Local | PANORAMA

Community Conservation Committees

Conservation approaches have evolved from traditional practices (fine and fence) and include now different stakeholders who interact or are interested in natural resources, either as users or managers. To ensure that local communities make their voices heard to park managers, local committees (Community Conservation Committees) were established in the early 1990s to act as bridging actors between communities and protected area managers. Members of Community Conservation Committees (CCC) are elected by villagers from different professional groups: farmers, pastoralists, public workers, civil society, etc. The CCC’s are composed of up to 12 persons, with a Chair who is either elected or a local chief to ensure monitoring and integration of community interventions into local development. The CCC’s main role is not only interacting with protected area managers, but also monitoring development activities implemented by the park. Therefore, they are in charge of selecting beneficiaries and request training in case of need. These committees have been used to manage and solve conflicts at local level and support conservation activities on the ground.

Existing conflict over natural resource, willingness, existence of conservation law and enforcement mechanism, dynamism of local leaders and need of locals to improve their livelihoods can be seen as enabling factors for the establishment of local committees. The willingness of both parties to minimize conflict is seen as a critical factor that allows cooperation

Community awareness and capacity building are key for structuring communities and ensuring involvement of women and local administration.

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Conflict Resolution

Helping community conservation groups to form a federation

Although projects talk about involving communities, there are many levels of community involvement. The highest level encourages communities to take power over their own efforts. In India, communities know how to form their own groups from the Panchayat self-governing system. After many community meetings with the focus on the Manas Biosphere, community groups formed on their own to join the project. When members of the village of Koila Moila decided to join the Golden Langur Conservation Project, there was competition of whether they should join Nature’s Foster an NGO from Bongaigaon or Green Forest Conservation, a CBO from the western area of the Biosphere. Instead, they decided to form their own CBO and became the first CBO to join the project. Once Green Forest Conservation began its partnership with the Bodoland Territorial Council to patrol and protect its western Reserve Forests, other groups began to form within their own regions to participate in protection and to consider the possibility of tourism and other livelihoods. We then organized these CBOs into a federation, the United Forest Conservation Network that met monthly.

You must have strong empowered community groups that are functioning well. These groups should be brought together to discuss common interests.

Federations or networks of community-based organizations are the strongest community conservation institutions and probably the highest level of community participation. They seem to contribute to conservation contagion and perhaps maintain the energy level for it.

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Community Conservation

Natures Foster OfficialPage

Encouraging communities to form conservation groups

Green Forest Conservation force

Forming their own community conservation group builds empowerment, pride, ownership and sustainability. It allows communities to chart their own directions. Participants become empowered by forming groups that set their own agenda. Sustainability results because the groups were formed by the communities themselves for their own reasons. In some countries, like India, creating community groups was known perhaps influenced by the Panchayat village system. In some countries, the catalyzing agent may have to help communities to form their own groups.

Communities must feel that there is something for them in the process. The incentives are usually social or cultural, with perhaps some financial possibilities. If communities have the knowledge in how to form groups, they will form the groups on their own as the Assam communities did. In some countries such as Rwanda following the genocide there seemed to be a strong governmental control that made it difficult for communities to think for themselves.

Helping communities to form their own groups for specific conservation reasons is central for success in affecting conservation action. It is empowering and becomes sustainable because it is in the self-interest of those community members. With federations it provides the highest of community participation. Essentially, these groups replace the community institutions that occurred prior to colonialism.

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Protected Area celebrations

Bodo dancers

Conservation contagion is a type of social contagion that can cause ideas to proceed exponentially instead of linearly. Recognition of and focus on this concept are unique to Community Conservation projects and have not been observed by other conservationists or scientists. Although we cannot predict success in achieving it, contagion seems to respond to large amount of media advertising and bringing people together from different areas allowing messages to expand into other social networks. The Manas celebrations were to help to increase the probability of conservation contagion, to celebrate and raise the awareness, giving a higher focus on the Manas Biosphere Reserve rather that the Manas National Park which was ordinarily focused on, and to give a regional focus on the golden langur and the Manas Biosphere deforestation. These celebrations were to increase the human energy to activism within the region.

You need the help of motivated community members who know how to arrange such events in their own communities. Assam communities already had such leaders with such skills.

While achieving conservation contagion may not be completely predictable, it is possible to maximize the possibility of achieving it through mixing people from different regions and thus generating excitement from jumping social networks. Seeing how conservation contagion had been accidentally attained in Belize, mainly through countrywide advertising and bringing communities together from different parts of the country, allowed me to attempt to create a similar situation in western Assam. Instead of focusing on a small area, the project initially focused on the complete Indian range of the golden langur bringing together five existing NGOs and CBOs to work together to protect the endemic golden langur within its entire Indian range. The huge crowds that occurred, I believe stemmed from our original transparent, trusting relationships with communities who felt pride and ownership in the project.

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Seminars for community and NGO members and government staff

Kachugaon workshop

Building on the success of the community response to community meetings we began to hold multi-stakeholder meetings and seminars to make the general community aware of the problems of deforestation and the plight of the golden langur, to bring government, NGO and community stakeholders together. This served to integrate the communities as equal partners in conservation and to highlight the deforestation and golden langurs within the regional community. These meetings were often written about in local newspapers highlighting the golden langur as an Assam animal. They also gave more credence to the project and focused on the strongest conservation solution, when governments, NGOs and communities work together. In retrospect it also gave a focus for the new Bodoland Territorial Council members who, at these meetings quickly made the transition from militants to tribal government representatives.

There must be interest on the part of government and NGOs to participate and they must be willing and capable of meeting and interacting with community members on an equal basis.

These efforts built on the community meetings to bring the stakeholders together on common ground. They also played a large part in generating conservation contagion.

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Community Conservation

Nature's Foster Official Page

Motivations of the community forest protection forces of the Manas Biosphere Re…

Community meetings for species awareness and ask for help

Community meeting

Community meetings make the community aware of their special flora and fauna like the golden langur as a flagship species, the problem it is facing and that the government and NGOs cannot solve the problem without the help of the communities. We may also stress that these forest are their forests. We ask for the help of the communities which is the first step of empowerment because the communities generally perceive us NGO members as more powerful than themselves. This also establishes the beginning of a trusting relationship toward forming a conservation partnership of equals. Future meetings then involve the communities in direct conservation actions such as starting tree nurseries and tree planting or patrolling. We may also have additional workshops for livelihoods. Community groups may form on their own or we can encourage them through workshops. As such meetings and workshops continue, trust between the NGOs and communities build and with the formation of community-based organizations (CBOs) ownership or feelings of ownership of the project and the lands develops.

If possible, there is a need for someone in the community to mobilize community members to come to the meetings. Transparency and trust in the actions between the community and catalyzing NGO is very important. They must feel they are equal partners and are needed in the project. Grant money should be minimal and not stressed. It should only be used to provide needed assistance to the community goals. Too much money creates an atmosphere of a “hands out” mentality. A lack of financial incentives allows altruistic and conservation motivations to emerge and blossom.

There are a large proportion of positive people and potential conservationists in every village. Although villagers may be poor and uneducated, those are not their most important characteristics. If they are treated as conservationists they will act as conservationists. In 30 years of asking villagers for their help, they have never refused to enthusiastically help me. In contrast, the behavior of NGOs and governments has been mixed. Empowered community groups are the strongest, most consistent conservationists.

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Computational Sustainability

Computational Sustainability is an interdisciplinary tool that integrates techniques from computer science, information science, operations research, applied mathematics, and statistics to serve the purpose of balancing environmental, economic, and societal needs for sustainable development. This tool applies a cradle to cradle approach to production chains and products, by extending the system to the assessment of the whole ship life cycle (construction, shipping, dismantling), and allowing a substantial reduction of the environmental and energy footprint for a particular company by taking into account its financial cost, energy and environmental impact. Computational sustainability allows the company to break down every stage of the production process - the entire life cycle of a product up to the recycling - and evaluates the sustainability elements at each stage by measuring the cost benefit indicators including: - Support yacht designers with mathematical modelling to define, compare and assess alternative solutions along all steps of the yacht design and production - Assess material accounting and a number of environmental indicators along the process

Willingness of companies to recondition their core business to embrace energy and resource efficiency
Favouring economic and technological models that allow optimization of industrial processes, while at the same time reducing environmental impact
Adoption of a multidisciplinary and holistic approach and implementation of a cradle to cradle perspective embracing the whole ship life cycle (construction, shipping, dismantling)

Support yacht designers to define, compare and assess alternative solutions and yacht concepts, guide them along all steps of the yacht design proposing alternatives and assess material and activities accounting and a number of environmental indicators along the process. Develop mathematical modelling that provides a scientific support for measuring, defining and comparing alternative processes and use matrix models linking activities with environmental impacts and matrix models linking activities with costs/economic benefits. Along the process the model has also to account for energy consumption, water consumption, CO2 emissions, and raw material used

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Computational Sustainability

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Co-management agreements

The co-management agreements were drafted in facilitated village meetings with the help of a neutral facilitator by the first 9 villages that were setting-up village co-management committees. Based on the first participatory draft agreements the local authorities decided do generate one uniform co-management agreement in the form of a district by-law. As differences between the 9 proposed agreements were small, a compromise was found during a workshop held in July 2014 and chaired by the vice-district governor. The proposed consensus document coming out of this meeting was also presented to the 10 villages that created their village co-management committees later in 2014. Furthermore, upon request by the local authorities the document went through several meetings and due diligence processes involving legal government offices before it was officially approved by the District Governor. The final version was disseminated to all 19 villages and also over the border in Vietnam to the protected area authorities and rangers of Phong Nha-Ke Bang National park.

Agreements formulated in a participatory process with incentives for local stakeholders to participate, based on customary rights. Process considered to be fair as it was an open discussion in a public meeting Due diligence process by district governor to see if this is what the people want (100% confirmed) Due diligence process by district governor: documents were legally verified by relevant departments Official delegation for endorsement to District Governor by national + provincial level Official endorsement of legal district by-law by district governor.

Implementation of law enforcement without endorsed agreements gave problems as the village rangers felt insecure/not safe in doing the job. Now the fines for poachers have been agreed upon via co-management agreements developed in a participatory manner. Due diligence process by district governor was lengthy but important as there is now clear leadership and ownership from the local authority and clear encouragement for local villagers to implement. As the protected area is located in only one district, the process went relatively fast as it is easier to approve a district by-law compared to higher level agreements/by-laws. Initial governance baseline assessment was important in giving direction on how to develop the agreements.

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Co-management agreements - Governance baseline assessment

Setting up a vertically coordinated management structure

The management structure of the Hin Nam No PA and its six technical units was set-up in 2013 with the help of the National University of Laos. Draft Terms of Reference were developed for each unit and tasks to be delegated to villagers were identified. After a piloting phase, it will be important to officially approve the structure. At village level, villagers formed democratically elected village co-management committees (VCMC) and village cluster co-management committees (VCCMC), who are mandated officially to protect and manage natural resources via official agreements. At district level, a district co-management committee (DCMC) brings together government authorities and stakeholders mainly from district level as well as members from village cluster level. Bottom-up, villages report to village cluster level, which thereon report to higher level. Top-down, strategic decisions made at higher levels take the inputs of village levels into account and measurements to be implemented are communicated back to the operational levels. This process ensures that all stakeholders are able to articulate their needs and participate in decision-making.

Existing governance baseline assessment Separation of management structure (day-to-day) and governance structure (steering; overview); Endorsement of co-management committees by district governor (leadership) Use of National University of Laos and neutral facilitator in setting up the structure.

Hin Nam No management divided tasks between a general management and six technical units which has increased management effectiveness. District officers do their own activity planning, reporting and are responsible for all financial transactions, and not the project advisers. This has increased ownership of the PA authority. Importance to democratically elect co-management committees at lower levels based on selection criteria. Important that the institutional set-up is officially recognized (legitimacy) by the local authority. Leadership to set-up institutional design from PA authority with help of a strong neutral facilitator. Upon recommendation of national and provincial level, the leadership function is officially delegated to district. Balance between the need to involve people who are doing the work in the forest (rangers) and the need to involve people who can validate decisions (village heads).

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Governance assessment through participatory consultation

A governance baseline assessment was implemented in February 2014 at village, village cluster, district and provincial level to collect data on the governance and management of the Hin Nam No NA so far. This participatory exercise gave a platform to voice disappointment and problems and it gave ideas on the direction and strategic vision of the Hin Nam No PA by bringing various stakeholders together. The governance baseline assessment also included an exercise of measuring management effectiveness and good governance based on a self-assessment method developed by the ASEAN Centre for Biodiversity (Mardiastuti et al. 2013) and a questionnaire developed by the Hin Nam No project and based on annex 3 of the IUCN publication “Governance of Protected Areas” (Borrini-Feyerabend et al. 2013).

Face-to-face dialogue. Creation of common understanding and trust building in meetings between state and non-state stakeholders. Solid, transparent and well-documented process, which cannot be ignored by local authorities as high number of people and stakeholders involved. Facilitation by neutral facilitator bringing the parties together. Strong leadership by decision makers at national; provincial and district level.

The methods used for measuring management effectiveness and good governance are relatively easy and cost-effective and therefore suitable for annual repetition. The methodology fits well in the Lao context. Discussions around each indicator question are as valid as the final monitoring result. The methodology of yearly self-assessments in various groups is an easy way of social monitoring in which qualitative indicators can be quantified and compared over time. The tools are suitable for further action planning by identifying first of all the areas in which an improvement can be relatively easily obtained. The limited resources are mainly allocated to these areas instead of focusing on areas in which the protected area has limited potential for change. The results can also be easily presented to outside stakeholders to try to improve on areas that are beyond the influence of the park management.

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Report on governance assessment HNN-2-14 (no.531)