Suchergebnisse

Worldwide, the commercial collection of non-timber forest products (NTFP) has increased, with growing demands on domestic and international markets. This provides income opportunities for local people and links usually remote rural areas, where the resources are collected, with global markets. At the same time, it also enforces dependencies, increases the risks of overexploitation and extinction of the resource and often leads to contestation between different actors for access to these lucrative resources. Thus, actors modify and adapt existing governance systems to secure or gain access to the resource and profit from it. This thesis aims to provide an in-depth understanding of negotiation processes among state authorities and non-state actors, which shape governance systems and networks regulating access, extraction and trade of locally available natural resources in borderlands. Central questions are: How do actors adapt governance systems regulating commercial collection and trade of the resource in response to changes in relation to the resource, like an increased resource value? What kinds of production networks emerge in borderlands? What roles do state and non-state actors play in the negotiation processes shaping governance systems that control access to and benefit from commercial NTFP collection and trade in borderlands? The thesis uses the case of yarshagumba collection and trade in the remote high Himalaya of the Nepal-India trans-boundary region within the Kailash Landscape to explore these questions. The common pool resource 'yarshagumba' has been transformed from a non-valued natural resource to a highly demanded product on the international market. The study follows an inductive qualitative research approach applying different data collection techniques. The collection and trade of yarshagumba is part of complex political, social and economic systems in the borderlands within the Kailash Landscape. The results show that the local people are vulnerable to some extent, as they depend on the global market developments and are exposed to the governmental regulations, but they are not passive players in the collection and trading systems. They are active participants along with the state authorities in shaping governance systems and trading networks suitable and appropriate to their demands and interests. Local people are not in resistance to government authorities in borderlands, but out of necessity, jointly negotiate spaces with state representatives across borders. As a result of these negotiation processes between actors, I conclude that, in the margins of states, like borderlands, governance systems and networks for commercial collection and trade of NTFP move in and out of legality and use or bypass governmental regulations. Rather than formal rules and regulations, negotiation processes between actors play a key role to determine who has access to the resource and who benefits from the trade network. Thus, these governance systems and networks in borderlands are complex constellations. They are more than institutions. They are an interplay of rights, institutions, power structures, and social and economic relations between actors beyond borders adapting to changing conditions. They are dynamic and differ from resource to resource and from location to location. For sustainable and equitable management of natural resources in margins of states, policy-makers need to consider the political, social and economic dimensions related to natural resource management and resource production networks. A change in the way of thinking is required. Besides other recommendations, governments should reflect on state authorities' own role, behaviour and involvement in the systems and cross-border networks.

Under present conditions of economic globalization, social-ecological systems undergo rapid changes. In this context, internal and external forces put heavy pressure on the governance systems of commons to adapt effectively. While institutional learning has been identified as a key element for the adaptive governance of social-ecological systems, there is still limited knowledge of what roles communities and governmental actors play in these processes. In this study, we take the case of yarshagumba (English: caterpillar fungus), a formerly non-valued product in the Himalayas, which has recently been transformed into a highly valuable resource within a short time. We compare the governance systems in collection sites in the Kailash Landscape in India and Nepalby using an analytical framework developed by Pahl-Wostl. Our findings show that in these remote mountain areas, communities and community-led organizations are highly flexible in responding to immediate resource value changes by establishing communal management arrangements. At the same time, however, communities have difficulties to enforce their newly developed informal and formal arrangements. During the process of learning the link between the amendment of arrangements on community-level and the revision of formal policies and frames at the state or national level is only partly established. Against this background, we argue that in the context of rapid change, adaptive governance requires the concerted interaction of actors at the local and the national levels in order to enable the sustainable use of common pool natural resources. ; Open-Access-Publikationsfonds 2019 ; peerReviewed

Worldwide, the commercial collection of non-timber forest products (NTFP) has increased, with growing demands on domestic and international markets. This provides income opportunities for local people and links usually remote rural areas, where the resources are collected, with global markets. At the same time, it also enforces dependencies, increases the risks of overexploitation and extinction of the resource and often leads to contestation between different actors for access to these lucrative resources. Thus, actors modify and adapt existing governance systems to secure or gain access t...

Worldwide, the commercial collection of non-timber forest products (NTFP) has increased, with growing demands on domestic and international markets. This provides income opportunities for local people and links usually remote rural areas, where the resources are collected, with global markets. At the same time, it also enforces dependencies, increases the risks of overexploitation and extinction of the resource and often leads to contestation between different actors for access to these lucrative resources. Thus, actors modify and adapt existing governance systems to secure or gain access t...

The incidence of conflicts among communities over the collection of Yarsagumba, the high value caterpillar fungus, has increased after the Government of Nepal has lifted a ban on its collection and trade in 2001. In most cases, conflicts over Yarsagumba harvesting persist either between locals and outsiders, or between collectors within a local community. In the Api Nampa Conservation Area in Darchula District, Nepal, conflicts are primarily caused by the competition for control over resources. The rights of the indigenous Shauka community(migratory herders), the Api Nampa Conservation Authority, and the non-Shauka communities of lower villages are at odds due to a lack of clarity, and the absence of coordination regarding the access to resources in the landscape. The Shauka community has restricted the Yarsagumba collection by 'outsiders' to specific and limited areas of their community forest and traditional grazing land. The lowland, non-Shauka community who are dissatisfied with the restrictions have excluded the Shauka people from the utilization of their winter pasture for animal grazing possible through the introduction of a community forestry programme. In this conflict, both communities suffer as the migratory lifestyle of the Shauka has been adversely affected, and earnings of the lowland community from Yarsagumba collection have been reduced. This is a no-win situation. Our study suggests that the Government of Nepal should prepare a national Yarsagumba management policy and local Yarsagumba management guidelines to address conflicts by clearly defining the roles, responsibilities and rights of local institutions and actors, while ensuring the provision of particular services in the community forestry programme to distant and seasonal users.