CEMENTOS A BASE DE RESINA EPOXI

5.1.1 How to manage the commons

How to effectively and sustainably manage common resources has always been a central challenge for human society (Ostrom, 2009). Despite the long history of traditional communal management regimes of commons resources in many locations, the modern commons management regime is based on the theory of the Tragedy of the Commons developed by Hardin (1968). This regime is characterised by state-controlled

arrangements, and is referred to as common resource centralisation. The underlying assumptions of this approach include: 1) resource users are incapable of overcoming their temptation to harvest excessively from a common resource; 2) designing rules to change the incentives of participants is a relatively simple analytical task; and 3) an organisation itself requires central direction (Hardin and Baden, 1977). Under this approach, policy analysts and decision makers consider common resources (e.g.

fisheries, forests, pasture lands and water resources) as relatively homogeneous

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systems that can be treated with uniform rules (Sherman and Laughlin, 1992). The management of common resources has been treated as a scientific and technical matter in recent decades, and central governments have held the responsibility for applying technical expertise to design appropriate rules for governing and managing common resources (Bocking, 2004; Ostrom, 2007a). The danger of this approach lies in its

management of complex social-ecological systems as a simplified, homogeneous system.

Since the 1980s, centralised environmental and resource governance has been widely questioned and challenged. Much field research has found that national governmental agencies have been notably unsuccessful in their efforts to design effective and uniform rules for regulating important common resources across a broad domain (Ascher, 1999).

As Berkes (2010: 489) points out, “By the late 1980s, there was a general

disillusionment of stakeholders, conservation and development agencies, and academics in the ability of centralised governments to plan, administer and implement

conservation and development”.

The failures of centralised regimes have forced reconsideration of who should be involved in decision-making to ensure better outcomes from commons management.

The rights of resource users to be involved in decision making, and the significant role of community institutions in sustainable resource management have been increasingly recognised by many scholars and practitioners (e.g. Agrawal, 2002a; Berkes, 2002, 2010;

Leach et al., 1999; Ostrom, 2005, 2007a, 2009). Many scholars have also examined the capacity of communities and other small-scale social organisations to self-govern and manage resources (e.g. Agrawal, 2003; Agrawal and Ostrom, 2001; Ostrom, 1990;

Ostrom and Jassen, 2004).

As a result, an environmental governance reform has taken place starting in the 1990s.

The reform has emphasised a shift from the conventional top-down governance towards co-management, community-based resource management and self-governing resource management (Brondizio et al., 2009; Ostrom, 2009). The logic behind this new thinking is to bridge the gap between governments and the governed and allow the people whose

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livelihood and well-being are affected by the decisions to participate in making those decisions (Berkes, 2010). In particular, as Agrawal and Gibson (1999) argue, more community-based management regimes allow communities to contribute their traditional knowledge of the local environment to resource management practices.

Often, within these community-based practices, communities’ traditional rights over the land and resources are recognised and protected. Over the last 20 years, almost all the national governments across the world, both in developing and industrialised countries, have undergone a decentralisation process, although to varying degrees

(Borrini-Feyerabend et al., 2004; Brunner et al., 2005; Wilson et al., 2003). For example, many national governments in developing countries have changed their renewable resource policies in favour of establishing and strengthening partnerships with local-level organisations (Lemos and Agrawal, 2006).

5.1.2 How to achieve good resource governance

Within resource governance reform, effective resource user participation and problem solving at more local levels of an organisation, as well as the subsidiarity principle⁴ were considered as essential components of “good governance” (Kooman, 2003). These principles have been advocated by international policies, such as Agenda 21 and the Rio Declaration (UNCED, 1992). While resource governance decentralisation has become

“the new fashion in our time” (Berkes, 2010), some scholars have carried out further investigation and analysis, and identified two phases (or two types) of this process:

decentralisation and devolution (Berkes, 2010). As Brugere (2006) clarifies, there is an important distinction between decentralisation and devolution. While decentralisation illustrates the transfer of rights and responsibilities from central to branches of the same government ministry; devolution represents the transfer of rights and

responsibilities to local groups, organisations and local level government decision-making power (see Figure 1.3).

4 The principle emphasises that issues regarding resource management should be handled by the smallest, lowest, or least centralised authority that are capable of addressing the issues effectively.

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Figure 1.3 Decentralisation and devolution in resource and environmental management.

Modified from Berkes, 2010: 491

This analysis helps to distinguish between “power sharing” among government agencies, and “power devolution” from the government to the resource users and their

organisations. Since the late 1990s, there has been growing international interest in a civil society where the citizens are no longer treated as subjects, but as participants in governance (Berkes, 2010). Effective, genuine public participation in resource

management has been recognised as an essential principle of good governance (Agrawal and Gibson, 1999; Ostrom et al., 1999; Ostrom, 2009).

The recent commons literature provides an important foundation for TEK conservation and indigenous rights protection as it recognises and emphasises the importance of resource users’ rights and their participation in resource governance. As Agrawal and Gibsson (1999) point out, more collaborative governance may enable TEK holders as resource users to sustainably manage common resources over time. The power devolution that is advocated by many scholars in the commons field provides a great opportunity for the implementation of more collaborative resource management

Collaboration

User group/organisations Devolution

Collaboration

Decentralisation Decentralisation

Central Government

Local Government

User group/organisations Local

Government

Devolution

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regimes in which local scale institutions (including indigenous institutions and TEK), can have a greater share in decision-making and management.