Co-Mangement of Community Resources

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1. INTRODUCTION

Post industrialization perceptions of communities as a hindrance to successful conservation fostered a dichotomous view of communities and natural resources (West et al. 2006; Agrawal 1999). This interpretation of nature-environment dissociation was embedded in intrusive natural resource governance and conservation strategies. Natural resources management authority was vested in a central agency, mostly reflecting some facet of the state, focusing on scientific data, and within the legal confines of state policies (Berkets et al. 1991; Ostrom 1990). State management of common’s resources resulted in less than satisfactory conservation outcomes (Agrwal and Gibson 1999) attributed largely to the multifaceted, complexity, and dynamics of natural resource systems which requires multiple stakeholder participation for sustainable management (Berkes 2009). Cognizant of their role in natural resource sustainability, communities and civil society demanded a role in management of natural resources prompting scholars and policy makers to reshape the way they think about communities’ role in natural resources governance (Berkes et al. 1991). This approach resultantly fostered a strong vertical linkage for community-civil society-government cooperation in natural resources governance.
Scholars have advanced co-management as an alternative to steady-state, centralized, singular approach to natural resources management. Co-management (also referred to as collaborative, joint, or participatory management) is seen as a special type of management regime implementing joint institutions to govern natural resources. Institutions, in this context, refer to those resources use and interaction constraints that community implement t...

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...utions, and natural resource governance. Focus group discussions aimed at sample community members to establishing historical and development settings of the community institutions. To observe key processes of interactions of residents within governance and resource setting we used participatory and independent observations. As one of the few Belizean researchers in these communities, and our previous knowledge of these informants, many indicated that there were at much more ease to discuss intricacies of culture and history with our team. While the approach of our study limits the generalizability of our results and recommendations, policy recommendations can be considered in social-ecological systems which fit similar context. Our study is also limited by the chronic absence of peer-reviewed literature on communities in Belize, especially those in co-management.

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