Forestry management in Uganda has traditionally been a masculine field, although recent years have seen a number of changes in such management. With the introduction of participatory approaches such as adaptive collaborative management (ACM) and collaborative forest management (CFM), today, women more commonly own forest and work in the forestry sector. Despite this, the degree of women’s involvement remains low in comparison to their male counterparts. In order to address this gender gap, this chapter examines three questions: (1) what determines men’s and women’s participation in forest management under different forest management approaches? (2) How do men and women rate their quality of participation in forest management in public or private forestry spaces? (3) What do women and men harvest from the forest and how do they use the income earned from the sale of forest products? To answer these questions data were collected from a nationwide intra-household survey from 1052 respondents across four agro-ecological zones, under multiple forest tenure regimes. The analyses show that the gender gap in participation and representation in community forestry in Uganda was minimized in communities where ACM was being implemented. The study recommends that forest adjacent communities should 1) enter into participatory forest management arrangements with the forest owners/managers (national forest authority, local government or private forest owners) or 2) be facilitated to form tree-planting groups or associations by NGOs and local government forestry officials, as a means to increase women’s participation in forestry.
Tag: community involvement
Enhancing women’s resource rights for improving resilience to climate change
This Brief summarizes relevant findings from socio-legal analyses, combining the review of key legal and policy documents and literature on existing barriers to the recognition of women’s land rights. The review analyzes existing tenure systems, identifies tenure interventions recognizing rights to women, as well as barriers constraining their ability to benefit from those rights. The analysis was conducted in four countries – including Ethiopia, Bangladesh, The Gambia and Uganda. These countries’ experiences illustrate the challenges that need to be addressed in order to secure women’s land rights and enhance women’s adaptive capacities – highlighting secure rights are instrumental points – not only for empowering women, but also to strengthen climate action and building resilience.
Drivers of Biodiversity Conservation in Sacred Groves: A Comparative Study of Three Sacred Groves in Southwest Nigeria
Globally, sacred groves represent a traditional form of community-based conservation system, recognized for their capacity to preserve areas that are of cultural and religious importance to local people. In most cases, the entire community takes on a watchdog role to guard against encroachment and unauthorized access either by its members or outsiders who might desecrate such sites. Our paper investigates the effects of different governance arrangements on three sacred groves in southwest Nigeria⎯Osun Osogbo Sacred Grove (UNESCO World Heritage Site); Idanre Hills (Nigerian National Monument) and Igbo-Olodumare (local cultural site)⎯on their socio-economic and religio-cultural benefits and contribution to biodiversity conservation. Using a mixed-methods design of a semi-structured questionnaire (n=167), key informant interviews (n=2), and focus groups (n=7), we collected data from local community members, traditional priests, sacred grove devotees and tourism officials. We found that customary institutions have guided reverence for sacralized spaces and wise utilization of their unique resources. The growing recognition of sacred groves has paved the way for socioeconomic rewards for individuals and government as cultural tourism increases. We found that the involvement of formal institutions alongside customary institutions in sacred grove management reinforces compliance with conservation laws within the sacred groves, especially where traditional norms are weak or may be disregarded. We discuss the implications of these observations and offer suggestions to improve community engagement, uphold traditional ecological knowledge, and develop ecotourism within the groves. We conclude that the co-existence of community-based conservation through a system of established traditional norms and prohibitions as well as formal government legislation and management, offers assurance for the long-term preservation of sacred groves and their biodiversity.
Guiding community discussions on human-water-related challenges by serious gaming in the upper Ewaso Ng’iro river basin, Kenya
Water-related conflicts in river catchments occur due to both internal and external pressures that affect catchment water availability. Lack of shared understanding by catchment stakeholders increase the complexity of human-water issues at the river catchment scale. Among a range of participatory approaches, the development and use of serious games gained prominence as a tool to stimulate discussion and reflection among stakeholders about sustainable resource use and collective action. This study designed and implemented the ENGAGE game (Exploring New Gaming Approach to Guide and Enlighten), that mimics the dynamics observed during the dry season in the upper Ewaso Ng’iro catchment, North West of Mount Kenya. The purpose of this study was to explore the potential role of serious gaming in subsequent steps of strengthening stakeholder engagement (agenda setting, shared understanding, commitment to collective action, and means of implementation) toward addressing complex human-water-related challenges at the catchment scale. We assessed the type of decisions made during gameplay, the communication dynamics, active participation, and the implication of decisions made on water availability. The results of three game sessions show that the ENGAGE game raised awareness and provided a recognizable hydro-logic background to conflicts while guiding community discussions toward implementable decisions. The results revealed increasing active participation, knowledge gain, and use of plural pronouns, and decreasing individual interests and conflicts among game participants. This study presents important implications for creating a collective basis for water management and can inform human-water policies and modification of the process behind water allocation rules in a river catchment.
Understanding Difference to Build Bridges among Stakeholders: Perceptions of Participation in Four Multi-stakeholder Forums in the Peruvian Amazon
As interest grows in supporting multi-stakeholder forums (MSFs) to address land-use and climate change, it is important to understand how these processes operate from the perspectives of their participants. The academic literature on their equity largely presents a dichotomy: participatory processes either allow for horizontal decision-making with more equitable and effective outcomes for local populations, or they mask technologies of governance that do not address – and may reinforce – structures of inequality. These two perspectives downplay the different, complex and sometimes nuanced perceptions and experiences of participation. In order to better understand these nuances, the authors applied Q-methodology to analyse and compare the perceptions of MSF participants and organisers in four forums in the Peruvian Amazon. The research finds that participants are often optimistic about the forums, but at the same time they are aware of risks; and that groups falling into both camps may be just as likely to fail to address inequality among participants but for different reasons. The results help identify points of convergence and divergence, and potential ways forward to help construct more equitable and effective MSFs.
From Fields to Landscapes: Establishing the resilient productivity of Andhra Pradesh Community Managed Natural Farming (APCNF). State Level Inception Workshop Report
The concept of Engagement Landscapes as ‘participatory living laboratories can facilitate agroecological transformation across the State to scale climate-resilient forms of agriculture.
Potential for integrated landscape approaches: A review of Indonesia’s national environment and development policies
Key messages
- We find policies and development plans such as the One Map policy, Social Forestry program, and Indonesian Sustainable Palm Oil policy embody the overarching principles of a landscape approach (i.e. multiple land uses, multi-stakeholder collaboration, etc.). However, in many cases, these well-intended policies do not translate into practice at the local scale.
- Challenge areas include: identifying common concern entry points, clarifying rights and responsibilities, enhancing stakeholder capacity, meaningful engagement of multiple stakeholders, and identifying a negotiated and transparent change logic.
- We suggest that a greater commitment to these principles and the adoption of a landscape approach holds potential to enhance Indonesian policy performance and ensure that policy development is more representative of national and local concerns and practices.
This brief explores Indonesia’s national environment and development policy climate and whether it is conducive to operationalizing an integrated landscape approach (ILA). The findings presented here complement a parallel infobrief by Maryani et al. (2021).
Potential for integrated landscape approaches: A review of Zambia’s national environment and development policies
Key messages
- This brief explores Zambia’s national environment and development policy climate and whether it is conducive to operationalizing an integrated landscape approach (ILA).
- We find Zambia’s national development plan and environment and development policies are characterized by three themes: diversification, decentralization, and integration. This suggests favorable conditions for operationalizing a landscape approach, however, putting these policies into practice remains a challenge.
- Challenge areas include: clarifying rights and responsibilities, strengthening stakeholder capacity, and identifying a negotiated and transparent change logic that resonates at the national, regional, and local scale.
- We suggest a greater commitment to these principles and the adoption of a landscape approach holds potential to enhance policy performance and equitable natural resource management in Zambia.
Potential for integrated landscape approaches: A review of Ghana’s national environment and development policies
Key messages
- <li.This brief explores Ghana’s national environment and development policy climate and whether it is conducive to operationalizing an integrated landscape approach (ILA).
- Ghana’s policy framework is geared towards large-scale, near-term development, raising questions regarding environmental impacts and related socioeconomic reverberations. Concerns surrounding future development plans stem from Ghana’s past and present challenges with competing land uses.
- Ghana has many policies and management schemes that support reconciling conservation and development needs; however, barriers to implementation persist.
- Challenge areas include: establishing a transparent change logic that is understood and endorsed across sectors and stakeholder groups. This requires identifying common concern entry points and clarifying rights and responsibilities.
- We suggest a greater commitment to these principles and the adoption of a landscape approach hold potential to enhance social and ecological outcomes in Ghana. Engaging with Ghana’s existing Community Resource Management Area (CREMA) program is an opportunity in this regard.
A Tentative Theory of Change to Evaluate Jurisdictional Approaches to Reduced Deforestation
Sub-national jurisdictions are promoted as strategic levels of governance for achieving reduced deforestation objectives. Jurisdictional approaches (JA) emerged as government-led, holistic approaches to forest and land use management across one or more legally defined territories. Despite increasing popularity amongst the science and practitioner communities, there is a lack of robust empirical data documenting their effectiveness in delivering environmental, social and economic outcomes. In this paper, we contend that further clarification of the JA concept would help its evaluation. More specifically, we suggest that current evaluation practices of JA would be strengthened if they were based on a theory of change clarifying the causal linkages between the interventions associated with a given JA and their effects. By integrating select empirical knowledge on JA with a selection of middle-range theories from the literature on collective environmental governance, we design a generic theory of change for JA, which is articulated around two intermediary outcomes, namely the emergence of collaboration and social learning. We also formulate hypotheses regarding the conditions that enable or hinder these collective intermediary outcomes of JAs. We acknowledge that another fundamental challenge for JAs is to remove or block the external contradicting signals that still fundamentally drive deforestation. Thus, JA interventions need to operate not only at the jurisdictional level, but also beyond.