Analytical Issues In Participatory Natural Resources

Attempts to manage natural resources through collaboration rather than competition, by agreements rather than conflict, have become the touchstone for many who see these efforts as the harbinger of global sustainable development. The received wisdom suggests that participatory natural resource management projects work because traditional knowledge of the resources and existing social structures can be utilised to develop more effective strategies for resource use. Participation is a flexible and adaptable concept, which can reflect local circumstances and priorities. The contributors to this volume advise caution as well as optimism for projects conducted in this way. By drawing on the experience of NGOs, national governments and donor sectors as well as academic researchers this volume analyses the theory and practice of participatory natural resource management and demonstrates the value of constructive dialogue between all those involved.

Documents and reflects on the steps that researchers are taking to implement social and gender analysis, including questions of class, caste, and ethnicity, into their everyday work. Combines both learning experiences and scientific results, representing academic and nonacademic sectors, a variety of research organizations, and a number of natural resource management questions, including biodiversity conservation, crop and livestock improvement, and sustainable grassland development. The learning studies, from China, India, Mongolia, Nepal, and Viet Nam, illustrate challenges, opportunities, successes, and disappointments, and highlight the different methods used and adapted in the diverse contexts of South and Southeast Asia. Concludes with a comparative analysis of the learning studies, which highlights common issues and challenges.

First Published in 2003. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Participatory Processes for Natural Resource Management Ortwin Renn University of Stuttgart, Stuttgart, Germany Need for analytic-deliberative processes Inviting the public to be part of the decision making process in natural resource management has been a major objective in European and American environmental policy arenas. The US-National Academy of Sciences has encouraged environmental protection agencies to foster citizen participation and public involvement for making environmental policy making and natural resource management more effective and democratic (Stern and Fineberg 1996). The report emphasizes the need for a combination of assessment and dialogue which the authors have framed the "analytic-deliberative" approach. Unfortunately, early public involvement of the public in deliberative processes may compromise, however, the objective of efficient and effective policy implementation or violate the principle of fairness (Cross 1998, Okrent 1998). Another problem is that the public consists of many groups with different value structures and preferences. Without a systematic procedure to reach consensus on values and preferences, the public's position often appears as unclear (Coglianese 1997, Rossi 1997). Participatory processes are thus needed that combine technical expertise, rational decision making, and public values and preferences. How can and should natural resource managers collect public preferences, integrate public input into the management process, and assign the appropriate roles to technical experts, stakeholders (i. e.

Decision making in land management involves preferential selection among competing alternatives. Often, such choices are difficult owing to the complexity of the decision context. Because the analytic hierarchy process (AHP, developed by Thomas Saaty in the 1970s) has been successfully applied to many complex planning, resource allocation, and priority setting problems in business, energy, health, marketing, natural resources, and transportation, more applications of the AHP in natural resources and environmental sciences are appearing regularly. This realization has prompted the authors to collect some of the important works in this area and present them as a single volume for managers and scholars. Because land management contains a somewhat unique set of features not found in other AHP application areas, such as site-specific decisions, group participation and collaboration, and incomplete scientific knowledge, this text fills a void in the literature on management science and decision analysis for forest resources.