Suchergebnisse

Decentralisation of environmental governance (DEG) proliferated around the world in the 1990s, inspired, in part, by theories of common-pool resource governance that argued that local communities could sustainably manage valuable but non-excludable resources given a set of proper institutional design principles. However, many species of wildlife, such as predators that consume livestock or herbivores that destroy crops, are considered undesirable by local communities; this challenges the applicability of DEG models for managing wildlife in these contexts. Numerous scholars have proposed methods to generate economic value from locally undesired wildlife species to incentivise their conservation, but the overall success of these approaches has been mixed. We explore the intersection of DEG and the management of wildlife entangled in human-wildlife conflict and challenge the assumption that simple models of devolution and decentralisation will lead to the successful governance of wildlife in such circumstances. We argue that conflict species governance is potentially compatible with DEG but requires a fuller consideration of institutions at multiple scales than is typically included in common-pool resource theory or decentralisation. Multiple mechanisms of accountability may be especially important in securing the conservation of wildlife in conflict scenarios.

AbstractThe institutional landscape for public land management in the U.S. West underwent a seismic shift in the 1990s as the long‐dominant resource extraction paradigm was replaced by the ecosystem management paradigm. Here we analyze the efforts of community‐based organizations (CBOs), entities that emerged in some locations across the West to help their respective communities navigate the transition from resource extraction to environmental stewardship. Despite their formal status as civil society actors, in practice CBOs came to fill various institutional gaps by taking on roles traditionally assigned to both the state and the private sector. We use a case study approach to examine how the Hayfork, California–based Watershed Research and Training Center engages in institutional work within a setting that is at once both open and constrained, as the rural community within which it operates lacks strong state‐ or industry‐led development trajectories while remaining constrained by the legacies of past institutions.

ABSTRACTScholarship on neo‐extractivism agrees that this 'post‐neoliberal' model of development is founded on an inherent contradiction between the commitment to continue natural resource extraction and the need to legitimize these activities by using their revenues for poverty reduction. Using the cases of the national biofuel policies of the 'post‐neoliberal' governments of Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay, this article enquires why and how these policies emerged, how they were implemented, and how the resulting national experiences exemplify the inherent contradictions embedded in neo‐extractivist policies. Adopting a strategic‐relational approach to analyse state–society interaction, it is argued that the scope of progressive policies is conditioned to a large extent by pre‐existing social structures, institutions and state–society interactions. The article shows how progressive reforms intersect with the prevailing interests of agribusiness and state actors and are recast and used for different ends as these interact with powerful actors such as the multinational soybean complex and agrarian movements. It is suggested that the prevailing over‐emphasis in the neo‐extractivist literature on the politics of domination and contestation overlooks the multiple and complex rural responses of the different progressive governments. It also obscures the possibilities to explore the ruptures and continuities of these countries' governments with previous models, and therefore fails to recognize state advances.

24 pages ; The purpose of this working paper is to review research methods used to assess the influence of public policies on natural resource business decision-making. We describe a suite of research methods that have been used to assess policy impacts on businesses, highlighting their analytical advantages and disadvantages. We emphasize natural resource policies and businesses in our review, but also present literature from other fields as relevant. With this review we attempt to contribute to a greater ability to conduct evaluation for policies and programs targeting natural resource firms. ; This project was supported by Agriculture and Food Research Initiative Competitive Grant no. 2013-67009-20396 from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture, as well as through an agreement with the U.S. Forest Service Pacific Northwest Research Station, agreement no. 13-CR-11261975-093.

20 pages ; Wildfires are increasingly common and growing in size across rangelands in the U.S. West. Although fire is a natural component of sagebrush steppe ecosystems, it can also threaten values such as sage-grouse habitat, forage for grazing, and residential and commercial structures; it can also encourage invasive plant establishment. Wildfire suppression responsibilities have historically been divided by ownership among resident ranchers, some rural fire districts, and government agencies. But wildfire, and interest in managing it, crosses ownership boundaries. Since the 1990s, numerous Rangeland Fire Protection Associations (RFPAs) have emerged in Oregon and Idaho to improve fire management by organizing and authorizing rancher participation in fire suppression alongside federal agency firefighters (typically, the Bureau of Land Management hereafter "BLM"). RFPAs are all-volunteer crews of ranchers with training and legal authority to respond to fires on private and state lands in remote landscapes where there had been no existing state or local fire protection, and can become authorized to respond on federal lands as well. There has been growing policy interest in the RFPA model, yet limited research on how RFPAs function, their capacities, and potential implications for encouraging fire-adapted communities. Our study analyzed the establishment, functioning, successes, and challenges of the RFPA model through four case studies of individual RFPAs and their respective state programs in Oregon and Idaho during 2015–16. ; This research was funded by a grant from the Joint Fire Science Program (agreement #14-2-01-29).