The Drama of the Commons (2002) / Chapter Skim
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9 Cross-Scale Institutional Linkages: Perspectives from the Bottom Up
9 Cross-Scale Institutional Linkages: Perspectives from the Bottom Up
Pages 293-322
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From page 293... ...
The Caribbean flying fish stock, for example, ranges through at least six island nations, and requires bilateral and multilateral agreements for its management (Berkes et al., 2001~. Clearly, such fisheries cannot be managed at a single scale but rather must be managed at multiple scales.
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From page 294... ...
Globalization intensifies coupling and renders local institutions increasingly vulnerable. Local rules with emphasis on "how" people should fish rather than "how much" (Wilson et al., 1994)
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From page 295... ...
Also beyond the scope is the growing literature in political science and public administration on the relationships among national, state, and local levels of government. EFFECTS OF HIGHER LEVEL INSTITUTIONS ON LOCAL INSTITUTIONS The commons literature is full of examples of the impacts of the state on local institutions.
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From page 296... ...
In Ontario, the provinTABLE 9-1 Effects of Higher Level Institutions on Local Institutions Class of Impacts Examples Centralization of decision making Shifts in systems of knowledge Colonization Nationalization of resources Increased participation in markets Development policies The former Soviet Union centralized decision making for rational resource management and for setting production targets, sweeping away, in the process, local management systems and institutions such as the artels of the Ural Cossacks for managing fisheries of the Caspian Sea region (Kropotkin, 1914)
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From page 297... ...
Local institutions tend to use their own folk knowledge, often referred to as local knowledge, indigenous knowledge, or traditional ecological knowledge, whereas centralized management agencies tend to use internationally accepted scientific practice and often assume away local knowledge and practice (Berkes, 1999; Williams and Baines, 1993~. The shift of knowledge systems is one of the major impacts of government-level institutions on local institutions because it is often accompanied by a change in control over a resource.
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From page 298... ...
The commons literature includes many examples of how certain forms of state involvement may strengthen or rejuvenate local-level institutions. These include state recognition of local institutions; development of enabling legislation; cultural revitalization; capacity building; and local institution building (see Table 9-2~.
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From page 299... ...
Enabling legislation Cultural and political revitalization Capacity building Institution building Legitimization or recognition of local-level institutions is a well-known theme in the commons literature. Among the design principles illustrated by longenduring common property institutions analyzed by Ostrom (1990:90)
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From page 300... ...
For example, Canada's James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement of 1975 explicitly and legally recognizes the hunter-trapper organizations of the Cree and their jurisdiction over certain kinds of resources, mainly fish and wildlife, and their management (Berkes et al., 1991~. Government legislation that provides for state recognition of local institutions may be considered enabling legislation.
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From page 301... ...
Others include multistakeholder bodies; institutions oriented for development, empowerment, and co-management; the emerging class of institutions for "citizen science"; policy communities; and social movement networks. Much of this literature has not yet been connected to the commons research community, and the same can be said about the literature on public participation (e.g., Renn et al.,1995; Dietz and Stern, 1998~.
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. assoc~ahons In Minnesota Epistemic communities in the Mediterranean Action Plan The Third Network and the World Trade Organization agreement on trade-related IPRs settlement, the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement (Berkes, 1989b)
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James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement, Canada. Figure 9-1 shows the outline of vertical arrangements but hides the details of the actual interactions involved in the cases, from the signing of the agreement to its implementation.
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Characteristically, multistakeholder bodies link multiple user groups and interests, local and regional, with the government, and provide a forum for conflict resolution and negotiation among users. Table 9-4 provides a number of examples of stakeholder bodies.
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Regional Fishery Management Councils Great Barrier Reef Management Authority, Australia CORE established several roundtables in the mid-199Os to act as advisory bodies to the environment minister in the planning for a diversity of forest uses, reflecting "full range of public values." Each roundtable had representation from some 20 user groups. One of 10 model forests across Canada (and similar to others in an international network)
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. These various strategies resulted in a rich variety of crossscale linkages, including the vertical linking of the local level to the government level.
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It aims to document rural and forest-dwelling people's understanding of living organisms and their ecological setting, ongoing ecological change, their own development aspirations, and how they would like to see resources managed. The PER program, using Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA)
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, which connect the Inuit people of several countries, thus providing horizontal as well as vertical linkages. Cross-scale institutions like the ICC may be characterized more properly as social movement networks, rather than as policy communities.
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Bioregionalism, which is a body of practice and not a collaborative methodology per se, is a special case of ecosystem-based management. It is of special interest TABLE 9-5 Research and Management Approaches That Enable Cross-Scale Linkages Approach Description Ecosystem-based management or ecosystem management Adaptive management Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA)
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More systematic information is needed on co-management and other cross-scale institutions, their reasons for success and failure, institution building, capacity building, and the design of supportive policies. DYNAMICS AND SCALE IN CROSS-SCALE INTERACTIONS What promising lines of inquiry are there for new research directions?
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From page 311... ...
In addition to management regimes involving these institutional forms, crossscale linkages also may be enhanced through the use of certain research and management approaches. Of the four such approaches considered in Table 9-5, adaptive management is of particular interest because of its explicit attention to scale and dynamics and because of its potential as a tool for linking social systems and natural systems.
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Lee (1993) details such social learning based on the extensive experience with the Columbia River basin, a region full of cross-scale institutions.
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suggests, it becomes important for commons management to design institutions and processes that bring scientists and resource users to work together. For example, the participation of fishers in decision making not only increases the likelihood that they "buy into" management decisions, but it also makes sure that the parties share the risk in decision making in an uncertain world, a much humbler role for the manager (Berkes et al., 2001~.
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For example, under the Joint Forest Management program, local controls and profit-sharing arrangements between government and villagers restored the productivity of previously degraded forest areas in West Bengal, India (Poffenberger and McGean, 1996~. Similarly, the transfer of property rights to local groups has fostered wildlife conservation in parts of Africa (Murphree, 1994~.
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Resilience thinking helps commons researchers to look beyond institutional forms, and ask instead questions regarding the adaptive capacity of social groups and their institutions to deal with stresses as a result of social, political, and environmental change. One way to approach this question is to look for informative case studies of change in social-ecological systems and to investigate how societies deal with change.
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From page 316... ...
Thus, a major task is to design cross-scale institutional linkages in a way that facilitates self-organization in cycles of change, enhances learning, and increases adaptive capacity. Cases in the book, Linking Social and Ecological Systems, show that locallevel institutions learn and develop the capability to respond to environmental feedbacks faster than do centralized agencies (Berkes and Folke, 1998~.
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Pp. 273-295 in Common Property Resources, F
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Pp. 92-109 in Common Property Resources, F
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Mahon 1998 Introducing fishery management planning to Barbados. Ocean & Coastal Management 39: 189- 195.
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Pp. 615-621 in National Research Council, Proceedings of the Conference on Common Property Resource Management.
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1999 Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change. Science Plan.
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