News December 2000 December 2000 Newsletter
From
the Director’s Desk
It
has been a very busy year at IES. We initiated four projects, “The
Participatory Development of Community Based Management Plans for
Livestock Feed Resources in the Semi-arid Areas of Zimbabwe” funded by
DFID; “The African Conservation Tillage Network” funded by GTZ, the
“Technical Assistance to Harare air Quality Management” funded by
Danida and “Community Land Management (Zimbabwe) funded by IDRC. There
were three Mid-Term reviews for the Southern African Network for Training
in the Environment (SANTREN) for the component funded by Danida, The
Micro-catchment Management and Common Property Resources Project funded by
DFID and Swiss Development Agency.
Members
of the Institute in conjunction with our collaborators produced 4 papers,
8 IES Working Papers and 1 book. The Institute hosted 17 workshops and its
staff members attended a multitude of workshops and have now got the
“workshoptitis” bug from P. Frost. Our Financial Manager was kept very
as we had several audits, some project specific while some were on general
management of funds. Thanks
go to IES Staff, our collaborators and to Bruce who although miles away
kept an eye on the home base.
Professor
S. B. Feresu
Forging
New Institutional Arrangements For Common Property Resource Management:
A Case Study From Zimbabwe
Throughout
Southern Africa and elsewhere, government has not been effective in
managing natural resources in communal areas – legislation was centrally
imposed, while at the same time there was little capacity to enforce such
legislation. Local people are
alienated from the system of rules and regulations imposed by the state,
and the transaction costs of enforcing the rules high. In Zimbabwe in the 1980s, following the thrust for
decentralization, the district councils were delegated as the
organizations to govern natural resources and implement development. Through a series of by-laws they regulate resource use.
Staff
from the Institute and 2 other organizations have been involved in a 3
year participatory research project in two micro-catchments in Chivi
District in Southern Zimbabwe, involving developing management systems for
natural resources, many of them common pool resources (construction wood,
craftwood, mushrooms etc). Through
participatory institutional analysis and review of experiences elsewhere
in the world, it became apparent that one of the key problems was the
relationship between the local communities and the district council.
Essentially
there was a mismatch – the most effective local systems for natural
resource management were based on traditional systems and focused user
groups (e.g cooperatives), while the district council and its local
structures, with an array of by-laws, schedules of fines and enforcement
mechanisms, were relatively ineffective but had the legal mandate for
resource management.
The
researchers therefore facilitated a process whereby district council
officials and communities explored ways of re-orienting resource
management organizations. To
allay fears of either the council or the communities a series of meetings
were conducted with each party over time, culminating in formal community
meetings to prepare community visions. These visions were presented to the council at a district-level
workshop. The district level
meeting generated much enthusiasm from all concerned.
As
a result of the workshop, some positive steps have now been taken to
implement the vision, with community and council officials working with
researchers in an experimental mode, attempting to change mandates for
some resources in the pilot study area.
Ozone
Layer Protection
At
a time when damage to the ozone layer has reached record levels and is
being accelerated by global warming, the world's governments are meeting
in Burkina Faso from 11-14 December to ensure the phase-out of
chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and other chemicals under the Montreal
Protocol.
For
more information visit the website: www.unep.org/ozone/
Governments
Finalize Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs)
Diplomats
from 122 countries have finalized the text of a legally binding treaty
that will require governments to minimize and eliminate some of the most
toxic chemicals ever created. The
treaty sets out control measures covering the production, import, export,
disposal, and use of POPs. Governments are to promote the best available
technologies and practices for replacing existing POPs while preventing
the development of new POPs. They will draw up national legislation and
develop action plans for carrying out their commitments.
The
12 initial POPs include eight pesticides (aldrin, chlordane, DDT, dieldrin,
endrin, heptachlor, mirex, and toxaphene), two industrial chemicals (PCBs
and hexachlorobenzene, which is also a pesticide), and two unwanted
by-products of combustion and industrial processes (dioxins and furans).
A
POPs Review Committee will consider additional candidates for the POPs
list on a regular basis. This will ensure that the treaty remains dynamic
and responsive to new scientific findings. A financial "mechanism" will help developing countries
and countries with economies in transition meet their obligations to
minimize and eliminate POPs. "New and additional" funding and
technical assistance will be provided.
Most
of the 12 chemicals are subject to an immediate ban. However, a
health-related exemption has been granted for DDT, which is still needed
in many countries to control malarial mosquitoes. This will permit
governments to protect their citizens from malaria - a major killer in
many tropical regions - until they are able to replace DDT with chemical
and non-chemical alternatives that are cost-effective and environmentally
friendly.
Of
all the pollutants released into the environment every year by human
activity, POPs are among the most dangerous. They are highly toxic,
causing an array of adverse effects, notably death, disease, and birth
defects, among humans and animals. Specific effects can include cancer,
allergies and hypersensitivity, damage to the central and peripheral
nervous systems, reproductive disorders, and disruption of the immune
system.
These
highly stable compounds can last for years or decades before breaking
down. They circulate globally through a process known as the
"grasshopper effect". POPs released in one part of the world
can, through a repeated (and often seasonal) process of evaporation,
deposit, evaporation, deposit, be transported through the atmosphere to
regions far away from the original source.
For
more information contact: Michael.williams@unep.ch
World
Climate Change Conference
After
two weeks of intensive negotiations in The Hague, ministers and diplomats
suspended talks on making the Kyoto Protocol operational and strengthening
financial and technical cooperation between developed and developing
countries on climate-friendly policies and technologies. However, the
conference did make progress towards outlining a package of financial
support and technology transfer to help the developing countries,
especially the least developed countries and small island developing
states, contribute to global action on climate change.
Scaling
Issues in Integrated Natural Resource Management (INRM)
Experience
shows that for INRM to work there must be need for it at local level, it
should be integrated with means of enhancing livelihoods, it needs to be
tailored to local afro-ecological, soci-economic and infrastructral
conditions, and account must be taken of the general and site-specific
causes of the problems facing people and the environment. At local level INRM is complex and both temporal and spatial scales
can impinge on the utility and generality of the findings given the
associated socio-economic, institutional and biophysical contexts and
dynamics. A lesson of INRM to
date is that there are no magic, generic solutions and no quick way of
measuring impacts.
This
complexity is reflected in the range of pre-conditions for scaling-up
individual success stories. In
order to achieve meaningful INRM capable of benefiting people and the
environment across large areas within sensible time frames, scaling-up
goes beyond simple ‘extension’ and ‘dissemination’ concepts to
include empowerment and social change through civic education , capacity
building, devolution of control and village government. Some conditions for scaling-up will be common to all INRM, others
will differ substantially, but in some cases the list will be quiet long.
One
precondition for success at scale is that INRM is based on community
projects that are linked to each other and to state structures that
provide coordination, long-term support and planning for downstream
effects. Future research can
play an important role in operationalising the INRM approach, helping to
identify and meet this range of preconditions for scaling-up. For, example, where policy devolution of control has not been
enacted, INRM research can pilot such recommendations with the state,
local authorities, NGOs and communities, thereby making a valuable input
to future policy formulation.
A
weakness of many participatory INRM projects is that there is insufficient
scientific monitoring or independent appraisal of impact. Many projects, from the Sahel to India, may proudly attribute
indicators of improved
management such as “increase in grain yield” or “rise in groundwater
level” to a desired change in social or human capital such as
“enhanced sense of community responsibility” or “improved
traditional techniques of soil and water conservation” but fail to
acknowledge the complexity of INRM or account for important external
factors. As noted by Ravnborg
and Ashby (1996) and Campbell et al (2000), understanding of the scope of
problems and the impact of alternative solutions in INRM is complicated
because of the systematic nature, i.e. the functional relationship that
exists between the different resources (such as land, water and
vegetation), and thus between the management practices employed for each of these resources. Where and how to intervene, in what proportion of the area, how
many users to involve, and with what degree of intensity are all difficult
questions to answer.
INRM
research has an important role in stimulating formulation of local
monitoring skills and monitoring systems as well as in supplying and
helping to interpret information on the state of natural resources. The timely availability of appropriate information about the
interrelationships between different resources is critical for meaningful
participation and decision-making by local organizations, and should be a
primary objective of future research.
Chris
Lovell
Publications
C.Lovell,
A.Mandondo and P.B.Moriaty, “Scaling Issues in Integrated Natural
Resource Management: Conceptual Considerations”, IES Working Paper, 2000
P.B.Moriarty,
“Towards Development of A Decision support System for Water Resource
Development in Semi-Arid Micro-Catchments”, IES Working Paper, 2000
