Namibia’s community based natural resource management program (CBNRM) integrates local participation in rural development and biodiversity conservation. This effort was launched through key legislation that devolved the right to manage wildlife and other renewable resources on communal lands from the state to community level conservancies. Local participation is dependent upon the capacity of the locals to self mobilize and establish conservancies, plan and implement their programs, and monitor and evaluate their progresses and impacts. Accordingly, this study examines the role of capacity development (CD) in CBNRM, particularly its processes, products, performance, and permanence at the individual, organizational (conservancy), and community levels. The research was carried out using interviews and participatory self-assessment exercises with various conservancy stakeholders. This study uncovers why and how capacity development has to be based on local realities and aspirations where capacity users need to have ownership of the process through partnerships with service providers in order to enhance endogenous capacity. However, such notion of “partnership” between CD stakeholders is challenging to translate into reality in the face of power imbalances, where government and NGOs are continuously influenced and coerced by donor interests, where NGOs are considered stronger than the government because they control more financial and human resources, and where conservancies tend to report upwards to NGOs and government instead of their constituents. Moreover, this research reiterates that CD has to be holistic enough to incorporate individual, organizational, and community level changes in order to create sustainable capacities and prevent problems of elitism, manipulation, and dependency on few individuals. With respect to CBNRM, the research argues that its basic premise of diversifying rural livelihoods using incentives to bring about sustainable resource management can only be achieved when conservancies have the capacity to create representative and participatory democratic processes, and when they are able to generate equitable and reliable tangible benefits with manageable costs to their constituents. As seen in this study, when such governance and benefit sharing structures are in place, they enhance local participation by promoting political empowerment, trust, ownership, and positive attitude towards living with wildlife. However, if such conditions are not met, local participation is reduced, while intra-community conflicts from marginalization to nepotism and members’ dissatisfaction and disinterest are inevitable.

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Sustainability of natural resources is currently a concern worldwide. The ecological and economic aspects of sustainability have received substantial research attention, but the social aspects of sustainability are less well understood. Participation by affected communities in natural resource management decisions is pivotal to social sustainability. As such, this study examined ten case studies of participation and decision-making by natural resource management groups involved in agriculture in the south-west of Australia. Groups at four spatial scales were studied, including the State, regional, land conservation district (Shire) and subcatchment. Drawing on these ten case studies, this study analysed participation in these groups from the perspectives of representation, leadership and partnership. Crucial elements of this analysis included identifying the desirable attributes of participation in terms of achieving social sustainability, and then comparing current practice against these ideals. The study concludes with comments about the efficacy at each spatial scale of current approaches to participation in terms of social sustainability. Central conclusions from this study follow. Some scales are performing better than others in terms of meeting the expectations expressed through the desirable criteria. The State scale is performing well, in terms of its mandate, with its lower expectations than those ascribed to regional and subcatchment scales clearly being met. On the other hand, the expectations associated with the community- and government-led regional groups and subcatchment groups are enormous. The only place where there was any major difference between the three was in representation: it was barely considered by respondents from the subcatchment groups, while for the regional groups less of the expectations were met by the community-led than government-led groups. Otherwise they were very similar. The land conservation districts, caught between the regions and subcatchments, seem to be faring the poorest.

Thesis--Auburn University, 2008. / Abstract. Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

<p> Dignity is "an internal state of peace that comes with the recognition and acceptance of the value and vulnerability of all living things" (Hicks, 2011, p. 1). Dignity is a crucial element in effective governance arrangements. This study applies dignity theory, and related theories of natural resource governance and environmental communication, to understand and overcome barriers to effective governance of common pool resources in rural communities. Chapter 1 reviews relevant literature on natural resource governance and develops a theoretical framework for dignity. Chapter 2 applies dignity theory to a contentious comprehensive planning process in a small Maine town in order to understand dignity is constructed and experienced in a collective governance process. Meeting minutes and newspaper articles were coded for themes related to conflict and decision-making. Results showed parts of the planning process ignored dignity considerations. Newspaper articles reported negative or exclusionary events twice as often as positive or inclusive events. Chapter 3 outlines literature relevant to improving capacity of rural communities to adapt to climate change. It then relates a case study from rural Maine in which best practices gleaned from the literature were implemented in creating climate vulnerability assessments and interactive, web-based storm surge mapping tools for use in adaptation planning. Results suggest best practices can enable proactive adaptation without sparking debate over climate science. The survey study described in Chapter 4 examined patterns of beliefs related to climate change and its impacts among people involved in municipal government in a rural Maine county. Results indicate that one-third of respondents were doubtful or unsure about the reality of climate change, but 87% reported observing phenomena related to the warming climate. The web-based survey presented in Chapter 5 examined involvement (perceived relevance and priority) in climate change and other issues affecting rural communities, as well as perceived self- and community efficacy for addressing local problems. Results indicate climate change, per se, is not a high priority, but some climate-related issues do rank highly, suggesting areas for initiating adaptation efforts. Chapter 6 concludes by placing the results of the preceding studies within the context of the dignity framework and presents recommendations for future research. </p>

The increasing recognition of the myriad ways that peace may be enacted, contested and manipulated in different places has highlighted the complexity of peace. Peace making is now understood as a process rather than an event, made and unmade in the material and non-material socio-spatial relationships that people find themselves in. In this research I employ a qualitative case study methodology to describe how peace is made and unmade on Lough Neagh, the United Kingdom’s largest freshwater lake and the main source of Northern Ireland’s domestic water supply. I examine the everyday social relations of the users of this lake and the meanings, both material and non-material, that people have about this large water body. I ask how these local everyday practices and opinions intersect with broader politics within NI. I add to the growing body of literature within geography that recognizes that peace is made in many different ways, at different scales and in different places. / 10000-01-01