This study describes the resource management practices of a rural community located in Morobe Province, Papua New Guinea. Lababia, a community of 500 people, is located in a coastal rainforest environment and is dependant for its livelihood on swidden agriculture and fishing. Lababia is also the site of an integrated conservation and development project facilitated by a non-governmental organisation based in a nearby urban centre. / The key resources on which Lababia depends are managed as the common property of either the village-as-a-whole or the various kin groups resident in the village, and for that reason common property theory has been used to inform the design of the research project and the analysis and interpretation of research results. However, the social foundations of resource management systems and the influence of external factors, commodity markets in particular, are not adequately represented in some of the more widely used analytical frameworks developed by common property theorists. These factors are of fundamental importance to the Lababia commons because of the many social, political and economic changes that have occurred there over the last century. For that reason the Lababia commons is referred to as a commons-in-transition . / Ethnographic and historical analysis, informed by common property theory, is used to develop a description of the property rights system existing at Lababia and resource management practices in the key sectors of fishing and agriculture. The management of forest resources is described on the basis of a comparison with Kui, a nearby village that, unlike Lababia, has allowed industrial logging activities on their lands. The impact of the conservation and development project on village life is also assessed and the study concludes by developing an analytical framework suitable to the Lababia commons and one that facilitates the development of policy appropriate to the planning of sustainable development projects generally and conservation and development projects in particular.

This study investigates the level of the implications of a community based project in Madjadjane area, Matutuine District in Mozambique and constitutes a Mini-dissertation for a Masters Degree in Environment and Development. It is composed of two parts. Component A comprises a literature review and was written following CEAD guidelines and Component B, which constitutes the research paper written in the stylesheet for publication in the South African Geographical Journal (Appendix 2 of the Component A). The literature review charts the evolution of tourism from the ancient forms to the mass tourism after the Second World War and then to the more recent forms of tourism. The review also discusses approaches related to development, sustainable development, rural development, community based natural resources management and livelihoods, which are critical to understanding the context in which tourism takes place. Alternative tourism approaches such as sustainable tourism, nature based tourism, eco-tourism, rural tourism, pro-poor tourism and community based tourism are evaluated in terms of their impacts on host communities. From this discussion, community based tourism with its focus on poverty alleviation and livelihood improvement emerges as one of the more appropriate options for tourism development in poor countries. The study concluded that from the Madjadjane community perspective, although the project emerged along with small commercial activities, it has not yet brought significant economic benefits, nor improvement of their livelihoods. The positive impact is the increased awareness of the value of the conservation of natural resources amongst the local residents. / Thesis (M.Sc.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2005.

Nature-based tourism is centered on the idea that local communities living within and around protected areas should derive benefits from nature resources. Likewise nature resources will simultaneously benefit from their interaction because the community will develop an understanding and appreciate the importance of conserving nature through various benefits derived. The research focus was on assessing the perception of residents of Chiawa, Zambia, regarding the benefits derived from nature-based tourism. This is the first study of this nature to be conducted in Chiawa. The overall aim of the research study was to examine the perceptions of the Chiawa community of the impacts of nature based tourism and its implications on the livelihood of the Chiawa residents and on the conservation of nature, upon which tourism is anchored. The three specific objectives were:- 1. To examine the perceptions of the community on economic impacts of nature based tourism on the livelihood of Chiawa Community. 2. To examine the perceptions of the community of the effects of nature based tourism benefits on support towards conservation of nature in Chiawa and Lower Zambezi National Park. 3. To examine perceptions on nature and extent of constraints limiting household participation in nature-based tourism. Various research methods were used to address the objectives of this study. These methods included quantitative and qualitative research techniques. Structured questionnaires with multiple choice type answers were administered to households and safari operators to collect data. These techniques were complemented with five focus group meetings conducted in village action groups (VAGs) of Chiawa GMA, and both participant and direct observation techniques were used during household surveys. The elements of analysis of the study looked at various factors that influence the perception of households on tourism benefits and conservation efforts by the community. Elements such as tribe, gender, education, length of stay, age and spatial distribution were analyzed. Elements of analysis from tour operators looked at business types, types of benefits filtering to the community through employment and community projects. It was established during the course of the research that both positive and negative perceptions on the impacts of nature-based tourism on residents of Chiawa GMA exist. However, the few residents who derived benefits from nature based tourism operations were positive and the rest were negative. The perceptions of the respondents on support towards conservation are above average. The study found that the most significant silent factor that may influence negative attitudes or perceptions is high levels of human – wildlife conflicts. This is not surprising considering that farming is the major livelihood strategy for most households. Demographic variables were not found to be useful predictors of perception responses. Several factors were established as limiting to household participation in nature based tourism, these established factors included, lack of working and start up capital, lack of understanding of nature based tourism business, lack of interest and lack of support from tourism agencies. / Thesis (M.Env.Dev.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2010.

Thesis (M.A.) - Carleton University, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 156-164). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

No description available.

Conservation is increasingly understood to require collective action, particularly in the context of community based conservation. This thesis is premised on the proposition that understanding the dynamic nature of the relationship between collective identity and collective action is fundamental to management of common pool resources such as are created through establishment of community conservancies in Namibia. I used collective identity and resilience theories to develop a framework for exploring change in collective action in the Doro !Nawas conservancy in Namibia. The framework is based on the assumption that change in collective action is dependent upon the temporal changes in two attributes of collective identity; identification and affective commitment. It is suggested that the framework also yields insight into how these may be applied in adaptive management. The research is informed by an interpretive paradigm accepting that collective identity and collective action are social constructs and that personal meanings could be revealed through in-depth interviews and documentary analysis. Computer aided software (Nvivo), manual analysis and a mix of inductive and deductive analysis yielded excerpts, codes and themes that were used to interpret change in the two attributes. The framework I proposed to understand how identification and affective commitment influence collective action was helpful as a general model but it tends to convey a degree of cohesion and homogeneity that does not reflect the real situation, particularly during the ‘collapse’ phase when members of the collective respond to disturbances. My results show that collectives, including organisations, should be understood as collectives of individuals and groups of individuals who express differing levels of identification and affective commitment. Narratives can be used to track change in identification and affective commitment in collectives. Thus, the identification and affective commitment of members is reflected in the language they use to express feelings, thoughts and experiences toward the collective and behaviours that are supportive or destructive to collective identity. A need for incorporating collective identity into adaptive management is identified. I suggest that incorporating collective identity in strategic adaptive management would make those who engage with the process mindful of the collective identity, and therefore more inclined to manage collective identity in order to achieve the collective action required for successful common pool resources management. I use the findings of my research to identify four issues for further research in community based collectives: firstly, research that focuses on the how to design institutional arrangements for conservancies and similar organisations that are more accessible and responsive to the collective; secondly, research on understanding the role and influence benefit sharing can have in sustaining a collective identity that is supportive of conservancies and how it would contribute to making these systems more resilient; thirdly, research to determine how strategic adaptive management can be restructured and implemented in conservancies and protected areas so that it helps to sustain a collective identity and the collective actions that are required to secure them for future generations; finally, whether the long term intentions of community based conservation might be better served if the instruments of governance and the procedures for their application were engineered to make these social ecological systems more robust and if so, how this might be achieved. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2012.

Community Based Natural Resources Management (CBNRM) in southern Africa has gained an important role in alleviating poverty and conserving natural resources. The attention and funding CBNRM is receiving from governments, non-governmental organisations and donors is seen as one way to strengthen civil society‟s involvement in decision-making and participating in activities that contribute to a sustainable livelihood, whilst at the same time learning in their social contexts to adapt and care for the ever changing environment characterised by constraints, challenges, contradictions, new opportunities for learning and change. This study focuses on social learning in commercialisation of natural resource products in two case studies of commercial beekeeping in rural southern African contexts. In this study social learning entails a process of qualitative change taking place in a social context for the purpose of personal and social adaptation. This perspective is useful in this study as learning in the two cases, Hluleka in South Africa and Buhera in Zimbabwe involved the transition beekeeping.from traditional honey harvesting practices and subsistence beekeeping to commercial beekeeping. This study is informed by two related theoretical perspectives namely Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) and Social Learning Theory. CHAT was used as conceptual and methodological framework to inform the first phase of data gathering and analysis processes; as well as second phase data gathering. In the first phase, I gathered data through semistructured interviews, document reviews and observations to identify problems, challenges and critical incidents in learning commercial beekeeping, technically known as tensions and contradictions within the CHAT framework. These tensions and contradictions, surfaced through analysis of first phase data were used as "mirror data‟ in Intervention Workshops within CHAT's process of Developmental Work Research, which supports social learning in response to tensions and contradictions in workplace activity. Use of mirror data provided a basis for dialogue and the modelling of new solutions to identified contradictions. To interpret the social learning processes resulting from these interactions, I drew on Wals' (2007) analytical lenses, through which I was able to monitor social learning processes that emerged from the Intervention Workshop dialogues while beekeepers modelled new solutions to contradictions in learning commercial beekeeping. The findings of the study revealed that social learning in commercial beekeeping is internally and externally influenced by socio-cultural, political and economic complexities. Social learning in Intervention Workshops was supported by different knowledge bases of participants, in this study these are beekeepers, extension officers, trainers and development facilitators. Such knowledge bases were the source of information for learning and constructing model solutions. The study also revealed that learning in CBNRM workplaces can be observed across the development processes, and CHAT as a methodological tool and Wals‟ (2007) analytical tool are complementary and can be used in researching social learning in other CBNRM workplaces. The study contributes in-depth insight into participatory research and learning processes, especially within the context of CBRM in southern Africa. It gives some empirical and explanatory insight into how change-oriented social learning can emerge and be expanded in Education for Sustainable Development. It also provides learning and extension tools to work with contradictions that arise from socio-cultural and historical dimensions of learning commercialisation of natural resources in southern African context. Its other key contribution is that it provides further insight into the mobilisation of human agency and reflexivity in change oriented social learning processes of commercialisation of sustainable natural resources products and poverty alleviation processes that are critical for responding to socioecological issues and risks and development challenges in southern Africa.

Thesis (MAgric (Agricultural Economics))—University of Stellenbosch, 2006. / The natural resources mainly land, forests, and grazing lands in the Highlands ago-ecological zone of Eritrea are in a severely degraded state. And much of these common pool resources comprise commons i.e. they are managed under the common property rights management regimes. “The tragedy of the commons”, model suggests that all commons will inexorably suffer overexploitation and degradation. Contrary to this deterministic proposition, however, common property theory argues that the ‘tragedy’ is not due to inherent flaws in the common property rights management regimes, but because of institutional failure to control access to resources, and to make and enforce internal decisions for collective use. If the commons dilemma situation exists- i.e. ‘tragedy’, then the underlying problem is the degeneration of the existing common property rights resource management regime into open-access-like regime—a condition that can potentially trigger “the tragedy of the commons”. The question of how to deal with the problem of the commons is, therefore, primarily an issue of the existence of efficient institutions. The prevailing severe degradation of the common-pool resources in the Highlands of the country thus calls into question the robustness of the common property rights regimes that are in place for the governance of these resources. This thesis attempts to address this important problem specifically in relation to forest and grazing land common pool resources. A case study based on a single-case qualitative and exploratory-explanatory research design was carried out in a village located in the Highlands of the country. Data were collected through various forms of interviews (semi-structured interviews, in-depth interviews, key informants interviews, group discussions, and informal conversational interviews), direct observation, and document review. The data, gathered largely through using these separate lines of enquiry, were crosschecked to provide a triangulation of methods and to strengthen the validity and reliability of the data. The empirical findings reveal that existing common property rights management regimes for the management of the local common pool resources of the case study area have weakened over time. These findings indicate that, there is a significant incongruence between appropriation and provision rules. And this is manifested in terms of appropriation externalities and demand side and supply side provision externalities. This situation implies that existing local institutional arrangements i.e. common property rights management regimes in the case study area are not sufficiently robust to solve common pool resource appropriation and provision externalities. Though generalisation cannot be made beyond the case that was studied, there are several lessons that may be drawn from this field analysis, which may have valid implications for the natural resources management challenges and opportunities of the entire Highlands agoecological zone of the country.

Since the establishment of the first protected area in 1872, the Yellowstone National Park, the concept of protected areas and their management have witnessed several controversies and conflicts. Generally, ownership and management of most of these protected areas has in the past been restricted to state -governments. Other stakeholders and particularly local communities neighbouring these areas were excluded from their management and ownership. Since the last three decades, however, conservation bodies have been trying to encourage various other protected area governance (management) approaches to address failures in the existing management approach (in which state governments almost solely managed and owned these protected areas ) to achieve the conservation goals. Some of these include co-management and private protected area management approaches. In Component A of this study, "Co-management as an option for private protected areas: A case study of the Shongweni Resource Reserve", attempts were made to explore a selection of literature in order to gain an in-depth understanding of the concepts of private protected areas and co-management. Through this documentary review of literature from various sources (internet, libraries, personal communication, etc) the study identified, examined and documented various issues associated with the concepts. It also explored and documented the historical and current perspectives as well as the legal and policy context of these concepts in South Africa. In addition, the study examined the study area and the methods explored in the study. The study concludes in this Component that: 1. Protected area co-management is a pluralistic approach to the management of protected areas. It recognises a variety of stakeholders that are conducive to the achievement of sustainable conservation goals. 2. Private protected areas have tremendously increased in South Africa, with a total of 13% of the land surface under private protected area management. This is more than double the land surface under public protected area management. 3. South Africa has adequate legal and policy framework provisions that encourage comanagement as well as private protected area management. / Thesis (M.Env.Dev.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2006.

Conventionally environmental assessments (EAs) have been carried out to enhance the understanding of the environment and for the purpose of developing appropriate environmental management and protection strategies. There are, however, limitations to the application of traditional EA approaches, particularly in rural communities in the developing world, where livelihood is dependent on common pool resources (CPRs), and baseline data are inadequate or unavailable. Eco-livelihood assessment (EcLA) is an adaptive approach that integrates a people focused sustainable livelihood approach with ecological assessment, as well as exploring traditional eco-livelihood knowledge (TELK). EcLA is identified as a promising EA tool that could help environmental professionals in planning for equitable development. This approach has been used in the Kolo and Otuoke Creeks, Niger Delta, Nigeria to investigate the ecological impact of dredging that may impact on livelihoods in such a rural setting. Ecological and social surveys have been carried out in four communities in the Study Area; two Test communities and two Reference communities (two communities from each study creek). The information collected from the social survey includes TELK, and has been used to build up a baseline scenario of the Study Area. Abundance and diversity of fish are good indicators of the eco-livelihood impacts of inland river dredging. The research shows that livelihood characteristics, river use profile, fish species diversity and abundance are very similar among all four sample communities. In addition, all sample communities have been associated with similar natural and human induced environmental consequences except that the Test communities have had river sections dredged for the purpose of land reclamation representing the baseline scenario. The analysis of the results of the ecological survey shows a difference in fish catch per unit effort, catch per unit hour, and species diversity between the Test and Reference communities, this have been attributed to the impacts of inland river dredging. The study shows that TELK has a place in environmental assessment, and that eco-livelihood assessment is one promising environmental assessment approach that could be used in areas where livelihood is strongly dependent on common pool resources.