not only focusing on integrated planning. These are likely to reveal other, often more robust, ways to achieve linked development and environment outcomes in given national contexts.
[3.2]Here we introduce eight short case studies that illustrate the many ways in which different organisations in Viet Nam have been attempting to link environment and development. They cover central as well as provincial government efforts, academic and media roles, the catalytic roles of aid-supported projects, and commune-level initiatives.
[3.3] ‘Environmental mainstreaming’ is a term which is commonly used to mean the integration of environmental objectives into institutions and their decisions. To fully integrate environment and development objectives is a long-term matter of institutional change. It would be unwise to believe that this can be accomplished by one activity or project, even those as comprehensive in their scope as PEP and DCE.
In November 2008, PEP and IIED held a one-day workshop of more than 70 Vietnamese stakeholders to ask the question: how far has Viet Nam reached in integrating environment and development? A realistic assessment seems to have been made by participants. No-one judged that there had been no progress, or alternatively that development and environmental management had been fully integrated. Instead, there were 33 ‘votes’ for improved awareness being the stage reached in Viet Nam, 17 for useful trials and innovations (including some of the cases in 3.2), and 10 for Viet Nam having achieved better policies and institutions.
Building on this, and the lessons from our eight case studies, our preliminary observations are that progress has been made in ten outcome areas. We lay these out in a ‘spectrum’ – from improved awareness which is a prerequisite for change, to improved governance which systematically integrates environment and development.
Victoria Cronin & Peter Guthrie. 2011. “Community-led resettlement: From a flood-affected slum to a new society in Pune, India.” Environmental Hazards, 10:3-4, 310-326, DOI: 10.1080/17477891.2011.594495
Abstract: This paper describes the resettlement process of a community devastated by annual floods, to newly constructed housing in Pune, India. The relocation from Kamgar Putala slum to a housing society at Hadapsar was organized by a community-led NGO partnership in 2004. The housing development was coordinated by the local NGO Shelter Associates with significant community participation. The housing has been revisited in 2010 to evaluate the sustainability of the resettlement project’s delivery model via stakeholder perception. The process of organizing for resettlement after natural disaster is described along with the implementation and evaluation of the new housing nearly six years after initial occupation. The strong partnership approach overcame a series of political and financial hurdles at various stages of the relocation project. The story of resettling Kamgar Putala is detailed alongside an outline of the current political climate for an alternative slum-upgrading policy in India and Pune. The advantages of an empowered community supported by an influential local NGO demonstrate a commendable team effort which has tackled the threat of floods. The paper highlights the merits of a community-led partnership approach to housing development for achieving sustainable urban development as well as the alleviation of poverty in a developing context.
Domínguez, María Teresa Martínez, and Eurig Scandrett. 2016. “The Politics of Environmental Justice: Community Development in Ecuadorian and Peruvian Amazonia.” In Politics, Power and Community Development, edited by Meade Rosie R., Shaw Mae, and Banks Sarah, 159-78. Bristol: Bristol University Press. doi:10.2307/j.ctt1t896hc.14.
Abstract: This chapter constitutes a critical reflection on these experiences in dialogue with Scandrett. We understand community development to be a process through which communities collectively mobilise to defend or enhance their means of livelihood and quality of life and a practice by key individuals who consciously facilitate this process, whether through community appointment, political commitment or professional employment. Theorists of community development have recognised the contradictions in its practice. Since the origins of community development in European colonialism and ‘development’ as a means of building the allegiance of post-independence populations, community workers have been located within communities that have been identified as ‘problematic’ by outsiders, and tasked with the contradictory role of supporting communities to identify and mobilise in support of their collective interests which may be opposed to the interests of the powerful (Mayo, 2008).
For the purpose of this chapter we have classified the actors in the relationship between community and the oil industry as the ‘powerful’, the ‘survivors’ and the ‘intermediaries’, all of whom have some locus in community work. The ‘powerful’ includes the state and foreign oil companies, state institutions, public relations (PR) companies, the military and foreign governments. The ‘survivors’ consist of indigenous people and their local, regional and national organisations. The ‘intermediaries’ include local, national and international NGOs and aid agencies, the Church, local councils, activists, academics and some governmental institutions that lead with indigenous issues. These categorisations are not intended to be analytical but rather heuristic and it is acknowledged that complex diversity exists within them. However, in interpreting the role which key agents play in the processes that are either explicitly named or may be understood as community development, this categorisation is helpful.
In a region where the presence of the state is minimal, the oil industry has become the main source for community development in indigenous communities through its ‘Corporate Social Responsibility’ (CSR) programmes in an effort to consolidate its presence in indigenous territory, what Collins (2006) has called ‘dispossession through participation’. In many cases these industry-led attempts at community development are in conflict with communities’ own development strategies and life projects. Some indigenous groups have evolved and transformed over the centuries into societies that represent a troublesome alternative to the current dominant neoliberal system that is based on concentration of power and accumulation of wealth.
Doughty, C.A. 2016. “Building climate change resilience through local cooperation: a Peruvian Andes case study.” Reg Environ Change 16, 2187–2197. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-015-0882-2
Abstract: Many of the problems faced by international projects intending to create adaptive social–ecological systems for climate change stem from lack of stakeholder engagement, limited understanding of local political, economic, and environmental complexities, and restricted time. Local organizations focused on conservation and development might have an advantage in creating adaptive social–ecological systems because they understand local processes and are involved with communities for extended periods of time. A local non-governmental organization, Asociacio ́n Ecosistemas Andinos (ECOAN), works in twenty-one communities in the Andean highlands outside of Cusco to conserve the endangered Polylepis forests. As part of the conservation project, ECOAN supports community-led development projects such as building greenhouses. Data for this project were gathered through interviews (with community members in three different communities, ECOAN staff, and donors) and participant observation. This paper shows that ECOAN’s extensive use of participation has led to community ownership of the conservation and development projects. The communities’ close connections to the Polylepis project contribute to resilience through creating networks, extending the local environmental ethic to the Polylepis trees, supporting projects that diversify and strengthen community sustenance, and contributing to the growth of economic activities. This case study provides a positive example of the potential for local organizations and people to take charge of their own resiliency efforts where international projects and protocols may otherwise prove ineffective.
Ria A. Dunkley & Alex Franklin. 2017. “Failing better: The stochastic art of evaluating community-led environmental action programs.” Evaluation and Program Planning 60, 112-122.
Abstract: This article provides insights into the evaluation of a government-funded action for climate change program. The UK-based program aimed to reduce CO2 emissions and encourage behavioral change through community-led environmental projects. It, thus, employed six community development facilitators, with expertise in environmental issues. These facilitators supported and learnt from 18 community groups over an 18-month period. The paper explores the narratives of the six professional facilitators. These facilitators discuss their experiences of supporting community groups. They also explain their contribution to the wider evaluation of the community-led projects. This paper reflects on the facilitator experience of the program’s outcome-led evaluation process. In turn, it also explores how the groups they supported experienced the process. The facilitator’s narratives reveal that often community-group objectives did not align with predefined outcomes established through theory of change or logic model methodologies, which had been devised in attempt to align to program funder aims. Assisting community action emerges in this inquiry as a stochastic art that requires funder and facilitator willingness to experiment and openness to the possibilities of learning from failure. Drawing on in-depth accounts, the article illustrates that a reflexive, interpretive evaluation approach can enhance learning opportunities and provides funders with more trustworthy representations of community-led initiatives. Yet, it also addresses why such an approach remains marginal within policy circles.
Sophia Gnych, Steven Lawry, Rebecca McLain, Iliana Monterroso, and Anukram Adhikary. 2020. “Is community tenure facilitating investment in the commons for inclusive and sustainable development?” Forest Policy and Economics 111.
Abstract: With communities in many parts of the world achieving stronger, legally recognized, collective rights over their forests and other natural resources, important questions arise regarding how communities can overcome perceived barriers to investment and deliver sustainable development. Normative economic theory posits conceptual and practical barriers to investment in commons-based enterprises. This paper considers evidence and draws on lessons from four countries— Guatemala, Mexico, Nepal, where communities have been granted rights to forests, and Namibia, where communities have significant new rights to wildlife—to better understand the pathways emerging to deliver investment in the commons. We find that investment in community-owned resources is taking place and describe a process of “investment readiness.” During a first stage, rights devolution triggers inward investment and development of community user groups and sustainable resource management plans subject to government review and approval. In a second stage, social enterprises, commonly referred to as Community Forest Enterprises (CFEs), are spawned or licensed by the community user groups. Stronger local social capital and the effective performance of local enterprises attract new forms of private investment in a third phase. Improved community capacity enables diversification and investment into new sectors, linking to value chains that adhere to global market and environmental standards. Progress from one stage to the next is in part conditional on increases in the level of assurance stakeholders have that the obligations of each party will be met. We also find that community rights have fostered investment that recognizes the social character of commons ownership, to deliver environmental and social returns, as well as profits. CFEs help drive social innovation in rural regions by solving social, economic and resource governance problems that neither the state nor the market has proved capable of addressing. CFE-based solutions remain experimental and fragile, however, and longer-term success of community-based forest enterprise depends on states and markets adopting innovations of their own that are supportive and not corrosive of community-based resource governance and development.
International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED). 2016. Report. International Institute for Environment and Development.
Abstract: The most effective way to reduce poverty and respond to climate change varies by location. This means that local actors — local governments, community organisations, NGOs, local businesses and others — have a critical role in sustainable development. They are best placed to know local concerns and priorities, whether an improved water supply, access to clean energy for cooking or microcredit after an environmental disaster. However, knowledgeable local actors too often lack the finance, authority or voice to act effectively.
Most barriers are upstream: only a small proportion of development finance and public resources reach local governments. An even smaller share is channeled to community organisations or small businesses. Where money is invested in low-income and other marginalised communities, the intended beneficiaries often have little or no say over how funds are spent. If vulnerable communities are to become more resilient and prosperous, more finance must reach the local level and local actors must have more influence over how it is used.
Jena, Ananta Kumar. 2018. “Effects of Community Sanitation Program on the Awareness of Environmental Sustainability in Assam, India.” International Quarterly of Community Health Education 39, no. 1: (October 2018): 51–61. doi:10.1177/0272684X18787150.
Abstract: Community sanitation is now an essential issue of environmental sustainability. In recently, community-led total sanitation program is going in Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Ethiopia, and Kenya with the help of government and nongovernmental organizations. In this context, a community sanitation program was organized in Silchar, India, in which the students, local community members, and university professors directly and indirectly participated and gave their valuable feedback. The study aimed to evaluate the effects of community sanitation program on the awareness of environmental sustainability. In this empirical research design, 20 university students, 6 university professors, and 14 local people participated in the community sanitation and hands-on activity program organized on the roadside of Silchar Medical College & Hospital and Irongmara Market nearer to the Assam University, Silchar. The participants’ responses towards the feedback cum questionnaire was analyzed by Kruskal -Wallis H test resulted significant effects of community sanitation program on the awareness of environmental sustainability.
Kratzwald, Brigitte. 2016.”Community Development and Commons: On the Road to Alternative Economics?” In Politics, Power and Community Development, edited by Meade Rosie R., Shaw Mae, and Banks Sarah, 235-52. Bristol: Bristol University Press.
Abstract: This chapter explores whether community development can contribute to building alternative economics and for this task it refers to the commons as an economic model. After outlining the concepts of ‘alternative economics’, ‘community development’ and ‘commons’, it looks at their differences, commonalities and mutual learning opportunities. In the chapter’s last section several examples show both the possibilities and limitations of community-based economies arising from community development and commoning. From the outset it needs to be acknowledged that considering these issues involves a triple challenge. The first concerns the Austrian context specifically, as the term ‘community development’ is not widely used in German-speaking contexts. Therefore this chapter must find those fields and concepts that most closely approximate to the theory and practice of community development. The second challenge is to analyse the relationship between community development (or the corresponding German concepts) and ‘commons’, to highlight commonalities, intersections and differences. The third challenge lies in defining the term ‘alternative economics’ and relating it to community development. These tasks are complicated by all three terms eluding easy definition: they have different meanings in different contexts and they do not signify ‘things’ but processes that are dependent on culture and situation. Given this background, the following contribution might be understood as an exploration of a field rather than as a conclusive assessment of this potential relationship.
Lin, Pei-Shan Sonia, and Yen-Lan Liu. 2015. “Niching Sustainability in an Indigenous Community: Protected Areas, Autonomous Initiatives, and Negotiating Power in Natural Resource Management.” Sustainability Science, vol. 11, no. 1, pp. 103–113., doi:10.1007/s11625-015-0294-8.
Abstract: Although sustainability science has been developed within the Western knowledge system, and Indigenous science has been studied at the local level, these two streams of thought are premised on a common understanding of the relationship between humans and the environment. The practitioners of each, however, have not yet engaged in productive, practical dialog. This paper used cooperative game theory to better understand the choices and tradeoffs made by Indigenous Taiwanese villagers who were in a ‘‘competitive’’ situation with regard to Indigenous autonomy and government-led protected areas. The aim was to understand how interactions among different groups of local people could affect community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) processes that aim to balance environmental sustainability with Indigenous autonomy. Results show that the knowledge and rights of Indigenous people could be part of a compromising collaboration with legislation-supported protected areas, if this collaboration benefits Indigenous autonomy as well as sustainability of the local environment and livelihoods. Indigenous science can inform changing landscapes, while sustainability science can provide analytical approaches and planning schemes for resilience. We suggest, though, that the trade-off process should be open and include a well-communicated mechanism through which all parties can negotiate power in a mutually agreeable way, merging Indigenous and sustainability concerns into one actionable collaboration. The types of conflicts analyzed in this study are characteristic of the conflicts typically associated with sustainable development.
LORENZINI, SARA. 2019. “Resources, Environment, and Development: THE DIFFICULT NEXUS.” In Global Development: A Cold War History, 124-41. PRINCETON; OXFORD: Princeton University Press.
Abstract: “I have no apologies to make to anyone that we do things in a big way. Why shouldn’t we be proud that America . . . accounts for more than half the consumption of energy on this planet?”Unremarkable as these words were when David Lilienthal said them in 1949, as a new environmental awareness emerged some thirty years later, they sounded out of place. The linkage between state power and large-scale projects that ruled during the modernization years entered a crisis in the 1970’s, when modernity ceased to be an end in itself and new sensibilities replaced what in 1958 Nehru—otherwise known for calling dams the temples of modern India—called the “disease of giganticism.” While development struggled to keep its promise to quickly grant underdeveloped countries wealth and well-being, problems related to industrialization appeared in the form of ecological imbalances. At the turn of the decade, development was considered a failure as a Cold War weapon, and there was widespread doubt about planning. Though ideology was still unyielding in the periphery, where international crises and civil wars stemming from decolonization and the failure of new states continued to fuel Cold War dynamics, in international organizations the East-West conflict rarely challenged the fundamental underlying agreement on global issues. Instead, a major cleavage ran along the old color line, between a rich, white, developed North and a colored, poor, underdeveloped South.
Roy Maconachie, Gavin Hilson. 2013. “Editorial introduction: the extractive industries, community development and livelihood change in developing countries.” Community Development Journal, Volume 48, Issue 3, Pages 347–359, https://doi.org/10.1093/cdj/bst018
Abstract: This paper introduces a special issue on the extractive industries, community development and livelihood change in developing countries. The collection of papers presented in the issue reflects upon a broad range of emerging community development challenges surrounding the growth of the mining, and oil and gas sectors in different settings across sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and Melanesia. Recognizing the distinction between ‘community-led’ development and ‘corporate-controlled’ development, the contributions critically explore how different stakeholders respond to extractive industries development and reflect upon the role that communities might play in mitigating some of the problematic issues that arise. The collection sheds new light on the complex relationships between communities, companies, governments and non-governmental actors and provides a more nuanced picture of the challenges faced in pursuing more sustainable community-led trajectories.
McEwen, Lindsey, Franz Krause, Owain Jones and J. Garde Hansen. 2012. “Sustainable Flood Memories, Informal Knowledge And The Development Of Community Resilience To Future Flood Risk.” Flood Recovery Innovation and Response III.
Abstract: The UK policy change from ‘flood defence’ to ‘flood risk management’ in the 1990’s has involved shifts to more distributed flood risk management responsibilities. This poses questions about roles of floodplain residents in community-led adaptation planning for changing flood risk, and how these roles can be supported/strengthened. Research evidence emphasises importance of informal/local/lay knowledge, ‘watery sense of place’, flood memories and shared flood heritage, in how communities prepare for, and recover from, floods. This paper outlines initial research outcomes from an interdisciplinary UK Economic and Social Research Council-funded research project that proposes the concept of ‘sustainable flood memory’ in the context of effective flood risk management. This is conceived as an approach to memory work that is community focused, archival, integrating individual and collective experiences, involving inter- and intra-generational communication, and strategies for its future. The project aims to increase understanding of how flood memories provide a platform for developing informal knowledge, so creating social learning opportunities in communities that can increase their adaptive capacities and flood resilience. It explores: how communities remember and archive flood experiences; how local flood knowledge is materialised, assimilated and protected; the role of catastrophic floods (e.g. July 2007, River Severn, UK) in building ‘community’ memory and flood risk knowledge; and whether informal knowledge is tacit or otherwise, if and how it is learned, and whether it can be transmitted, developed, revitalised and returned in settings where it is lost or lacking.
Talia Meer & Matthew A. Schnurr. 2013. “The community versus community- based natural resource management: the case of Ndumo game reserve, South Africa.” Canadian Journal of Development Studies / Revue canadienne d’études du développement, 34:4, 482-497, DOI: 10.1080/02255189.2013.849580
Abstract: This article investigates the escalating violence directed by community members towards the Ndumo game reserve in South Africa, which has pitted residents against the reserve they are invested in as owners and managers. We argue that escalating tensions at Ndumo result from three distinct, but interrelated factors: (1) the local community’s historical and present day feelings of loss of land, autonomy and “home” as a result of colonial and neoliberal conservation initiatives; (2) a lack of transformation in the colonial institutions governing community-based natural resource management (CBNRM); and (3) the increasing frustration with the prospects of scaling up CBNRM ventures into a new global conservation paradigm: transfrontier conservation areas (TFCA). We argue that the destruction and violence at Ndumo are best understood as an example of communities trying desperately to engage with state- and private-sector-led conservation in the face of continued exclusion.
PERRINGS, CHARLES. 2014.”Environment and Development Economics 20 Years on.” Environment and Development Economics 19, no. 3: 333-66.
Abstract: This paper reviews the evolution of the field of environment and development over the last two decades. I argue that a central concern of the field has been the relation between natural resource use, income and growth, under the institutional and market conditions that prevail in developing countries. Particular attention is paid to the demographic and other drivers of change in the asset base, the linkages between poverty, property rights and the allocation of natural resources, the valuation of environmental assets and investment of resource rents, and the development of policies for managing environmental externalities and environmental public goods. I consider how the balance between topics and the treatment of individual topics has changed over time, and indicate how the field might be expected to move in the future.
Saiyot, Sayamon, and Mihoko Matsuyuki. 2016. “Study on Process of Building Adaptive Capacity to Climate Change through Social Capital in Low-Income Communities: A Case Study of Nakhon Sawan Municipality in Thailand.” Urban and Regional Planning Review, vol. 3, no. 0, pp. 146–162., doi:10.14398/urpr.3.146.
Abstract: This study observes the case study of the “Nakhon Sawan Community Development Organisation,” which is a network of 21 low-income communities in Nakhon Sawan City Municipality in Thailand. This network’s adaptive activities before, during, and after the megaflood in Thailand in 2011 are considered to be progressive. This study tries to investigate 1) What types of social network/capital can promote building adaptive capacities to flooding in low-income communities, and 2) Poor urban communities’ processes and conditions to form social capital that lead to building adaptive capacity. In this study, three types of social capital–bonding, bridging, and linking social capital–are used for analysis, and these three types are classified at three levels: local, national, and international. From the research, it is revealed that 1) From normal time to during and after the flood, bonding social capital, or the community network, is the basis of adaptive activities, 2) Bonding social capital can carry out adaptive activities in combination with linking and bridging social capital at national and international levels, 3) Low-income communities’ first step to expand its social networks with other organizations is uniting within a community and collaborating with neighborhood communities, and 4) A multi-layered, low-income community network system is effective for disaster management.
Smith, Gwendolyn, and Elena P. Bastidas. 2017. “WORKING WITH COMMUNITY VIEWS.” Conflict and Sustainability in a Changing Environment: Through the Eyes of Communities, 149-70. London; New York: Anthem Press.
Abstract: In this book I have taken the reader on a journey of “sustainable development” through the eyes of the Trio indigenous community. I have also tried to explain how researchers like myself unconsciously make assumptions on sustainability when studying such an indigenous community in development projects. And this mismatch develops organically. Researchers and practitioners traditionally lean on the definition of sustainable development put forward by the modern world: “sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (Brundtland 1987 , 41). Local communities like the Trios see “sustainable development” quite differently. In a journey through time, they thread together events from the past and present, and from there strategically craft their own life goals for the future. Although this approach seems to have the same past- future orientation as the Brundtland definition, there is a fundamental difference. The underlying motivations make the Trio concept of development contrast that of a researcher: the Trios operate from caretaking while researchers follow a paradigm of economic growth/ exploitation. It is therefore imperative for researchers to be conscious of this divide rather than making a wrong assumption that the community wants to develop according to the (foreign) goals stipulated within the economic paradigm. Acquiring sufficient insight into the views of a community will further prevent failures in making the project a reality. It can help researchers and practitioners be aware of the assumptions they automatically make based on their Western perspective.
Smith, Gwendolyn, and Elena P. Bastidas. 2017. “NEW FRAMEWORK FOR RESEARCHING VIEWS IN COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT.” Conflict and Sustainability in a Changing Environment: Through the Eyes of Communities, 47-66. London; New York: Anthem Press.
Abstract: Communities appear to be struggling with climate change. The views they hold have to change swiftly and, as a result, a researcher’s understanding of a community’s view becomes even more challenging. Countless times I have witnessed how a community’s view defers and alters under circumstances I could have never predicted beforehand or, many times, not even slightly understood. At that moment, I wish to have the unique but unattainable ability to see through the eyes of a community to discover its thoughts and choices when it is combatting the changing climate. The closest I came to looking through the eyes of communities is with a practical framework I have gradually developed over a period of more than ten years. I was privileged to test this framework with the help of numerous colleagues in several indigenous (and other) communities spread over countries in South America. The new framework is presented in this chapter.
Tafon, Ralph, and Fred P. Saunders. 2015. “Power Relations and Cassava: Conservation and Development in Cameroon.” The Journal of Environment & Development 24, no. 1: 82–104. doi:10.1177/1070496514551985.
Abstract: Linking conservation and development activities requires local institutional change that can deliver global conservation as well as local socioeconomic benefits.Participatory approaches are considered a key element to this end, although recent research demonstrates that they may reinforce existing inequitable governance systems. This article examines micro-institutional formations and development interventions in the Mount Cameroon National Park. The study found that blending new governance approaches with traditional institutions at Mount Cameroon National Park led to diminished participation of the project and a failure to listen to and deliver meaningful development opportunities to Bavenga villagers. The article concludes that while local participation and governance institutions constitute laudable additions to Integrated Conservation and Development Projects, the implications of reproducing traditional authority structures must be carefully considered, and locally grounded development opportunities need to be better embedded into these projects.
Turreira-García, N., Meilby, H., Brofeldt, S. et al. 2018. “Who Wants to Save the Forest? Characterizing Community-Led Monitoring in Prey Lang, Cambodia.” Environmental Management 61, 1019–1030. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-018-1039-0
Abstract: Community monitoring is believed to be successful only where there is sustained funding, legislation for communities to enforce rules, clear tenure rights, and an enabling environment created by the state. Against this backdrop, we present the case of an autonomous grassroots-monitoring network that took the initiative to protect their forest, in a context, where no external incentives and rule enforcement power were provided. The aim was to analyze the socio-demographic and economic backgrounds, motivations and achievements of forest monitors, compared to non-monitors in the same communities. A total of 137 interviews were conducted in four villages bordering Prey Lang forest in Cambodia. We used binary logit models to identify the factors that influenced the likelihood of being a monitor. Results show that there were few (22%, n = 30) active monitors. Active monitors were intrinsically motivated forest-users, and not specifically associated with a particular gender, ethnicity, or residence-time in that area. The most common interventions were with illegal loggers, and the monitors had a general feeling of success in stopping the illegal activities. Most (73%, n = 22) of them had been threatened by higher authorities and loggers. Our results show that despite the lack of power to enforce rules, absence of external funding and land-ownership rights, and enduring threats of violence and conflicts, autonomous community monitoring may take place when community members are sufficiently motivated by the risk of losing their resources.
Helena Wright, Sonja Vermeulen, Gernot Laganda, Max Olupot, Edidah Ampaire & M.L. Jat. 2014. “Farmers, food and climate change: ensuring community-based adaptation is mainstreamed into agricultural programmes.” Climate and Development, 6:4, 318-328, DOI:10.1080/17565529.2014.965654
Abstract: Climate change creates widespread risks for food production. As climate impacts are often locally specific, it is imperative that large-scale initiatives to support smallholder farmers consider local priorities and integrate lessons from successful autonomous adaptation efforts. This article explores how large-scale programmes for smallholder adaptation to climate change might link effectively with community-led adaptation initiatives. Drawing on experiences in Bangladesh, Mozambique, Uganda and India, this article identifies key success factors and barriers for considering local priorities, capacities and lessons in large-scale adaptation programmes. It highlights the key roles of extension services and farmers’ organizations as mechanisms for linking between national-level and community-level adaptation, and a range of other success factors which include participative and locally driven vulnerability assessments, tailoring of adaptation technologies to local contexts, mapping local institutions and working in partnership across institutions. Barriers include weak governance, gaps in the regulatory and policy environment, high opportunity costs, low literacy and underdeveloped markets. The article concludes that mainstreaming climate adaptation into large-scale agricultural initiatives requires not only integration of lessons from community-based adaptation, but also the building of inclusive governance to ensure smallholders can engage with those policies and processes affecting their vulnerability.