Community-based natural resource management

Abstract

This technical note is the product of a long process of consultation with a wide range of resource persons who have over the years been involved in the Danish support to Community Based Natural Resource Management. It gives a brief introduction to community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) and how this concept may be used as a development strategy. CBNRM has the triple objective of poverty reduction, natural resource conservation and good governance. The opportunity and challenge is to pursue these objectives simultaneously, as they are not, by default, mutually supportive. Lessons learnt from CBNRM will be useful when designing community-based climate adaptation strategies. Thus, this note is a contribution to an ongoing debate as well as a product of the long-standing experiences of Danida's environmental portfolio. CBNRM is not a stand-alone solution to secure poverty reduction, resource conservation and good governance, and whether other resource management systems would be better will always be subject to context analysis and political debate. Accordingly, CBNRM is rather a development process and constant power struggle. Thus, even after years of implementation, donors are still likely to have a mission in promoting CBNRM as part of national programmes. Lessons learnt are important for the new agenda of community-based adaptation to climate change. Donor assistance may take the form of programme-based assistance or as earmarked support for monitoring and research that deliver credible and easily accessible information. Checks and balances can be supported through civil society as well as the media. Finally, the private sector plays a key and potentially beneficial role in the harvest, transport and marketing of CBNRM products. Thus, dialogue partners should include representatives from the public sector (and not only environmental authorities), civil society (women and men), private sector as well as financial institutions. It is envisaged that this work note will be followed by an interdisciplinary workshop in Copenhagen in 2008