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Interactions with global markets offer development opportunities for Indigenous communities. They also place pressure on the natural resources that communities depend upon for their livelihood and, in many cases, their political and cultural autonomy. These markets often interact with family-based enterprises embedded within commons, with important implications for the social relationships and shared territorial resources that characterise such regimes. In this paper, we analyse the relationships that exist between commons, global markets, and small-scale family enterprises, using the case of mezcal production—an alcoholic beverage made from agave—in an Indigenous community in Oaxaca, Mexico. Most mezcal production is organized at the family level; yet the raw materials and inputs (land, wild agave, firewood, water) necessary for making mezcal are held communally and regulated by locally-crafted institutions. Empirical data show that as family enterprises engage with an emergent global market for mezcal, the commons become essential for not only protecting territorial resources but also maintaining a degree of autonomy from powerful global markets and value chains. However, this requires substantial investment in monitoring and enforcement, and for community members to value sustainable commons management over short-term economic self-interest. To seek autonomy while participating in global markets, producer families also join together to develop cooperative strategies to access markets on better terms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In evaluating effectiveness for collaborative environmental governance arrangements, a key concern is describing not just the processes and actors that are a part of these systems, but also the impacts that these processes have on ecological and social conditions. Existing research delineates an emphasis on process variables over outcome variables, as well as the difficulties of demonstrating causal relationships between collaborative governance processes and ecological outcomes. In this paper, we examined how process and outcome criteria are used by sponsors, industry practitioners, and participants of collaborative environmental governance (CEG) arrangements in Canada's forest sector to ascertain effectiveness. We explicitly sought evidence from sponsors and industry practitioners of self-described effective forest advisory committees, anticipating that sponsors or practitioners might place greater emphasis than participants on outcome criteria over process criteria. We analyzed data from a nation-wide survey of forest advisory committee participants, conducted interviews with sponsoring agencies, and completed two in-depth case studies. We found that sponsors and industry practitioners, like participants, perceived a strong relationship between process and effectiveness. The perspectives of all participants helped us articulate ten key process criteria that they determined as essential for CEG. By including the insights of sponsoring agencies, our study provides both on-the-ground and management interpretations of process and outcomes as well as a nuanced approach to understanding the relationship between the two. However, we conclude that systematic evaluation approaches involving outcome-based criteria are still necessary and would provide a clear step towards encouraging accountability in CEG decision-making, both for sponsors and members. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Resource regimes are complex social-ecological systems that operate at multiple levels. Using data from two distinct cultural and environmental contexts (Mexico and India), this paper looks at the susceptibility and response of such regimes to rural out-migration. As a driver of demographic and cultural change, out-migration impacts both the practices and institutional arrangements that define territorial resource use and management. The research shows that critical yet poorly recognised shifts in migration dynamics can increase the pressures felt locally and serve to reduce the effectiveness of institutional adaptations at the community level. From an environmental perspective, the research adds to the body of work examining the impacts of rural depopulation on land and seascapes and associated biological diversity. We question the assumption that rural-urban migration necessarily simulates ecosystem recovery and aids conservation. This finding is timely as funding agencies and government programs show belated interest in the consequences of out-migration for environmental management, resource use and rural livelihoods in tropical country settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]