Viewing resource management essentially through a biophysical lens has provided too restricted a perspective for understanding complex political processes surrounding forest management. The case of community forestry in Nepal demonstrates a range of experiences of complex political processes, including conflicts and collaboration, especially between technical forest officials and local forest dependent people. Despite innovative legislative and institutional frameworks already in place, community forestry in Nepal still experiences the effects of techno-bureaucratic control. Such control is manifested in the entire range of processes related to planning, management, and monitoring of forestry activities. To understand this situation, we apply the conceptual lens of deliberative governance, that is, governance whose arrangements have been devised from both scientific and local knowledge. This chapter provides practical examples to offer insights into the application of deliberative governance in forestry practices. We identify how different aspects of managerialist, techno-bureaucratic domination (legitimated by principles of positivist science) are deliberatively challenged by local people, civil society activists, and action researchers to improve governance practices. We also identify situations and deliberative processes through which forest managers themselves begin to realize the limits of an antideliberative scientific approach, and apply more reflexive and deliberative approaches to knowledge and decision-making in forest management. In doing so, we eschew taking an absolute position for or against indigenous knowledge or scientific enterprise, but seek to demonstrate that neither technocratic prescription nor reliance on local knowledge alone is adequate for sustainable management of forests. What is needed, as Fischer (1998) argues, is a deliberative engagement between the claims to knowledge by both scientists and citizens. In our experience, this deliberative process provided a foundation for less constrained dialogue, greater collaboration, and mutual learning in the direction of more evidence-based decision-making. This approach is however not free from challenges related to power and techno-bureaucratic control.
Tag: community forestry
Integrating gender in development of participatory forest management plans in Kenya: A ‘how to’ note
Integrating gender into development of sub-catchment management plans in Kenya: A ‘how to’ note
Salvaguardas sociales: Un análisis del apoyo a los derechos de los pueblos indígenas y las comunidades locales en el contexto de REDD+
Resumen
- Los compromisos de nuevas inversiones en los bosques tropicales pueden contribuir a los objetivos de desarrollo sostenible, pero también plantean riesgos para las comunidades que dependen de dichos bosques.
- Este folleto resume un grupo de estándares voluntarios de salvaguardas para REDD+, así como las directrices de instituciones financieras multilaterales.
- Comparamos nueve criterios para comprender las diferencias entre los estándares y las directrices, y nos centramos en su compromiso con los derechos de los pueblos indígenas y comuniades locales (PICL) que gestionan bosques en los que se implementa REDD+.
- Encontramos una variación considerable en la forma en que los estándares y directrices de salvaguardas se comprometen con los derechos de los PICL.
- Los estándares voluntarios pueden apoyar una transición desde salvaguardas que buscan “no hacer daño” a enfoques que ayuden a “hacerlo mejor”, catalizando una transformación basada en derechos para generar un nuevo compromiso con las mujeres y los hombres de los PICL como titulares de derechos y socios, y no solo como beneficiarios de proyectos.
Sekilas mengenai Kerangka Pengaman (Safeguard): Mendukung hak-hak Masyarakat Adat dan Masyarakat Lokal dalam REDD+ dan inisiatif berbasis hutan lainnya
Ringkasan
- Janji untuk investasi baru di hutan tropis dapat mendukung tujuan-tujuan pembangunan berkelanjutan, tetapi juga memberikankan resiko-resiko bagi masyarakat yang bergantung pada hutan.
- Brosur ini merangkum standar kerangka pengaman (safeguard) sukarela yang relevan dengan REDD+, serta pedoman lembaga donor multilateral regional dan internasional.
- Kami membandingkan sembilan kriteria untuk memahami perbedaan dari seluruh standar dan pedoman, dengan fokus pada keterlibatan mereka dengan hak-hak IPLC yang menjaga hutan di mana REDD+ dilaksanakan.
- Ada banyak variasi tentang bagaimana standar dan pedoman safeguard membahas hak-hak IPLC.
- Standar sukarela dapat mendukung transisi dari ‘do no harm’ menjadi ‘do better’ dengan mengkatalisasi transformasi berbasis hak untuk melibatkan kembali perempuan dan laki-laki dari IPLC sebagai pemegang hak dan mitra daripada sekedar penerima manfaat.
Mengkaji dukungan terhadap hak-hak Masyarakat Adat dan masyarakat lokal dalam konteks REDD+ di Indonesia
Ringkasan
- Brosur ini menyajikan temuan-temuan penelitian hasil kajian dari sepuluh kriteria yang mendukung hak-hak Masyarakat Adat dan masyarakat lokal (Indigenous Peoples and local communities/IPLC) dalam konteks REDD+ di Indonesia.
- Indonesia telah terlibat dalam REDD+ sejak awal dan telah mengembangkan berbagai instrumen untuk mendukung implementasi REDD+, termasuk sistem informasi safeguards (SIS) yang mencakup safeguards sosial yang mengakui hak-hak IPLC.
- Hak-hak IPLC telah disebutkan sedikit demi sedikit dalam peraturan-peraturan pelaksanaan yang berbeda, misalnya, aspek persetujuan atas dasar informasi awal tanpa paksaan ada dalam peraturan terkait akses ke informasi atau perlindungan hak asasi manusia. Sebaliknya, hak-hak atas tanah dan tenurial hutan jauh lebih komprehensif, misalnya melalui skema-skema program Perhutanan Sosial.
- Pelaksanaan safeguard untuk REDD+ dan inisiatif berbasis hutan lainnya harus melibatkan masyarakat adat dan menghormati hak-hak, pengetahuan, dan partisipasi mereka, seperti yang telah ditekankan dalam kontribusi yang ditetapkan secara nasional (Nationally Determined Contribution/NDC) terbaru di Indonesia.
Information flows, decision making and social acceptability in displacement processes
Formalization of the collective rights of native communities in Peru: The perspective of implementing officials
Key messages
- Regional governments have a central role in the formalization process as they are in the most direct contact with native communities. Nonetheless, incomplete decentralization has led to inadequate budget and trained personnel.
- The Ministry of Economy and Finance should incorporate allocations for community titling procedures in the national budget.
- There are incongruities between the expectations of native communities and the scope of the regulations that formalize collective rights – especially those related to rights to resources, the implications of usufruct contracts and the differences in rights granted over lands classified as forest versus agriculture.
- The results show that investing in coordination and collaboration mechanisms has the potential to increase the effectiveness of implementation. This requires assigning budgets and promoting measures supporting information exchange and formal agreements to implement joint actions.
The impact of formalizing rights to land and forest: Indigenous community perspectives in Madre de Dios and Loreto
Key Messages
- The impact of the formalization of collective rights to land and forest in Peru is linked to a clear perception of tenure security: 80% of those surveyed consider their rights are stronger since titling, although this percentage is higher in men (85%) than women (75%).
- 83% of the members of communities analysed in Madre de Dios consider that livelihoods have become more constrained since titling took place.
- Despite progress, only 35% of those surveyed in Madre de Dios and Loreto say they participate in forest management. Titled communities are more actively involved (39%) than untitled ones (13%), and men more so than women.
- 51% of those surveyed in the communities analyzed in Madre de Dios feel that the formal rules and legislation on the use of resources are well known, clear and fair. The percentage drops significantly amongst women.
Models for formalizing customary and community forest lands: The need to integrate livelihoods into rights and forest conservation goals
Key messages
- A comparison of community perceptions across the two main forest tenure reform regimes – forestland designated for community use versus land owned by communities – does not show, on the ground, that one has consistently better outcomes than the other. This is likely due to multiple weaknesses in both types of reforms and the need to better integrate rights, conservation and livelihoods goals.
- Survey results from Indonesia, Peru and Uganda show a disturbing level of food insecurity across almost all sites and, with prioritization of rights and/or conservation, a failure to pay sufficient attention to livelihoods concerns.
- Greater attention to livelihoods requires: (a) increased awareness of food security and livelihoods needs in rural communities; (b) specific livelihoods goals as an objective of reforms; and (c) greater multisectoral and multilevel coordination in order to bring this about.
- Livelihoods concerns should be incorporated as a clear goal in forest tenure reforms and as a measurable indicator in efforts to evaluate reforms.