3rd Annual IUCN Academy of Environmental Law Colloquium, Sydney,
July 10-15, 2005
ÒBiodiversity
Conservation, Law and Livelihoods: Bridging the North-South DivideÓ
Regional Frameworks
for Biodiversity Conservation Ð Session on Small Island States
Regionalising Community-Based Biodiversity Conservation:
Institutional Antinomy in Pacific Island Environmental Governance?
Justin Rose, PhD
Candidate, University of Sydney (Justinrose1@bigpond.com.au)
Introduction
This paper investigates inconsistencies
that may arise as the dual policy goals of Òcommunity-based conservationÓ and
Òregionalisation of environmental governanceÓ are pursued in the Pacific Island
Region.[1] There is a clear consensus among stakeholders
that community-based approaches should now form the core of in-situ
biodiversity conservation efforts in Pacific island countries (PICs)[2],
principally because these methods are able to embrace Òbiodiversity in the
Pacific islander sense of being an integral part of traditional societies,
administered through customary systems of resource tenure.Ó[3] During the past two decades
community-based conservation has been the focus of much regional, national and
sub-national programmatic activity in Pacific island countries, but legal and
institutional reform has in general not accompanied this paradigm shift in
island conservation practice. The
result is that while policy commitments and program rhetoric locates traditional
communities of resource users at the decision-making and operational centre of
biodiversity management, the relevant legal and administrative structures
continue to relegate them to the periphery of conservation concerns, as
ungrouped individuals whose resource-using actions must be regulated by the
state.
The same regional and national plans and
strategies that advocate community-based methods as the primary conservation
approach in Pacific island jurisdictions also include broad commitments to
enhanced regional coordination of environmental management efforts.[4] It is argued that while these
objectives are not necessarily opposed, careful planning and analysis is
required to ensure that implementing activities in one sphere (particularly
those involving legal reform) do not preclude opportunities for gains in the
other. The most significant
identified risk is that the design of certain regional activities and programs
may skew or inhibit opportunities to mainstream community-based conservation
initiatives; to genuinely prioritise local participation and
decision-making. The South Pacific
Biodiversity Conservation Programme (SPBCP) (1992-2001) is illustrative of both
the contradictions inherent in a Òregional bottom-up approachÓ and of lost
opportunities to learn valuable lessons about institutional adjustment in
support of community-based biodiversity conservation in the Pacific Island
Region.
Literature and theory from the fields of
legal pluralism and common property governance is drawn upon in support of the
argument. Legal pluralism is a
societal characteristic indicating there are multiple legal orders observable
in a given society. The works of
legal pluralists assist in attaining a fuller understanding of legal dynamics
in societies where institutions of formal governance co-exist with customary or
traditional authority structures.
The concern uniting common property governance scholars is showing that
variations in forms of property rights influence resource management outcomes,
having repeatedly demonstrated that market mechanisms and state management do
not exhaust the range of institutional options available.[5]
The material is presented in five sections. The first outlines the international
and regional policy context of community-based biodiversity conservation and
management. The second introduces
scholarship on legal pluralism and common property governance. The topic addressed in the third
section is the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)-sponsored evaluation
of the SPBCP, and the lessons for institutional reform in support of
community-based biodiversity conservation revealed by the evaluation process. The fourth section combines the
preceding material in suggesting that maintaining an aim of a Òregional modelÓ
for institutional frameworks in support of community-based conservation is counter-productive. The fifth section summarises two recent
developments of institutional innovation in this area; VanuatuÕs Environmental
Management and Conservation Act 2003 and the Micronesian
Conservation Trust.
In recent decades an international transformation has
been occurring in conservation and natural resource management. ÒFrom standardized policies and programmes
initiated by centralized and urban-based agencies, a slow but definite shift is
taking place towards decentralized, site-specific, community-based activities.Ó[6] This transformation is particularly
evident in relation to the conservation and management of natural resources in
rural areas of many developing countries.
Prior to expanding upon some of the features and implications of this
paradigm shift, and its manifestation in the Pacific Island Region, it is
necessary to comment upon some key terms commonly used within the discourse.
ÒCollaborative management" was defined by the World
Conservation Union's (IUCN) 1996 World Conservation Congress as
a partnership in which government agencies, local
communities and resource users, non-governmental organizations and other
stakeholders negotiate, as appropriate to each context, the authority and
responsibility for the management of a specific area or set of resources.[7]
The IUCN included the terms "co-management",
"joint management", "participatory management" and
"multi-stakeholder management" as being synonymous with
"collaborative management", and others have added to this list terms
such as "shared-management" and "round-table agreement".[8] While the IUCN's formulation of
"collaborative management" is only one amongst many, it clearly
indicates the issues generally accepted as being central to the concept. These are partnerships between
stakeholders accompanied
by the sharing of authority over resource management.
Another key factor recognised in the literature is that there are no blueprints or universally applicable mechanisms
by which collaborative management may be applied; on the contrary, there is an enormous variety of options
among which to choose to suit a specific context.[9]
"Community-based management" was excluded by the IUCN from the
listed synonyms of "collaborative management", and to many its use
indicates situations in which community-level institutions exercise primary
decision-making powers over natural resources, independent from government
authorities.[10] It is clear however that some
researchers and practitioners use the term "community-based" to refer
to the same broad range of situations termed "collaborative" by
others. In the introduction to Communities
and Conservation: Natural resource management in South and Central Asia, Kothari, Anuradna and Pathak emphasise
that community-based conservation
includes
a whole range of situations from one extreme in which official/private agencies
predominantly retain control but consult with local communities in planning or
implementation; to the other extreme in which communities are completely in
control.[11]
It is noted that in the Pacific Island Region,
stakeholders typically, but not always, use Òcommunity-based managementÓ as a
generic term inclusive of the full range of circumstances described by Kothari
et al above.[12]
The term "co-management" (an abbreviation of
"cooperative management", listed by IUCN as a synonym of
"collaborative management") is frequently used in publications to
describe situations where the collaborative arrangements between government
agencies and community-level institutions have been formalised in legislation
or contract.[13] It is important to note that while a
fully implemented co-management system typically necessitates a process of
legal and administrative reform, it
is not tantamount to asking for a drastic retrenchment
of state responsibilities in resource management. The basic concern is actually
with reshaping state interventions so as to institutionalise collaboration
between the administration and resource users and end those unproductive
situations where they are pitted against one another as antagonistic actors in
the process of resource regulation.[14]
Two related terms often used in close connection with
"collaborative management" and "community-based management"
are "customary management" and "indigenous peoples management". These necessarily imply that the role of local stakeholders
in the natural resource management strategies to which they refer are
undertaken by traditional institutions, usually in conformity with applicable
customary rules and practices.
Situations of "customary management" may reside within the
restrictive definition of "community-based management" (i.e.
undertaken independently by community-level institutions), or be developed
within a "co-management" model.
While "customary" or "traditional management" are
commonly used in Pacific island contexts, "indigenous peoples
management" is more usually referred to in jurisdictions where indigenous
resource users are minority groups within societies dominated by non-indigenous
majorities, such as Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the US.[15]
It is apparent from the above that while there is much
agreement amongst contributors to the discourse on the core elements of
"collaborative management", little effort has been afforded to
precise definition of key terms, many of which are used interchangeably in both
academic and practice-oriented literature. While some commentators regard this as a significant
problem, this author is content to accept that the flexibility of the language
applied in different regions and situations mirrors the need for flexibility in
management systems accounting for specific local circumstances.[16]
Over the past three decades the use of community-based
and collaborative approaches to conservation and natural resource management
has steadily become more prominent and popular, and is now well
established. Today, a key element
of the environmental programmes of many governments, in both developed and
developing countries, is substantial community involvement in planning, design
and implementation. With
environmental law becoming globalised a commitment to some level of community
involvement can be recognised within international benchmarks models.[17] This is especially true in rural
development, where collaborative approaches now form the entry point for
understanding local cultures and their construction of local reality, with the
aim of tailoring interventions with the greatest possibility of success. Where these initiatives have lead to
improved outcomes, it has been because of the commitment and mutual trust of
the individuals, communities and agencies involved. Their combined efforts have drawn into question the
long-held policy assumption that the incentives created by private ownership,
or coercive state regulation, are the only forces capable of curbing
self-interested resource use.
Much has and is being learned by the communities and professionals involved in these processes, and the lessons are well documented.[18] Despite the increasing numbers of community-based and collaborative initiatives in different parts of the world it is evident that where success has been achieved it is very often limited to small areas or "project sites". Importantly, it must be noted that much of what is billed as "collaborative", is so in name only. To claim success, collaborative strategies must build local skills, interests and capacities that remain effective and resilient long after any catalyzing "project" ends.[19]
Evidence of activity in the collaborative management
sphere are the efforts of national and provincial governments in Asia.[20]
Government agencies in India, Nepal, China and the Philippines are
participating with networks of citizensÕ organizations in collaborative
forestry programmes supported by legislation or contracts.[21]
Currently in India it is estimated
that 10.24 million ha of forest lands are being managed under the Joint Forest
Management programme through 36,075 committees in 22 states.[22] The potential of collaborative
approaches for natural resource management in rural regions of Thailand,
Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia and Laos has also been explored.[23] Legal endorsement of collaborative
management in these latter countries is sparse, with the primary organizational
and financial impetus provided by international NGOs, United Nations-affiliated
agencies and the Asian Development Bank (ADB).[24]
Programmes and activities comparable to those
described above are also taking place in Africa and South America. A global survey of these is unnecessary
in the present context. The
need for information clearinghouses on community-based and collaborative
management is being met both globally and regionally by organisations such as
the World Conservation Union, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the
United Nations, and the International Association for the Study of Common
Property.[25]
Community-based and collaborative management is not a
panacea for the worldÕs biodiversity conservation problems. Its widespread adoption in the past few
decades has in part caused, and has in part been caused by, an explosion of
published material declaring its benefits, defining its limitations and
decrying its pitfalls.[26] Community-based and collaborative
management, in its many forms, has been both praised for protecting and
rehabilitating forests, reefs and fish stocks, and criticised for failing to do
so. It has been linked to a wider
democratization of the societies in which it is adopted, yet in many cases it
perpetuates institutionalised inequality and disenfranchisement.[27] Politically, it represents a rare
example of broad policy consensus between international agencies, multilateral
financial institutions and conservation NGOs of all descriptions.[28] Collaborative projects often seek to
integrate conservation and economic development objectives, which is a
practical prerequisite to achieving sufficient levels of community involvement
and compliance.[29]
The underlying
rationale for community-based biodiversity management . . . is, in fact, of
fundamental importance for the future of Pacific Island countries in that it is
the only effective and lasting approach to poverty avoidance and alleviation.[30]
In Pacific island countries community-based
and collaborative management has been strongly promoted by multilateral
agencies such as the South Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) and
international NGOs such as the World-Wide Fund for Nature and The Nature
Conservancy (TNC). For
example, the Action Strategy for Nature Conservation in the Pacific islands
region 2003-2007 adopted
by all SPREP all member countries and major regional NGOs, includes a
commitment to place Òat least 5% of
coastal and terrestrial areas under effective community-based conservation
management in all Pacific Island Countries and TerritoriesÓ.[31] Also, the previous regional strategy
had as its second and third major objectives:
2. Policy,
Planning and Legal Frameworks.
To integrate nature
conservation and natural resource management into development polices, plans,
legislation and budget processes at all levels.
3. Local
Communities and Custom.
To
involve and support local communities, resource owners and resource users in
co-operative and sustainable natural resource management that recognizes and
strengthens the rights and customs of local people as a basis for promoting
environmentally sustainable and equitable development.[32]
To date, while there has been much regional, national and sub-national
activity in furtherance of these objectives, co-ordination between strategies
in the two spheres appears lacking.
For example, while the 1999 Action Strategy reported the establishment
of 34 community-based conservation areas since 1994, the formal legal status of
many of these remains ambiguous.[33]
SPREP member countries enacted a substantial volume of environmental law during
the same five-year period, but instances of management responsibilities being
allocated to communities are rare.
In this regard the Samoan community-based inshore fisheries management
program provides an operational example of co-management of natural resources
in the Pacific islands region, and the Vanuatu Environmental
Management and Conservation Act 2003
represents the formalization of a community-based approach. [34]
An issue closely linked to the legal adoption of collaborative
initiatives in the Pacific island region is the role to be played by
traditional laws and institutions.
Many Pacific islanders continue to maintain moral and social connections
to customary institutions that exercise direct authority over natural resources
within their locality. In many
remote locations (typically "outer-islands" where government control
over citizens actions may be all but non-existent), these customary resource
management systems still operate effectively. Traditional Pacific island fisheries expert Bob Johannes
reported in 2002 that over the past quarter century there has been a
renaissance in community-based marine resource management in Pacific island
countries.[35] Johannes and Kenneth Ruddle agree that
the "Pacific island region probably contains the world's greatest
concentration of still-functioning traditional community-based systems for
managing coastal-marine fisheries and other resources."[36]
Even where traditional rules controlling natural resource use are no longer
regularly applied, local institutions remain interested and influential in
determining the nature of resource use, development and regulation because of
land tenure arrangements deriving from customary common property systems.[37]
This paper is
underpinned by two separate, but related, branches of scholarship. The first of these is the study of
'legal pluralism', a societal characteristic that has been described as
"more than one legal order observable in a given society."[38] There are many who deny the
logical possibility of legal pluralism, in the Hobbesian tradition coupling
'law' inexorably to the sovereignty of the state and its monopoly on legitimate
sanctioning power.[39]
John Griffith's construction of Òthe ideology of legal centralismÓ, which he
presents in contrast to legal pluralism, typifies such attitudes:
Law is, and should be, the law of the state, uniform
for all persons, exclusive of all other law, and administered by a single set
of state institutions. To the
extent that other, lesser normative orderings, such as the church, the family,
the voluntary association and economic organization exist, they ought to be and
in fact are hierarchically subordinate to the law and institutions of the
state.[40]
For those willing to entertain a less restrictive conception of what
may constitute 'law', the works of legal pluralists provide useful reference
points in understanding and analysing governance dynamics in jurisdictions with
significant non-state legal sources.
While legal plurality, broadly defined, is
recognisable everywhere, it is very often found in analyses associated with
colonial and post-colonial situations.[41] This is the case with the Pacific
Island Region, wherein institutions of formal governance transplanted from the former
metropolitan powers co-exist with ancient, community and village-based
systems. The operation of these
customary authority systems Òentails a fundamentally different comprehension of
the nature and exercising of power and authority than that understood in the
modern Western intellectual traditionÓ[42]. Brian Tamanaha commented in the
Micronesian context:
Any lawyer would master the law in Micronesia
following a quick perusal of their constitutions and legal codes. They would master the law, but they
would not understand it. Law in
Micronesia is an extraordinary flux and flow of contrasting thought and
meaning, inside and outside the legal system.[43]
With regard to Pacific island environmental governance,
the current situation is one in which culturally isolated state institutions
are ineffectively applying (or not applying) centralised legal mechanisms to
local resource users which retain strong attachments to alternative sources of
authority.[44] Thus, three fundamental questions continually
arise:
á
In what ways
are existing systems of customary authority affecting biodiversity conservation
in PICs?;
á
Would
enhanced collaboration between the traditional and formal authority systems
result in improved environmental governance outcomes?, and
á
Under what
conditions would reform facilitating this collaboration be both socially and
ethically sound, and most likely to succeed?.
For Peter Sack, "[l]egal pluralism is more than
the acceptance of the plurality of law; it sees this plurality as a positive
force to be utilised - and controlled - rather than eliminated. Legal pluralism thus involves an
ideological commitment."[45] Others reject Sack's suggestion that
the study of legal plurality cannot be decoupled from the processes and
decisions involved in 'use' and 'control'.[46]
Nevertheless, Sack's construction, as expanded in the passage quoted below,
accurately describes the current posture towards the ideas and observations of
scholars of legal pluralism.
It is not blind to the strengths of state law and the
weakness of people's law. It
merely insists that all forms of law have their limitations and that none has
advantages which are so overwhelming that it would be justified to grant it a
monopoly or a position of hegemony.
The aim of legal pluralism is not the elimination of some forms of law
and the fostering of others but a situation where different forms of law
cooperate, each performing the task or tasks for which it is best suited and in
a way which maximises potential.[47]
Observers recognising legal pluralism in Pacific
islands attain a degree of insight into the shortcomings of the regionÕs
existing environmental governance that is beyond the reach of a 'standard'
regulatory theory approach, which by habit assumes the existence of an indomitable
state, a Hobbesian Leviathan. In
contrast, the practical situation facing both natural resource users and
managers in many Pacific islands is that "both the state and the customary
system have an independent capacity to act and react".[48] Thus, any accurate legal appraisal of
the issue must be undertaken from a perspective that seeks to understand and
respond to both of these spheres of authority; their actions, reactions and
interactions.
Legal pluralism also questions common assumptions
about notions of ÒlawÓ, ÒgovernanceÓ and even ÒlandÓ. It thus provides analytical breathing space for Pacific
conceptions of Ògood governanceÓ that are beginning to emerge as a reaction to
international pressures associated with globalisation.[49] Indeed, prior to the recent surge in
the globalisation of environmental law, it seemed to some almost inevitable
that environmental law in Pacific island jurisdictions would in time be an
integrated system combining customary and state authority, as indicated by the
1986 statement of senior Pacific island legal scholar Mere Pulea:[50]
In spite of the changes brought about by colonial and
post-colonial legislation, the complex traditional systems of environmental
management continue to operate in practice. . . . [T]he recognition of custom in the Pacific - in this field
as in others - is not a matter of ideological preference but of political
necessity.[51]
In this regard the past two decades have resulted in
many policy statements and donor-funded projects in support of customary and
community-based natural resource management in PICs, but as indicated in
section 1.2 above, to date legal recognition of the role of non-state
institutions is sparse.
The second area of scholarship providing a theoretical
basis is that focusing upon the governance of common property (or pool)
resources (CPRs). The concern
uniting common property governance scholars is showing that variations in forms
of property rights influence resource management outcomes.[52]
Elinor Ostrom defines a CPR thus:
A common-pool resource, such as a lake or ocean, an
irrigation system, a fishing ground, a forest, the internet or the atmosphere,
is a natural or man-made resource from which it is difficult to exclude or
limit users . . ., and one person's consumption of resource units removes those
units from those available to others.[53]
Research on CPRs usually focuses on some aspect of the
relation between the physical resource and human institutions involved in the
use and maintenance of that resource.
Common property scholarship is a broad multidisciplinary field involving
economists, sociologists, policy practitioners and scientists addressing a
diverse range of topics including community-based and collaborative natural
resource management, intellectual property governance and management of the
oceans and atmosphere.
The stream of common property scholarship receiving
the greatest attention focuses upon the management of common-pool natural
resources by local communities, the studied communities very often being
situated in rural regions of developing countries. Bonnie McKay, in her Presidential Address to the 2000
Conference of the International Association for the Study of Common Property,
characterised this branch of CPR scholarship as providing
"post-modern" analyses and solutions, distinguished from the
"modern" or "traditional" form of natural resource
management currently dominant in policy, law and economics.[54] McKay justifies these labels by
identifying features and components of each approach, describing modernist
natural resource management thus:
á
It is guided
by utilitarianism and the allocation of commodified "human
use-values";
á
It tends to
rely upon single species data sets and models;
á
Decision-making
regarding natural resource management is organised hierarchically from the top
down by centralised bureaucracies;
á
Management
decisions are based exclusively upon scientific data with models applying
"deterministic" notions such as equilibria, stability and maximum
sustainable yield;
á
"Modern
resource management has little to say about people except as constraints and
demands on the system".[55]
McKay, relying upon Rudel and Gerson, also provides
contrasting "components of post-modernism" in natural resource
management. The first is the
rejection of "meta-narratives or grand theories", a theme that has
occupied much CPR scholarship, particularly as a reaction to the almost
universal, and often inappropriate, application of the reasoning used by
Garrett Hardin in his 1968 Science article, Tragedy of the Commons.[56] The second post-modern characteristic
is a recognition of social fluidity and indeterminacy, because changing
conditions necessarily place ecosystems, institutions and individuals in a
state of constant flux. The third
component is the emphasis on local communities and their role, both actual and
potential, in the management of natural resources.
[P]ost-modernism places greater primacy on the
local. If multiple truths are
important, then local perspectives--and knowledge--must be attended to. If indeterminacy and uncertainty are
general features, then we must question generalizations about society and
ecology, devoting ourselves to understanding the specifics of particular places
and times--the local--in relation to their histories and larger contexts.[57]
The dichotomy in approaches to natural resource
management and biodiversity conservation presented above is best explained as
representing two extremes between which most existing natural resource
management programs would fall.
Much existing "modern" management is being incrementally
transformed by embracing concepts such as integrated ecosystem management and
social impact assessment, while many reportedly collaborative (i.e.
post-modern) initiatives are simply business as usual with a window dressing of
extra consultation. McKay's is
nevertheless a useful summary of the themes focused upon by CPR scholars, and
their points of departure from other analyses and solutions.
The study of CPR management is centrally relevant to
the issues here addressed. For more than thirty years, CPR scholars have
examined questions surrounding the capacity of groups to successfully manage
shared resources. The
combined contributions of the best of this research has resulted in the
identification of indicative factors useful in assessing whether communities or
groups may be able to successfully manage their CPRs.[58] This material also addresses the causes
of centralised regulatory failure in relation to CPRs, especially in the many
situations where a "deep-rooted 'culture of distrust' permeates
relationships between the State and local resource users".[59]
3. Reviewing
the South Pacific Biodiversity Conservation Programme
Design and
Delivery
In the early 1990s, in response to the
outcomes of a series of workshops initiated by the IUCNÕs Traditional
Ecological Knowledge Working Group, the Global Environment Facility (GEF)
financed the South Pacific Biodiversity Conservation Programme (SPBCP).[60] The SPBCP was designed in view of a
growing consensus among stakeholders that community-based methods were the most
appropriate form of biodiversity conservation to be pursued in PICs. The rationale underlying the SPBCP was supporting
community management of natural resources Òas a basis for sustainable
livelihoods and economic development, and to avoid the costly environmental and
economic mistakes that have occurred in many of the worldÕs other tropical
island regions.Ó[61] The SPBCP project document gave the
following justifications for piloting a community-based approach to
biodiversity conservation in PICs:
¥ Virtually all of the land and inshore sea
resources of the Pacific Islands region were once held under customary tenure.
In some countries this is strongly supported in policy and law. Even where the
State has introduced legislation to override customary tenure there is
little the State can do without the cooperation of those
who have customary land and sea rights.
¥ Experience in the islands region and elsewhere
has shown that the use, management and protection of biodiversity cannot
succeed unless local communities are at the centre, in control of the process
and empowered to make decisions.
¥ Pacific Islands communities and cultures and
their livelihoods are intimately connected with their natural environment, biodiversity
and resources.
¥ Government schemes to conserve nature have
generally been ineffective. The role of governments and regional agencies
should be to facilitate and promote an enabling environment that supports local
initiatives.[62]
The
SPBCP project document stated that Òa regionally coordinated programme for
biodiversity conservation and sustainable resource management is the most
effective strategyÓ but provided only weak justifications for this statement,
referring to successful regional programmes that had no community component.[63]
The
executing agency for the SPBCP was SPREP, wherein a small project management unit
was established for SPBCP implementation. The project design stipulated that for each project
site there would be a designated a Lead Agency (usually a government office)
and a locally representative Conservation Area Coordinating Committee (CACC). The establishment of each project site
included the appointment of a Conservation Area Support Officer (CASO) to
facilitate most of the local organisational functions. The CASOs were also the recipients of most
of the capacity-building included in the programme.[64] Administratively the SPREP-based management
unit maintained more of a micro-management role than described in the project
document.[65]
While the overall
conclusion from the UNDPÕs terminal evaluation is that the SPBCP did not
achieve these objectives, the evaluators emphasised that Òthe concept
underlying the SPBCP was, and remains, highly relevant. . . . The need for the
type of result intended through the SPBCP intervention is now pressing.Ó[66] It is thus appropriate that the
achievements and failures of the SPBCP, the most significant biodiversity
project undertaken in the Pacific island region to date, be more fully assessed
and considered in order to improve future programs. This paper is a limited contribution towards that
assessment.
Evaluation Findings
and Lessons
The terminal
evaluation of the SPBCP, undertaken on behalf of the UNDP by a team of four
specialists is both a critical appraisal of the regionÕs largest biodiversity
conservation project, and a substantial contribution to the nascent discourse
on institutional reform for biodiversity conservation and management in the Pacific
Island Region. This discourse is
yet to fully develop but will do so if there is to be a reconciliation of
rhetoric and reality in Pacific island conservation; an outcome that is by no
means inevitable.
The two boxes
below present the summarised evaluation ÒlessonsÓ firstly from the full report,
and secondly as formulated by one of the evaluation team members in a digested
report. Some of these lessons suggest
or imply a need for fundamental changes in the way that problems of
biodiversity conservation are conceived and addressed throughout the region by
institutional stakeholders at all levels.[67] It is not the current intention to consider
all of the findings of the evaluation but instead to focus upon a single, yet
very important and perhaps underemphasised issue revealed by it: the ability of
regional projects to encourage or inhibit diversity and experimentation of
institutional approaches to community-based biodiversity conservation.
Lessons
from the SPBCP Final Evaluation Report (Baines, Hunnam, Rivers and Watson, UNDP, 2002) 1.
The protection of ecosystems and
of their native species in the Pacific Islands region can be achieved only
through an ÒappliedÓ approach that addresses natural resource management
in its widest sense and that adequately encompasses the social basis for
resource management. 2.
The need for proven approaches
to community-based biodiversity conservation (meaning use and protection
of biological resources and of associated biodiversity) remains, and has
become more pressing as Pacific islander populations have grown and their
natural resources have degraded. 3.
Programme designs for
biodiversity conservation at a community level must adequately address
community approaches and participation, prescribe realistic social
parameters for activities, and provide for some project personnel to have
expertise in these areas. Without this emphasis too much is left to
ÒinterpretationÓ and there is a high risk of failure. 4.
It is difficult to redress the
imbalance in ÒpowerÓ between governments, development assistance agencies
and NGOs providing support for community-based conservation, and the
communities themselves. Greater attention is needed in programme design
and execution to effectively transfer of some of that Òpower,Ó through
more meaningful participation, capacity building and management
responsibility Ð and over a lengthy period, not in a final flurry of
Òhand-over.Ó 5.
External support should be
through a framework approach that provides for the community to design its
own project and in the context that it views as important. Pacific
islander communities do not see a biodiversity context in itself as
sufficiently important to engage and sustain their interest. 6.
A comprehensive analysis of a
communityÕs social structure and decision making procedures and the
relationship of these to other levels of administration (village, local
government, national government) should be an essential pre-requisite to
finalisation of a community-level programme design. 7.
An appreciation of the
importance of biodiversity and of its management requirements cannot be
achieved by simplistic biodiversity-focused Òawareness raising.Ó Education on these matters must be
placed in a ÒlivelihoodsÓ context and, to be truly effective, must be
undertaken as a partnership, with outsider experts exchanging knowledge
with insider experts. 8.
Community-based conservation
initiatives, even where firmly based on recognised customary tenure,
cannot be sustained in the absence of supporting national policy and
legislation. Programmes should make provision for support activities for
policy and legislation development where needed, and should also provide
for support for communities to engage in the process of gaining legal
sanction for their biodiversity management initiatives. 9.
ÒConservation and developmentÓ
programmes at a small community scale cannot be successfully implemented
across several levels of government. Regional or subregional programmes
need to be split into a series of devolved projects. 10. A preparatory phase, as provided for in the SPBCP Project Document,
was good practice, but to make use of this opportunity to fine-tune the
approach and the project design the Programme management needed much more
specific guidance. 11. A training needs assessment is an essential precursor to the
identification of training needs, and the nature of the training need must
determine the context in which it is provided. On-site training, supported by long-term mentoring, is
more effective than the regionally aggregated classroom mode of training
adopted for some SPBCP training. 12. It is critical, at the outset, to establish a system for
collecting, recording, analysing, storing and sharing information
acquired. 13. Collaboration between organisations with shared interests and
experience in biodiversity use and protection is essential Ð to bring the
best knowledge to bear on community support interventions, and so that
Pacific islanders can get the best results from the institutions set up to
serve their needs.
Lessons from
the SPBCP Summary Report (Hunnam, UNDP 2002) Biodiversity Conservation as Part
of Sustainable Development Local Communities at the Centre Improving Programme Delivery
The issue of present
concern, the role of regional programmes in encouraging homogeneity or
diversity of institutional approaches to community-based biodiversity
conservation in PICs, cuts across many of the lessons presented in the boxes
above. Most specifically, Lessons
4 and 8 from Box One identify both the need to share authority with community
institutions and the need for supportive policy and legislation to enable this;
even where customary institutions exercise effective authority at a local level
it remains necessary for governments to review their legal and organisational
frameworks to ensure complementarity with local efforts. Regarded in isolation these propositions
provide no indication of whether such frameworks could be delivered as regional
models, or alternately whether the range of unique cultural, political and
legal contexts would necessitate each PIC devising their institutional
frameworks internally.
The 36
ÒfindingsÓ of the SPBCP evaluation were constructed as a direct response to the
performance of the SPBCP in relation to the measures identified in its original
project document, providing greater critical detail than the ÒlessonsÓ.[68] Finding 19 states:
There
has been much talk of an SPBCP ÒmodelÓ of community- based conservation but
apart from defining this as allegedly being Òcommunity-based,Ó it is unclear
what else it was. Had the SPBCP
really been seeking to develop a Òmodel,Ó then a systematic approach would have
been used, differing approaches tested, the results monitored from the outset,
and a careful analysis of the results undertaken. This could have been a major contribution to conservation
and to sustainable development in the Pacific Islands region. The need for carefully explained
approaches and ÒmodelsÓ is yet to be satisfied.[69]
We may speculate
upon why the evaluators placed ÒmodelÓ in inverted commas. Nowhere in the evaluation is the desirability
of a regional model addressed directly, but taken as a whole the document identifies
many contradictions for Òregional bottom-up conservationÓ.[70] The foundation of many of these
contradictions is that accepting community-based approaches as the principle
method of biodiversity conservation also involves accepting that the interests
and voices of local communities should be paramount, yet almost unavoidably a
regional donor-funded initiative will prioritise the interests, processes and
ÒimperativesÓ of contributing donors and facilitating intergovernmental
agencies.[71]
Two propositions
drawn from the SPBCP evaluation are thus identified as being of central concern
here; firstly, that law and policy requires adjusting in order to better
support community-based conservation; and secondly, that no proven ÒmodelsÓ for
this exist (the aim of a ÒmodelÓ is itself questionable) and so there is a need
to test and learn from differing approaches.
While acknowledging that hindsight is a
convenient perspective, it may be useful to consider choices made in designing
the SPBCP when applying a single institutional model as described above under
the Design and Delivery
heading.[72] This decision and approach was criticized
indirectly in the evaluation in a combination of findings: the evaluators found
that communities should be able to Òself-selectÓ and that Òexternal support should be
through a framework approach that provides for the community to design its own project
in the context that it views as important.Ó[73] Also Ò[c]onservation and development programmes
at a small community scale cannot be successfully implemented across several levels
of government. Regional or subregional programmes need to be split into a
series of devolved projects.Ó[74]
The
SPBCPÕs externally-imposed framework meant that local stakeholders invested
little of themselves in establishing the institutions responsible for the
conservation areas, the CASOs were perceived as employees of the SPBCP and
little effort was devoted to building the capacity of local stakeholders, other
than CASOs, to sustain the project areas. The evaluation reports that towards the
end of the SPBCP many of the Lead Agencies largely disengaged themselves from
it.[75] The vision presented by the SPBCP
evaluation is for future programmes directed towards the goal of promoting
community-based development to be undertaken in a way that is responsive to the
institutional imperatives of communities, rather than those of external
agencies.
In the course of
designing the SPBCP, at least two alternatives were possible to the universal
model selected. The first was to
develop two or more pre-packaged institutional frameworks for the various Conservation
Area sites; the second was to relinquish the Òregional modelÓ goal and place
the responsibility for institutional design upon local stakeholders, with SPBCP
management requiring only broad parameters of accountability for funds and
activities. To those familiar with
the design of large regional projects it is immediately understandable, given
the two alternatives outlined above, why programme designers may have chosen
their universal option; to do otherwise would risk increasing by degrees of
magnitude the complexity, uncertainty and cost of an already complex, uncertain
and costly exercise.
Issues of regional
programme design in this area are systemic as well as operational. SPREP as the facilitating agency of the
SPBCP was accountable for more than US$10 million of GEF funds, distributed
over a nine year period by UNDP. The
design of multilateral funding processes ensures that programmes are not
supported without grantees detailing accountability for their procedures,
essentially stating who will be spending the money and on what. Under these circumstances it is
difficult to see how the SPBCP project document could have been drafted without
fairly concrete preconceptions of the institutional framework for the programmeÕs
activities. The outcome is that,
regardless of any operational arguments in favour of local control of
institutional design, the imposition of a single regional model would probably have
been an inevitable result of the funding allocation process.
It is noted that even
with the advantage of a uniform set of institutions around the region the SPBCP
still encountered problems in resolving the interests of donors and communities
with regard to complex accountability procedures. The SPBCP evaluation stated:
The multi-level financial and administrative reporting
system adopted for the ProgrammeÕs management was a major hindrance to
effective action, especially at the community level. The rigidity with which
UNDP required its National Execution (NEX) guidelines to be applied contributed
to this problem.[76]
In summary, the
core lessons of the SPBCP evaluation suggest that the key to successful community-based
biodiversity conservation in Pacific island jurisdictions is recognising the
positive nexus between the vitality of ecosystems and the vitality of local
communities who flexibly construct (or retain) their economic, social and
political arrangements in a way that maintains sustainable human-biodiversity
relationships. In a specifically
institutional sense the SPBCP evaluation recognises the need for reform in this
area, confirms that the SPBCP model was not successful and adds that by failing
to experiment with different approaches the programme contributed little towards
developing knowledge to help find legal and policy solutions. It was also noted that while the evaluation
may have advised flexibility and experimentation, depending upon oneÕs location
in a regional planning hierarchy, flexibility may appear as unpredictability
and diversity may be understood as inefficiency.
The following
section draws on common property governance studies and legal pluralism, as
well as national and sub-national examples from within the region, in adding
weight to the argument that the search for a regional model in this area may be
illusory and that regional programme design needs to guard against promoting
homogeneity in institutional structures.
4. Lessons
from Common Property Governance and Legal Pluralism
This paper is not the first to link common property
governance studies and legal pluralism, as the fields are naturally
complementary of one another, especially when considering post-independence
rural development and related topics such as land reform, biodiversity conservation
and natural resource management.[77]
An issue worthy of initial emphasis is that these two areas of scholarship are
linked in approach also, in that each takes as its starting point the
perspectives and experiences of community members or resource users in
answering key questions such as: What rules or laws apply to uses of our land
and water? Who should make them
and how? Who should enforce
them? Why should we take notice of
the rules?
Without over-burdening with theory this
narrowly-focused study on a matter of applied governance, there are some
conceptual issues that require brief mention. The first is that since environmental governance represents
the mediation of interactivity between two sets of highly complex and dynamic
systems (social and ecological), that all policy proposals affecting natural
resource governance should be considered as experiments, and it should be
acknowledged that all resulting policy experiments have a positive probability
of failing. ÒPolicy changes are experiments based on more
or less informed expectations about potential outcomes and the distribution of
these outcomes for participants across time and spaceÓ.[78]
Conceptualising
environmental governance as an experimental process leads to a very different type
of analysis than assuming that central planning and regulatory agencies are
always perfectly informed and adequately empowered with legitimate
authority. When planning and
programme design occurs in an intercultural setting, such as with the regional
SPBCP, one can also predict that cultural differences will impact upon the relative
performance of governance arrangements between jurisdictions. Ò[T]here is no axiom more basic to the study of law and
society than that a legal rule (a command to act or refrain from acting in a
certain way) will produce different behaviour on the part of individuals
differently situated.Ó[79]
HobbeÕs Leviathan may be an
adequate basis in philosophy for a modern state but the on-the-ground reality
of natural resource governance in developing countries reveals no omnipresence available
to enforce environmental commandments.
Much literature now suggests that where improved environmental
governance outcomes are sought in situations of common property governance,
that policy and law must take account of the full suite of social, economic and
environmental factors contributing to the behavioural incentives of resource
users, rather than assuming that modifying behaviour is a straightforward legal
and administrative process.
Re-thinking environmental
governance as an experimental process also adds weight to the logic of
community-based management initiatives and argues for a large degree of local
autonomy in rule-setting for common property governance. Elinor OstromÕs summary justifications
for this are reproduced below:
1. Local knowledge.
Appropriators who have lived and appropriated from a resource system over a
long period of time have developed relatively accurate mental models of how the
biophysical system itself operates, since the very success of their
appropriation efforts depends on such knowledge. They also know others living
in the area well and know what norms of behaviour are considered appropriate by
this community.
2. Inclusion of
trustworthy participants. Appropriators can devise rules that increase the
probability that others are trustworthy and will use reciprocity. This lowers the cost of relying
entirely on formal sanctions and paying for extensive guarding.
3. Reliance on
disaggregated knowledge. Feedback about how the resource system responds to
changes in actions of appropriators is generated in a disaggregated way.
Fishers are quite aware, for example, when the size and species distribution of
their catch changes over time.
4. Better adapted
rules. Given the above, appropriators are more likely to craft rules that are
better adapted to each of the local common-pool resources than any general
system of rules.
5. Lower
enforcement costs. Because local appropriators have to bear the cost of
monitoring, they are apt to craft rules that make infractions highly obvious so
that monitoring costs are lower. Further, by creating rules that are seen as
legitimate, appropriators encourage higher conformance.
6. Redundancy.
Multiple units are experimenting with rules simultaneously, thereby reducing
the probability of failure for an entire region.[80]
OstromÕs final justification
is fundamental; when governing authority is centralised policies tend to
experiment simultaneously with all of the common-pool resources within their
jurisdiction. This is a process
that takes a long time to produce data and lessons to feed back into governance
planning, and because comparative data is lacking, multiple interpretations of
the results are likely to be contradictory. As noted in common property literature, and arguably as
shown in the SPBCP, Òan experiment that is based on erroneous data about one
key structural variable or one false assumption about how actors will react can
lead to a very large disaster.Ó[81]
The following list presents some of the questions a common
property governance scholar might seek to ask in assessing whether a specific
community-based biodiversity management site (of watershed-scale proportions)
is firstly, amenable to common management, and secondly, what informational
inputs might be applied to reforming applicable institutional frameworks for
common resource management for that location:
This list of possible questions, compiled with
reference to some of the most respected composite common property texts, would
only represent the commencement of full enquiries for an assessment of a
community-based biodiversity initiative.[82]
In the field, site-specific answers to these questions are in themselves complex
and will inevitably give rise to further questions. Yet, it is only upon attaining a good understanding of the
social, economic and institutional landscape can one begin confidently assessing
the prospects of choices between various co-managed, community-based or other
collaborative approaches to biodiversity conservation.[83] From the perspective of a centralised
planner, answering these questions for every watershed-scale location,
digesting the data and designing a programme accordingly, is an unwieldy and
unrealistic prospect. There are
typically however groups of people who can rapidly provide answers to all the
questions; local resource users. Fundamentally,
if one accepts that the issues raised by the questions have a decisive bearing
upon appropriate institutional design for community-based biodiversity
management one has foregone the possibility that a Òregional modelÓ could be a
positive contribution.
Returning to legal
pluralism, in a 1988 doctoral thesis Campbell McLachlan thoroughly examined the
"persistent fact" of legal pluralism in the Pacific Island Region.[84] McLachlan argued that legal pluralism is
neither an attribute of state law, nor of society, but a characteristic of the
operation of law within society.
"It consists of a recognition that . . . state law is not the only
form of regulation or dispute resolution in society and that many groups within
society have a capacity to create their own rules and dispute resolution
processes."[85]
McLachlanÕs research highlights a key feature of the environmental
governance paradigm in the Pacific; both the state and the customary systems of
authority have an independent capacity to act and react, an issue re-acknowledged
in the SPBCP evaluation.[86]
Recognising this
central facet of Pacific island legal pluralism that it operates regardless of
whether or not state law recognises and accounts for it, is a simple yet
fundamental step in considering legal reform for community-based biodiversity
conservation. In most PICs, both
state and community-level institutions have a stake in controlling land and
natural resources, although each may question the legitimacy of the other's
claim to authority. Given this
overlapping authority, it can be expected that if there is no cooperation or
integration of decision-making between the two spheres, there is likely to be
conflict.
There is also a
second, more technical lesson of relevance to institutional reform for community-based or co-management in PICs to be drawn
from studies of legal pluralism, borne out by research into post-colonial legal
development in many regions of the world.
The lesson is that the more customary institutions are incorporated into
state law, and the more they are so defined, the more their fundamental nature
is altered from what it was before the legal recognition.[87]
Moreover, the changes so wrought generally reduce the effectiveness of
the customary institution empowered by the state. The issue thus becomes "how to recognise a group without
converting it into something else."[88]
Succeeding in this is among the most difficult challenges facing
stakeholders seeking institutional reform for community-based biodiversity
management in PICs. Whatever the
specific responses to this challenge, they will almost certainly vary markedly
between jurisdictions.
5. Two
Recent Developments: Vanuatu Environmental Management and Conservation Act 2003
and the Micronesia Conservation Trust
This section outlines
two recent developments that may assist in guiding future directions in this
area of environmental governance.
The first is the achievement of the Vanuatu government in enacting the Environmental
Management and Conservation Act 2003 providing a framework for community based
conservation in that country, the second is the establishment of the Micronesia
Conservation Trust in the Federated States of Micronesia.
VanuatuÕs Environmental Management and
Conservation Act 2003 implements
the Convention on Biological Diversity in Vanuatu. Its substantive provisions are divided into three subject
areas; environmental impact assessment, bioprospecting and conservation
areas. The law was developed over
a period of seven years including extensive consultation with a broad range of
stakeholders.[89] Sections 35-40 of the Act deal
conservation areas, focusing exclusively on community-based management. The Act provides that customary landowners are able
to register their land or site as a Community Conservation Area, in negotiation
with the Vanuatu Environment Unit, if the site is shown to possess special characteristics. These may be unique genetic, cultural,
geological or biological resources or it may contain Ògood habitat for species
of wild fauna or floraÓ.[90] The benefits to landowners of registering
their land under the Act include:
It is emphasised
that the purpose of summarising the Vanuatu law here is neither to suggest that
it should be adopted as a model for other jurisdictions or even to suggest that
it has solved the institutional issue for Vanuatu. With regard to the latter, that will be seen over coming
years as areas of land are registered and managed under the ActÕs provisions. As regards its usefulness as a regional
model, the opposite lesson is intended; that to the extent the Vanuatu law is
successful in its objective of providing an institutional framework for
community-based conservation this will be due to the fact that stakeholders in
Vanuatu have invested their own time, effort and intellect to its design. In essence, if VanuatuÕs Environmental
Management and Conservation Act 2003 succeeds it will be due in large part to the fact
that it is owned by
ni-Vanuatu.
The Environmental
Management and Conservation Act 2003, while re-focusing VanuatuÕs in-situ biodiversity
conservation upon community-based management, could be said to maintain a
Òconservation protectionistÓ approach, as compared to the Òpeople in a
biodiversity contextÓ methods suggested in the SPBCP evaluation.[92] That is, the Act does not aim to
develop sustainable human-ecosystem interactions across all of Vanuatu in a way
that maximises ecosystem services, but rather prioritises site-specific
conservation values. There is no information
to assess why this might be the case; one can only speculate as to whether the Environmental
Management and Conservation Act 2003 may have created a people-oriented framework for
community-based biodiversity management if it had been de-coupled from the
process of ensuring national compliance with the global Convention on
Biological Diversity.
Other observations
regarding the Vanuatu Environmental Management and Conservation Act 2003 that can be made at this stage include noting
its clear focus on community-based conservation approaches. The law is as significant for what is omitted as for what
is included; that is, the legal provisions are themselves merely a framework
for the future negotiation of conservation areas between partnerships of local
and government stakeholders. The law sensibly places no constraints on customary
decision-making processes, and
authority over
the establishment of conservation areas is shared between the Vanuatu Environment
Unit and local customary institutions. Finally, the Environmental
Management and Conservation Act 2003 promises very little other than the governmentÕs support for local
stakeholders seeking to sustainably management their biological resource, in
this sense it represents realist posture with regard to environmental law and
governance.
The
Micronesia Conservation Trust (MCT)
is an example of
an institutional innovation providing an effective funding mechanism for
community-based biodiversity conservation in the Federated States of Micronesia
(FSM). The formation of the MCT was guided by a broad-based steering
committee in 2001 who met with representatives
of two other trust funds in the Asia-PacificÑthe Foundation for the Philippine
Environment, and the Papua New Guinea Mama Graun Conservation Trust Fund. Following a public nomination process the
founding board of MCT was appointed in April 2002.
The MCT is set up as a private non-profit corporation
with a governing board that includes members from national, state, and
municipal governments, NGOs, business, and academic institutions. It works to mobilize funding from a
variety of sources to build an endowment from which to provide long-term
support for sustainable natural resource management in FSM. Recently, interest in the trust has
been expressed by a number of donors, including the European Union, the US
Department of the Interior, and several private foundations. The Trust places
special emphasis on building the capacity of Micronesian organizations to
design and manage conservation programs In addition, the MCT will provide a
forum to bring together the national, state, and local governments with private
enterprises and non-government organizations to collectively address the
challenges of natural resource management in FSM, form public-private
partnerships, and share experiences and best practices.[93]
The
MCT is described here for two reasons.
The first is because it is an example of an institution devoted to
biodiversity conservation playing what could be described as a Òfunding
mediatorÓ role. From a community
perspective, the MCT is in touch with the economic, cultural, political and
ecological landscape in the FSM and is thus well-placed to decide which
initiatives warrant funding, to efficiently monitor projects and to provide
guidance and mentoring to grantees.
From the perspective of donors such as those mentioned above the MCT is
managed in light of donorsÕ needs for transparency and accountability for the
spending of funds provided, and MCT is in the process of developing a track
record of success that will in time enhance donor confidence in projects
supported by it.
The
second reason for noting the successful establishment of the MCT is that this
is an example of an institutional change that could be a useful and productive regional
model. The suggestion here is not
for a regional trust fund (this has already been suggested and abandoned by
SPREP) but for a regional strategy that facilitates the development of a
network of national biodiversity trust funds in PICs.
Conclusion
There is a
positive nexus between maintaining diversity in social and cultural systems and
conserving diversity in associated biological systems. Regional models and model laws have legitimate
roles to play in Pacific island environmental governance, but providing the
institutional basis for community-based biodiversity conservation and natural
resource management may not be among them. The SPBCP evaluation confirmed the need for stakeholders in
each Pacific jurisdiction to back policy commitments to community-based
biodiversity conservation with administrative and legal frameworks that are
complementary of this objective.
In some jurisdictions it is likely that no new laws will be required,
but that with the adoption of genuinely participatory processes the necessary
changes can be accommodated within existing provisions. Conversely, even if the ÒperfectÓ
institutional framework were discoverable, application of it would not assure
success in the context of poor leadership or high levels of antagonism between
stakeholders.
If regional co-management
or community-based biodiversity conservation succeeds in Pacific jurisdictions it will be via a complex adaptive process involving hundreds of communities, many partnering
with government and non-government agencies, experimenting with rules,
monitoring, sanctions and regulatory processes over time; all sharing
knowledge. It is likely that the
most effective institutional solutions will be those carefully adjusted to
specific local circumstances, and so other jurisdictions should be cautious in
adopting them as ÒmodelsÓ. What
undoubtedly can and should be shared throughout the Pacific Island Region by
all concerned are the lessons drawn from the experience of engaging in the
process of institutional reform.
Institutional
reform for community-based biodiversity conservation is not something that can
be delivered in a book or a box or a project Ð it is a path that participants
can travel willingly or not at all.
The SPBCP emphasised that the key to conserving biodiversity in the
Pacific Island Region is engaging local rural communities, and identified the
key to engaging Pacific communities to be assisting in the construction of development
processes that enhance economic security and retain cultural integrity while
ensuring sustainability in human-ecosystem interactions.
In this area of governance the strongest incentives for sustainable
behavioural choices may be those derived from the self-interest and communal identity
of individual resource users.
A realist
perspective acknowledges that there will be many instances, perhaps a majority,
where competing interests, local tyrannies, lack of vital data, evolving
markets or various other factors undermine the success of community-based
biodiversity conservation initiatives in PICs. The same perspective also acknowledges the proven failure of
centralist alternatives. Given
this evidence a further conclusion is expressed as a broad design principle for
institutional reform for community-based and co-management in PICs: build
upon the respective strengths, and shore up the weaknesses, of both the
community-based (customary and civil society) and governmental institutions.
Was the ten-year,
$10 million regional SPBCP a failure?
The programmeÕs terminal evaluation answered this question with a firm
ÒyesÓ. While the evaluators found
some benefit accrued Òat the marginsÓ, and presented sound reasons for their criticisms,
the reportÕs rarely-compromising tone could be considered somewhat harsh given
the tremendously difficult challenge that the SPBCP presented its
implementers. If we accept that
environmental governance policy initiatives are experiments, and the higher the
number of variables the less likelihood of success, we can see that ÒfailureÓ
of the SPBCP was all but inevitable.
Perhaps a more productive question at this stage of the process is; was
the SPBCP a beneficial use of time, effort and money? The answer to this question cannot yet be provided with honest
clarity. Nevertheless, optimists
among us can validly respond Òyes, but only if the wealth of experiences it
represents, and the resulting knowledge and wisdom, are put to good use in the
future.Ó
[1]
A
discussion of the term Òcommunity-basedÓ is presented in the following
section. ÒEnvironmental governanceÓ herein
defined as the manner in which debate is held, decisions are made and authority
exercised over an areaÕs environment and natural resources, whether effectual
or ineffectual, formal or informal, or intentional or unintentional. Dore, J
ÒEnvironmental Governance in the Greater Mekong Sub-RegionÓ in M Badenoch et. al. Mekong Regional Environmental
Governance: Perspective on Opportunities and Challenges Chaing Mai: World Resources Institute (2001)
1.
[2] For present purposes PICs are Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Nuie, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu.
[3] Hunnam P, Lessons in Conservation for People and Projects in the Pacific Islands Region New York: United Nations Development Program 2002, 3.
[4] For example, SPREP Action Strategy for Nature Conservation in the Pacific Islands Region 1999-2002 (Apia: SPREP, 1999). SPREP Action Strategy for Nature Conservation in the Pacific islands region 2003-2007 (SPREP, Apia, 2002).
[5] Agrawal
A ÒSustainable Governance of Common Pool Resources: Context, Methods and
PoliticsÓ Annual Review of Anthropology 2003,
244.
[6] Kothari A, Anurandha R V & Pathak N, ÒCommunity-Based Conservation: Issues and ProspectsÓ in Kothari A et al (ed.), Communities and Conservation: Natural Resource Management in South and Central Asia (New Delhi: Sage, 1998) 25-57 at 25.
[7] World Conservation Congress Resolution for Collaborative Management for Conservation IUCN Resolution No.1.42, adopted at Montreal, Canada, 14Ð23 October 1996.
[8] Borrini-Feyerabend G, Collaborative management of protected areas : tailoring the approach to the context (Gland: IUCN, 1996) 12.
[9] This is a central theme within the collaborative management discourse. See for example Borrini-Feyerabend, note 8; and Arnold JEM Managing Forests as Common Property (Community forestry paper no. 136) (Rome: FAO, 1998) 39-40.
[10] See for example Lynch O & Talbott K Balancing Acts: Community-Based Forest Management and National Law in Asia and the Pacific (World Resources Institute: Washington DC, 1995) at 25. Also King M & Lambeth L Fisheries Management by Communities (Noumea: Secretariat of the Pacific Community, 2000) at 79.
[11] Kothari, Anuradna & Pathak note 6, 1.
[12] A prime illustration of this usage is the Action Strategy for Nature Conservation in the Pacific Islands Region 1999-2002 (Apia: SPREP, 1999) wherein the term community-based is used extensively to describe programs that are collaborative in nature. See also King M & Lambeth L Fisheries Management by Communities (Noumea: Secretariat of the Pacific Community, 2000) for a Pacific formulation that distinguishes between "community-based" and "co-management".
[13] See for example the definition of "co-management" provided in Whyte J A Review of Lessons Learned and Best Practice in Integrated Watershed Conservation and Management Initiatives in the Pacific Island Region Pacific Island International Waters Programme Technical Report 2002/06 (Apia: SPREP 2002) 70.
[14]
Baland
J-M & Platteau J-P Halting Degradation of Natural Resources: Is There a
Role for Local Communities? (FAO, Rome,
1996) 347.
[15] See the definition of 'indigenous peoples' applied by the by United Nations ECOSOC Sub-Commission on the Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities, quoted in section 1.3.3. Uluru and Kakadu National Parks are Australian examples of co-managed conservation areas, wherein the state and the indigenous traditional landowners share control. Von Benda-Beckmann notes that in these situations "conditionalities" are often linked to state recognition of indigenous people's rights: Von Benda-Beckmann F Legal pluralism and social justice in economic and political development Paper presented to the IDS International Workshop on the Rule of Law and Development, London, 1-3 June 2000, 4-5.
[16] An argument in support of strict and limited usage of terms such as "community-based" can be found in Lynch & Talbott note 10.
[17] Yet there exists a tension between the homogenizing effects of international environmental governance upon national environmental law, and the growing global commitment of stakeholders at all levels to promoting diverse, locally-designed community-based natural resource management. These conflicting global pressures are experienced most acutely in small, under-resourced developing countries. The issues addressed in this paper focuses on a small aspect of this tension. This phenomenon is illustrated well in the Òfour scenariosÓ of the UNÕs Millenium Ecosystem Assessment Synthesis Report New York: United Nations 2005, 28.
[18] Examples of publications of this kind include: McCallum R & Sekhran N Race for the Rainforest: Evaluating Lessons from an Integrated Conservation and Development ÒExperimentÓ in New Ireland, Papua New Guinea (Waigani: PNG Department of Environment and Conservation & UNDP-GEF, 1997). Ellis J, Race for the Rainforest II: Applying Lessons Learned from Lak to the Bismarck-Ramu Integrated Conservation and Development Initiative in Papua New Guinea (Waigani: PNG Department of Environment and Conservation & UNDP-GEF, 1997). World Bank Voices from the Village: A Comparative Study of Coastal Resource Management in the Pacific Islands (World Bank: Washington D.C., 1999). White A et al. (eds.) Collaborative and Community Based Management of Coral Reefs: Lessons from experience (Kumarian: Connecticut, 1994).
[19] Baines G, Hunnam P, Rivers M, Watson B South Pacific Biodiversity Conservation Programme Terminal Evaluation (New York: United Nations Development Programme, 2002) 27-28.
[20] Kothari A et al. (ed.) note 6. Lynch & Talbott note 10.
[21] India; 73rd and 74th amendments to the National Constitution of India (guaranteeing aspects of village self-rule). Article 51A(g) of the National Constitution of India. Panchayats (Extension to the Scheduled Areas) Act (Act 24 of 1996). Nepal; Forest Act 2049 (1993). Forest Regulation 1995 (No. 2051 of 1995). Community Forestry Directives 1995 (No. 2052 of 1995). China; see Bruce J Legal Bases for the Management of Forest Resources as Common Property (FAO, Rome, 1999) 103-107. Land administration law of the PeopleÕs Republic of China, adopted at the 16th meeting of the standing committee of the sixth National PeopleÕs Congress and promulgated by order 41 of the President on June 25, 1986, effective 1 January 1987. Philippines; Revised Forestry Code 1975. LOI 1260 of 1986 sanctioning the Integrated Social Forestry Program under which stewardship contracts and community forestry leases are issued. These methods are not restricted to forestry, being applied to coastal fisheries, irrigation and water supply; for marine examples in Indonesia, Philippines and Thailand; see Whyte et al. note 13.
[23] For Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam see material collected at ÔMekonginfo Ð Regional Information System On Participatory Natural Resource ManagementÕ http://www.mekonginfo.org/. For Thailand - Wittayapak C & Dearden P ÒDecision-Making Arrangements in Community-Based Watershed Management in Northern ThailandÓ (1999) 12 Society & Natural Resources 673-691, 676. Also Lynch & Talbott note 10, 67-109. For Indonesia see Yuniati S ÒThe Challenges of Developing Community-Based Forest Management in a New IndonesiaÓ (2000) 13, 1 Asia-Pacific Community Forestry Newsletter 21, also Government Regulation relative to forest exploitation and collection of forest products in production forests (No. 6). 27 January 1999.
[24] Lynch & Talbott note 10, 92-95, 98-100. - Wittayapak C & Dearden P ÒDecision-Making Arrangements in Community-Based Watershed Management in Northern ThailandÓ (1999) 12 Society & Natural Resources 673-691, 676. A review of community forestry activities in Cambodia identified nine pilot projects, and the involvement of four UN agencies, three international NGOs, two ADB project teams, and one international research and training institute: Rotha K & Henderson D ÒCambodia Country UpdateÓ (2000) 1 Asia-Pacific Community Forestry Newsletter 22.
[25] See the IUCN's "hub": http://www.iucn.org/themes/pmns/. FAOLEX contains the most substantial electronic collection of conservation and natural resource management legislation from developing countries, including many relating to collaborative and community-based management: http://faolex.fao.org/faolex/. See also IASCP's "Digital Library of the Commons": http://dlc.dlib.indiana.edu/.
[26] Baland & Platteau note 19 is a seminal work in this area, and its bibliography provides an extensive listing of relevant sources, as does the Ôrecent publicationsÕ section of the Common Property Digest, a quarterly publication of the International Association for the Study of Common Property (IASCP). However only a small percentage of these publications address the issues from a legal perspective.
[27] Hill D, "Assessing the Promise and Limitations of Joint Forest Management in an Era of Globalisation: the Case of West Bengal." Paper Presented at Constituting the Commons: Crafting Sustainable Commons in the New Millenium, the Eighth Conference of the International Association for the Study of Common Property, Bloomington, Indiana, USA, May 31-June 4 2000, 6-7, 11.
[28] Evidenced by the many collaborative projects funded by ADB in Asia, the in-country facilitation of which is undertaken by NGOs, a key example of which is the Asian Development Bank's support of the Nature Conservancy's efforts in Pohnpei, FSM, as reported and discussed in chapter four herein. Also Hill note 29, 10-11. See also documents related to the World Bank Workshop on Community-Based Natural Resource Management, Washington D.C., United States, 10-14 May 1998: http://www.worldbank.org/wbi/conatrem/index.htm.
[29] For example Connor R et. al. ÒLocal conservation area ownership and traditional managementÓ, in SPREP Fifth South Pacific Conference on Nature Conservation and Protected Areas. Volume 2: Conference Papers (Apia: SPREP, 1993) 90-95. Also Margoluis R & Salafsy N Measures of Success Ð designing, managing and monitoring conservation and development projects (Island Press: Washington D.C., 1998).
[30] Baines, Hunnam, Rivers and Watson note 19, 4.
[31] SPREP 2002 note 4, 8.
[32] SPREP 1999) note 4, 9-10. Italics added.
[33] Many of these conservation areas were established under the South Pacific Biodiversity Conservation Program (SPBCP). Reporting of related legal development during the project was scarce, see discussion at SPBCP Report of the Fifth Meeting of the Technical and Management Advisory Group (Apia: SPREP, 1997) 4. Baines, Hunnam, Rivers and Watson note 17 reported that this lack of legal development was a significant problem for the SPBCP.
[34] For Samoa: FaÕasili U The Use of Village By-laws in Marine Conservation and Fisheries Management Secretariat of the Pacific Community Information Paper No. 17 (Noumea: SPC, 1999), King M & FaÕasili U ÒA network of small, community-owned Village Fish Reserves in SamoaÓ (1999) 11 Traditional Marine Resource Management and Knowledge 2-6. For Vanuatu: Nari R ÒMerging traditional resource management approaches and practices with the formal legal system in VanuatuÓ (2004) 17 Traditional Marine Resource Management and Knowledge 15-16.
[35] Johannes B "The Renaissance of Community-Based Marine Resource Management in Oceania" (2002) 33 Annual Review of Ecological Systems 317-340.
[36]
Ruddle
K "The context of policy design for existing community-based fisheries
management systems in the Pacific Islands" (1998) 40 Ocean &
Coastal Management 105-126, 105. Johnannes note 37 makes essentially the same comment at 318.
[37] Baines, Hunnam, Rivers and Watson note 19, 45.
[38] Griffiths J ÒWhat is Legal Pluralism?Ó (1986) 24 Journal of Legal Pluralism 1-55, 38.
[39] Von Benda-Beckmann note 15, 5-6.
[40] Griffiths note 38, 3.
[41] Two examples are McLachlan C State Recognition of Customary Law in the South Pacific (University College London, PhD thesis, 1988) and von Benda-Beckmann note 15.
[42] Petersen G ÒPonapeÕs Body Politic: Island and NationÓ (paper presented at the Conference on Evolving Political Structures in the Pacific Islands, Institute for Polynesian Studies, Brigham Young University, Hawaii, 1982) 10.
[43] Tamanaha B Understanding Law In Micronesia. An Interpretive Approach to Transplanted Law (Leiden: Centre of Non-Western Studies, 1993) 1.
[44] For non-enforcement see Wendt N Welcome Address to Pacific Island Judges Symposium on Environmental Law and Sustainable Development (Apia: SPREP, 2002): "Pacific island states . . . have, to varying degrees, institutionalised environmental planning and management with some supporting legislation and regulations, little of which is actually enforced."
[45] Sack P "Legal Pluralism: Introductory Comments" in Sack P & Minchin E Legal Pluralism: Proceedings of the Canberra Law Workshop VII (Canberra: Australian National University, 1986) 1.
[46] See for example von Benda-Beckmann note 14, 7: "[L]egal pluralism . . . does not suggest any moral or political preference for or against any specific plural legal constellation or their components or how it would relate to 'social justice'." Also McLachlan note 41, 43.
[47] Sack note 45, 3.
[48] McLachlan note 41, 20.
[49] For
a range of examples of the ongoing public debate regarding the notion of
"governance" drawn from across the region see the Australian
Broadcasting Corporation's thirteen-part Time to Talk radio series which examines the evolution of Pacific societies and
systems of government: http://www.abc.net.au/timetotalk/.
For an academic analysis of these issues see Larmour P (ed.) Governance in
the South Pacific (Canberra: National Centre for
Development Studies, Australian National University, 1998) and Sutherland W
"Global Imperatives and Economic Reform in the Pacific Island States"
(2000) 31 Development and Change 459-480.
[50] Pulea M "Customary Law and the Management of the Environment in the Pacific Islands" in Sack P & Minchin E Legal Pluralism: Proceedings of the Canberra Law Workshop VII (Canberra: Australian National University, 1986) 171-172.
[51] Ibid.
[52] Agrawal note 5, 244.
[53] Ostrom E ÒCoping with Tragedies of the CommonsÓ (1999) 2 Annual Review of Political Science 2, 493-535, 497.
[54] McKay B "Post-modernism and the management of natural and common resources" (2000) 54 Common Property Resource Digest 1-8.
[55] Ibid, 2.
[56] Hardin G ÒThe Tragedy of the CommonsÓ (1968) 162 Science:1243-1248.
[57] McKay B note 54, 4. Similar analytical approach advocated by others using different terms, e.g. Mearns R, Leach M, Scoones I "The Institutional Dynamics of Community-based Natural Resource Management: An entitlement approach" in Proceedings of the Biannual Conference International Association for Common Property (Indiana: IASCP, 1998).
[58] Baland & Platteau note 14, 284-345. Ostrom E Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action (Cambridge University Press, 1990); Ostrom E note 53.
[59] Baland & Platteau note 14, 385.
[60] Baines, Hunnam, Rivers and Watson note 19, 7.
[61] Ibid.
[62] Ibid, 8. Italics added.
[63] Ibid, 41.
[64] Baines, Hunnam, Rivers and Watson note 19, 43. Hunnam note 3, 5.
[65] Hunnam note 3, 11-12.
[66] Baines, Hunnam, Rivers and Watson note 19, 4.
[67] Examples are lessons 4, 5 and 8 from the first box, and lessons 1, 2, 3, 6 and 8 from the second.
[68] Baines, Hunnam, Rivers and Watson note 19, 41-44.
[69] Ibid, 43.
[70] See lessons 8 from box 1 and 9 from box 2.
[71] This
is a theme evidenced in many statements made in the evaluation regarding
specific aspects of programme delivery.
Lesson 4 of Box 1 and lesson 6 of Box 2 also indicate imbalances of
interests and power between stakeholders.
Also on the theme of power relations in this area, Turnbull, J ÒSouth Pacific Agendas in the Quest
to Protect Natural AreasÓ 34 Development and Change (2003) 1-24 presents a highly critical
perspective, suspicious of all foreign involvement in Pacific environmental
governance as a conduit for the entrenchment of the capitalist ideology of
outsiders. The simplistic
assumptions afflicting TurnbullÕs argument are closely allied to those it
critiques; for example, disparagingly writing-off community conservation areas
as Òmechanisms to draw rural communities further into the cash economyÓ (page 13) ignores both the complex web
of incentives, beliefs, ideals, goals and perspectives that the participants
bring to these initiatives, and grossly underestimates the ability of local
stakeholders to behave strategically in their own (short or long term)
interests. Nevertheless,
TurnbullÕs is a useful reminder that conservation and development in PICs is
caught up in a wider agenda, often constrained by structural forces of an
international or global nature; (page 19).
[72] For each of the 17 SPBCP Conservation Areas there was a Lead Agency, a Conservation Area Support Officer, and a specially-created Conservation Area Coordinating Committee.
[73] Baines, Hunnam, Rivers and Watson note 19, 45.
[74] Ibid.
[75] Ibid, 10.
[76] Baines, Hunnam, Rivers and Watson note 19, 42.
[77] See for example von Benda Beckman, note 15 and Meinzen-Dick R and Rajendra P Legal Pluralism and Dynamic Property Rights (Series: CAPRi Working Paper, no. 22) Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute, 2002.
[78] Ostrom E ÒCoping with Tragedies of the CommonsÓ (1999) 2 Annual Review of Political Science 2: 493-535, 520.
[79] Bruce J Legal Bases for the Management of Forest Resources as Common Property (FAO, Rome 1999) 21.
[80] Ostrom note 77, 526.
[81] Ibid, 520. Ostrom also lists disadvantages of devolved rule-setting; including failure to organize, local tyrannies, stagnation of process, lack of access to scientific information, unresolved conflicts, inability to deal with external factors.
[82] These
are Agrawal note 5, Baland and Platteau note 14, Ostrom note 53, Ostrom note 56,
Wade R. 1994. Village Republics:
Economic Conditions for Collective Action in South India. Oakland: ICS Press.
[83] Recall evaluation Lesson 6 (box 1): ÒA comprehensive analysis of a communityÕs social structure and decision making procedures and the relationship of these to other levels of administration (village, local government, national government) should be an essential pre-requisite to finalisation of a community-level programme design.Ó
[84] McLachlan note 41.
[85] Ibid, 53.
[86] McLachlan note 41, 20.
[87] Fingleton J Legal Recognition of Indigenous Groups (Rome: Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, 1998), 1-7. Also Id, 347-348.
[88] Fingleton note 87, 7.
[90] Environmental Management and Conservation Act 2003, section 35.
[91] Government of Vanuatu Information Brochure on the Environmental Management and Conservation Act 2003.
[92] Baines, Hunnam, Rivers and Watson note 19, 3.
[93] FSM Government Sustainable Development Plan Palikir: FSM Government, (2005).