Research

There is widespread debate about the relationship between systems of 'rational', scientific or bureaucratic knowledge and bodies of local, traditional or indigenous knowledge in the management of natural resources. However, it is not clear how the status accorded to these latter forms of knowledge relates to the willingness and ability of local or indigenous communities to play an effective role in the management of specific resource or ecosystems. While the principles of 'community-based resource management' are widely espoused by the aid industry, there is less agreement about the circumstances in which these principles are successfully applied in practice, or about the specific nature of the 'communities' whose action or participation is being invoked. Much depends on the institutions which govern the ownership of intellectual property and natural resources, and the implications of these property regimes for resource management. The construction and application of local (or indigenous) knowledge by local (or indigenous) communities therefore needs to be understood as one aspect of the wider relationship between laws, institutions and policies formulated at a number of different scales, within specific sectors and jurisdictions.

Current projects related to this theme

• Agricultural risks, typhoon events and livelihood constraints in Vietnam and the Philippines.
• Alternative Livelihoods for Traditional Indonesian Fishers (Rote and Kupang Bay)
• ATOLLGAME - A Companion Modelling Experience in the Pacific
• Co-Developing Institutions for Small Town Water Management
• Communities and Small-Scale Mining in the Asia-Pacific Region
• Community Forest as a Symbol: Negotiation of Image and Practice
• Crafting sustainability: addressing water pollution in Vietnam’s craft villages
• Decentralization of Coastal Zone Management in South and Southeast Sulawesi (Indonesia)
• Development and Gender in a Coal Mining Area of Indonesia
• Equitable Groundwater Management for the Development of Small Pacific Islands
• Ethnic Minority Women: Contested Identity in Transformation to Transitional Economy in the Upper Mekong Borderlands of Northern Lao, PDR.
• Gender and Sustainable Livelihoods in a Coal Mining Region in Indonesia
• Hydrological effectiveness and rural community perceptions of upland afforestation in Yunnan Province, southwest China.
• Indigenous Involvement in New Zealand and Hawaiian National Parks
• Mekong Ethnohydrological Knowledge and Cross-border Riverine Resource Management
• Narratives of Puer Tea from Yunnan (Southwestern China)
• Resilience of Balinese Rice Irrigation Systems and Farming Communities
• Sex, virtue and desire: Negotiating pathways from poverty in central Laos
• Small Islands in Peril in Milne Bay Province (Papua New Guinea)

Completed projects related to this theme

• A State of Uncertainty: Interpretations of Forests and Wildlife in Laos (2007)
• Between Subsistence and Market: Livelihood Choices of Karen Uplanders in Northwest Thailand (2009)
• Fishing for Fairness: Poverty, Morality and Marine Resource Management in the Calamianes Islands, Philippines. (2009)
• State, Community and Civil Society in Protected Forest Areas of Indonesia (2008)