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"O trabalho analisa um conjunto de formas de participa????o de organiza????es civis na pol??tica ambiental durante o governo de Luiz In??cio Lula da Silva, entre os anos de 2003 e 2008, levando em considera????o aspectos da efetividade da participa????o e da democratiza????o dos debates acerca do meio ambiente. Fundamenta-se em pesquisa qualitativa, com fontes documentais e entrevistas. As conclus??es apontam para a exist??ncia de uma sociedade civil altamente organizada e que utiliza m??ltiplos mecanismos de participa????o visando um alcance maior para a sua efetividade. Sugere, tamb??m, que tanto a efetividade quanto a democratiza????o est??o ligados ?? exist??ncia de garantias institucionais, sem as quais dificilmente ?? poss??vel contrapor-se aos interesses econ??micos."

"What is social structure, and how does it influence the views and behaviors of land managers? In this paper, we unpack the term 'social structure' in the context of current research on institutions, social networks, and their role(s) in resource management. We identify two different kinds of structure, formal and informal, and explore how these link to views of land management and management practice. Formal structures refer to intentionally designed organizations that arise out of larger institutional arrangements; informal ones refer to social networks, based on the communication contacts individuals possess. Our findings show significant correlations between respondents' views regarding land management and their social networks; it is these informal structures that have greater influence on what stakeholders perceive. These findings suggest that stakeholders are less influenced by their particular organizational affiliation or category (e.g., 'conservationist' versus 'farmer'), and more by whom they speak with on a regular basis regarding land management. We conclude with a discussion on the practical implications for resource managers wishing to 'design' participatory management, arguing that, if 'diversity' is the goal in designing such participatory processes, then diversity needs to translate beyond stakeholder categories to include consideration for the personal, social networks surrounding stakeholders."

"Many forest communities possess considerable knowledge of the natural resources they use. Such knowledge can potentially inform scientific approaches to management, either as a source of baseline data to fill information gaps that cannot otherwise be addressed or to provide alternative management approaches from which scientists and managers might learn. In general, however, little attention has been given to the relevance of quantitative forms of such knowledge for resource management. Much discussion has focused on the integration of traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) into management, but less attention has been paid to identifying specific areas where it is most useful and where it may be most problematic. We contrasted scientific data with information from TEK in the context of a threat to the sustainable harvesting of a nontimber forest product (NTFP) of livelihood importance in southern India, specifically, a fruit tree infected by mistletoe. The efficiency of deriving information from NTFP harvesters compared to scientific field studies was assessed. We further evaluated the potential of TEK to provide novel solutions to the management problem in question, the degree to which TEK could provide quantitative information, and the biases that might be associated with information derived from TEK. TEK complemented previously gathered ecological data by providing concordant and additional information, but also contradicted some results obtained using a scientific approach. TEK also gave a longer-term perspective with regard to NTFP harvesting patterns. Combining information on historical and current harvesting trends for the NTFP with official data suggests that current assessments of sustainability may be inaccurate and that the use of diverse information sources may provide an effective approach to assessing the status of harvested resources."

"Social scientists advocate and steer participatory, grass-roots research to engage, transfer authority to, and empower 'the community.' Does this mark the end of centrist, top-down research initiatives? Probably not because those engaged in participatory research still interpret 'the local' and 'the community' in simplistic, discrete categories. Categories turn complex abstract settings into concrete solutions and conclusions. This dumbs down the social sciences. As a result, the use of such categories by researchers ensures that local settings remain simple so that themes and participants are readily accessible. Rather than allowing local people to speak on matters that concern them, participatory research ensures that researchers speak on behalf of 'the community.'"

"This paper presents a summary of the views expressed by individual local people and community 'representatives' prior to, during and after the Indaba on Social Research and Protected Areas: Towards Equitable Best Practice and Community Empowerment held at Skukuza (KNP) from 29 March to 3 April 2005 (from hence referred to as the 'Indaba'). The paper also examines 'inter alia' the process through which various local voices have become cast as community voices that social researchers will engage with in developing 'equitable best practice' and 'community empowerment.' The closing argument is that the premise by the emerging architectures framework of engagement on the notion of community is in itself problematic in that it obscures the conflation of various overlapping, competing, complementary and conflicting individual and group perceptions and interests within heterogeneous communities."

"A protected area near Cancun was the first in Mexico initiated by local communities. In 1994, three communities placed their lands in the federal category of an Area for the Protection of Flora and Fauna. Ethnographic research in one of the communities (2003-2004), documented local perceptions that the director of the protected area was not allowing local residents to participate in decision making concerning the major tourist attraction, a nesting colony of seabirds. Previously, an advisory council ceased to function, and a local conservation organisation of young people was disbanded. The latter had built observation facilities, provided services to nature tourists and protected the colony. The director was perceived as undermining this organisation and refusing to heed community requests for reforestation of the nesting habitats. Cumulative damage to vegetation from hurricanes eventually resulted in the complete disappearance of these birds (2005-2006). This created a decline in small-scale tourism, reduction of local livelihoods, and increased pressure on the reserves director to allow the community to sell its commons, including beach frontage. If the community sells its lands, the buyers officially will be obligated to operate within the regulations of the protected area. The regulations allow eco-development, gated housing projects that include 2.5 acres of land per house. These homes are for the very wealthy, for vacations or retirement. Eco-hotels are also being built to serve an international elite. All of these developments exclude the previous residents."

"This article explores the emergence of collaborative institutional arrangements for managing natural resources in large-scale and complex resource settings, among numerous political jurisdictions and stakeholders. It examines four regional institutions in the United States: the Northwest Power and Conservation Council's Fish and Wildlife Program, the Chesapeake Bay Program, the CALFED Bay- Delta Program, and the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan. While a wealth of literature has looked at the emergence of smaller-scale resource management institutions, and some literature has begun to look at the characteristics and successes of these regional institutions, theory is lacking to explain the formation of these regional institutions. We first introduce three relevant streams of literature-- on common pool resources management, on policy entrepreneurs and social capital, and on science and information in -policy change--to frame our analysis. The comparisons of the cases point to the importance of integrating key insights from the literature for understanding the formation of collaborative resource governance. We emphasize how science, leadership, and prior organizational experience interact in facilitating institutional change, particularly in the process of raising awareness about resource management problems. In tracing the formation of these institutions, we also identify how external institutional triggers can help spur collaborative governance."

"In recent years, decentralised development approaches have been promoted to realise the goal of poverty reduction. In the agriculture sector, declining budgetary support and deteriorating quality of service provision by state parastatals the world over has prompted an interest in Irrigation Management Transfer (IMT) and Joint Forest Management (JFM) policies. Donor-supported JFM and IMT projects have encouraged co-management between state parastatals and farmer groups or the private sector to undertake tasks of catchment protection, water allocation, collection of irrigation service fees (ISFs), and routine maintenance of irrigation infrastructure in a watershed context. Some evaluations of participatory watershed management projects assume that compliance with institutional rules would facilitate greater cost recovery, enhance agricultural productivity, and reduce dependence on government budgets, and may, therefore, be viewed as indicators of institutional success. But, based on an extensive survey and a detailed case study of participatory watershed management organisations in the Haryana Shiwaliks, we argue instead that institutional success may be evaluated on the basis of how much rule compliance has contributed towards an improvement in transparency of programme implementation, pro-poor benefit distribution, and condition of environmental resources. We also examine the prospects for participatory watershed management in the context of changes in the wider regional and macro economy."

"This paper analyzes integrated natural resource management (INRM) lessons and success factors based on a practical case study over more than 10 years in Zimbabwe. The work was geared toward enhancing the adaptive management capacity of the stakeholders in their resource-use systems. One main result was the development and institutionalization of an approach for participatory and integrated NRM research and extension. The INRM approach described is grounded in a learning paradigm and a combination of theories: the constructivist perspective to development, systemic intervention, and learning process approaches. Participatory action research and experiential learning, in which researchers engage themselves as actors rather than neutral analysts in an R&D process to explore the livelihood system and develop appropriate solutions together with the resource users, has shown high potential. However, this should be guided by a clear strategy, impact orientation, and high-quality process facilitation at different levels. The case study revealed the importance of a 'reflective practitioner' approach by all actors. More effective response to the challenges of increasing complexity in NRM requires a shift in thinking from the linearity of research 'extension' farmer to alternative, multiple-actor institutional arrangements and innovation systems. To overcome the weak attribution of research outcomes to actual impact, it also suggests an alternative to conventional impact assessment in INRM R&D interventions."

"In 2001 the Government of Cambodia adopted community fisheries as a new form of resource management. A project called 'Participatory Natural Resource Management in the Tonle Sap Region' has been working to develop and promote community-based natural resource management on the north shore of the Tonle Sap lake in the province of Siem Reap. This project has been instrumental in developing the community fisheries approach and has sparked off a reform process within the inland fishery sector that has resulted in around 536,000 hectares (ha) of commercial fishing ground-equivalent to 56 per cent of all commercial fishing grounds-being released to local communities for community fisheries management."

"Collaboration among multiple stakeholders can be crucial to the success of natural resource management. In recent years, a wide variety of methods have been developed to facilitate such collaboration. Because these methods are relatively new and come from different disciplines, little attention has been paid to drawing comparisons among them. Thus, it is very difficult for potential users to sort through the increasingly large literature regarding such methods. We suggest the use of a consistent framework for comparing collaborative management methods, and develop such a framework based on five criteria: participation, institutional analysis, simplification of the natural resource, spatial scale, and stages in the process of natural resource management. We then apply this framework to six of the more commonly cited methods: soft systems analysis, adaptive management, ecosystem management, agroecosystem analysis, rapid rural appraisal and participatory rural appraisal. Important differences among methods were found in prescriptions for stakeholder participation, institutional analysis, and simplification of complex natural resources. Despite such differences, the methods are surprisingly similar overall. All methods are applicable at the scale of a watershed. Most of the methods include techniques for understanding complex natural resources, but not complex social institutions, and most include monitoring and assessment as well as planning. Our comparisons suggest that, although much work has been done to improve collaborative management of natural resources, both in the development of collaborative methods and in related social science disciplines, the results have not been shared among disciplines. Further organization and classification of this work is therefore necessary to make it more accessible to both practitioners and students of collaborative management."

"In the traditional approach to biodiversity conservation, local people and their economic activities were viewed as threats to the undisturbed functioning of natural ecosystems and were to be excluded from protected areas. However, it became evident that the social costs of exclusionary conservation projects were sometimes high, and that their success rate, even in biological terms, was disappointing. As a result, the classical approach has been replaced by integrated conservation and development projects (ICDPs) whose goal is to 'enhance biodiversity conservation through approaches that attempt to address the needs, constraints and opportunities of local people' by involving local people as active partners."

"The basic approach to management of PAs has been isolationist, based on the questionable assumption that certain areas are pristine or primary and that management must protect the park from people living in surrounding areas and shield wildlife and other natural resources from exploitation. This is achieved through the strict enforcement of legislation, patrols to prevent illegal activities and infrastructure maintenance. In this scenario, attempts to protect PAs from human intervention by coercion have often led to hostile attitudes of local people towards wildlife management and forestry staff, and sometimes to open conflict."

"Elected local government is the appropriate institution to entrust with representation of local populations in matters of public resource use. Decentralization and participation are both means of bringing a broader section of a given population into public decision-making processes - in a role of informing and/or controlling those processes."

"Rural communities, politicians and state foresters must pull together to make devolution work. During the past five years, changes at both the local and national levels have been directed towards creating an enabling environment for a more participatory approach to managing state-owned forests in Scotland. At the national level there have been attempts to devolve responsibility for forestry, while at the local community level the number of participatory forestry initiatives has been increasing."

"This article is an analysis of the limited success of participatory efforts in forest management with a focus on India. What divides is often as important, if not more so, than that which is held in common. Even words and concepts whose meaning is often assumed by their users to be 'self-evident' may convey different meanings to different people at different times and in different places. For instance. forests' is a seemingly uncontroversial word used to describe a land cover category but its meaning is interpreted differently by different interest groups, thus resulting in heated discussions of what forests are and what they should be used for."

"Using participatory learning and communication tools for a better understanding of natural resource management. Consider three blind people, each feeling different parts of an elephant--the trunk, the tail and the leg--and thereafter describing three very different 'animals. They could bring together their descriptions and agree on one 'common elephant'. In such a case, their perceptions would have been enriched by a group learning process which created new common meaning beyond individual experiences. But group learning for natural resource management is substantially more complex."

"Recent experiences in West Bengal, Haryana, Gujarat, Orissa, and Jammu and Kashmir have shown that when government forest staff collaborate meaningfully with the rural communities, management problems can be overcome in the interest of all. Instead of being progressively degraded through overgrazing and cutting, forest lands can begin to regenerate dramatically. As the trees recover; so too does overall forest productivity, generating fodder grasses, fuelwood and other forest products that are crucial in the socio-economic context of an agrarian society. This article presents experiences from West Bengal and Gujarat where foresters and forest administrators as well the non governmental organizations and researchers are exploring ways to bring the forest departments and local communities of India together in the management of public forest lands."

"Forestry management in the past considered only the protective and productive roles of the forest. Now, largely through the birth of the concept of 'community' or 'social' forestry, it is seriously beginning to consider the forest's social role as well. In this article, Y.S. Rao provides a succinct and clear definition of community forestry, outlines what is needed to make it succeed, and discusses the constraints under which it operates at present. Implementing community forestry, he argues, will require nothing less than a radical restructuring of forestry's traditional policies, practices and institutions."