Adapting Institutions: Governance, Complexity and Social-Ecological Resilience

Adapting Institutions Governance, Complexity and Social–Ecological Resilience What can we learn about the governance of...

Author: Emily Boyd | Carl Folke (editors)

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Adapting Institutions Governance, Complexity and Social–Ecological Resilience What can we learn about the governance of uncertainty and change? How can we adapt and even transform existing institutions towards social–ecological resilience? â•… While theories about governance continue to evolve, the context of global environmental change poses unique challenges to the management of networked ecosystems, cities, organisations and institutions. Written by an international team of experts, this book provides cutting-edge insights into adapting institutions for building resilience and adaptive governance of complex social–ecological systems. Through a set of case studies, it focuses on the social science dimension of ecosystem management in the context of global change in a move to bridge existing gaps between resilience, sustainability and social science. â•… Using empirical examples ranging from local to global levels, it integrates a variety of disciplines including political science, anthropology, resilience science and adaptation, and will provide an important resource for scholars, policy-makers and students. E m i l y B o y d is a Reader in environmental change and human communities in the department of Geography and Environmental Science and Director of the Human Environments research group at the University of Reading. She is also a Research Associate at the Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University. Her current research and teaching focuses on climate change and development, environmental governance, resilience and human communites. C a r l F o l k e is Director of the Beijer Institute, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and Science Director of the Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University, and is among the founders of the Resilience Alliance. His research emphasises the role that living systems at different scales play in social and economic development, and how to govern and manage for resilience in interdependent social–ecological systems.

Adapting Institutions Governance, Complexity and Social–Ecological Resilience Edited by

emily boyd Department of Geography and Environmental Science, University of Reading, UK and Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University, Sweden carl folke Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University, Sweden, The Beijer Institute of Ecological Economics, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Stockholm, Sweden

ï»¿ cambridge university press

Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo, Delhi, Tokyo, Mexico City Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521897501 © Cambridge University Press 2012 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2012 Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data Adapting institutions : governance, complexity, and social–ecological resilience / [edited by] Emily Boyd, Carl Folke. p.â•… cm. Includes bibliographical references and index ISBN 978-0-521-89750-1 1.â•‡ Environmental management–Social aspects.â•… 2.â•‡ Ecosystem management–Social aspects.â•… 3.â•‡ Sustainable development–Environmental aspects.â•… 4.â•‡ Environmental policy.â•… 5.â•‡ Globalization–Environmental aspects.â•… 6.â•‡ Global governance.â•… I.â•‡ Boyd, Emily.â•… II.â•‡ Folke, Carl. GE300.A33 2011â•…â•…â•… 333.7--dc23 2011026295 ISBN 978-0-521-89750-1 Hardback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

To our children

Contents

List of illustrations List of contributors Foreword by Elinor Ostrom Acknowledgements List of acronyms and abbreviations

1

Adapting institutions, adaptive governance and complexity: an introduction

page ix xii xvii xix xx

1

emily boyd and carl folke

Part I Adapting local institutions, networks, leadership and learning 2

Knowledge, social networks and leadership: setting the stage for the development of adaptive institutions?

9

11

beatrice crona and örjan bodin

3

Adaptive capacity of local indigenous institutions: the case of the taboo forests of southern Madagascar

37

maria tengö and jacob von heland

4

Adapting to change: tracing farmers’ responses to disturbances in irrigation systems in Nepal

75

ingela ternström

5

Creating incentives for increased public engagement in ecosystem management through urban commons

101

johan colding

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Contents

â•‡ 6

Part II Adapting and governing public institutions for uncertainty and complexity

125

Adaptive capacity and the ecostate

127

andreas duit

â•‡ 7

Food systems and adaptive governance: food crisis in Niger

148

sirkku juhola

â•‡ 8

9

Public–private partnerships in the provision of environmental governance: a case of disaster management emma l. tompkins and lisa-ann hurlston

171

Part III Adapting multi-level institutions to environmental crisis

191

Double complexity: information technology and reconfigurations in adaptive governance

193

victor galaz

10

Adaptive governance and natural hazards: the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami and the governance of coastal ecosystems in Sri Lanka

216

alison ashlin

11

Adapting to global climate change: evaluating resilience in two networked public institutions

240

emily boyd

12

Conclusions: adapting institutions and resilience

264

emily boyd and carl folke

Index

281

Illustrations

figures

â•‡ 2.1 Map of the coastal seascape in focus pageâ•‡ 13 â•‡ 2.2 Multidimensional scaling plot showing the social network structure of relations among groups based on predefined occupational categories 20 â•‡ 2.3 Relative difference in local ecological knowledge among different occupational groups operating in the target 23 community â•‡ 2.4 Degree centrality for the combined networks of knowledge exchange and sharing of fishing gear 28 â•‡ 3.1 Androy, southern Madagascar. Taboo forest patches clearly visible on LandSat image 43 â•‡ 3.2 Classification of forest cover change between 1986 and 2000 45 â•‡ 4.1 Floods and landslides flowchart 81 â•‡ 4.2 New users flowchart 84 â•‡ 4.3 Offer of external support flowchart 88 â•‡ 4.4 Implementation of external support flowchart 91 â•‡ 5.1 The proportion of people living in one- and two-dwelling buildings decreases successively with population density 105 â•‡ 6.1 The emerging ecostate 136 â•‡ 6.2 Policy diversity in 24 countries 140 â•‡ 7.1 Ranking of Niger in the UNDP Human Development Index 155 â•‡ 8.1 Formal government hurricane preparedness and response strategy 179 10.1 The decrease in mangrove forest area in Sri Lanka 223 between 1980 and 2008 ix

x

List of illustrations

10.2 The distribution of funds for coastal environmental initiatives 10.3 A flowchart mapping the different pathways used to fund, facilitate and implement coastal ecosystem initiatives in Sri Lanka before the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami 10.4 A flowchart mapping the different pathways used to fund, facilitate and implement coastal ecosystem initiatives in Sri Lanka after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami 10.5 A comparison of the mechanisms employed for implementing coastal ecosystem initiatives in pre-tsunami and post-tsunami Sri Lanka

225

226

227

228

tables

â•‡ 2.1 Sociomatrix based on occupational groups â•‡ 2.2 Summary of local ecological knowledge (LEK) of different occupational groups â•‡ 3.1 Summary of sources of adaptive capacity in the taboo forest governance system â•‡ 4.1 Disturbances and actions â•‡ 4.2 Sources and effects of disturbances â•‡ 5.1 Bundles of property rights associated with positions â•‡ 5.2 Ecosystem services provided by community gardens and allotment areas â•‡ 7.1 Projections of food and hunger indicators by region â•‡ 7.2 Adaptive governance principles in relation to the Niger crisis of 2004–05 â•‡ 9.1 Adaptive reconfigurations in high-reliability organisations (HROs) â•‡ 9.2 Simplified adaptive reconfigurations in emerging infective disease (EID) governance 10.1 Environmental legislation and regulation from 1885 to 2003, as applicable to coastal ecosystems in Sri Lanka 11.1 Features of ecological, social–ecological and institutional resilience 11.2 Syntheses of potential resilience criteria and indicators for evaluating adapting institutions

19 21 64 93 98 105 117 151 165 201 210

222 245 247

List of illustrations boxes

5.1 7.1 8.1

Ecological values of allotment areas Relevant institutions and early warning systems in the Sahel Section 4 of the Emergency Powers Law (1997)

118 157 180

xi

Contributors

Alison Ashlin has a doctorate from the Oxford University Centre for the Environment, Oxford, UK. To date her research has concentrated on the opportunities for socio-ecological change after a natural disaster. Her doctoral thesis specifically focused on the impact of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami on the management of coastal ecosystems in Sri Lanka. Before studying for her doctorate Alison worked in the communications sector, and as a result she is also interested in discourse and the media representation of science. Örjan Bodin is an Associate Professor at the Stockholm Resilience Centre and at the Department of Systems Ecology at Stockholm University, Sweden. His current research focuses on aspects of information and knowledge sharing in collaborative governance of ecosystems, and in studying ecological consequences of habitat fragmentation. He is particularly interested in using network analysis to study various aspects of ecosystems governance. Emily Boyd is a Reader in environmental change and human communities in the department of Geography and Environmental Science and Director of the Human Environments research group at the University of Reading. She is also a research associate at the Stockholm Resilience Centre. Previous positions have included deputy director of the Leeds University Centre for Global Development in the School of Politics and International Studies, research leader at the Stockholm Resilience Centre and Leverhulme/James Martin 21st Century Research Fellow at the University of Oxford. Her current research and teaching focuses on climate change and international development, environmental governance, resilience and human communities.

xii

List of contributors

Johan Colding is Assistant Professor at the Beijer Institute of Ecological Economics, Stockholm, and theme leader for urban research at the Stockholm Resilience Centre. His research covers both basic and applied ecological problems, with an emphasis on building resilience in urban social–ecological systems. His areas of expertise include governance of social–ecological systems, institutions and property rights, resilience science, ecological economics, biodiversity conservation, land-use planning and landscape design, land and water resources, and landscape analysis. Beatrice Crona is an Assistant Professor at the Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University, and an affiliated research fellow at the School of Development Studies, University of East Anglia, UK. Her work is structured around three themes: learning and knowledge systems in natural resources governance, social networks in natural resource governance, and social–ecological feedbacks and traps, with a particular focus on small-scale fisheries. Much of her work has been in East Africa, but current research is expanding in the Baltic region and in the semiarid southwest of the United States. Her publication record ranges from ecological studies to work on science-policy interactions and social networks of communication, linked to natural resource management. Andreas Duit works in the field of comparative environmental Â�politics, with special focus on governance and complexity, institutional theory and the role of the state in addressing environmental problems. He is an associate professor at the Department of Political Science and a research fellow at the Stockholm Resilience Center, both at Stockholm University. Carl Folke is Director of the Beijer Institute, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and Science Director of the Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University and is among the founders of the Resilience Alliance. His research emphasises the role that living systems at different scales play in social and economic development, and how to govern and manage for resilience in interdependent social–ecological systems and has written extensively on those issues. He is editor-in-chief of Ecology and Society and an elected member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and serves as advisor to research institutes, policy processes and the Swedish government. He received the 1995 Pew Scholar Award in Conservation and the Environment, and in 2004 he was awarded the Sustainability Science Award of the Ecological Society of America.

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List of contributors

Victor Galaz is a researcher and research theme leader at the Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University. His current research and teaching focuses on adaptive governance and global governance of complex environmental risks such as pandemics and planetary boundaries. He has published extensively on institutional dimensions of resilience. Lisa-Ann Hurlston is the Manager of the Sustainable Development Unit at the Cayman Islands Government Department of Environment. As co-chair of the National Climate Change Committee, she was instrumental in formulating an adaptation policy for the Cayman Islands. She advises on adaptation and mitigation issues relevant to UK Overseas Territories in international climate negotiations. Her continuing efforts include integrating climate-change impacts into local environmental assessment processes and advising public and private sectors in practical applications of adaptation and mitigation measures. She has published papers on adaptation to climate change in the Cayman Islands and an adaptation guidebook for small islands. Sirkku Juhola is a researcher at the Centre for Urban and Regional Studies, Aalto University, Finland. Her current research focuses on governance of climate change in both developed and developing countries, with particular emphasis on cross-scale interaction. Sirkku is also the Deputy Chief Scientist of the Nordic Centre of Excellence for Strategic Adaptation Research (NORD-STAR), which is funded by the Norden Top-level Research Initiative sub-programme ‘Effect Studies and Adaptation to Climate Change’. Maria Tengö is a researcher at the Stockholm Resilience Centre. Her work concerns how people organise themselves and interact with ecosystems at different scales to navigate change in the social–ecological system. She is interested in human-dominated systems, with a focus on agriculture, and her research is based on field work in Tanzania, Madagascar, Sweden and Canada. Ingela Ternström is an independent consultant working on aid, environment and development issues. She has a doctorate in economics and was previously a researcher at the Beijer Institute. Her research focuses on natural resource management, especially common-pool resource management, and how resource users react and adapt to various disturbances such as natural disasters, migration, economic development and HIV/AIDS.

List of contributors

Emma L. Tompkins is a Reader in environment and development at the University of Southampton. She is a lead author for the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report and a subject editor for Ecology and Society, and she sits on the Advisory Board of the UK Climate Impacts Programme. She has recently been on secondment to the UK Department for International Development, providing advice on climate-change adaptation in developing countries. Her research and teaching focuses on risk, decision-making, resilience, climate-change adaptation, small islands and coastal areas. Jacob von Heland is with the Natural Resource Management Group, Department of Systems Ecology, and the Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University. He works with livelihood issues in southern Madagascar, exploring the relations between ecological anthropology and social–ecological systems. He has also followed the discourse formation and formalisation in the drafting of the Madrid Action Plan aimed to guide UNESCO’s Man and the Biosphere programme.

xv

Foreword elinor ostrom

Emily Boyd and Carl Folke have brought together an important set of studies of adaptive institutions, covering diverse scales from local to global. While many of the cases analysed are local and give the reader rich theoretical and empirical overviews of the multiple challenges faced by small- to medium-sized populations in Madagascar, Nepal and urban areas around the world, the book also reaches up to include studies of the Indian Ocean tsunami and global climate change. A potential reader might wonder about the substantial range of empirical studies in the book and ask, why should I read about all these different problems when I specialise in problem X in region Y? The answer is that Boyd and Folke introduce a core puzzle facing all of us in today’s world: How can we analyse our current institutions that have developed over time to cope with a particular set of problems and address how likely they are to cope effectively with changes in the complex social and ecological worlds around us? This is one of the fundamental questions of our times! We must stop being complacent about humanly designed systems that have worked relatively well for solving X, Y and Z problems in settings A, B and C. We must recognise that all social–ecological systems face new challenges over time, and understand how and why some are adaptive and survive substantial threats of diverse origins, and others do not continue to generate positive outcomes and collapse. Static analysis is useful when one wants to know how a particular social–ecological system operates. And it may take substantial effort just to understand how a complex system operates in an unchanging world. Static analysis of particular types of systems is the first requirement, and a tough one, when dealing with complex systems. But without serious efforts to identify changes that can occur within the system itself (a part wears out in a mechanical system, or a political leader or party xvii

xviii

Foreword

exhausts the relevance of an agenda to solve maturing problems), and in the environment in which the system operates, static analysis is the first step but is not sufficient for gaining effective systems knowledge in an ever-changing world. In one volume, Boyd and Folke have brought together resilience thinking (which initially related to ecological systems operating over time), the analysis of changing social–ecological systems, the problems of fit and the need to understand adaptive governance of resilient systems. As they state, ‘Resilience is the ability to reorganise following crisis, continuing to learn, evolving with the same identity and function, and also innovating and sowing the seeds for transformation’ (Chapter 12). Their cases are all written by knowledgeable scholars and focus on how diverse systems coped with gradual or abrupt changes and how institutions did or did not adapt to these changes over time. Each chapter is worth serious reading and reflection. This is not a book to be read rapidly in a few evenings for casual recreational enjoyment. I did enjoy reading the chapters of this book, but each requires one to think hard about what one can learn about change in complex systems before one moves on to a different problem and region of the world. Thinking about the chapters is more important than just reading them! One of the most important lessons to be learned from this book is that contemporary scholars should not reject the analysis of complex systems on the incorrect notion that good science is a method for simplifying systems, and thus efforts to represent complexity analytically are not scientific. I will assert that the widespread presumption among many social scientists, that one cannot do good scientific work unless one reduces all systems to the simple interplay of a few variables, is a dangerous approach. Oversimplification reduces our resilience in coping with changes in our complex world. One should not make the analysis of any system more complex than needed for understanding how and why it works (or does not work). Assertions that ‘my case is unique’, however, are not scientific and reduce our capabilities for discovering ways of analysing and adapting systems to improve them over time. Boyd and Folke do derive a number of important lessons from the empirical studies in the last chapter of this book. For doubters, I recommend reading the last chapter first and then several times again alongside the excellent empirical chapters. This strategy will enable the reader to gain maximum understanding while thinking about a fascinating array of individual studies.

Acknowledgements

This book would not have been possible without the inspiration and help of a handful of people, in particular colleagues at the Stockholm Resilience Centre and at the Environmental Change Institute, Oxford University, who have shared their ideas and insights throughout the writing of this book. We are thankful to Formas, the Kjell and Märta Beijer Foundation, the Leverhulme Trust and the James Martin 21st Century School at Oxford University, who provided support for the work. The research has also been supported by the Foundation for Strategic Environmental Research, Mistra, through a core grant to the Stockholm Resilience Centre. Special thanks are extended to Â�chapter reviewers, especially Stephan Barthel, Henrik Ernston, Thomas Hahn, Bo Kjellén, Annette Löf, Nicholas Moss, Henny Osbahr, Andy Stirling, Maria Tengö, Frank Thomalla and Richard Walters. For their patience we thank the Cambridge University Press editorial and production team, in particular Lynette Talbot. Thanks are extended to Jerker Lokrantz for the illustrations and figures, Fredrik Moberg for the cover and Ann Grand for her improvements on the manuscript. The real thanks, however, go to the chapter authors, for contributing their time and effort to advance our understanding of adapting institutions and the human dimensions of global environmental change.

xix

Acronyms and abbreviations

AGRHYMET ALNAP BBC CBO CCD CDC CDM CID CIFS CILSS CIRC CPR CRED CZMP DEFRA DERT DFID DNPGCA EAC ECDC ECLAC EGR xx

Agricultural, Hydrological and Meteorological programme Active Learning Network for Accountability and Performance in Humanitarian Action British Broadcasting Corporation Community-based organisation Coast Conservation Department (Sri Lanka) Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (USA) Clean Development Mechanism (Kyoto Protocol) Common-interest development Cayman Islands Fire Services The Permanent Interstate Committee for Drought Control (Sahel) Cayman Islands Red Cross Common-pool resource Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters Coastal Zone Management Plan (Sri Lanka) Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (UK) District Emergency Response Team Department for International Development (UK) Food Crisis Prevention and Mitigation Mechanism (Niger) Environmental Audit Committee European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean Environmental governance regime

List of acronyms and abbreviations

EID EOC ERS EU EWS FAO FCO FCPNS FEWSNET GEC GECAFS GIEWS GIS GOARN GPHIN HDI HRO ICT IDS IFPRI IGO IMO INGO IPCC IUCN LEK LoGB MA MAP MDGs MFF MGO MLA MSF NAREP NEAP NGO

Emerging infectious disease Emergency operations centre Essential relief services European Union Early warning system Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Foreign and Commonwealth Office (UK) Food Crisis Prevention Network of the Sahel Famine Early Warning System Network funded by USAID Global environmental change Global Environmental Change and Food Systems Global Information and Early Warning System Geographical information systems Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network Global Public Health Intelligence Network Human Development Index High-reliability organisation Information and communications technology Institute for Development Studies (University of Sussex, UK) International Food Policy Research Institute Intergovernmental organisation International membership organisation International non-governmental organisation Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change International Union for the Conservation of Nature Local ecological knowledge Leader of government business Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Mangrove Action Project Millennium Development Goals Mangroves For the Future (Sri Lanka) Metropolitan gardening organisation Member of the Legislative Assembly (Cayman Islands) Médecins Sans Frontières Natural Resources and Environment Policy (Sri Lanka) National Environmental Action Plan Non-governmental organisation

xxi

xxii

List of acronyms and abbreviations

NHC OCHA OECD OFDA OIE PPP RCIP SAM SARS SES SIEC SWAC TAFREN UNDP UNEP UNFCCC UNICEF USAID WFP WHO WWF

National Hurricane Committee (Cayman Islands) United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance World Organisation for Animal Health Public–private partnership Royal Cayman Islands Police Special Area Management (Sri Lanka) Severe acute respiratory syndrome Social–ecological system Sister Islands Emergency Committee (Cayman Islands) Sahel and West Africa Club Task Force for Rebuilding the Nation (Sri Lanka) United Nations Development Programme United Nations Environment Programme United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change United Nations Children’s Fund United States Agency for International Development United Nations World Food Programme World Health Organization World Wide Fund for Nature

1 Adapting institutions, adaptive governance and complexity: an introduction emily boyd and carl folke

People shape the planet and at the same time depend on its functioning. Global environmental change is currently occurring at a rate faster than humans have ever experienced and may result in potentially devastating consequences at the planetary scale (Rockström etÂ€al. 2009). The well-being of people on the planet faces two dominant global environmental crises: climate change and the loss of the world’s ecosystem services. Following the collapse of the financial markets in 2008 the global community also faces turbulent times in terms of economic development. These crises are complex and all are interlinked (Young etÂ€al. 2006, Walker etÂ€al. 2009a). Human actions are having serious consequences on the earth’s climate system and on the capacity of landscapes and seascapes to generate important ecosystem services upon which societal development rests (Daily 1997). We take guidance from those who argue that economic systems are not separate from ecological systems (e.g. Jansson etÂ€ al. 1994). We draw on the understanding that all of the materiality of societies is inherently based on the availability of renewable resources and the capacity of the biosphere to generate and sustain those. The environment is not just an externality, but our societies are part of the biosphere, ultimately dependent on its functioning and at the same time shaping it. Such interdependence of social and ecological Â�systems has been illustrated in many ways, from community-based and multi-level resource management (e.g. Berkes etÂ€al. 2003) to political shocks triggering shifts towards ecosystem stewardship (e.g. Adapting Institutions: Governance, Complexity and Social–Ecological Resilience, ed. Emily Boyd and Carl Folke. Published by Cambridge University Press. © Cambridge University Press 2012.

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Emily Boyd and Carl Folke

Gelcich etÂ€al. 2010). We acknowledge that markets cannot be decoupled from social–ecological systems, and in fact these are deeply nested concepts (Harvey 2006). New approaches across the social and natural sciences are needed to further our understanding of how to govern the rapid and unpredictable change that characterises these crises, from local to global. Insights are required that are based on empirical observations of the features of the institutional responses to sudden and slow-onset shock at local, national, regional and global levels. In particular, there is a need for better understanding of the specific and general resilience of systems to cope with sudden change and the ways that people’s leadership and expectations are negotiated around uncertainty, abrupt change and shifts from one state or trajectory to another. Some societies show resilience in the face of shock and surprise: they adjust, reorganise and develop without significant impairment of their function. Others suffer and have difficulties in coping with change, and may shift into or deepen a pathway of unsustainable development. Resilience can be seen in the ways that communities respond to a crisis and progress their pathways of development (Chapin etÂ€ al. 2010, Folke etÂ€al. 2010). Societies can increase their resilience by developing mechanisms and institutions that enable them to remember past events, put early warning systems in place, create buffers against the impacts of change and learn how to better prepare for future events. Having resilience allows for novelty and innovation, often triggered by a shock or a sudden change. These events may open up new options for taking on new directions, for learning and adapting, and for transitions and transformations towards new paths of development. Resilient social– ecological systems have the ability to turn crisis into opportunity for a prosperous future, but they may not mobilise it (Gunderson and Holling 2002, Folke 2006). Planetary resilience is paramount to the world’s ability to cope with the multiple changes that are taking place at both global and local levels. Planetary Stewardship and Global Sustainability are emerging concepts in this context (e.g. Power and Chapin 2009, Reid etÂ€al. 2010). As yet, we have little idea of how people will cope with environmental change in the long term, but we can look back and consider what changes have happened in response to loss of ecosystem services and what adjustments have been made as a result of the small (0.75â•›°C) global temperature rise. As the planet faces increasing pressures, evidence suggests that there are adaptations occurring in practice

Adapting institutions, adaptive governance and complexity

(Osbahr etÂ€ al. 2008, Tompkins etÂ€ al. 2010). Furthermore, institutions in developed and developing countriesÂ€– public, private and community/voluntary organisationsÂ€– are building adaptive capacity (Adger etÂ€al. 2009, Armitage and Plummer 2010, Boyd and Osbahr 2010, Boyd etÂ€al. 2011, Pelling 2011). There are also important insights emerging about lock-in, shifts and transformations in Â�social–ecological systems (Olsson etÂ€al. 2006, Biggs etÂ€al. 2009, Walker etÂ€al. 2009b, Gelcich etÂ€al. 2010). It is in this context that we approach adapting institutions, adaptive governance and complexity. We view the world from a complexity angle, where people and nature are truly intertwined and interdependent (hence social–ecological systems); where linear relations and stable conditions do exist but are partial in time and space and do not properly capture the dynamics of complex systems; where periods of gradual change and abrupt change dynamically interact across levels and scales and influence resilience, adaptability and transformability of social–ecological systems. Institutions are about the ‘rules of the game’ that arise from formal and informal norms and rules, and organisational structures, and adaptation is about actors and agency, networks and governance. Adapting institutions, as we define it for the purpose of this book, concerns the capacity of people, from local groups and private actors, to the state, to international organisations, to deal with complexity, uncertainty and the interplay between gradual and rapid change. Some of the responses may be about coping with complexity and change in the short term; others may be about adaptability in a general sense or even maladaptive responses from a longer-term sustainability perspective (e.g. Cinner etÂ€al. 2010). We are interested in exploring and understanding social–ecological features involved in adaptations that may help societies move towards global sustainability. In particular, this book is about the challenge of how to match the social with the ecological to improve stewardship of natural resources and ecosystem services for human well-being and sustainabilityÂ€– referred to as the problem of fit (Folke etÂ€al. 1998, Young 2002, Galaz etÂ€ al. 2008). Still, most research looks either at the ecological, treating people as external to the ecosystem, or at the social, largely disconnected from ecosystem feedbacks. The social dimensions that provide bridges or create barriers to ecosystem stewardship need to be further explored (Gunderson etÂ€ al. 1995), including the interplay between institutions at multiple levels and scales affecting the dynamics of cross-scale and cross-level interactions (Cash etÂ€al. 2006). In a situation of converging trends of global interconnectedness and increasing

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pressure on social–ecological systems, a resilience approach to governance issues enables a more refined understanding of the dynamics of rapid, interlinked and multi-scale change (Duit etÂ€al. 2010) The analytical framework of adaptive governance of social–Â� ecological systems is an extension of the challenges posed by the problem of fit, recognising the need for flexibility in the governance structure to allow for ecosystem-based management and stewardship of dynamic landscapes and seascapes (Dietz etÂ€ al. 2003, Folke etÂ€ al. 2005, Ostrom 2009). Adaptive governance is a useful concept to understand how agents and institutions respond to crisis in new ways or are constrained by resistance to change, and how these responses and constraints interact across levels and scales (e.g. Boyd 2008, Termeer etÂ€al. 2010). This book aims to examine the complexity of adapting institutions and governance and how it relates to the problem of fit in a globalised world. Institutions in this context relate to the flexibility of adapting norms and rules in the short term, and to long-term challenges of deep legacies and belief systems as barriers and bridges for adaptation. We look in particular at adapting institutions and sources of social–ecological resilience such as the networks, partnership and leadership that are taking shape as a result of changes in temperature and in ecosystem services. We ask, what can we learn about adapting institutions and governance in relation to rapid change and uncertainty, and what are the enabling conditions for adapting or transforming? The book looks at the features of change, such as shocks and surprises, to assess what adaptations have emerged at local, state and global levels. What is unique about this book is the focus on adapting institutions and governance across multiple levels in relation to ‘adaptiveness’ of social–ecological systems, and the move in ideas towards the need for transformations, or new pathways of development, to make a prosperous future for humanity possible. In particular, this book focuses on the social science dimension of social–ecological resilience in an effort to bridge gaps between resilience thinking and the practice of resilience in terms of management and governance. This book brings together resilience thinking and research on governance, complexity and adaptation. Through carefully selected case studies we examine different contexts of challenges for social– ecological systems in transition, actor and network functions, and how politics is shaping complex interrelationships between adapting institutions, adaptive capacity and governance of social–ecological systems. Through the book, we provide examples where there is evidence

Adapting institutions, adaptive governance and complexity

of some form of change and adaptive responses, slow or rapid, occurring across governance scales. The book is divided into three parts. The first part, Adapting local institutions, networks, leadership and learning, consists of four place-based chapters. The first, by Beatrice Crona and Örjan Bodin, analyses adaptive institutions in a coastal fishing community in southern Kenya, focusing on the role and interaction of knowledge, social networks and leadership in dealing with a fluctuating local environment. The next chapter, by Maria Tengö and Jacob von Heland, takes us into deep norms, values and culture on the island of Madagascar, capturing the essential role of belief systems and religion in adapting institutions. In particular, the authors focus on how a forest taboo institution that sustains ecosystem services is adapting in the face of human migration due to erratic rainfall and the spread of Christianity. In the next chapter Ingela Ternström, focusing on irrigation systems in Nepal, captures diverse social responses, essential in institutional persistence, and the role of leadership among farmers in the face of diverse and sometimes unexpected disturbances. The last chapter in this part, by Johan Colding, draws on examples from urban systems and green areas worldwide to suggest how to build new adapting institutions for social–ecological resilience through public engagement in urban commons. The second part, Adapting and governing public institutions for uncertainty and complexity, starts with a chapter by Andreas Duit on adaptive capacity and the ecostate. The chapter uses cross-national data to consider how the adaptive capacity of states can be conceptualised and measured, and introduces the notion of the ecostate and the environmental governance regime. The next chapter, by Sirkku Juhola, considers the complexity of food systems, reviewing the current state of the world’s food insecurity and what responses to counter such insecurity have been developed, internationally and nationally. The 2004–05 food crisis in Niger serves as an illustrative example of the need for adapting institutions internationally. The last chapter of this part, by Emma L. Tompkins and Lisa-Ann Hurlston, shows how adaptive governance through public–private partnerships can work in practice. Using the emergence and transformation of the Cayman Islands’ National Hurricane Committee as an example, they analyse the role of public and private responsibility in the provision of disaster mitigation, early warning systems, disaster response and post-impact reorganisation.

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The final part, Adapting multi-level institutions to environmental crisis, sets out with an explorative chapter by Victor Galaz, asking whether state and non-state actors really can govern complex social–ecological systems, with complex governance systems, in times of rapid unexpected global environmental change. He refers to this challenge as ‘double complexity’, and discusses the features and modes of governance able to deal with both slow and rapid change at multiple scales. Adaptive governance in the face of natural hazards is the focus of the next chapter by Alison Ashlin, with the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami hitting Sri Lanka as a telling example. She asks if the governance of coastal ecosystems in Sri Lanka was adaptive in its approach, and what changes occurred in governance institutions following this social–ecological shock. The next chapter, by Emily Boyd, takes us into adapting institutions in relation to global climate change, focusing on whether two networked policy institutions are adapting beyond business-as-usual and how resilient their responses are to climate change. The institutions in question are two UK government departments that play a central role in delivering development aid and security to public and civil society actors and communities in the global South. We end the book with a concluding chapter in which the editors discuss adapting institutions, the problem of fit and adaptive governance challenges in a resilience and complexity context, drawing out lessons from the ten preceding contributions to this volume. Much of the literature on environmental governance fails to capture the adaptive nature of social–ecological systems. This book strives to take on this challenge, exploring the capacity of people, from local groups and private actors to the state and international institutions, to deal with complexity, uncertainty and the interplay between gradual and rapid change. We hope the reader will enjoy the book, and at the same time find within its pages many enriching insights and inspiration on adapting institutions, adaptive governance, complexity and social–ecological resilience.

references

Adger, W. N., Lorenzoni, I., and O’Brien, K. L., eds. 2009. Adapting to Climate Change: Thresholds, Values, Governance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Armitage, D., and Plummer, R., eds. 2010. Adaptive Capacity and Environmental Governance. Berlin: Springer-Verlag.

Adapting institutions, adaptive governance and complexity Berkes, F., Colding, J., and Folke, C., eds. 2003. Navigating Social–Ecological Systems: Building Resilience for Complexity and Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Biggs, R., Carpenter, S. R., and Brock, W. A. 2009. Turning back from the brink: detecting an impending regime shift in time to avert it. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, 106, 826–831. Boyd, E. 2008. Navigating Amazonia under uncertainty: learning from past and present forms of environmental governance. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 363, 1911–1916. Boyd, E., and Osbahr, H. 2010. Resilient responses to climate change: exploring organisational learning in networked development organisations. Environmental Education Research, 16, 397–411. Boyd, E., Street, R., Lonsdale, K., etÂ€al. 2011. Leading the UK adaptation agenda: a landscape of stakeholders and networked organisations for adaptation to climate change. In Ford, J., and Berrang-Ford, L., eds., Climate Change Adaptation in Developed Countries: From Theory to Practice. Series: Advances in Global Change Research, Vol. 42. New York, NY: Springer. Cash, D. W., Adger, W., Berkes, F., etÂ€al. 2006. Scale and cross-scale dynamics: governance and information in a multilevel world. Ecology and Society, 11(2), 8. www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol11/iss2/art8. Chapin, F. S. III, Carpenter, S. R., Kofinas, G. P., etÂ€al. 2010. Ecosystem stewardship: sustainability strategies for a rapidly changing planet. Trends in Ecology and Evolution, 25, 241–249. Cinner, J. E., Folke, C., Daw, T., and Hicks, C. 2010. Responding to change: using scenarios to understand how socioeconomic factors may influence amplifying or dampening exploitation feedbacks among Tanzanian fishers. Global Environmental Change, 21, 7–12. doi:10.1016/ j.gloenvcha.2010.09.001. Daily, G., ed. 1997. Nature’s Services: Societal Dependence on Natural Ecosystems. Washington, DC: Island Press. Dietz, T., Ostrom, E., and Stern, P. C. 2003. The struggle to govern the commons. Science, 302, 1902–1912. Duit, A., Galaz, V., Eckerberg, K., and Ebbesson, J. 2010. Governance, complexity, and resilience. Global Environmental Change, 20, 363–368. Folke, C. 2006. Resilience: the emergence of a perspective for social–ecological systems analyses. Global Environmental Change, 16, 253–267. Folke, C., Pritchard, L., Berkes, F., Colding, J., and Svedin, U. 1998. The problem of fit between ecosystems and institutions. International Human Dimensions Programme (IHDP). IHDP Working Paper No. 2. www.unibonn.de/IHDP/public.htm. Folke, C., Hahn, T., Olsson, P., and Norberg, J. 2005. Adaptive governance of social–ecological systems. Annual Review of Environment and Resources, 30, 441–473. Folke, C., Carpenter, S. R., Walker, B. H., etÂ€al. 2010. Resilience thinking: integrating resilience, adaptability and transformability. Ecology and Society, 15(4), 20. www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol15/iss4/art20. Galaz, V., Olsson, P., Hahn, T., Folke, C., and Svedin, U. 2008. The problem of fit among biophysical systems, environmental regimes and broader governance systems: insights and emerging challenges. In Young, O., Schroeder, H., and King, L. A., eds., Institutions and Environmental Change: Principal Findings, Applications, and Research Frontiers. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 147–186. Gelcich, S., Hughes, T. P., Olsson, P., etÂ€al. 2010. Navigating transformations in governance of Chilean marine coastal resources. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, 107, 16794–16799.

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Emily Boyd and Carl Folke Gunderson, L., and Holling, C. S., eds. 2002. Panarchy: Understanding Transformations in Human and Natural Systems. Washington, DC : Island Press. Gunderson, L., Holling, C. S., and Light, S., eds. 1995. Barriers and Bridges to the Renewal of Ecosystems and Institutions. New York, NY: Columbia University Press. Harvey, D. 2006. Spaces of Global Capitalism: A Theory of Uneven Geographical Development. London: Verso. Jansson, A. M., Hammer, M., Folke, C., and Costanza, R., eds. 1994. Investing in Natural Capital: The Ecological Economics Approach to Sustainability. Washington, DC: Island Press. Olsson, P., Gunderson, L. H., Carpenter, S. R., etÂ€al. 2006. Shooting the rapids: navigating transitions to adaptive governance of social–ecological systems. Ecology and Society, 11(1), 18. www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol11/iss1/art18. Osbahr, H., Twyman, C., Adger, N. W., and Thomas, D. S. G. 2008. Effective livelihood adaptation to climate change disturbance: scale dimensions of practice in Mozambique. Geoforum, 39, 1951–1964. Ostrom, E. 2009. A general framework for analyzing sustainability of social– ecological systems. Science, 325, 419–422. Pelling, M. 2011. Adaptation to Climate Change: From Resilience to Transformation. London: Routledge. Power, M. E., and Chapin, F. S. III. 2009. Planetary stewardship. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 7, 399. Reid, W. V., Chen, D., Goldfarb, L., etÂ€al. 2010. Earth system science for global sustainability: grand challenges. Science, 330, 916–917. Rockström, J., Steffen, W., Noone, K., etÂ€ al. 2009. A safe operating space for humanity. Nature, 461, 472–475. Termeer, C. J. A. M., Dewulf, A., and van Lieshout, M. 2010. Disentangling scale approaches in governance research: comparing monocentric, multilevel, and adaptive governance. Ecology and Society, 15(4), 29. www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol15/iss4/art29. Tompkins, E. L., Adger, W. N., Boyd, E., etÂ€al. 2010. Observed adaptation to climate change: UK evidence of transition to a well-adapting society. Global Environmental Change, 20, 627–635. Walker, B. H., Barrett, S., Polasky, S, etÂ€al. 2009a. Looming global-scale failures and missing institutions. Science, 325, 1345–1346. Walker, B. H., Abel, N., Anderies, J. M., and Ryan, P. 2009b. Resilience, adaptability, and transformability in the Goulburn-Broken Catchment, Australia. Ecology and Society, 14(1), 12. www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol14/iss1/art12. Young, O. R. 2002. The Institutional Dimensions of Environmental Change: Fit, Interplay and Scale. Boston, MA: MIT Press. Young, O. R., Berkhout, F., Gallopin, G. C., etÂ€al. 2006. The globalization of socioecological systems: an agenda for scientific research. Global Environmental Change, 16, 304–316.

Part Iâ•…Adapting local institutions, networks, leadership and learning

2 Knowledge, social networks and leadership: setting the stage for the development of adaptive institutions? beatrice crona and örjan bodin

2. 1â•‡

introduction

Institutions, be they formal or informal (North 1990, Ostrom 1990), guide the behaviour and interactions of people. This is a fact of particular importance when studying local-level collaborative management of common-pool resources (that is, co-management: e.g. Carlsson and Berkes 2005). However, given the inherent unpredictability of natural systems (Levin 1998), institutions need to be flexible enough to deal with ecological changes and surprises. In effect, the institutions need to be adaptiveÂ€– an insight permeating the chapters of this book. Social networks are increasingly cited as instrumental in enabling communities to adaptively respond to environmental change and to initiate and sustain successful co-management of natural resources (e.g. Olsson 2004a, Folke etÂ€al. 2005). Social networks are, for example, one factor determining the flow of information within communities and, as such, are important in determining possibilities for continuing learning and making sense of environmental feedbacks. They also offer a valuable tool for identifying social groups, influential actors and patterns of communications. This chapter will explore different features of social networks and how they affect the local institutional context for governance of natural resources. We will discuss how social networks for communication of local ecological knowledge (LEK) among actors affect knowledge distributions and perceptions of change in the ecosystem. Furthermore, we will analyse networks to map social groups in the Adapting Institutions: Governance, Complexity and Social–Ecological Resilience, ed. Emily Boyd and Carl Folke. Published by Cambridge University Press. © Cambridge University Press 2012.

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community and the level of communications within and between these groups. Based on analyses of social positions in the networks, social networks also provide the ability to identify informal opinion leaders who could be instrumental in initiating collective action (see Kopller 1984 for a review of the concept). By analysing the personal characteristics of these individuals, in combination with analyses of contextual issues of importance, such as incentive structures, one can develop hypotheses regarding the abilities of these individuals to engage in initiating, coordinating and facilitating collaborative management efforts. The discussion centres on a case study of a coastal fishing community in southern Kenya. The chapter starts with a look at the case-specific cultural and institutional context, followed by a brief description of methodology and the Social Network Analysis approach. We then proceed to discuss the role of social position and network structure in governance of ecosystems and how this may affect incentives for changed behaviour among resource users. 2. 2â•‡

the case

The social–ecological system which forms the basis for the analysis in this chapter is a rural fishing village on the south coast of Kenya. It has approximately 200 households and an estimated 1000 inhabitants. The ecological system is characterised by mangroves, covering 615 ha, with mudflats and seagrass meadows in the shallow part of the lagoon, in turn sheltered from wave impact by shallow reefs at the mouth of the bay (Figure 2.1). The use of resources in the village is centred on fishing and, to some degree, the use of mangroves for poles and firewood. Other non-forest products are taken from the mangroves, but government restrictions, in the form of a cutting ban, have periodically impeded extraction of wood products by locals (Dahdouh-Guebas etÂ€ al. 2000). The majority of households depend primarily on fishing for their livelihood. The local artisanal fishery is based on gear such as seine nets, different types of gill nets, spearguns and handlines, methods which have been found to be spatially separated (Obura etÂ€al. 2002) (Figure 2.1). The local fishery focuses on finfish but also includes various crustaceans and molluscs, such as juvenile penaeid shrimps, fished only by women and sold at local markets. The East African climate has alternating wet and dry seasons, with two pronounced rainy times; a period of heavy rains from

Knowledge, social networks and leadership

Figure 2.1â•… Map of the coastal seascape in focus. The respective distribution of mangroves, seagrass beds and reefs is indicated. The area of primary fishing effort for each fishing-related occupational category is marked with dotted lines. Adapted with permission from Crona (2006).

April to June (southeast monsoon) and a period of lighter rains from October to November (northeast monsoon). The fishery is thus characterised by annual seasonal fluctuations caused by monsoon winds, with calm waters and intense activity during the southeast monsoon and lower fishing pressure and catches during the northeast monsoon, a pattern also documented in other areas (de la Torre-Castro and Rönnbäck 2004). The reason for this lowered activity lies primarily in the nature of the fishing vessels available, which cannot withstand rough seas and strong winds. During the southeast monsoon, the higher catches are largely attributable to the calm weather, which allows fishing using low-technology gear in the entire reef areas as well as in the lagoon. Twenty-four per cent of households in the village are recent immigrants. The majority originate from Tanzania, to which they regularly return. Many Tanzanian fishermen reside in the village semipermanently, returning to their homeland in seasons of low fishing activity. Migration is linked to both economic factors and kinship ties. In the high season, migrating fishermen return to the study area to fish and are often assisted with travel expenses and permits by local

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middlemen (fishmongers) operating from the village. Kinship ties also play a significant role in recruiting crew for the season. 2.2.1â•‡ Fishing activities and management over time The coastal population of Kenya comprises two main ethnic groups: the Mijikenda, of Bantu origin, and the Swahili, of mixed Bantu, Asian and Arabic descent. The Mijikenda comprise nine tribes; in the study area, Digo is the predominant ethnicity. Historically, the Mijikenda were farmers; they started their relationship with the Swahilis as traders of agricultural products. In consequence of colonial land access policies and early-twentieth-century politics, the Digo were forced to abandon traditional shifting cultivation and convert to Islam, which led to a need to diversify their livelihood (Ng’weno 1995). This resulted in the gradual development of dependence on fishing. In the early to mid twentieth century, a combination of factors, including the Kenyan government’s striving to develop the marine fishing industry, the parallel rise of coastal tourism attracting large numbers of unskilled labour, and skilled, knowledgeable fishermen abandoning fishing for more lucrative ventures, contributed gradually to undermine local institutions for managing common fisheries (Glaesel 2000). The vast majority of newcomers (primarily young men) seeking employment were not absorbed by the tourist industry. This group turned to self-employment in speargun fishing (Glaesel 1997). Speargun fishing required low capital investment in gear and was free from the apprenticeship and kinship ties traditionally associated with other gear types. Another strain on the traditional management system was the dramatic influx of Tanzanian fishermen after the 1964 overthrow of the Zanzibar/Pemba government, resulting in large seine-net crews establishing more or less semi-permanent operations along the Kenyan coast (Glaesel 1997). Records show that, although currently classified as illegal, spearguns and seine-net fishing have increased in proportion to other fishing methods in the area (McClanahan etÂ€al. 1997, Glaesel 2000). The gradual weakening of traditional governance structures, coupled with a national top-down view of legislation, with a heavy focus on regulatory measures but without sufficient capacity for enforcement (Government of Kenya 1991, 2001), has led to the inshore fishery along the southern Kenyan coast becoming almost open access (Alidina 2005). This has led to overfishing and depletion of inshore stocks (Ochiewo 2004). Mangroves have also suffered: intensive mangrove

Knowledge, social networks and leadership

timber extraction reached a maximum in the 1970s, leading the government to impose an irregularly enforced mangrove-cutting ban. The lifting of this ban is currently under review (Kwale District Forestry Officer, personal communication). Under the Forest Act (Government of Kenya 1994), community involvement in management of resources is suggested as a future goal.

2. 3 â•‡t h e o r e t i c a l

perspective and methodological

approach

2.3.1â•‡ Theoretical perspective It is becoming increasingly clear that even rather small communities often display quite complex patterns of interactions between different user groups (Agrawal and Gibson 1999, Crona and Bodin 2006). In general, in a given community, there is rarely one single group of local stakeholders; rather, communities are defined by complicated patterns of subgroups with different perceptions, interests, resources and amounts of influence (e.g. Carlsson and Berkes 2005, Nygren 2005). This structural and relational perspective on social systems has, over a considerable time, developed into a broad trans-disciplinary scientific field (Social Network Analysis: see www.insna.org) and has proven a useful tool in studying and explaining social phenomena (e.g. Freeman 2004). Among other things, it has been used to study information diffusion (e.g. Abrahamson and Rosenkopf 1997) and group structures and their possible social consequences (e.g. Johnson etÂ€al. 2003). Thus, the social network perspective is an interesting framework to apply in studying the social side of ecosystem governance. In recent years, the interest in social networks in resource management contexts has increased (e.g. Lansing 1991, Schneider etÂ€ al. 2003, Baker 2005, Crona and Bodin 2006, Ernstson etÂ€al. 2008, Bodin and Crona 2009, Ramirez-Sanchez and Pinkerton 2009). This is a positive development, but we still have a limited understanding of how outcomes of ecosystem governance are associated with particular structural features of the social networks among the various resource users, beneficiaries and governmental agencies in a community. A reasonable hypothesis is, however, that desirable outcomes are associated with how these complex pattern of interactions are structured (Carlsson and Berkes 2005, Bodin etÂ€al. 2006, Carlsson and Sandström 2006). This argument is further strengthened by numerous studies showing that the existence of informal social networks among and

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between various stakeholders and groups is very important in successful cases of bottom-up community-based natural resource management (e.g. Gunderson 1999, Folke etÂ€al. 2003, Olsson 2003, Pretty 2003). What we intend to highlight, in this research context, is that not all social networks are created equal. Different structural characteristics of social networks give rise to different outcomes with respect to the governance of natural resources (Bodin etÂ€al. 2006, Bodin and Crona 2009; Bodin and Prell 2011). By applying a network-oriented research approach to studying this issue, some of these patterns of dependencies and their consequences for governance can be revealed, quantified and analysed (as we intend to demonstrate in this chapter). 2.3.2â•‡ Methods In this subsection, we briefly explain some methodological issues of importance in applying a social network research approach. For more in-depth description of the methodological issues in general, see, for example, Marsden (1990) and Wasserman and Faust (1994). For details of the specific case study discussed here, see Crona and Bodin (2006) and Bodin and Crona (2008). In many cases, defining the boundaries of the population within which the social interactions of the actors are to be measured and analysed is not trivial. Since everyone in some sense can be considered as being connected to everyone else (although via others), one has carefully to define reasonable system boundaries, given the research question at hand. Fortunately, in the case discussed here, the population is, a priori, quite well defined; that is, it consists of all households in the fishing village. Given a reasonable definition of the population, the next step is to measure the different social networks of interests among the actors. Often, relational data are gathered using interviews and/or questionnaires. Collection of relational data can either be done using recall (that is, the respondent generates a list of his or her relations) or recognition (that is, the respondent picks individuals from a list of all individuals in the studied population). We used an ‘unaided’ or ‘free’ recall approach to elicit information (see, e.g., Marsden 1990, Wasserman and Faust 1994). Using a set of questions related to different kind of relations, for example ‘with whom do you discuss important matters?’, each head of household in the village was asked about his/her different social relationships (see further details in Crona and Bodin 2006). All interviews were conducted in the native language (Kiswahili), either in

Knowledge, social networks and leadership

the respondent’s home or in a public place. Since many respondents were not comfortable reading or writing, the enumerator noted the information, with the help of an interpreter. A nearly complete (83%) network dataset was gathered, based on interviews with the heads of 171 households, resulting in a total of approximately 1500 reported relations. Social ties elicited by the recall method tend to be frequent in interaction, intense and recent. That is, they can be seen as the strongest and most influential at any particular time (see Marsden 1990 and references therein). Given that one of the aims of this chapter is to link LEK distribution in the community to network structure, a methodological note is warranted: we conceptualise local ecological knowledge as the body of knowledge which resource users draw on to understand the marine environment, upon which the majority depend, to various degrees. This body of knowledge can, for the sake of simplicity, be seen as comprising two subsets. The first relates to relatively simple information, such as knowledge of different species of fish or other organisms and how to differentiate them. The second is more complicated and relates to complex relationships and ecological processes. The simpler type of knowledge could, arguably, be shared through relatively weak ties, while the latter is more akin to tacit knowledge, which has been argued to require stronger relational ties (Cross etÂ€al. 2001). Since our main interest lies in the knowledge of more complex ecological processes, our focus is accordingly on the stronger social ties. Network analyses were used to assess quantitatively the level of communication within and between subgroups existing within the realm of the village’s social networks. Our main objective with this subgroup-oriented analysis was to investigate if group structures, and patterns of communications among them, could help explain distributions of LEK, as well as give some insights into the community’s social structures. For the purpose of this study, we divided respondents into subgroups based on occupational categories (henceforth referred to as ‘occupational groups’). Nine different occupational groups were identified, based on respondents’ reports of primary income: farmers, businessmen (local entrepreneurs), middlemen (fishmongers) and six categories of fishermen, based on primary gear type and fishing technique. Once respondents had been classified into an occupational group, the relationships of individuals were used to analyse the aggregated pattern of relations among and within these occupational groups (see further details in Crona and Bodin 2006).

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In addition, using the relational data, structural network measures based on network position were used to identify the most influential individuals of the community. This assessment is based on the assumption that the possibility for social influence and leadership is closely tied to a person’s structural position in a network (e.g. Wasserman and Faust 1994). A range of network centrality measures, with specific relation to influence and possibility for leadership, are available. We chose the following measures of influence: degree centrality (e.g. Wasserman and Faust 1994), betweenness centrality (Freeman 1979) and Eigenvector centrality (Bonacich 1972). For a detailed description of the applied analyses, see Bodin and Crona (2008). 2. 4â•‡s o c i a l

networks: the fabric of collaborative

management

Theories on common-pool resource management build on the idea that stakeholders can come together and devise rules for how to use a specific resource. For this to happen, groups of stakeholders need to have a shared understanding of how the natural system works, as well as some degree of consensus about the resource problem (Ostrom 1990, 2005). For example, is overfishing causing decline in catches, or is the decline an effect of eutrophication and untreated sewage flowing into the bay? In a social–ecological system in which no collective action for any kind of resource management has been instigated, despite apparently declining and degrading resources (McClanahan and Mangi 2001, Maina etÂ€al. 2008), pertinent questions must be: What understanding of ecosystem dynamics exist in the community? Among which community members? How is such understanding created, maintained and shared? Has lack of understanding suppressed collective action or could there be other explanations? 2.4.1â•‡ Networks and knowledge distributions The network of communication of knowledge and information related to resource extraction among occupational groups in the village is shown in Figure 2.2, while Table 2.1 shows the relative frequency of relations among and between occupational groups. As seen in Figure 2.2, there are several links between these subgroups, but Table 2.1 reveals that respondents within most of these subgroups communicated more with each other than they did with members of other subgroups. In Figure 2.2, we also see that certain

Knowledge, social networks and leadership

Table 2.1â•‡ Sociomatrix based on occupational groups using data obtained from the social network of information/knowledge exchange. Numbers in cells represent the ratio of the measured versus the expected number of relational ties, assuming a random distribution of ties. A ratio above 1 means that communication within occupational groups is higher than if occupational membership had no effect on relational preferences. Reprinted with permission from Crona and Bodin (2006)

Seine Deep Gill net Businessman Farmer sea net Seine net 6.13 Businessman Farmer Deep sea Gill net Middleman

0 0.92

0 0.21 1.64

1.02 0 0.19 0 0.13 1.15 2.79 1.23 9.2

Number of group Middleman members 0.29 0 0.58 0.72 0.46 5.11

16 27 8 45 10 10

groups, such as the group of deep-sea fishermen, are more central compared to more peripheral groups like the seine netters, farmers and businessmen.1 When we studied LEK in the village, it became apparent that there were significant differences in terms of the level and content of ecological knowledge of farmers and businessmen compared to the majority of resource-extractor categories (Figure 2.3). Knowledge common to most groups included the acknowledgement of the central role played by mangroves in coastal protection, nursery habitat and water quality. Farmers and businessmen showed consistently poorer knowledge of all coastal habitats as well as a poor understanding of related ecological processes (Table 2.2). LEK held by fishermen using various gear types revealed a range of knowledge, from detailed accounts of the feeding of certain target species to acknowledgement of large-scale climatic changes affecting shrimp stocks and mangrove coverage. The seasonal rains and related freshwater pulse affecting shrimp and fish migrations were also recognised by all types of fishermen. Knowledge specific to certain occupational groups of fishermen included recognition that sea urchin aggregations could affect the dynamics of Detailed analysis and description of methods of the social network analysis can

1

be found in Crona and Bodin (2006).

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Farmer

Gill net

Businessman

Middleman

Deep sea

Seine net

Figure 2.2â•… Multidimensional scaling plot showing the social network structure of relations among groups based on predefined occupational categories. The size of each node is proportional to the group size, and the thickness of the links is proportional to the strength of the inter-group relations, i.e. the ratio of the observed versus expected number of relations (thin line <â•›0.5, medium line <â•›1, thick line >â•›1). It is worth noting that no direct exchange between fisher categories seine net and gill net occurs. The distance between the nodes indicates how similar each group is in terms of the types of links they have to other groups. Fishermen are generally closer because they all report relations to other fishermen, while businessmen report few such ties, instead communicating mostly within their own group. Reprinted with permission from Crona and Bodin (2006).

seagrass meadows and associated fauna (seine netters) and a notion of regional fish-stock migrations related to wind patterns and currents (middlemen, deep-sea fishermen and, to some degree, seine-net fishermen). Deep-sea fishermen had knowledge of currents and links between the three ecosystems shown in Figure 2.3 (mangroves, seagrasses and reefs), at a scale surpassing that of other fishing groups. In other words, they had a more holistic perception of the seascape, compared to the other groups. In addition, their notion of fish migrations spanned a larger geographical scale than that of seine netters, since they acknowledge that pelagic stocks move up and down the

Knowledge, social networks and leadership

Table 2.2â•‡ Summary of local ecological knowledge (LEK) of different occupational groups using different gear types and operating in distinct but overlapping subsystems of a coastal seascape in Kenya. The knowledge is classified and related to the ecological principles defined by Dale etÂ€al. (2000). Occupational groups are based on main gear type used, and groups are listed in this column according to the ecological knowledge they were found to possess. Adapted with permission from Crona (2006)

Ecological principle

Knowledge of resource users reflecting each principle

Time Ecological processes A clear understanding of the effects function at different of clear-cutting of mangroves on time scales, some related systems. long, some short; and ecosystems change over time. Notions among respondents that fish stocks migrate along the coast and that such patterns are affected by seasonal monsoons. Species Particular species and networks of interacting species have key, broadscale ecosystemlevel effects.

Knowledge of the keystone function of mangroves in coastal biological, hydrological and geomorphologic processes in the form of nursery habitats, water filtration and sediment stabilisation.

Occupational group

Shrimpers Deep sea Speargun Gill net Middlemen Farmers* Businessmen* Deep sea Seine net Gill net

Shrimpers Deep sea Speargun Handline Seine net Gill net Middlemen Notion of trophic cascades due to Farmers changes in abundance of sea Businessmen urchins, leading to over-grazing of Speargun seagrasses with potential effects on Seine net inshore fisheries.

Place Local climatic, Acknowledgement by respondents hydrologic, edaphic that seasonal climatic changes and geomorphologic affect the distribution and factors as well as abundance of shrimp and finfish biotic interaction in the area: strongly affect ecological processes and the

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Table 2.2 (cont.) â•… abundance and distribution of species at any one place.

Disturbance The type, intensity and duration of disturbance shape the characteristics of populations, communities and ecosystems.

Seasonal monsoons and the resulting freshwater outflow attract juvenile shrimps into the mangrove system.

Shrimpers Deep sea Speargun Handline Seine net Gill net Middlemen Farmers* Businessmen* Seasonal monsoon-related wind patterns Deep sea and currents affect fish migrations Seine net along the regional coastline. Middlemen Notion among some fishing groups that sea urchin aggregations can affect the dynamics of seagrass meadows and associated fauna. Acknowledgement that historical and present land uses, such as mangrove cutting, will cause changes in the distribution and abundance of associated species (crabs, shrimp, fish) and ecosystem functions such as soil stabilisation, water movement, nursery habitats, nesting areas and wind breakers. Notion among some fishing groups that changes in climate (timing of the monsoon rains and El Niño phenomena) have occurred recently resulting in an effect on the artisanal shrimp fishery as well as mangrove coverage.

Speargun Seine net

Shrimpers Deep sea Speargun Seine net Gill net Middlemen Farmers* Businessmen* Shrimpers Deep sea Speargun Seine net Gill net

Landscape The size, shape and Awareness of the nursery function Shrimpers spatial relationship provided by mangroves for fish Deep sea of land-cover and shellfish residing part of their Speargun types influence life outside of the mangrove habitat. Seine net the dynamics Shows a notion of the positive Gill net of populations, spillover effect of such functions on Middlemen communities and coupled ecological subsystems such Farmers* ecosystems. as seagrass beds and coral reefs. Businessmen* * Groups exhibiting much less detailed understanding of links and processes.

Knowledge, social networks and leadership

Relative difference (∆) in detail of knowledge

Higher level of knowledge

Lower level of knowledge

Mangrove

Seagrass

Reef

Seine net

Deep sea

Shrimpers

Handline

Middlemen

Gill net

Speargun

Farmers

Businessmen

Figure 2.3â•… Relative difference in local ecological knowledge among different occupational groups operating in the target community. Knowledge is divided into three categories based on the three recognised sub-components of the coastal seascape: mangrove, seagrass and reef. Knowledge of different groups for each sub-component is represented as the relative difference of their level of knowledge compared to an estimated average level of knowledge for all groups (the baseline in the figure). Thus the bars represent each group’s knowledge in relation to other groups, and bars below the horizontal line indicate less than average knowledge. Amount of knowledge, for each occupational category, is ranked based on the expressed level of detail of ecological components and processes. Although groups may be represented as having equal levels of knowledge in terms of detail, the actual content of the knowledge may at times be related to different species, depending for example on which species are primarily targeted by a specific group. Reprinted with permission from Crona (2006).

coast on a regional scale (Table 2.2).2 The categories shrimpers, speargun and handline are explored in more depth in Crona (2006) but are not discussed here. Shrimpers are female, and as this is a predominantly Muslim community such knowledge is not shared between men and women. The categories speargun and handline were not well enough represented in the social network.

Because a detailed account of the LEK is beyond the scope of this chapter, the

2

reader is referred to Crona (2006) for more detailed analysis.

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Relating the social network structure to the distribution and content of LEK among studied groups suggests a fair agreement. Qualitatively comparing knowledge content and distribution with the network structure showed that groups with strong links, that is, fishermens’ groups, tended to have similar knowledge. The two categories not directly involved in marine resource extraction (farmers and businessmen) had a much poorer understanding of associated ecological components and processes. Furthermore, deep-sea fishermen had a more holistic perception of the seascape than other groups, which could be attributed to their central position in the network, which connects them to all other groups (Figure 2.2). Seine netters, on the other hand, were more distanced. That is, they had fewer ties to the tight cluster formed by middlemen, deep-sea and gill-net fishermen. As tacit or complex knowledge transfer is thought to require frequent and intense interactions (Hansen 1999, Reagans and McEvily 2003) only fairly tight groups are likely to develop complex group-specific knowledge. If communication links are more diversely distributed among actors, as observed among the other fisherman categories, the possibility to maintain group-specific knowledge is reduced. Seine-net fishermen reported that approximately two out of three relations were with other seine netters, which to some degree explains why certain group-specific knowledge was maintained within this group. In summary, it appears that the network structure can help explain knowledge distribution. Given the crucial importance of LEK in natural resource management, an inevitable conclusion is that by measuring and analysing social networks, important insight into understanding successes and failures in natural resource management can be achieved using a network approach. To understand the effect of network structure on knowledge distribution it is important to examine theories of identity and knowledge transfer. Social psychologists and sociologists argue that individuals are most influenced by the people with whom they frequently engage or interact (Cooley 1909, Festinger etÂ€al. 1950, Homans 1950, Kadushin 1966). Homogeneity refers to the tendency for people to have more connections to others of their own kind, whether kind is defined by characteristics such as gender, race and social class, or by other attributes. This implies that individuals are likely to develop an understanding of the status of a natural resource similar to that of other members of the same stakeholder group. Here, we observe such homogeneity through occupational categories (Table 2.1). Shared social characteristics are presumed not only to reduce conflict but also to facilitate communication, due to common background and shared

Knowledge, social networks and leadership

life experience (Reagans and McEvily 2003). Homogeneity is therefore a factor thought to enhance tacit knowledge transfer (Cross etÂ€al. 2001), although high levels of it could also reduce diversity and limit access to distant resources (Krackhardt and Stern 1988). It is important to point out that sampling a network only once in time (as we did), makes it impossible to say anything about the robustness of these ties over longer time periods. Hence, although our discussion of LEK and network structures is based on the existence of strong social ties, we cannot say anything about the long-term robustness of the ties measured here. If we assume that the development and dissemination of tacit knowledge require ties to be not only strong but also long-lasting, the proposed links between the network structure and the distribution of LEK might appear coincidental. However, even though individual ties may change over time, it is quite unlikely that the overall pattern of relationships among and within occupational groups will change very much. A deep-sea fisherman will continue to communicate more frequently with deep-sea fishermen than with other types of fishermen, even though the particular deep-sea fishermen with whom he chooses to communicate might change. As a result, the build-up of complex knowledge is maintained within the group of deep-sea fishermen. We argue that the proposed relation between the network structure and the distribution of LEK, as we present here, is not invalidated despite the fact that we did not assess the duration of the reported ties. There are also other aspects of social network structure that, in different ways, affect the social processes and features deemed important for natural resource management (Bodin etÂ€al. 2006, Bodin and Crona 2009). For example, structural position in a network will affect not only a person’s access to information but also the degree to which he or she can control information flow to other groups (Burt 1992). Consequently, the following section will discuss issues of natural resource governance based on several structural features of social networks: structural position and how it affects actors’ incentives to change behaviour (and vice versa), and the relationship between structural position and leadership in resource management. 2.4.2â•‡Social brokers or blockers: positions and incentives In this case, the communication network observed was fairly centralised (at the subgroup level: see Figure 2.2). Experiments in social

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psychology have shown that centralised networks (that is, when one or a small cluster of actors are very centrally positioned, leaving others in the periphery) perform simple tasks more efficiently than decentralised ones (Leavitt 1951, Shaw 1981). However, they have also shown that decentralised structures perform better at complex tasks. The underlying logic is that contributions to a solution from all members provide diversity of information and knowledge in solving the problem. If we put this into the context of adaptive resource management, which can be considered a rather complex task, decentralised structures may, arguably, be preferred. However, central groups or individuals can play an important role. In social network literature they are often referred to as ‘brokers’ (Gould and Fernandez 1989, Burt 2004). In this case, deep-sea fishermen emerge as a group structurally positioned as brokers. The brokers, merely by their structural position, gain access to many pieces of group-specific information captured inside the different groups, allowing them to synthesise a large knowledge pool and act as a bridge between groups not otherwise connected. In addition, through their position, brokers learn about the inner life of many of the different groups and therefore achieve an advantage in knowing with which groups or individuals to connect or not, how to connect with them and when (Burt 2004). Brokers can thus be powerful actors, in the sense that they can control the behaviour of social groups and the information flow between groups in the network to a higher extent than can other actors (cf. Crona and Bodin 2010). Burt (2004) points out that, with early access to critical information, brokers often create new understandings and see new opportunities that other actors never recognise. Consequently, the bridging role of brokers can be critical for adaptive governance of natural resources. However, in our observed case, the group most favourably positioned to instigate collective action has not done so. The interesting question to ask is: why not? In answering this question we need to examine the personal attributes of the actors involved, to understand how incentives are created which make potential brokers potential blockers. Incentives are created through many different processes. Certainly, one important process is understanding the ecosystem. This allows a person to read and interpret signals from the natural environment, which may indicate changes that may affect livelihoods, such as fishing or mangrove harvesting. The scale at which different categories of fishermen operated in the seascape had a distinct effect on the scale at which they recognised ecological processes (Table 2.2). For example, women

Knowledge, social networks and leadership

fishing shrimps recognised only dynamics occurring near the mangrove fringe. This fringe was the geographical limit of their operations, induced by cultural aspects of labour division that dictated that women should not be involved in fin fishing, nor (commonly) be taught to swim. Fishermen commonly acknowledge fish migrations at larger, yet variable, geographical scales. Deep-sea fishermen, for example, recognised and targeted pelagic stocks moving over larger spatial scales, which were potentially less vulnerable to overfishing at the local scale of extraction. Consequently, in their view, catches had not changed significantly, reducing their perceptions of the fishery as over-exploited, at least in relation to their own operations (Crona 2006). But knowledge is, as stated above, not the only factor driving incentives. Mobility, or more specifically the ability to move or expand the area of fishing, also played a role in defining the incentives of the fishing groups. Deep-sea fishermen were, to a large extent, semi-migrant fishermen from northern Tanzania, who tended to return home during seasons of low fishing activity or temporarily to relocate if fishing was perceived to be better elsewhere. This is an important factor affecting the acuteness with which overfishing was viewed by different groups. Stationary crews were much more acutely attuned to the problems of destructive fishing gears and local overfishing in the bay than the migrant fishermen. Their reduced sense of place and higher mobility markedly affected the way in which they spoke about issues of overfishing and the urgency with which they perceived the matter. Consequently, although the deep-sea fishermen as a group held a position in the network favourable for the instigation of collective action, their incentives were largely reduced by higher mobility and a reduced sense of place and urgency. 2.4.3â•‡ Leadership and influential individuals In discussions of factors that affect the success of natural resource management and governance, leadership is often suggested as an essential. Several descriptions of how such leadership has contributed to successful resource governance exist, from places as widespread as fishing communities in Brazil (Seixas and Berkes 2003) and watershed and wetlands management in Sweden (Olsson etÂ€ al. 2004b). In settings where leaders have played a significant role in furthering a transformation towards a situation with more inclusive governance or sustainable ecosystem management, this is often attributed, in part, to the existence of cross-scale linkages for communication and learning

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Figure 2.4â•… Degree centrality (i.e. an individual’s number of relations) for the combined networks of knowledge exchange and sharing of fishing gear. The higher the level of degree centrality that a villager possesses in the network, the more centrally positioned the person becomes in the figure. Identified key individuals are marked with large circles, whereas others are marked with smaller circles.

at various levels of governance (Seixas and Berkes 2003, Olsson etÂ€al. 2004b). If we leave the relational ties among occupational groups for a moment and instead focus on the individuals making up these groups, we see that there are individuals in the network of communication who appear significantly more connected than the average villager in general (Figure 2.4). These key individuals3 appear central to the network not only because others come to them to exchange information but also because they often rent out necessary fishing gear or mediate We chose to call them key individuals, as opposed to leaders, as the concept of

3

leadership carries many different meanings. These individuals were not necessarily leaders at the time of the study, but occupied network positions that could potentially enable them to become leaders of opinion in matters that concern natural resource management in the area.

Knowledge, social networks and leadership

business transactions (such as the selling of fish, gear etc.).4 In the analysis of these key individuals, presented in detail elsewhere (Bodin and Crona 2008), two features emerged as interesting: the composition of key individuals in terms of their ethnicity and occupation versus the composition of the whole village, and their ties to external agencies and governance hierarchies. First, the composition of key individuals in terms of ethnicity and primary occupation was strikingly skewed, compared with the general population. In a village where over 46% of the population is of Digo tribal descent and only 11% is Bajuni, the ethnic composition of the key individuals was almost inverted (10% Digo vs 50% Bajuni). Furthermore, deep-sea fishermen were highly Â�over-represented in terms of professions of key individuals compared to other villagers (60% vs 25%). The implications of this relate to the ability of these individuals to synthesise and use knowledge for sustainable resource management. Although many villagers were aware of declining fish stocks (Crona 2006), interviews showed that the majority of key individuals did not take the intellectual leap and recognise this as a threat to future livelihoods. Over-representation of deep-sea fishermen explains this lack of internalisation of the problem (see our earlier discussion of their mobility and possible lack of sense of place). The consequence, however, is that in a broader perspective, homogeneity among these potential opinion leaders is likely to reduce their collective ability to perceive and synthesise new information and knowledge of different kinds (e.g. Reagans and McEvily 2003, Oh etÂ€ al. 2004). It therefore reduces their ability to adapt to new circumstances (for example, decline of fish stocks), potentially contributing to lowering the community’s adaptive capacity (e.g. Berkes etÂ€ al. 2003) and ability to respond to change and disturbances. The second feature was that, as a group, key individuals were fairly well connected to external agencies, with the exception of financial institutions and markets other than the trade of fishing gear (Bodin and Crona 2008). Literature suggests that such cross-scale links (which in a hierarchical organisational context could be thought of as vertical) should enhance a community’s ability to successfully respond to different challenges and opportunities (Krishna 2002, Note that the centrality of these individuals was measured using several different

4

networks and network centrality measures, hence the reference to purchase of fish and gear exchange.

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Berkes 2006), as well as the resilience of the whole social–ecological system (Berkes etÂ€al. 2003, Seixas and Berkes 2003, Olsson etÂ€al. 2004a). Yet this case suggests that the importance of knowledge-sharing and consensus regarding resource status may be a prerequisite for these cross-scale links to be fully used for the benefit of sustainable resource governance. One final point of interest is found in looking more closely at the internal network of communication among the key individuals. First, it is interesting to note that neither the elected chairman of the fishermen’s beach committee5 nor the formally appointed village sub-chief qualified for the list of key individuals identified through centrality criteria (Figure 2.4; see also Bodin and Crona 2008). Thus the sub-chief, as the only leader in the village formally appointed by government, appears quite loosely attached to informal networks of communication of important matters and exchange of information and knowledge about the natural environment. In contrast, the village chairman, elected but not officially authorised, is firmly embedded in the village social networks. In terms of information transfer, the village chairman has a central and powerful position and is the only link to the government-appointed sub-chief. This is not unusual in the formal hierarchical structure of government in Kenya, but it creates a situation in which the chairman obtains a disproportionate amount of power, in the sense that he can both decide which issues to bring forward to the sub-chief (that is, set the agenda) and become a block for information flow and agency if he perceives the issue to be unimportant or in conflict with personal interests. From a different perspective, possible benefits of the current structure are that initiation and coordination of action can be greatly enhanced because the chairman is firmly embedded and centrally positioned in both the community social networks (Crona and Bodin 2006) and the network of key individuals. He can act on behalf of the villagers, vis-à-vis the sub-chief, through a direct link; that is, he has the ability to link the whole community to external authorities. However, the chairman may be constrained in his capacity to act by numerous social ties if consensus for course of action is not reached among his reported contacts (compare Frank and Yasumoto 1998).

The beach committee is a body formed locally by fishermen to organise them-

5

selves in matters that regard fishing rules, regulations, rules for fish landings and mediation of conflict related specifically to fishing. The beach chairman is elected each year to head this group.

Knowledge, social networks and leadership

2. 5â•‡

summary and outlook

Looking at the social component of this social–ecological system from the aggregate level of resource-user groups, we see a body of fishermen who are heterogeneous with respect to their knowledge and understanding of the ecological processes and the scales at which these occur. Communication of resource-related information occurs primarily within occupational groups (defined by gear type or occupation), and certain groups are more central in the communication network, putting them in an advantageous position for synthesising knowledge and instigating and coordinating collective action. However, the most central group (deep-sea fishermen) is characterised by low incentives to conserve the inshore fishery, as a function of their low sense of place and high mobility. At the level of individuals, potential opinion leaders are those who occupy central positions in the social network. However, in this case we note that among these key individuals, the majority belong to the central group of deep-sea fishermen, which is characterised by low incentives (low sense of place) and consequently does not perceive overfishing as a problem. Despite the existence of important crossscale links to external hierarchies of government bodies or other agencies, collective action for the benefit of sustainable resource management has not been achieved. These two main points, in combination, illustrate the importance of understanding the intricate interplay between structural features of the social network. On the one hand, high centralisation promotes coordination but potentially leaves the system open to the strong influence of single actors (Crona and Bodin 2010). On the other hand, decentralisation promotes diversity of knowledge and experience, potentially at the cost of reduced coordination and risk of knowledge fragmentation. It is here that the contribution of this chapter lies, in relation to adaptive institutions and adaptive governance. Adaptive institutions are those which allow flexibility in response to some perceived change in, for example, the ecosystem and resource base on which villagers depend. This is one of the basic premises of adaptive governance. Decisions about responses to a changing environment can arguably be improved through the integration of different knowledge systems because they provide, among other things, diversity of memories of past experiences and responses (Barthel 2008) and knowledge at different, often complementary, scales (Moller etÂ€ al. 2004). Therefore, diversity of knowledge is likely to increase the range of

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possible responses which are explored, and it can be argued to contribute to more flexible and adaptive institutions. However, as stated above, being able to respond to changing environments requires some kind of coordinated action among different actors. Using a social network perspective, one can identify the distribution of different types of actors and their knowledge in a community. This could be translated into a concept of the social system or ‘social landscape’ as being uneven instead of ‘flat’ (that is, homogeneous). This means that social or institutional entrepreneurs (Maguire 2004), with the ability to navigate and tie together this uneven landscape, are crucial in the pursuit of connecting disparate subgroups, facilitating communication and, hopefully, improving governance. For good or ill, the community studied here seems to be highly dependent on central actors for initiating collective action of any kind. The vulnerability or reduction of resilience of a social–ecological system and its institutions lies in this dependency, and on the impact the personal characteristics and interests of a single person or central group has on prioritisation and decision-making. This is perhaps an inevitable side effect associated with boundary-spanning leadership and an issue that should be accounted for when arguing for the benefits of such kinds of leadership.

acknowledgements

This research was funded by SIDA (Swedish International Development and Aid), Formas, Vetenskapsrådet and Mistra, who have contributed funding to the authors during different phases of developing this chapter. Gratitude is also extended to the Kenya Marine and Fisheries Research Institute, to which one of the authors (B. Crona) is affiliated. We thank all respondents for participating in this study, and acknowledgements also go to the work of the field assistants P. Kimani and A. Rashid, without whose work and organisational skills this study would not have been possible. We also thank Lennart Bodin for assistance with some of the statistics.

references

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3 Adaptive capacity of local indigenous institutions: the case of the taboo forests of southern Madagascar maria tengö and jacob von heland

3. 1 â•‡

introduction

We stand before a great challenge of transforming ecosystem governance towards sustainability in a world characterised by human domination and global change (Steffen etÂ€al. 2007). The conservation movement has been, and still is, one of the major responses to human exploitation, trying to limit its impact on the ecosystems of the world. Until recently, there has been a strong focus on ‘charismatic’ species, and conservation solutions have revolved around creating reserves or parks to protect nature from humans (Adams and Mulligan 2003). Most parks of the world, especially in developing countries with weak nation-states, are poorly protected and have not been able to adapt to the challenges of internal ecosystem dynamics or socioeconomic drivers such as demands for land and migration of people (Borrini-Feyerabend etÂ€al. 2004, Duffy 2006). The expanding branch of conservation recognises that local people establish and sustain self-organising institutions with positive outcomes for the protection of biodiversity (Berkes 2004, Gibson etÂ€al. 2005, Hayes 2006). While numerous studies document the content, functioning and role of such institutions in conservation and social–ecological resilience (Berkes etÂ€al. 2000), there is still a lack of understanding of their dynamics and their capacity to deal with external drivers. Our chapter addresses how local institutions valuable for forest conservation in southern Madagascar adapt to religious and climatic drivers of change. It is based on the work on common property and social–ecological systems (SES) that has emerged as a reaction to Adapting Institutions: Governance, Complexity and Social–Ecological Resilience, ed. Emily Boyd and Carl Folke. Published by Cambridge University Press. © Cambridge University Press 2012.

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‘blueprint’ conservation schemes, with simplified views of the relationship between local and indigenous people and the ecosystems in which they reside (e.g. Ostrom 1990, Berkes and Folke 1998, Murphree 2002). Three key points are central for our chapter. First, the ecosystems that are to be shielded from people have often been shaped in coevolution with human activities. Thus a separation of humans and nature is artificial and arbitrary, and an understanding of the feedbacks of the integrated social and ecological system is essential for sustaining ecosystems and ecosystem functions (Berkes and Folke 1998). Second, contrary to assumptions based on theories of the tragedy of the commons, people have a capacity to create rules, norms and institutions that regulate human use of ecosystems, and in many places people have sustained resource use over long periods (Feeny etÂ€ al. 1990, Ostrom 1990, Dietz etÂ€ al. 2003). Third, such local institutions, such as ‘rules-in-use’ (Ostrom 1990), are developed and adjusted along with local ecosystem dynamics, building resilience of the linked social–ecological system (Berkes etÂ€al. 2000). In many cases, in particular in indigenous communities, the institutions are inseparable components of a knowledge–practice–belief complex (Gadgil etÂ€al. 1993). Hence, aspects of indigenous institutions that are desirable from a Western conservationist’s perspective coexist with notions of sacredness and understandings of nature as enchanted. Colding and Folke (2001) raised the awareness of the role of social taboos as ‘invisible’ institutions with a potential overlap with conservation objectives, and argued that local rules such as taboos lower the transaction costs of monitoring and enforcement of species and habitat protection from the conservation perspective of either the state or the formal manager. Forests, lakes or other ecosystems with an ascribed sacred or spiritual value have been identified in most parts of the world and present a potential asset for biodiversity conservation. However, indigenous cultures and the institutions that underpin the protection of sacred areas or taboo habitats are often described as in decline and threatened by economic and cultural drivers, indicating a lack of capacity to adapt or otherwise resist modern challenges to their continued existence (Schoffeleers 1979, Sheridan and Nyamweru 2008). Sheridan (2008) describes the challenge of maintaining the intricate local links of sacred forest systems in a world of organised religion, globalised capitalism and climate change. For example, the local authority over the sacred kaya forest along the Kenyan coast has been weakened by the impacts of Islam, Christianity and national policies and is increasingly overruled by strong local and national economic

Adaptive local institutions: taboo forests in Madagascar

drivers (Kibet and Nyamweru 2008). Furthermore, the step to securing functioning stewardship of protected ecosystems such as taboo forests or sacred groves and linking it to governmental conservation schemes through decentralisation and co-management projects has also proven a long stride (e.g. Berkes 2004). On the other hand, in a review of the literature on sacred forests in Africa, Sheridan (2008) concludes that they are not static entities but institutions that over time have adapted and developed through economic, political and ecological drivers of change. Rather than dismissing the role of indigenous institutions for conservation and ecosystem governance based on a perception of them as static and brittle, we need to investigate the dynamics of indigenous rules and norms in relation to social and ecological, internal and external sources of change, and identify mechanisms for adaptive capacity (Sheridan and Nyamweru 2008). In this chapter, we use a case study in which indigenous locally created and maintained institutions successfully protect forests in southern Madagascar. We do this to address sources of adaptive capacity in forest governance at the local scale and the potentials and limits of the indigenous governance system to mediate change. More specifically, we assess how the forest taboo institution is adapting to two key drivers: (1) migration as a response to erratic rainfall, and (2) the growth of Christianity. We first outline how local institutions, in particular habitat taboos, may contribute to adaptive capacity in social–ecological systems, and we present the taboo forests of southern Madagascar in a social and ecological context. We then analyse the adaptive capacity of the governance framework to deal with the two drivers of change, based on interview data and GIS analyses carried out between 2003 and 2007. We conclude with a broader discussion of the mechanisms in the taboo systems that create space for navigating change, and of the central challenges facing co-management of forests and biodiversity. 3. 2 â•‡

local institutions and adaptive capacity

Institutions can be described as the rules and norms of the game or the framework within which human interaction takes place, and may be purposefully designed as well as evolved (North 1990, pp. 2–4). Furthermore, a well-functioning institution should be common knowledge to those directly involved, as well as monitored and enforced to some extent (Ostrom 1990). The stewardship and formation of institutions by individuals or groups, from the state, the society or the economy, we refer to as governance (Hyden etÂ€al. 2004, Batterbury and

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Fernando 2006). The forest taboos of Androy can be seen as a governance system, which will be further elaborated below. Crawford and Ostrom (1995) define institutional development using three dependent steps.1 The first is agreeing on a shared strategy, including when, how and to whom it applies. The second is a norm that states (1) what is forbidden (proscriptions), (2) what is permitted (permissions) and (3) what is obligatory (prescriptions). The third step is to specify what sanctions apply for non-compliance. We do not dwell on the distinction between formal and informal institutions. The taboo institutions in Androy are not written down, which is often a criterion for informal institutions, but they do have specified procedures for sanctions and enforcement, which are often Â�criteria used to define a formal institution. In this chapter, we address all three steps in relation to the adaptive capacity of the local taboo institutions to handle drivers of change. The role of local taboos in ecosystem conservation and management has been analysed as a complementary alternative to conventional natural resource management and policy suggestions based on nation-state or expert-devised governance arrangements (Gadgil etÂ€ al. 1993, Colding and Folke 1997, Cinner 2005, Tengö etÂ€al. 2007). In a literature review on threatened species, taboos were found to fill an important role in their protection and possibly to function as ‘invisible’ systems of resource management (Colding and Folke 1997, 2001). However, these studies have focused on the outcomes of taboo systems in conservation terms. So far, little has been written about the dynamic or adaptive aspects of taboo systems. In the context of taboo institutions we define adaptive capacity as the capacity of the institutional system to handle change and reconfigure itself without significant decline in crucial functions (cf. Folke 2006). Aspects of adaptive capacity have been suggested as an ability to learn and store knowledge, and flexibility in problem-solving (Scheffer etÂ€al. 2000). 3. 3â•‡

taboos as local institutions

‘Taboo’ comes from the Polynesian word tapu and is generally described as synonymous with a kind of prohibition: ‘you shall not’. In many

With ‘indigenous’ in this context means people living on a land according to cus-

1

tomary institutions that precede colonists and states (ILO, 1989, Art.1).

Adaptive local institutions: taboo forests in Madagascar

parts of the world, concepts with equivalent or similar meanings have been found, for instance, the Malagasy word fady or faly (Ruud 1970). The taboo has been a subject of anthropological studies on social, political and religious organisation in weak nation-states or non-Western settings (e.g. Frazer 1913, Durkheim 1963, Douglas 1966, Valeri 2000), which provide valuable insights for addressing the taboo as an institution for forest governance. As rules and norms, taboos can concern individuals, families, groups or societies (Lambek 1992). They are known to exist for different reasons: biological (for example, avoiding poisonous plants), religious (as in respecting forest spirits) or political (as in upholding a social structure) (Valeri 2000). But taboos also take on a moral and existential dimension, as they are used by people individually and socially in making sense of and establishing order in the world. Hence to violate a taboo also means to violate something of oneself (Valeri 2000). Often it is difficult clearly to establish a single underlying reason for a taboo; rather, several reasons are held to be inseparableÂ€– for example both religious and ethical (Valeri 2000). In terms of enforcement, violating a taboo is associated with danger, malediction and social exclusion. To avoid such consequences requires rituals or ceremonial purification of the wrongdoer and the tabooed domain, often involving an element of animal sacrifice. Taboos are continually violated, purified, renewed or reinterpreted (Douglas 1966). 3.3.1â•‡ Taboos in Madagascar Tourist guidebooks inform travellers to be careful while in Madagascar, especially in the countryside, to avoid violation of any of the omnipresent taboos. The taboos are stipulated by the ancestors, and it is the duty of the living to respect and to bear them. The legitimacy of the taboos resides in the recognition that human existence is conditioned by ancestral benevolence (e.g. Bloch 1968, Ruud 1970, Lambek 1992). The taboo tradition thus binds the living to a constantly revived past: ‘The ancestors’ power is in the taboos … This is the dynamics of the tradition reflected in the thought and actions of the individual’ (Ruud 1970, p. 272). Matters of taboos are discussed and reinterpreted by male elders in councils regulated by customary speech, kabary (Hanson 2007). The authority of the elders is determined by age and social status, or by properly evoking the words of the ancestors in the kabary (Ruud 1970; but see also Bloch 1975). Middleton (1997) declares that ‘taboos are far

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from static proscriptionsÂ€– rather, as a kind of cultural practice, they will change, mutate and be re-invented as people redefine their identities and their perceptions of the past’. Violation of taboo puts the taboo-breaker in a state of guilt, hakeo, which creates a barrier between him and normal life: he is polluted. If the violation has been severe, it also affects his family and clan. To cleanse the person from this state a ritual sacrifice is necessary, usually of an ox. After this purification, the person is reinstated in society. The severity of the offence and the necessary actions for purification are determined by the village or clan council (Ruud 1970). 3.3.2â•‡ Forest and taboos in Androy Androy, in southern Madagascar reveals a pattern of agricultural fields and pasture, interspersed by patches of forest (Figure 3.1). An initial glance suggests increasing isolation and fragmentation of forests, raising concerns for the protection of the endemic flora and fauna. However, this interpretation of the landscape misses a key piece of the puzzle: the role of local taboos. The protection of these forest patches is strong. Most have almost complete entry restrictions, no resource extraction is allowed and rule enforcement functions well (Tengö etÂ€al. 2007). In spite of the well-recognised conservation values of the region, very few formal reserves currently exist in the dry spiny forest region that Androy is part of (Fenn 2003). This implies that the taboo forests in Androy, which have experienced limited anthropogenic disturbance, some for a very long time, represent unique habitats for biodiversity conservation. Androy is one of the poorest regions in the country and the most drought-stricken. The dominant social group is the Tandroy, whose principal economic activity is pastoralism, closely followed by agriculture, especially in the south-central parts. The landscape south of the main road (RN 10) between the regional capital Ambovombe and Ambondro (stretching about 40 km) is marked by human practices. It is a flat landscape, dominated by grass, with sandy soils and strong, mostly southern winds from the ocean only kilometres away. The Tandroy have staked out the land and the forests that they own by planting cactus hedgerows (Opuntia spp.) along the borders of their fields. These fields generally grow cassava or sweet potatoes with intercroppings of maize, pumpkins, melons and beans. Scattered among the fields are distinct patches of dense forest that are clearly visible from satellite images.

Antanimor

45°40’E

Ambondro

45°50’E

46°0’E

Ambovombe

Ifotaka

46°10’E

0

5

10 15 20km

N

Amboasary Sud

46°20’E

Figure 3.1â•… Androy, southern Madagascar. Taboo forest patches clearly visible on LandSat image south of National Route 10 between Ambovombe and Ambondro.

Fort Dauphin

Tulear

Antananarivo

Madagascar

25°50’S

25°40’S

25°30’S

25°20’S

44

Maria Tengö and Jacob von Heland

This study is based on a series of two- to three-month field-work periods in Androy between 2003 and 2007. The main source of data is semi-structured deep interviews with key informants (Kvale 1996), such as clan elders and taboo forest stewards, local state officials, church representatives, state official forest managers, governmental and non-governmental organisations (n = 25) and semi-structured surveys of taboo forest managers (n = 40). Burial and taboo purification rituals have been attended, and a structured school survey has been carried out in four different schools and locations. The geographical focus is on the core area of Androy in the south, but research was also carried out in three other areas of Androy, selected on the basis of a GIS analysis of patterns of forest dynamics (Figure 3.2; Elmqvist etÂ€al. 2007, Tengö etÂ€al. 2007). In the next section, we introduce the reader to Androy and go through key ecological and social components, as well as key social–ecological interactions that are relevant for local forest governance. 3.3.3â•‡ The ecological context The dry forest of the semi-arid south and southwest harbours the highest level of endemic plants in Madagascar (Koechlin 1972) and is listed as one of the 200 most important ecological regions in the world (Olson and Dinerstein 1998). Arid conditions have led to livelihoods based on pastoralism and agriculture low-input, low-intensity. Natural fires are infrequent (Koechlin 1972). Since the early 1970s, the dry forest cover has been reported to be declining, principally due to clearing for agriculture, cattle herding, timber harvest and charcoal production (Sussman and Rakotozafy 1994, Sussman etÂ€al. 2003). A recent study detected only a marginal change in total forest cover in Androy over a 15-year period (1984–2000), which contrasts to reductions of up to 59% of forest cover in southwestern Madagascar during the same time (Casse etÂ€al. 2004, Elmqvist etÂ€al. 2007). The forest patches in southern Androy range from less than 1 ha in size to a few of almost 100 ha. The characteristic species are woody species of euphorbia (Euphorbia decorsei, E. stenoclada) and Commiphora humbertii. Species diversity of the forest patches is not very high (Shannon–Weiner diversity index 2.8), but all woody species are endemic. Species composition differs between unprotected and protected forests, indicating unique habitat (Tengö etÂ€al. 2007). It was not possible for the researchers to enter the forests but according to local informants, they are inhabited by lemurs (ring-tailed lemur

Figure 3.2â•… Classification of forest cover change between 1986 and 2000. Adapted from Elmqvist etÂ€al. (2007).

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(Lemur catta), Verreaux’s sifaka (Propithecus verreauxi) and mouse lemurs (Microcebus spp.) as well as birds (for example the endemic blue coua (Coua caerulea) and helmeted guineafowl (Numida meleagris), the endangered radiated tortoise (Geochelone radiata), snakes (e.g. Boa madagascarienses) and occasional wild boars. The forest patches are spread throughout the agricultural landscape. Despite the fragmented forest cover, the configuration of patches in the landscape allows for the generation of essential ecosystem services, such as crop pollination and seed dispersal (Bodin etÂ€al. 2006). Forest patches are important habitats for crop pollinators and presently the modelled cover of pollination services in the landscape is almost complete. Studies of the dry spiny forests in Androy indicate that there is ecosystem resilience in the landscape. The forests appear to have the capacity to self-organise and regenerate if the appropriate conditions exist. Elmqvist etÂ€ al. (2007) detected a significant increase of forest cover dominated by native endemic species between 1984 and 2000, and point to the capacity of the dry forest to spontaneously regenerate, which contrasts with the common assertion that dry tropical forests have a low regeneration potential. The taboo forests represent potential source areas for regeneration following local disturbance, such as a cyclone or human logging. Connectivity for a species that is able to move around 1000 m or more, such as the ring-tailed lemur and the forest birds that are also potential seed dispersers, was found to be high (Bodin etÂ€al. 2006). However, the functioning of the studied ecosystem services is vulnerable to loss of forest patches (ibid). Androy is characterised by semi-arid climatic conditions with irregular rainfall averaging less than 500 mm per year. The annual rainfall declines from north to south and from northeast to southwest (Battistini and Richard-Vindard 1972). Livelihood insecurity associated with recurrent droughts is a serious concern for the inhabitants of Androy. Elmqvist etÂ€al. (2007) report a declining trend of precipitation locally; southern Madagascar has experienced declining precipitation since the 1970s and recurrent drought conditions, which have almost become chronic, since 1981 (Casse etÂ€ al. 2004). Particularly severe droughts affected the region in 1981, 1992 and 2003 (EM-DAT: the OFDA/CRED International Disaster Database, www.emdat.be). The large-scale spontaneous regeneration of forest in some parts of Androy appears to be a result of a combination of changes in precipitation, migration patterns and decreased human population and livestock grazing pressure under conditions of maintained and welldefined property rights (Elmqvist etÂ€al. 2007). In conclusion, ecosystem

Adaptive local institutions: taboo forests in Madagascar

resilience in the Androy region is closely associated with human activities and the effectiveness of local institutions. 3. 4 â•‡

social context

Archaeological excavations around the oldest taboo forests in the south of Androy suggest that the land has been inhabited by Tandroy clans since the sixteenth century (Pearson and Godden 2003). Currently, the density of people and settlement is highest in this area (around 100 people per km2), whereas further north density is generally less than 10 people per km2 except in the urban centres. During the twentieth century, the inhabitants of Androy, the Tandroy, have gone from mobile and few to sedentary and many (G. Heurtebize, personal communication, 2005). Presently, around 650 000 people are estimated to live in Androy (SAP 2005). Seasonal migration with their cattle, the zebu, is still a key component of local livelihoods, in response to rainfall variability. Although most Tandroy farm the land today, the zebu has a very special role, economically as well as socially and culturally. A herd of zebu is a bank account and provides the insurance for periods of crop failure and drought. Furthermore, the zebu is the most important sacrificial animal in ceremonies that settle human interactions, as well as religious ceremonies. The social status of a person is strongly related to the number of cattle his or her family owns. The spiny forest fills important functions for local livelihoods as well as for Tandroy culture. The Tandroy use the forest as a source of fodder for livestock, supplementary food such as tubers and fruits (especially during food shortages), material for construction and tools, and wood for fuel. Households usually cook using firewood, but dry wood is also cut for the production of charcoal, sold in the urban centres. The Tandroy have a patrilineal clan structure. The oldest living male in the main clan blood line is the clan priest or ritual leader, mpisoro. The mpisoro resides by the ancestral stake, hazomanga, which embodies the potency of the clan. This is also where important rituals and ceremonies are held.2 The forests present a key link between people and the ancestors. Spirits reside in trees and deep forest, and burying the dead in the forest is a common practice among the Tandroy, in particular in the However, as Middleton (1997) has pointed out, many Tandroy clans have aban-

2

doned the mpisoro and the hazomanga elements of the ancestral cult.

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Maria Tengö and Jacob von Heland

south. As the forests grow with the spirits of the ancestors, the wellbeing of the community becomes tied to the integrity of the forest. The burial forests, ala kibory, tie the clan or lineage to the ancestral land, tanin-drasana. The descendants continue to bury in the same forests as long as they stay in the area and in numerous cases return to bury there even if the family has migrated elsewhere. The funeral is a central cultural ritual in which people restate their relationship to the deceased and one another through gifts, enga (Fee 2000), as well as reinforce their connection with the forest. The two-day funeral will include the sacrificial spearing of at least four zebu bulls: one when the corpse leaves the house, one as it is placed in a pre-burial forest, ala salata, one at the opening of the ancestral tomb in the burial forest, ala kibory, and one upon closing the tomb (Fee 2000). The breath of the animal goes to the ancestors, the blood to the land and the meat to the living. During a rich man’s funeral, more than 30 zebu may be slaughtered. The most important duty that children have towards their parents is to provide a proper burial (Fee 2000). These responsibilities and presentations during the funeral play an important part in defining the social organisation of Tandroy society and the relationships within and between clans (Fee 2000). In addition to the mpisoro, other relevant positions in the society are the ombiasa, the diviner, and the tsimahaivelo, the (clanspecific) person in charge of the funeral ceremony. 3. 5â•‡

the taboo forest institutions

Madagascar has developed an ambitious conservation programme since 2000, involving a tripling of the country’s conservation area, legal frameworks for decentralising forest management and a stated openness to including types of protection that do not rule out human use of protected ecosystems.3 Further, Madagascar has a system that formally recognises local rules based on customary institutions, fokonolona, such as taboos, as bylaws that can be devised and enforced locally (Hanson 2007). Technically, in Madagascar, all non-private forest land is state property. However, the traditional land claims inherited from the ancestors, tanin-drazana, related to clans and lineages are still effective See Duffy (2006) for an analysis of the the Durban Vision Initiative for expanding

3

conservation areas and Raik (2007) for a description of community-based forest management approaches in Madagascar.

Adaptive local institutions: taboo forests in Madagascar

in Androy, representing a common property regime with collective owners who organise to exclude or regulate non-owners and their use of resources. What we describe here is mainly the customary side of forest governance. There are also local and regional rules for forest management, but in practice the forest officials are few and have very small means of enforcing governmental rules (Tengö etÂ€al. 2007). Land that is not cultivated belongs to a clan, a lineage or a subclan rather than to an individual. The elders set the rules for resource use on clan land and grant access to visitors or newcomers to graze their livestock or establish new settlements. The influence of the ancestors is manifest in the lilin-drazana, a set of rules or laws handed down from the ancestors. There is also the fomban-drazana, which refers to custom and habit and is less strict. Both sets are preserved orally in the memory of the elders of each clan, who, together with the mpisoro, are responsible for the ancestral law. The taboos, or faly, meaning forbidden, among the Tandroy are prescribed in the lilin-drazana and are central to Tandroy identity (cf. Lambek 1992). One example is the taboo on consuming the meat of the radiated tortoise, which is specific to the Tandroy (Lingard etÂ€ al. 2003). The violation of a taboo may lead to negative consequences for the individual, but often also for the whole community, as it displeases or angers the ancestors (Ruud 1970, Lambek 1992). Here, we focus on the taboos that are place-specific, in particular those concerning forest or forest patches, the ala faly (forbidden forest). The owners of the taboo forest, ala faly, are a clan or lineage.4 For all taboo forests, the faly implies a ban on damaging or showing a lack of respect for the area. This includes burning, cutting and polluting the area through defecating, urinating or sexual activities. There are different types of ala faly, depending on their history and use (Tengö etÂ€ al. 2007). The most common type, and the category that includes all patches larger than 5 ha in southern Androy, is the burial forest, ala kibory. The taboo does not in itself imply entrance restrictions, but in practice it is only possible for anyone to enter an ala kibory on burial day, following the sacrifice of zebu that opens up the borders and makes the area safe to enter. Evidence of human presence in or nearby an ala kibory could lead to allegations if damage to the forest is found in conjunction with the visit or later (Tengö etÂ€al. 2007). If the people living near an ala faly are not the owners, they are often held We found a few examples of private taboo groves. They were small and used for

4

honey production (Tengö etÂ€al. 2007).

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accountable for damage to the forest. In case of violation of taboos, they are required to identify the violators and hand them over to the owner of the forest (Tengö etÂ€al. 2007). In some instances, there is an agreement between the local inhabitants and the owners in which the former guard the forest in exchange for benefits. The order of the taboo has a supernatural component and is not perceived to be established by humans only. The dead clan members who are buried in the forest and whose laws and customs direct the life of the Tandroy have the capacities and rights to intervene in any way they see fit. Hence, when a taboo forest is violated, both the dead and the living need to be appeased. Through ritual speech, kabary, and sacrifice, sorona, the living enter into communication with the ancestors. At the kabary, the forest owners and other people concerned convene to establish guilt and settle the punishment. Each lineage has a representative at the meeting and all give their opinion before a decision is made and the verdict agreed by consensus. If there is a suspect who does not confess, the owners may call for an ordeal, sangy, a ritual process to establish guilt. If a person does not follow what is decided in a kabary, the local police can be involved and the person can ultimately be brought to the district court. The kabary is recognised by the formal authorities as a problem-solving arena. We recorded two cases in which a person was brought to the regional court in Fort Dauphin. The taboo violation implies a pollution that needs to be purified. This restoration of order requires some kind of blood sacrifice by the guilty party. Most often a zebu, but in some instances a smaller animal, may be enough. The sorona ritual is organised by the clan priest, mpisoro. A sorona purifies the relationship between the living and the supernatural powers, it compensates what has been broken down and reinstates the offender into society, thus restoring normal conditions (Ruud 1970). The number of zebu required is proportional to the damage caused, but for the burial forests there is a minimum of one. The stories tell of requirements of up to 30 zebu, but demands for more than three seem to be rare (Tengö etÂ€al. 2007). The sorona ritual is the crux for the outcome of social change related to the influence of Christianity. 3. 6â•‡

drivers of change and local adaptive capacity

Our data suggest that forest protection and stewardship relies strongly on the legitimacy of ownership and institutions, and on adequate and maintained enforcement. Two important drivers affecting these

Adaptive local institutions: taboo forests in Madagascar

processes are (1) recurrent drought conditions leading to seasonal and permanent emigration, and (2) cultural changes related to modernisation and expanding Christianity. In the following section, we will present data on responses to these two drivers and explore how adaptive capacity is expressed in the social–ecological system to deal with these challenges, with particular regard to taboo forests. 3.6.1â•‡ Erratic rainfall and migration The high variability of rainfall has always been a key factor in the social–ecological system of Androy, and mobility has been the main mechanism for dealing with it. Today, migration occurs over different temporal and spatial scales: (1) seasonal migration across ecological zones with zebu herds to improve access to fodder within Androy, (2) seasonal labour migration to urban centres, mainly Tulear and Fort Dauphin, (3) semi-permanent or permanent migration within Androy to find new or better farmland and pasture, and (4) semi-permanent or permanent migration to other parts of Madagascar for better farmland and pasture or alternative livelihoods. Kottak (1971) argues that the Tandroy were transhumant pastoralists until French rule led to increased settlement. The Tandroy have been described as reluctant to move beyond their home area despite the hardships experienced there (Réau 2002). A person who has left Androy is referred to as motso (lost) and, according to the customs, rituals are required when repatriating a returning migrant into the community. Migrants are considered definitely lost if they do not return for the funeral of a parent (Fee 2000). However, the demands of the developing colonial agricultural sector during the early twentieth century enforced labour migration out of Androy. In particular, the famine of the late 1920s, whose massive impact on human and livestock lives was to a large extent caused by the eradication of the Opuntia cactus by the introduced cochineal (Dactylopius coccus), pushed Tandroy workers into migration. Over the following decades the Tandroy, who were considered sturdy and good workers, provided cheap labour, especially on the plantations in the north (Middleton 1999). According to Réau (2002), migrants tended to congregate in family groups in smaller settlements. Today, Casse etÂ€al. (2004), for example, report increasing Androy permanent migration north of Tulear, in the west. In addition to the harsh living conditions and recurrent droughts in Androy, Réau (2002) brings forward two reasons why tens of thousands of Tandroy live as migrants in other

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regions. The first is the desire to increase social and economic status, primarily by earning money to buy zebu. The ancestral ceremonies, as an arena for displaying status, are said to play a key role. The second is family disruption related to inheritance of, and access to, land to create a livelihood. The trend of increasing aridity, and in particular increased frequency of droughts, was of central concern to all our informants. It has altered the temporal and spatial patterns of migration. Farmers in the south reported either that they kept their cattle at home and fed them Opuntia leaves during the dry season, or that they had to go much further than before to find pasture. Social networks are indispensible for access to resources in new areas, so access to grazing outside Androy can be challenging. Connections with relatives and friends are also essential for temporary and permanent migration, as also noted by Réau (2002). Through a set of case studies, we analyse adaptive capacity for forest governance, expressed as the outcome of migration as a response to erratic rainfall. The case studies are characterised by three patterns of forest cover change over the 14 years between 1986 and 2000: deforestation, stable forest cover and forest regeneration (Figure 3.2). We address past events as well as current adaptation to increasing aridity. Western Androy: deforestation 1986–2000 Until the early twentieth century, this area was inhabited by the Afomarolahy, a clan thoroughly studied by Heurtebize (1986). The Afomarolahy were the legitimate owners of the land, tompon-tany, according to the ancestral law. Following a period of droughts and crop failure they moved 50 km north, where their main settlements are today. They left behind at least two large ala kibory and a small settlement to guard the burial grounds. The present inhabitants belong to a different clan that settled around the 1950s. In an analysis of aerial photos from this period, the forest is described as regenerating in abandoned fields (Clark etÂ€al. 1998). According to local informants and forest officials, during the 1980s forest clearing was particularly used to secure individual land rights. This land-grabbing is similar across Africa and is related to the independent government overruling customary tenure systems while lacking the capacity to enforce the new rules (Duffy 2006). As collective rights to land were not acknowledged, the only formal way to claim

Adaptive local institutions: taboo forests in Madagascar

land was to turn it into farmland. The limits to the amount of land cleared per family could easily be overruled, as officials had only very limited means of enforcement. In other parts of Androy, the effects were limited, as the customary tenure system was still well enforced. In western Androy, the inhabitants who had arrived since the 1950s had no ancestral legitimacy for their rights to the land. The outcome was a transition from regenerating forest to cleared or partly cleared land as a response to insecure property rights. Several recent clearings and signs of extensive cutting were observed in May 2003 and January 2004 (Elmqvist etÂ€al. 2007). It is interesting to note that population density in the area is fairly low, around 50 people per km2, which is much lower than in the south of Androy. Furthermore, the old large ala kibory that are legitimate property of the Afomarolahy clan are still well enforced, although they are no longer used for burials. North and central Androy: stable and regenerating forest cover 1986–2000 North and central Androy is characterised by stable or regenerating forest cover. Settlements are currently small and scattered and population density is lower than 10 people per km2. The forest is used as a seasonal resource for cattle herding by the inhabitants as well as by people from the more densely populated south and southwest. At least three clans are tompon-tany, the owners of the land, and still live in the area. Seasonal dwellers pay respect to the tompon-tany, and informants reported that permission to cut a tree is required from government as well as customary authorities, that is, the elders of the tompon-tany. Generally, the people who are permitted grazing rights have an established relationship with the owners, such as marriages between the clans, or fatidra, an institutionalised kinship relation between non-relatives. This makes it possible for the owners to hold the visitors accountable for their actions. However, settlements are small and scattered and informants claimed that it is difficult to monitor what is going on in the forest; undetected logging and unauthorised grazing do occur. One village has turned to the government forest authorities for help in keeping outsiders out of the forest and clarifying the village boundaries. One of the dominant species in the areas characterised by regenerating forest (Figure 3.2), Cedrelopsis grevei, has an economic value, mainly as a source wood for charcoal production.

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Despite this, the forest cover has remained intact or is regenerating in the area during the study period. The context of forest regeneration is unclear, but data indicate that the pressure on forest resources has declined. The main driver is the severe droughts during the period, in particular during 1982 and 1990–92, which caused deaths among both people and cattle and extensive emigration. The continuing pattern of recurrent droughts has also caused alterations in the patterns of seasonal migrations, as zebu herds are moved much further north to find water and are kept away for longer periods of time than was previously customary (G. Heurtebize, personal communication, April 2005), thus alleviating the pressure on the forests. The core of Androy in the south: stable forest cover 1986–2000 In southern Androy, with a high population density of more than 100 people per km2, the forest cover was stable during the study period. Comparison with older maps shows that the pattern of forest patches has remained more or less the same since the 1950s (Elmqvist etÂ€al. 2007). All the patches larger than 5 ha, as well as many of the smaller ones, are ala kibory, burial forests. For each patch, the ownership is well established and recognised. There are a few examples in which a burial forest was initially used by a certain group of people but was later taken over by another clan. In the south, more than 20 clans are settled, of which most own one or a few forest patches. Transgressions do occur in taboo forests, although they are not frequent. For most patches we could record a story of an incident occurring during the previous 10 years in which the culprit was identified and punished and a sorona ceremony held to purify the forest. Of 76 mapped ala kibory, nine were found to be no longer active for burials. Two of these were abandoned, that is, the owners no longer monitored or enforced the physical sanctions. Stories of recent transgressions indicate that there were more incidents in these forests compared to well-enforced ones, and informants also said that they were less respected. We found one case in which lost respect in a taboo forest was reinstated. The owners of the forest moved away a long time ago and no one was monitoring the forest. When signs of cutting were found by some relatives of the ancestors buried there, they held the villages nearby responsible. The villagers refused to say who did it and the

Adaptive local institutions: taboo forests in Madagascar

relatives of the owners decided to sacrifice one zebu and one sheep, to repair the damage and show concern for the forest. The clan representatives for the nearby villagers also contributed one zebu, to display support and an intent that they would continue to protect the forest in the future. These three cases illustrate that the taboos provide protection for certain forest patches for a long time, and that legitimate and enforced land ownership were present in areas that had stable and regenerating forest, in spite of the high number of people moving in the landscape. Extensive forest loss was characterised by unclear property rights. Taboo forests were found also in north-central and western Androy, either as isolated patches as in the south or embedded in forest, although no complete mapping was carried out (Tengö etÂ€al. 2007). According to the informants, they were generally respected, in spite of the fact that many were out of sight of settlements. As in the south, there were stories of transgression followed by sanctions. The feet of a sacrificed animal tied to a pole were often seen at the border of a taboo forest, demonstrating the rule enforcement of the forest. Informants reported that transgressions were more common during droughts or difficult periods, and stated that forests no longer used for burial had weaker protection. Two forests in which the taboo was no longer enforced, as the owners had left, could be visited, and evidence of human disturbance, such as cutting of smaller trees and traces of digging for tubers, was visible. An additional example of reinstated and reinforced taboo protection was found further west. A local non-governmental organisation (NGO) wanted to create a forest reserve, partly to secure good-quality wood for a carpentry workshop. Part of the area was an ala faly. When they gathered the villages involved to declare the reserve, a number of zebu cattle were sacrificed, contributed by the organisation and the villages, to give the whole reserve a strong protection. This indicates that the taboo can be applied as a rule in different contexts. Further evidence for this is the different types of taboo forests, in particular in the south, such as honey groves, memorial groves and ceremonial forest, embracing functions other than spiritual. One indication of the maintained strength of the taboos is that external actors operating in Androy often comply with the forest taboos. For example, in the food-for-work programme run by

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Programme Alimentaire Mondial (PAM, World Food Programme), the participants carry out road repairs along National Route 10. It happens that the work concerns the periphery of taboo forests located right next to the road. In such cases, PAM ensures availability of necessary sacrifice for taboo purification, so that, as described by a representative, the axes of the workers will not slip in their hands and injure them. The Daiho Company, a Japanese pipeline engineering company stationed in Tsihombe, followed a similar procedure when laying pipes near the village of Marokalo. The route of the pipes went under an ala fitofoa, a taboo site where the corpse rests during a burial procession. A village council established the necessary sacrificial presentation that Daiho needed to make, after which they could proceed with their work. 3.6.2â•‡ Christianity and social change In this section we address how Christianity, as a growing religious practice and belief system within Tandroy communities, changes the context of the indigenous taboo forest institutions. In particular, we analyse the role of the blood sacrifice, the sorona ceremony, as the key feature dividing Christians and the followers of the indigenous ancestor-belief system. The existence of Christianity in traditional African cultures is still associated with missionaries, who often collaborated successfully with colonial projects through combinations of rhetoric, ideology, technology and force.5 Indeed, it has been taken for granted that Western religion, politics and economy have had, and continue to have, eroding effects on local, traditional and indigenous societies (Sponsel 2001, Sheridan and Nyamweru 2008). However, others suggest that contemporary sub-Saharan African Christianity is neither ‘colonial’ nor ‘Western’. Very often these Christianities are blends between Christianity and local historical practices and beliefs (Shorter 1977, Page etÂ€ al. 2010). Most Malagasy people believe that humans are born into a meaningful existence in a created world. Before Christianity, the ancestral cults accounted for a number of supernatural beings including a creator, ancestral spirits and spirit mediums. The Christian sacredÂ€– saints, Jesus and GodÂ€– could be accepted into No one has perhaps told this story as powerfully as the Nigerian Nobel Prize-

5

winning author Chinua Achebe in Things Fall Apart (1958), but for a southern Malagasy context see, for example, Middleton (1997).

Adaptive local institutions: taboo forests in Madagascar

the plurality of Malagasy spiritual life. The monotheistic element of Christian (or Islamic) theology is therefore many times less strict than in other parts of the world, and syncretic and hybrid practices are common (Lambek 1992). However, there are features in the ancestral belief system that are hard to embrace while being a Christian. Central among them is the sacrifice of animals, which is declared in the Bible to be a sin.6 Long histories of missionary activity exist in the south of Madagascar, under the flags of Norway, France and the USA (Dahl 1934, Ruud 1970, Benolo 1998). The first congregations were established in the early twentieth century. The Joshua Project, a local Christian organisation based in Ambondro, has compiled data on the current presence of Christianity in Androy. Of the 650 000 inhabitants of Androy (2000 census), around 18% identify themselves as Christians. However, only 9% affirm Jesus to be ‘the One and Only Saviour’, and 91% of the total population identify themselves as following the ancestral religion of their individual clan. In Androy, there are 150 Roman Catholic congregations (65 000 adherents), 63 Lutheran congregations (50 000 adherents) and 25 recently established Pentecostal congregations (1500 adherents) (Joshua Project 2000). Our field work suggests that people who are mainly urban-based, young (less than 40 years old), with or aspiring to a high-school qualification or university degree and employed by the government or NGOs are more likely to be Christian. It also seems that Christianity is more common among women than men. The faith is less common among people with positions in village councils or in customary institutions, such as elders or mpisoro and tsimahaivelona. Attitudes and tensions: Christianity and ancestral believers In a written survey of students in Ambonaivo Middle School (n = 54, ages 9–16), 54% of students stated that they were Christian. The same Â�survey conducted in the high schools of the urban centres of Ambovombe, Tsihombe and Beloha (n = 273, ages 16–19) showed 97% of the students stating they were Christian (von Heland 2005). During the ensuing discussions, the students were careful to avoid misrepresenting or showing a lack of respect for the customs or traditional belief system of their New Testament, Corinthians I, 8.

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clans. However, some general issues of concern with the Tandroy culture were brought up. The teachers who facilitated these discussions divided the class into two camps: ‘education + modern + Christian’ arguing against ‘local + traditional + pagan’. However, the students did not fully admit to such a divide. They stressed that while one may be Christian, one is also Tandroy. This meant that one had to respect ancestral customs as well as follow the word of the Bible. Concerns about the ancestral culture brought up by young Tandroy students concerned traditional livelihood practices, some of the elements of taboos, customs and ritual (especially the blood sacrifice) and the role and behaviour of the ancestral priest (mpisoro). Traditional Tandroy livelihoods revolve around cultivation and the breeding and selling of cattle and other livestock, learned from an early age as part of village activities. By attending high school, these students and their parents invest in a different education, hoping that it will lead to a different kind of work, such as a driver, teacher, doctor, nurse or politician. A clear divide that emerged from the classroom survey was how students related to ancestral rituals, such as the funerary celebration for the recently deceased (havoria) and the blood sacrifice (sorona). In the school survey, 81% (n = 173) of the respondents wished to be buried inside the ancestral tomb in the forest. However, 43% of the students added two crucial reservations: they did not want a traditional funerary festivity (havoria), and they did not want to have blood sacrifice (sorona). Hence, while most students wanted to be buried in the ancestral tomb, a majority objected to practices that are part of the customary funerary ritual (von Heland 2005). Their main reasons were that they perceived the havoria, a two-day funeral festivity, as wasting precious wealth, as well as being inappropriately boastful, and the sorona sacrifice as being sinful from a Christian point of view. Catholics, Lutherans and Pentecostals within the Tandroy Christian community all question the blood sacrifice (sorona) component of the ancestral belief system, which some informants referred to as a taboo for Christians:7

In her study about the abandonment of the hazomanga cult in several neighbour-

7

ing Karembola clans, Karen Middleton makes a similar observation of a reuse of the concept of taboo, in a non-ancestral cultist sense (Middleton 1997). In this case, the rituals and social roles (for example the mpisoro) attached to the hazomanga were described as having become taboo for the people to engage with.

Adaptive local institutions: taboo forests in Madagascar No one in my family is a gentlis [belonging to the ancestral cult]. Hence, we do not do sacrifice, do sorona. I refuse to participate during such ceremonies. (Lutheran Pastor active in the urban centres of Ambovombe town) I respect our traditional culture. I participate in everything that my community does, except for blood sacrifice, the sorona. As a Christian I can only worship the blood of Jesus. However, all the other ancestral commands and customs I follow. (Chaplain of a Catholic church in the rural commune of Ambonaivo) I follow the Tandroy customs in all that is not conflicting with the Bible. It is taboo to Christians to be present during a sacrifice. If there is a ceremony with blood I walk away from there … Everything else I respect. The taboos and the sacred forests … and the tortoises taboo. The church and the gentlis live in mutual respect. (Lutheran catechist in the rural commune of Ambonaivo)

These quotes illustrate the fact that the Tandroy Christians wish to be part of the two parallel belief systems (ancestral and Christian) and do so, as far as possible. However, the churches are clearly against sacrifice; consequently, this is where Christians draw the line for their participation in community and village life. With regard to forest governance, this has implications for (1) decision-making with regard to public and collective matters, such as the burial forests, (2) enforcement of violation of forest taboos, and (3) Christian burial. We were informed that in some cases it is acceptable for a Protestant to participate in rituals where blood sacrifice is practised, when attendance is necessary. However, instead of being sprinkled with blood, as is customary during such ceremonies, Christians will instead be sprinkled with water. Decisions in the community are often made through the practice of kabary, where speeches result in a consensus, often settled through sacrifice. Our data indicate that Christian members of a community hold their own conflict-resolution meetings, often hosted by church representatives. One rural Catholic chaplain states that one of the main things his church does is help settle disputes among Christians in the community. Similarly to the kabary, a guilty party will have to pay a goat, possibly even a zebu, but there is no sacrifice. The outcome is partly parallel arenas for conflict resolution and decision-making, which means Christians are not involved in making decisions of concern for them. Regarding the enforcement of the forest taboos, Christians share the responsibility for monitoring the taboo forests and concern for the peace of ancestors buried in the forests with other clan members.

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However, as described above, they cannot accept the mechanisms underlying the enforcement and the role of sacrifice in purifying the forest and restoring order, and many refuse to participate in the ceremonies. The taboo forests are sacred because of the ancestral presence and stake in these forests. The reason for sacrifice is to establish the link with the ancestors, to evoke and to please them as well as the living. To refuse to make a sacrifice would essentially mean to refuse to settle matters the way the ancestors want it.

Funerals, forest burial sites and Christianity According to ancestral norms, to die as a poor man who possesses no cattle, or to have behaved in such a way that your clan no longer recognises you as one of them and leaves you ‘to bury yourself’, are two great fears for the Tandroy, as well as for Christians. Both may imply that you cannot be buried among your relatives in the ancestral tomb. According to ancestral law, to get the corpse safely into the tomb, it is necessary to perform sacrifice during the burial ceremony. Children who fail to conduct a proper funeral will receive moral blame, hakeo, and consequent righteous wrath from the ancestors. Entire lineages have been known to die out from hakeo, as your children will later fail to bury you, and so on. Hence no expense is spared for funerary ceremonies, especially for the deaths of powerful men (Fee 2000). For the Christians, blood sacrifice is a key dilemma that cuts deep into the Tandroy identityÂ€– they cannot perform the sacrifice but they still want to be in the ancestral tomb. My experience is that Catholics are not strict the way Protestants are … my father who was Catholic was buried in the ancestral tomb according to ancestral practices … But when I die my Lutheran pastor will not tolerate that I bury in the ancestral tomb, with zebu sacrifice. This will in turn create problems for my children and family that will wish to bury me inside the tomb. I do not know if I can trust that they will respect my wish to be buried outside, in a Christian cemetery. (Tandroy NGO worker in Ambovombe) I am a Protestant. To us it is forbidden to participate in any ceremony where we pray to the [indigenous] gods or the ancestors. I can never participate in a sorona ceremony. Therefore I cannot be buried in the family tomb. It is a dilemma for my family that I will be buried outside the family tomb. Traditionally it is only the poor or the outcasts that are not placed in the family tomb with a traditional funeral. (Tandroy anthropologist in Ambovombe)

Adaptive local institutions: taboo forests in Madagascar

We present three different responses to this dilemma that were identified in our interviews in three communities, represented by three clans (von Heland, unpublished). We refer to them as the Conservative, the Liberal and the Polarised clans. (1)

(2)

(3)

The Conservative clan. In this clan there exist only a few Christians. Their main burial forest will not allow the burial of anyone who does not follow the full ancestral protocol with sacrifice and havoria, the ceremonial burial feast. Hence, Christians bury at the periphery of the forest. They can also bury in a separate area where babies and poor people are buried. It is a taboo forest but as you do not need to sacrifice cattle to be buried there, the area has a lower status and is not really a forest but rather a bundle of trees. The elders of the clan say that if a majority of the clan members become Christian as time goes by, they may have to reconsider what role the forest should have. Currently, in this clan, there is limited conflict, as Christians are few and without strong influence. The Liberal clan. In this clan there are both Christians and ancestrals. Since both groups want to bury inside the main funeral forest of the ancestors, they have established two sections in the forest, one for the burials of each group. The current mpisoro, the clan high priest, was a Christian before his predecessor passed away but nonetheless accepted the role as the clan living ancestor: ‘This was my duty to my people and I could not refuse it.’ The strong Christian group in the clan includes the village mayor. He tries to make sure that both groups are pleased with the changes that affect clan arrangements. So the ancestors are not upset when people bury without making the proper sacrifice. A woman in the household of the mpisoro stated that ‘we pick a bit from both religions’. In further support of this, the mayor, who was also present, cited a proverb: ‘The ancestors who do not see to the best for the living, should be dug up to make space for cultivating sweet potatoes.’ In essence, this means that an ancestor who does not support the current life of the descendants is not worth paying tribute to. The Polarised clan. In this clan, Christian clan members wanted to bury in the same tomb as their ancestors, so they went ahead and placed a dead Christian in the family tomb, in the taboo forest, without spearing any bulls (the sorona ceremony). The elders in the community were upset. A village council, a kabary, was

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arranged, during which the Christians argued that they have equal rights as other clan members to the family tomb. The conflict was severe and could not be settled within the clan, so it was brought to the District Commissioner (DC) in Ambovombe. The DC reasoned that since it was only the ancestrals who had a problem with the incident, they should supply the bulls necessary to purify the forest. The ancestrals refused, since they did not want to pay for an offence of the Christian group. The DC saw no other solution than to divide the burial forests of the clan in two: one section where only Christians can bury and one where only ancestrals bury, each group respecting the other’s practices. The outcome of this arrangement is, so far, unclear. Many informants from this clan expressed relief about having converted to Christianity, as it is a less strict religion. The funerals are less expensive, the way of life is more flexible and there are fewer taboos to fear or follow. The clan no longer has a clan priest, nor an ancestral stake (hazomanga). The Christian informants claim that before the last clan priest passed away he was not well respected. The strong control of the ancestors is a past thing. In this case, the tensions are apparent and open and there is as yet no settling of the issue. In summary, all participants in Tandroy society hold the taboo forests to be important and worthy of respect, but the Christian taboo against blood sacrifice represents a delicate dilemma. The resolving strategies within different clans in the society generate different outcomes that are likely to have consequences for the future of the taboo forest institutions and the capacity of forest conservation in Androy. 3. 8â•‡

discussion

In contrast to sacred forests in many other parts of Africa (Sheridan and Nyamweru 2008), our study shows that the taboo institutions remain central for forest conservation in Androy, in spite of environmental and cultural change. The forest taboos in Androy are well-enforced, legitimate rules-in-use and provide good protection for the forest (Tengö etÂ€ al. 2007). For the local community to adapt and maintain common property resources such as forests for the future, the indigenous institutions embedded in culture and belief systems play a key role. The taboos and other forest-related institutions have been able to

Adaptive local institutions: taboo forests in Madagascar

deal with fluctuating flows of seasonal migration and high population density in areas where tenure is well established and the local rules are well monitored and enforced. This corroborates well with other studies of local forest governance, for example the review of 55 forests in Nepal by Nagendra (2007). The forest taboos are regularly violated, but the taboos are also purified according to custom, and the forests continue to enjoy strong protection. The ceremonies reinforce and publicly display stewardship of the forest and the link between the people and the forest, which is widely respected in society. However, in parallel with this we also find an ongoing questioning and probing within the community concerning the role of taboos, ancestral beliefs and forests. The tensions in society between Christians, to some extent representing the modern, urban and educated, and the traditional organisation of society are made explicit during the ceremonies and rituals in which the taboos are evoked. Along with Sheridan and Nyamweru (2008) and others, we view local institutions such as the taboos as dynamic and constantly changing in response to sociopolitical and ecological drivers of change. In our analysis of two central drivers, migration and the spread of Christianity, we identify a number of mechanisms (summarised in Table 3.1) that contribute to the adaptive capacity of the taboo institution and forest protection in Androy. 3.8.1â•‡ The link between land and people A history of maintained connection between the people and the land appears to be key to adaptive capacity. Periods of erratic rainfall have led to movements of people locally and regionally, with different implications for forest governance, depending on the context. Historical migration and land abandonment have led to institutional failure of forest patch protection as well as land management at a larger village scale in western Andoy, where the present inhabitants lack ancestral legitimacy for their land claims. On the other hand, emigration and decreased pressure on natural resources also allowed for forest regeneration in north Androy, but this was under conditions where local institutions are active and enforced. Forest protection in Androy is rooted in a strong, institutionalised link between the owners, tompontany, and the land. The ala faly constitutes an important symbol of the legitimacy of land ownership. The link is reinforced and revitalised through the enforcement of the rules, and through the ceremonies

63

Well-defined boundaries of ecosystems and ownership with legitimate authority and wellrecognised rules and sanctions

Close fit between institution and ecosystem

Purification as a mechanism for starting over

The sorona ceremony cleanses forest from pollution and re-establishes order

Place-based stewardship Burial in the forest ties the ancestors and the living to the place and the wellbeing of the community to the forest. Manifest through ceremonies and publicly demonstrated stakes Arena for conflict Kabary as a forum for dynamic and flexible resolution interpretation of existing rules where all stakes can be heard

Sense of shared Cultural identity, norms and values align with ancestry as culturally clan membership organising principle

Description

Source of adaptive capacity

Formal tenure may overrule customary and common property systems

Institutions developed for localised interactions between local actors imply limited capacity to deal with cross-scale or novel drivers Reliance on shared values implies limited capacity to deal with cross-scale or novel drivers

Limitation

Allows for continued coexistence among different groups

Involves procedures that restrict Christian participation

Problem-derived decision-making Knowledge restricted to the based on best knowledge ancestral law. Settling of generated through public debate conflicts involves procedures that restrict Christian participation

The values underpinning the taboos are shared by members of clans and community irrespective of religious beliefs Provides legitimacy for rule enforcement that is well respected in the region

Tight feedback loop for recognising and acting in response to change

Implications for responding to change

Table 3.1â•‡ Summary of sources of adaptive capacity in the taboo forest governance system

Adaptive local institutions: taboo forests in Madagascar

and rituals (for example, enga, sorona, havoria) related to the sacred forest that publicly display the stewardship of the forest. Migration leading to new settlements may disrupt local institutions in the sending as well as the receiving areas. While historically, migratory patterns occurred primarily within Androy, today the continued trend of increasing aridity has changed migration patterns, forcing people out of Androy to find pasture or sell their labour, as well as extending their stay. This cross-scale migration may have a number of potential effects on the forest taboo institutions. First, fewer people are left to perform the functions required to uphold the taboo. Our data indicate that failure to fully manifest ownership can lead to lost respect for the taboos, as well as lost control over land use. Thus, the presence of people to monitor the forest, respond to new events and engage in the ceremonies is a prerequisite for forest protection. Second, increased distance and longer periods of absence may weaken the perceived link to the land. The awareness among the Tandroy that people who stay away for too long lose a connection with place is illustrated in the motso institution (Fee 2000). A cut-off point may be when someone in the family dies and is buried in the new area. Third, migrants are exposed to alternative world-views that may change their attitudes towards Androy life and customs, which are often referred to as simple and backward in other parts of the country. For example, we found examples of tensions concerning clan forest management between rich urban settlers and rural clan elders, who may be poor and lack status outside their community. On the other hand, a returning migrant may also bring new ideas and knowledge that can contribute to novel approaches of responding to change and solving problems. The taboo forest institution has evolved in a setting where there is high mobility of people in the landscape, which may be one reason why the punishment of taboo violation is so strict. Sheridan (2008) describes how migration has been part of the social dynamics that have shaped the sacred groves in Africa. The institution may be well equipped for dealing with local interactions, where forest owners are recognised as legitimate and powerful, but have limited capacity to deal with external actors, such as loggers or mining companies, which are not limited by their local dependence. The cases of the PAM and the Japanese pipeline company illustrate how visitors are monitored, informed of and held accountable for local rules-in-use, suggesting a capacity to deal with external agencies. However, these actors rely on good collaboration with the local population, and the situation may be different with companies based outside Madagascar.

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Compared to the sacred kaya forests of Kenya, where strong direct drivers of forest loss, such as sand-mining, logging of valuable trees and demand for land for agriculture and speculation exist (Kibet and Nyamweru 2008), such drivers do not have a strong impact on the taboo forests in Androy. These forests are located in a remote and inaccessible region where, so far, few resources of external economic interest have been discovered or exploited. In Androy, as in coastal Kenya, it may be the slow processes of cultural change that are eroding the protection of sacred groves, but in Kenya they are interacting with fast drivers such as market opportunities and tourism, resulting in more immediately pressing conditions for the forest. This illustrates the need for cross-scale institutions that may kick in where local institutions fail. The flip side of stewardship based on a strong territorial bond is that norms and rules that contribute to sustainable use of forest in one place are not automatically applicable in a new area. Several papers describe how Tandroy migrants to the west and north of Androy are key drivers of deforestation and disruption of local institutions (Réau 2002, Horning 2003, Casse etÂ€al. 2004). The issue of heterogeneous local communities following immigration is a central challenge for establishing local counterparts when decentralising forest governance, and one that has not been sufficiently recognised in Madagascar (Raik and Decker 2007). 3.8.2â•‡ The link between people, ancestors and forest A further component of the adaptive capacity of the taboo institution in Androy is the strong value ascribed to the forest, deeply embedded in society and strongly related to the local belief system. Religious conversion to Christianity in Androy does not seem fundamentally to change how people value the burial forests; respect for ‘the tombs of the ancestors’ is still high. Similarly, Sheridan and Nyamweru (2008) argue that sacred groves in Africa have remained a strong symbol in spite of significant social changes. They are likely to continue to do so, although the interpretation of the symbol may change over time. However, if the taboo forests are to keep their strong taboo status, they need to keep their sacred value. Durkheim suggests that one of religion’s first tasks was to help humans relate to the mystery of death philosophically, as well as practically (Durkheim 1912). While the ancestral cultists were there first, there are also now Christians who share the same ancestors and also have stakes in the forest. The

Adaptive local institutions: taboo forests in Madagascar

taboo forest governance context has become more complex. For the Tandroy as ancestral cultists, and Christians, to continue to bury inside the taboo forests, it is necessary that both parties feel that they can engage in the rituals and practices they consider necessary to fulfil the expectations of the supernatural powers. In the present, the capacity of the taboo as an institution to adapt its framework to a community in which a significant proportion is Christian appears limited. Currently Christians are excluded from the institution, as described by Crawford and Ostrom (1995), in matters of access, defining underlying norms and rules and sanctions. They may be described as owners, as they belong to the clan that has the right to make decisions concerning a forest patch, but they do not have access as long as they do not perform sacrifice. They are increasingly alienating themselves from the decision-making bodies for sanctioning and altering and interpreting the norms and rules. Furthermore, they do not participate in the ceremonies that reinforce and manifest the forest protection, which appear to be a key component of upholding the taboo, at least for specific forest patches. The Christian reluctance to perform sacrifice runs through all of these. In the long run this raises a number of complications. First, Christians are alienated from decision-making, so that they have little say in the matters of the taboo forests. This can give rise to conflict, as well the loss of sense of ownership. Second, the forest conservation institutions grow weaker as they lose membership. As Christianity grows among the young Tandroy, it seems that over time the institutions will grow gradually weaker. Third, and perhaps most important, the adaptive capacity of the taboos resides in the capacity of the social–ecological systems to renew themselves and erase past errors. Purification provides a mechanism to make amends, forgive and heal and provide a new starting point. To do so, the living people need the permission and the benediction of the ancestors. This can only be obtained through ancestral ritual, including sacrifice. In other words, the institutional adaptations are sanctified by sacrifice. For example, the elders of a clan may choose between adapting by purification or transforming by removing a certain ancestral taboo that is felt to be too burdensome. This has been found to happen both in specific places and for activities or features, such as the use of iron ploughs (von Heland 2005). Hence, if the Christian taboo on sacrifice becomes dominant in a clan, the people will no longer be able to establish the link to the ancestors that, according to the belief system, is necessary to decide how to navigate the future.

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The three cases of Christian burial practices suggest different pathways for change. The ceremonies may remain the same, including sacrifice, and the Christians assigned a place to bury, as in the Conservative clan. With two parallel systems, this may marginalise the taboo forests if the ancestral cult is declining in importance. Or the forest may be shared, as in the Polarised clan. However, the enduring conflict suggests that this may not be a long-term solution. The Liberal clan represents a different path, where both parties seem prepared to be flexible and more open to a solution. This may indicate a potential for compromise and perhaps reorganisation of the role of the forest towards something that can accommodate Christian as well as ancestral concerns. An alternative interpretation is that as Christians become more powerful in a clan, they may take over forest institutions, ending the sacrificial component altogether. Thus, the link to the ancestors, as embedded in the ancestral belief system, is lost. Individual clans or taboo forests do not exist in isolation. It remains to be seen to what extent tensions with Christians will be the concern of individual clans and burial forests or a matter for wider society. In the present, Christianity exists in parallel to the ancestral cult in Androy, presenting alternatives for the Tandroy in constructing their identity. In relation to Christianity, the ancestral cult is felt to contain a strict and burdensome regime of taboos. Ancestral dependence may in the long run result in the slow erosion of the collectivity and the social fabric of the Tandroy ancestral cult, including the forest protection. One indication of this is the high proportion of women converting to Christianity, which gives them more equality. An interesting question is if and how a Christian majority would respond to a potential increase in taboo forest violation following a collapse of the traditional rules. What is the capacity of the Tandroy communities to reconfigure themselves in relation to forest governance, perhaps using other principles that have been brought by migration, education or religion? Our findings on the sources of adaptive capacity within the taboo forest institutions are summarised in Table 3.1. It is clear that the taboo forest governance system embraces mechanisms for responding adaptively to change, but also that there are limitations to locally devised rules that makes them vulnerable. It is essential to recognise these inherent dynamics when evaluating the potential for community-based conservation or decentralisation of forest management. Furthermore, they may also provide mechanisms for more flexible and adaptive management that may be required when, for example,

Adaptive local institutions: taboo forests in Madagascar

dealing with climate change and migration of people, but they are often missing in externally devised rules or governance structures. Much criticism of the structures for decentralising management of forest resources in Madagascar and Africa revolves around a simplified view of the community and their needs and the nature of the rights that are actually transferred to the local community. For example, Antona and colleagues (2004) report that the legal structure for decentralisation of forest resources in Madagascar has mainly involved transfer of exclusion rights, not access or management rights that may be essential in the eyes of the people who perceive themselves as the rightful owners of the forest. Colding and Folke (2001) argue that embracing taboos in conservation schemes may lower transaction costs related to monitoring and enforcement. It is important to note that this comment is written from the perspective of the state or an external manager; the costs for the local community for rule enforcement may still be significant. Development or conservation initiatives in Androy and similar areas need to fully acknowledge local practices and values if they are to be effective in reaching the desired targets. This was illustrated in an interview with a Tandroy development entrepreneur active near Tsihombe, west of our study area, in 2006. He explains that nowhere in Madagascar does he achieve as much work as here, in his homeland. Currently he is involved with a development/conservation project that needs to create a safe boundary around 30 ha of land. He knows he can establish such a boundary: ‘I have connections here to the community, it is my area and I am respected by the people.’ He emphasises that if you work in Androy you need to respect that social values are more important than technical standards or development. Therefore, it was very frustrating to this entrepreneur to have to justify to the investor from London why he used project money to buy four zebu oxen to throw a party. ‘Okay man, we do not have barbed wire here like in the Wild West to encircle our land’, the entrepreneur comments, ‘I offer the people four zebu, not as a “party” but as a contract, a warrant for success.’ Although sacred groves or taboo forests offer a wide overlap between the views of conservationists and a local community, there are also significant differences. We have argued elsewhere that to maintain the conservation value of the taboos in Androy, it is essential to provide space for the local governance systems to selforganise in response to change, recognising the adaptive capacity within them (Tengö etÂ€al. 2007). This case makes explicit the dynamic

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cultural context in which decisions are made and rules constructed, including aspects of values and belief systems that may not easily be incorporated into formal conservation schemes. Paradoxically, the conservationists’ interest in taboo forests is derived from the perception that they are comparatively undisturbed by human activities, while they can also be described as manifestations or a symbol of a linked social–ecological system, with very strong perceived feedback mechanisms between people and forest. These feedbacks have been described as mediated in a knowledge–practice–belief complex (Gadgil etÂ€al. 1993, Berkes 1999), as we have described for the Tandroy in this chapter. This complex is at the core of the local adaptive capacity to deal with change, but, as we have shown, it is also itself subject to change. 3. 9â•‡

conclusions

For practical as well as ethical reasons, it has become clear that the conservation paradigm cannot follow a formula where the problem is articulated by biologists and implemented by national or state officials. We therefore need to explore alternatives that acknowledge the valuable but often unseen or underestimated role of local stewards, civil society and other non-state actors, and the norms, values and world-views that they hold. From such a governance perspective, the Tandroy taboos that protect biodiversity-rich forest patches and forestgenerated ecosystem services are one example of a valuable, long-lasting and well-functioning institution that is non-science and non-state. In contrast to the academic literature that describes taboo and sacred groves as in decline or rapidly disappearing, Androy stands out as an exception. At this point, it is difficult to speculate to what extent the absence of strong external drivers contributes to the relative uniqueness of Androy in the larger context of indigenous institutions, traditional knowledge and sacred groves. In the Androy context, we identified several aspects of the governance of the taboo forests that serve as sources of adaptive capacity and contributors to the resilience of the taboo forests and the communities that rely on them. These include (1) a short feedback loop between people and ecosystems, (2) a place-based cultural identity that is shared across religious and clan geographical divides, and (3) mechanisms for conflict resolution and reorganisation following violation or fault. However, we also found an expanding cleft in society between ancestral cultists and Christians, which presents a

Adaptive local institutions: taboo forests in Madagascar

significant challenge for the future of the taboo institution, if not a direct threat to the forests themselves. To deepen the understanding of how and through what means taboo forest institutions remain dynamic and functionally adaptive, it would be interesting for future research to compare the Tandroy taboo forests with other sacred groves in Madagascar, as well as on the African continent. Our findings emphasise that taboo forests in southern Madagascar are not static and easily damaged entities. Rather, the forests and the associated belief system need to be seen as part of the Androy–Tandroy social–ecological system, in which their existence dynamically and relationally responds to social, political, economic and ecological changes from outside as well as within the Tandroy world. However, as with any complex system, there are path dependencies and scale constraints that restrict opportunities for adaptation. Thus, indigenous or locally devised institutions are no guarantee for conservation or resilient management of ecosystems, but represent an important, valuable and perhaps critical contribution to governance of ecosystems in practiceÂ€– as well as providing insights for the understanding of social–ecological systems in general. references

Achebe, C. 1958. Things Fall Apart. London: Heinemann. Adams, W. M., and Mulligan, M., eds. 2003. Decolonizing Nature: Strategies for Conservation in a Post-Colonial Era. London: Earthscan. Antona, M. Bienabe, E. M., Salles, J.-M., etÂ€al. 2004. Rights transfers in Madagascar biodiversity policies: achievements and significance. Environment and Development Economics, 9, 825–847. Batterbury, S. P., and Fernando, J. L. 2006. Rescaling governance and the impacts of political and environmental decentralisation: an introduction. World Development, 34, 1851–1863. Battistini, R., and Richard-Vindard, G., eds. 1972. Biogeography and Ecology in Madagascar. The Hague: Junk. Benolo, F. 1998. Variétés des sacrifices traditionnels dans l’Androy. In Gueunier, N. J., and Solo -Raharinjanahary, eds., Raki-pandinihana. Fianarantsoa: SaintPaul, pp. 257–268. Berkes, F. 1999. Sacred Ecology: Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Resource Management. London: Taylor and Francis. Berkes, F. 2004. Rethinking community-based conservation. Conservation Biology, 18, 621–630. Berkes, F., and Folke, C. 1998. Linking Social and Ecological Systems. Management Practices and Social Mechanisms for Building Resilience. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Berkes, F., Colding, J., and Folke, C. 2000. Rediscovery of traditional ecological knowledge as adaptive management. Ecological Applications, 10, 1251–1262. Bloch, M. 1968. Tombs and conservatism among the Merina of Madagascar. Man, 3, 94–104.

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Maria Tengö and Jacob von Heland Pearson, M. P., and Godden, K. 2003. In Search of the Red Slave: Shipwreck and Captivity in Madagascar. Stroud: History Press. Raik, D. 2007. Forest management in Madagascar: an historical overview. Madagascar Conservation and Development, 2, 5–10. Raik, D., and Decker, D. 2007. A multisector framework for assessing community–based forest management: lessons from Madagascar. Ecology and Society, 12(1), 14. www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol12/iss1/art14. Réau, B. 2002. Burning for zebu: the complexity of deforestation issues in western Madagascar. Norwegian Journal of Geography, 56, 219–229. Ruud, J. 1970. Taboo, 2nd edn. Oslo: Oslo University Press. SAP. 2002. Données structurelles concernant la sécurité alimentaire. Report, Système d’Alerte Précoce, Union Européene, Ambovombe. Scheffer, M., Brock, W., and Westley, F. 2000. Socioeconomic mechanisms preventing optimum use of ecosystem services: an interdisciplinary theoretical analysis. Ecosystems, 3, 451–471. Schoffeleers, J., ed. 1979. Guardians of the Land: Essays on Central African Territorial Cults. Gwelo: Mambo Press. Sheridan, M. J. 2008. The dynamics of African sacred groves – ecological, social & symbolic processes. In Sheridan, M. J., and Nyamweru, C. eds., African Sacred Groves: Ecological Dynamics and Social Change. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, pp. 9–40. Sheridan, M. J., and Nyamweru, C.. eds. 2008. African Sacred Groves: Ecological Dynamics and Social Change. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press. Shorter, A. 1977. African Christian Theology: Adaptation or Incarnation? Maryknoll, NY: Orbis. Sponsel, L. 2001. Human impact on biodiversity: overview. In Levin, S. A., ed., Encyclopedia of Biodiversity, Volume 3. San Diego, CA: Academic Press, pp. 395–409. Steffen, W., Crutzen, P. J., and McNeill, J. R. 2007. The Anthropocene: are humans now overwhelming the great forces of nature? Ambio, 36, 614–621. Sussman, R., and Rakotozafy, A. 1994. Plant diversity and structural analysis of a tropical dry forest in southwestern Madagascar. Biotropica, 26, 241–254. Sussman, R. W., Andrianasolondraibe, O., Soma, T., and Ichino, I. 2003. Social behavior and aggression among ringtailed lemurs. Folia Primatologica, 74, 168–172. Tengö, M., Johansson, K., Rakotondrasoa, F., etÂ€al. 2007. Taboos and forest governance: informal protection of hot spot dry forest in southern Madagascar. Ambio, 36, 683–691. Valeri, V. 2000. Forest of Taboos: Morality, Hunting and Identity. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press. von Heland, J. 2005. To pray for rain: a case study about the food-generating taboos of the Tandroy (SES) and the impact of religious and climatic change. Honors thesis, Department of Systems Ecology, Stockholm University.

4 Adapting to change: tracing farmers’ responses to disturbances in irrigation systems in Nepal ingela ternström

4. 1 â•‡

introduction

This chapter takes the analysis of common-pool resource management one step further by looking closely at how users adapt to disturbances. Using data from farmer-managed irrigation systems in Nepal, the processes triggered by disturbances are traced and the actions taken by the users to counter them identified. These actions, highly consistent over time and space, can be grouped into decision-making, reconstruction activities, rule-changing, conflict management, change of leadership and more extensive changes in institutional structure. Many of the activities are undertaken or initiated by leaders. The disturbances that lead to the most extensive change are those that alter user-group composition or directly affect the institutional structure. The analysis provides insights regarding how to analyse and promote adaptability in social–ecological systems. The most important conclusion is perhaps that we need to broaden our theoretical horizon if we are to fully understand how people adjust to change in social– ecological systems. The analysis takes us inside the social side of the system and looks at what the users do to adapt to disturbances. I follow the processes triggered by different kinds of disturbances in irrigation systems in Nepal and trace the ways the farmers have acted to adapt to them. While providing insights into the reality of resilience and adaptation, the chapter also contributes to the literature on commonpool resource management. The irrigation systems under study are Adapting Institutions: Governance, Complexity and Social–Ecological Resilience, ed. Emily Boyd and Carl Folke. Published by Cambridge University Press. © Cambridge University Press 2012.

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farmer-managed, that is, managed and in most cases constructed by the farmers themselves. As such, they are examples of common-pool resources (CPRs), defined as natural or human-made resources with indivisibility in the resource stock but subtractability in the resource yields and combined with limited entry (Ostrom 1990). The fact that a substantial part of the poor in developing countries depend on common-pool resources for their livelihood is proof that users are able to manage them in a sustainable way.1 The material presented here shows us how this is accomplished in practice. It differs from a large part of the literature on common-pool resources in that it takes a dynamic and process-oriented approach. Much of the knowledge about how common-pool resources are managed builds on static analysis, which is a good way of identifying common characteristics of functioning systems but misses the processes that have led to the existing situation. The literature on resilience in social–ecological systems takes a more dynamic approach more or less by definition, as resilience is defined as the capacity of a system to absorb disturbance and reorganise while undergoing change so as to still retain essentially the same function, structure, identity and feedbacks (e.g. Berkes and Folke 1998, Gunderson and Holling 2002, Berkes etÂ€al. 2003, Walker etÂ€al. 2004). Adaptability describes ‘the capacity of actors in a system to influence resilience’ (Walker etÂ€al. 2004). This chapter shows that farmer-managed irrigation systems are extremely resilientÂ€– it is very hard to find disturbances from which these systems do not adapt and regenerateÂ€ – and describes in detail how the users accomplish this. The approach used is to go inside the social side of the system and look at what the users do to adapt to disturbances and hence maintain the function, structure and identity of their irrigation systems. This provides insights into what are the most crucial components of adaptability. Before proceeding, let me present a generalised picture of the irrigation systems under study. A typical irrigation system consists of an irrigation canal with its intake in a river. The water may be divided into several branches and sub-branches before reaching the farmers’ fields. The amount of water each farmer obtains depends on the amount of water in the river and on how much reaches his Cavendish (2000) found that in Zimbabwe 35% of income is based directly on

1

CPRs, 40% for the poorest quintile. Jodha (1986) showed that poor families in arid India got 15–25% of their income from CPRs.

Adapting to change: irrigation systems in Nepal

fields, which in turn depends on the state of canals and intakes and on how water is allocated among the farmers. The canals must be repaired and desilted more or less frequently, the intake may have to be rebuilt or repaired annually or after floods, and the water must be distributed among farmers’ fields. To accomplish this, farmers need to cooperate with each other and coordinate their actions on numerous occasions, including making decisions on whether and where to build an irrigation canal, distributing the construction and maintenance work, allocating water among the farmers, collecting cash for skilled labour or materials, monitoring canals and fellow users, punishing those who do not follow agreed-upon rules, adapting rules to changing conditions and so on. There is often an intricate set of rules for everything from contributing labour and distributing water to punishing rule-breaking and changing rules. These rules are referred to as the institutional structure of the system; they may be a written constitution, an unspoken set of customs or anything in between. An irrigation system thus consists of institutional as well as physical structures. However, as this study illustrates, both physical and institutional structures depend crucially on the leadership of the system. The leaders of these irrigation systems are often highly appreciated people, who devote much of their time and effort to maintaining and developing both the physical and the institutional structures of the irrigation system. The analysis in this chapter uses historical data from 10 farmer-managed irrigation systems in Nepal. The irrigation systems are located in the same geographical area, use the same kind of resources and technology and have similar histories. The 10 systems have, over time, been exposed to a number of similar or identical disturbances, the most frequent being floods and landslides, immigration of new users and external support for infrastructure improvements. In some cases, the disturbances have led to severe conflicts among the users or to complete changes in the institutional structure, while in other cases adjustment to the effects of the disturbance has left almost no trace. In Section 4.3, the processes and reactions triggered by these disturbances will be traced through the history of the irrigation systems and illustrated in flowcharts, and the actions taken by the farmers analysed and categorised, so that the most common tools for dealing with disturbances can be pinpointed. Examples are given throughout to provide a picture of the intricate processes that trigger the disturbances and the challenges they pose to the farmers.

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The actions taken by the farmers to solve or avoid the problems form a fairly limited set of activities: decision-making, physical reconstruction work, conflict management, change of operational rules, change of leadership and change of institutional structure. Many of these activities are carried out by certain individuals, the leaders. The disturbances that cause the largest and most long-lasting change in the irrigation systems are those that change the composition of the group of users, so that it becomes more heterogeneous, and those that directly affect the institutional structure. Interestingly, despite the amount of damage they cause, floods and landslides seem to be the easiest disturbances for the users to handle. A relevant difference is that while floods and landslides are unusual events, the more serious disturbances are also unexpected events. The next section provides background information about the area and the irrigation systems and discusses data and methodology. Section 4.3 describes disturbances, processes and actions, and Section 4.4 analyses the actions taken and the effects of the disturbances. Section 4.5 concludes with a discussion of the results. 4. 2â•‡

data and methodology

The data used in this study were collected in 10 irrigation systems in three neighbouring districts (Chitwan, Makwanpur and Nawalparasi) in the Terai region of Nepal. This area was covered by jungle until malaria was eradicated in the 1950s. Until then, it was uninhabited except in a few places where the original inhabitants, an ethnic group called Tharus, had developed settlements and irrigation canals in the mid nineteenth century. The eradication of malaria, the construction of the East-West Highway and the government’s resettlement and land titling programmes in the 1950s and 1960s caused rapid population growth due to immigration from other parts of Nepal. There has been a series of large-scale, often internationally funded, government and non-government organisation programmes for improving the irrigation system infrastructure in the area.2 The criteria for the selection of the systems studied were that they were farmer-managed, located in areas with similar geographic and ecological conditions and had a fairly long history. This means For example the Irrigation Line of Credit (ILC), the Nepal Irrigation Sector Project

2

(NISP), the Farm Irrigation and Water Utilisation Division (FIWUD) and the East Rapti Irrigation Project (ERIP).

Adapting to change: irrigation systems in Nepal

the sample only includes systems that are functioning at present and have been functioning for some time.3 The irrigation systems included in the study are: Baireni Kulo, Baise Kulo, Beltari Kulo, Chipleti Kulo, Jayashree Kulo, Mahadevtar Kulo, Nawalpur Tallo Tal Kulo, Pithuwa Sinchai Subyastha Samiti (branch no. 10), Shivpur Martal Kulo and Tarauli Kulo. For a more thorough presentation and a statistical analysis of the irrigation systems, see Ternström (2002). The data were collected by a team at the Water Management Study Program (WMSP) at the Institute of Agriculture and Animal Science, Tribhuwan University in Rampur, Nepal. Data were collected in discussions with groups of key individuals in each system (Ternström 2002). The process of collecting information started with developing a time-line of major events and asking for information about a number of physical, institutional and socioeconomic factors for each of these points in time. As no written records existed, considerable effort was put into getting the respondents to explain as much as possible about the background to the answers. The purpose was both to obtain as accurate a picture of the processes shaping the history of the irrigation systems as possible and to have a way of verifying the credibility of the information given by the respondents. The result is a dataset that contains not only figures but also a large amount of background information and a very detailed description of the intricate connections between different variables throughout the history of the irrigation systems. This narrative information has enabled me to trace processes through the history of the irrigation systems. After identifying the most common types of disturbances in the data I trace their effects in the narrative information. When collecting the data, major events in the history of the irrigation systems were used as reference points. The description of these events includes causes and consequences. When there were changes in the irrigation systems over time, the respondents were asked to explain the reasons for these changes. By linking events and changes for various variables in the data, I have been able to trace the effects of disturbances over time. The results are illustrated in flowcharts, one for each disturbance and described in more detail in Section 4.3. I make the distinction between disturbances, the processes they trigger and the actions the users take to adapt to the disturbance and maintain the functions of the irrigation system. However, very few irrigation systems in Nepal have ceased functioning

3

altogetherÂ€– they are simply too valuable a resource to be allowed to fail.

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I define disturbances as ‘unusual events’ (Scheffer etÂ€ al. 2002) and focus on exogenous disturbances. That is, I exclude disturbances or changes that are initiated internally, such as decreased landholding sizes resulting from the distribution of land among the sons of households and improvements to the irrigation system that are initiated by the users themselves (even if they include some externally mobilised support). When tracing the effects of a disturbance, I look for the initial effect, the processes that are triggered, the actions that are taken by the users and who takes the actions. Often it is not the disturbances per se that cause a need for action but rather the various processes they trigger. The processes or reactions triggered by one disturbance carry over to other aspects of the irrigation system, and often several different actions are triggered by the same disturbance. By tracing the effect of disturbances to actions, and to the individuals that take action, it is possible to get a good picture of the social responses that are most likely to be significant in adaptive management. 4. 3â•‡

tracing disturbances, processes and reactions

The 10 irrigation systems have been exposed to a large number of disturbances, both natural (such as floods, landslides and droughts) and socioeconomic (such as massive immigration, road construction, increased market access, external support for infrastructure improvements, greater income inequality, decreased landholding size and democratisation). The most frequently occurring disturbances are floods and landslides, immigration or inclusion of new users, and offers and implementation of major external support. Below I discuss each of these disturbances, providing examples and descriptions of the processes and actions it triggers. Because of its two-sided nature, external support is presented as two separate disturbances: the offer of support and the implementation of support. 4.3.1â•‡ Floods and landslides A flood or a landslide affects the physical structures of an irrigation system in a rather abrupt way. Canals, intakes and division structures may be washed away, damaged or blocked, reducing the flow of water severely. Figure 4.1 shows some of the key processes and actions arising from floods and landslides.

Adapting to change: irrigation systems in Nepal

Flood or landslide

Damage to physical infrastructure

Repair now?

No

Decreased irrigation

Decreased harvest

Yes Use internal resources

Repair how?

Use external resources Mobilise external resources

Mobilise internal resources

External support Damage repaired

Damage repaired and irrigation improved

Inclusion of new users

Attraction of new users

See Figure 4.2 Figure 4.1â•… Floods and landslides flowchart.

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Example 1.â•‡ In the Baireni irrigation system there were severe floods in 1949, 1954 and 1970. The floods damaged the canal and intake, threatening the supply of water to the farmers’ fields. In all instances, the damages were repaired more or less immediately, sometimes with help from farmers in a neighbouring irrigation system. The local landlord, the Zamindaar, was the leader in all aspects of village life, including the irrigation system, and he mobilised the users and the neighbouring farmers, initiating and coordinating the repair and reconstruction work. Example 2.â•‡ In Mahadevtar a flood washed away almost half the irrigated area. Despite extensive repair work, it took several years before the entire area was reclaimed. Years later a flood control dike was constructed with the support of the District Irrigation Office. The immediate damage caused by floods is washed away or damaged intakes, damaged canals, changes in the water level or course of rivers and washed away fields. Landslides, especially where they pass through hilly terrain, damage canals and are sometimes large enough to destroy whole fields. If nothing is done, decreased crop productivity and reduced harvests will follow. To avoid this, users need to repair the damaged structures. They either do this at once or after some time has passed, and with the mobilisation of internal and sometimes also external resources. Minor damage can be repaired more quickly and with fewer resources than major damage. Sometimes, the farmers take the opportunity to make improvements to the physical structures while repairing them. This leads to increased irrigation, which makes the area more attractive to new settlers and can result in a new disturbance in the form of immigration (see below). Changes in the physical structure sometimes lead to a need for new methods and hence new rules for repair and maintenance and for water distribution. The first action is to decide when and how to repair: now or later, with or without making improvements, using which resources? The next step is to mobilise the resources, which implies informing the users, motivating them to come to the right place at the right time and coordinating their actions in the physical reconstruction work. If external sources of resources are to be used (for example, local authorities or NGOs), they have to be located, contacted and persuaded to contribute. Finally, it has to be decided whether the old rules have become inappropriate and if so, how they should be changed. If there is a need for it, new rules must be developed and accepted by the users.

Adapting to change: irrigation systems in Nepal

In most cases, the leader (zamindaar or water users’ association chairperson) is the person who makes decisions about emergency repair. The leader is often a well-connected person, who also contacts and mobilises external resources. The actual physical work is carried out by the users under the supervision of the leader. Sometimes the secretary of the water users’ association assists the leader in these tasks. Although there are rules, for example stating that the general assembly is the body that decides about changes in operational level rules or improvements to the canals, such changes are initiated or suggested by the leader.

4.3.2â•‡ New users New users are included in the irrigation systems either by acquiring land within the irrigated area or by extension of the irrigation canals to cover new areas. Depending on the way new users are included, and on their background, this can have quite extensive effects on the management of the irrigation systems (Figure 4.2). Example 3.â•‡ The original inhabitants of Baireni Kulo, the oldest system in the study, were Tharus, living under the rule of their zamindaar in all aspects of village life. The zamindaar’s word was, with very few exceptions, obeyed and the people trusted him to make good decisions. Rule-breaking was promptly punished but rarely occurredÂ€– the farmers recalled just one person having to move to another village as a consequence of breaking a rule. In 1970, the first Hill migrants came to settle in the area, starting a 25-year-long period of immigration. The Hill migrants had a different cultural and ethnic background, with other traditions of both leadership and rules for sharing burdens and benefits. For example, Tharu traditions prescribe that every able male from every household should join the repair and maintenance workforce, but the Hill migrants view landholding size as the basis for labour contribution. As more people from the Hills moved in, the strength of the Tharu majority decreased and rulebreaking and conflicts increased. In 1981, a water users’ association was formed to make the system eligible for external infrastructure support from the Farm Irrigation and Water Utilisation Division (FIWUD) programme. This water users’ association was active mainly for construction purposes, and the zamindaar continued to be the actual

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Ingela Ternström Government resettlement programmes

Land survey and titling

Road construction

Immigration Increased number of users Increased demand for irrigation

Increased heterogeneity of users

Decreased support for traditional leadership

New views on rules for labour distribution

Increase irrigation?

Increased rulebreaking and conflicts

Yes Increased irrigation Changed maintenance methods

Change leader?

Change rules?

Yes

Yes Attraction of new users

Change institutional structure New institutional structure New leadership

Figure 4.2â•… New users flowchart.

leader of the system. In 1990, Nepal became a democracy and the support for the traditional feudal system decreased further. In 1995, another water users’ association was formed in connection with another major infrastructure support programme, the East Rapti Irrigation Project (ERIP). This time, there was a shift in leadership from the zamindaar to the water users’ association. The period from 1981 to 1995 can thus be characterised as a prolonged leadership transition period, with quite high levels

Adapting to change: irrigation systems in Nepal

of rule-breaking and conflicts and steadily decreasing support for the persisting zamindaari system. The change in leadership coincided with infrastructure support, which increased water availability and decreased the need for maintenance labour to an eighth of the previous level. Thus, both the scope for rulebreaking and the cause for conflicts decreased, and it is difficult to judge the effect of the leadership change per se. The immediate nature of the disturbance depends crucially on who the individuals entering the system are and on how they enter the system. If they are culturally and economically similar to those already there and they enter by buying land that is already irrigated, the only effect seems to be to increase the number of users. If, however, they belong to a different ethnic group, with different traditions, there may be severe problems. There is often a difference in leadership traditions and in rules for labour mobilisation. When new users have less respect for the existing leadership, they are less hesitant to break rules. They protest by refusing to contribute labour to maintenance work and by not paying the fines for refusal. This has led to conflicts and even violence between new and old users. The authority of leadership is challenged and the institutional structure becomes weaker. When the new and old users differ in economic or educational status, this is also reflected in a difference in preferences, for example about whether contributions to maintenance should be made in cash or as labour. When an increase in the number of users leads to smaller landholding size, this leads to insufficient food. The most efficient way to increase harvest sizes is to increase the availability and reliability of irrigation. After an improvement of the irrigation system, rules and maintenance methods often become inappropriate and need to be adjusted. Furthermore, even more new users may be attracted to move in to the area. When new users settle on land that was not previously irrigated by the canals but is within the command area of the system, issues about canal extension and rights to water are raised. There may also be a need to change the organisation of the water users’ association or its executive committee to better represent the new users. Obviously, decisions must be made on a number of matters to allow for the various difficulties that result from the entrance of new users. Where physical work on the canals is part of the solution, this involves the same actions as after floods and landslides. There is often a need for conflict resolution between new and old users. Sometimes it

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is sufficient to change the operational rules to accommodate the new users, but sometimes more extensive changes are required. If the old leadership becomes too inefficient, there may be a shift in leadership or a more large-scale change in the institutional structure. Many of these actions are carried out by the leader of the irrigation system, be it the zamindaar or the chairman of the water users’ association. The leader has the key role in making decisions and plans about improvements to the canals, as well as in leading the actual construction work. However, for more substantial work, a specialist in, for example, canal digging may be called in to develop technical plans. The other users usually supply the manpower to do the physical work, and sometimes also make cash contributions for purchase of materials. The leader is most often the one to mediate in the conflicts between old and new users. On a few occasions the scale or type of conflict has been such that an outsider, for example the chief district officer, has been called in to help the users solve conflicts. The leader also seems to be the key person in implementing changes of operational rules, although the demand may come from subgroups of users and the formal decision may be made by the general assembly, if one exists. There seems to be more involvement of the executive committee and general assembly of the water users’ association when it comes to major changes in the institutional structure and change of leadership. However, it is not uncommon for an incumbent leader to be the key person in proposing and implementing these changes. 4.3.3â•‡ Offers of infrastructure support I have defined as ‘exogenous’ irrigation infrastructure development support given in the name of substantial programmes, offered by government or non-government agencies to a large number of irrigation systems in an area. Under these programmes, support is offered on certain conditions, almost always including the organisation by the farmers of a water users’ association with a written constitution, registered with the appropriate agency. I have not included external support that the farmers themselves have taken the first step to get, such as when they approach the District Irrigation Office to get emergency support to reconstruct their canal after a flood. Such support is on a very small scale, often at most a few ten thousands of rupees, while the support under the larger programmes can amount to several million rupees.

Adapting to change: irrigation systems in Nepal

Example 4.â•‡ The farmers in Chipleti Kulo were offered substantial help to improve the infrastructure of their irrigation system. The offer led to discussions about whether the command area should be extended to include new areas and through whose fields the new canal should run. The farmers disagreed, the disagreement turned into a conflict between the users, and the conflict escalated to violence. The offer of support was withdrawn. Example 5.â•‡ When Baise Kulo was offered external support, one condition was that there had to be a registered water users’ association. Although the irrigation system had been functioning for quite some time, it had not been formally registered. A water users’ association was registered and the irrigation system granted support. However, it later transpired that the person registered as chairman was not the de facto leader of the system. The result was that he and his water users’ association were seen by the local authorities as the rightful users and leaders of the irrigation system. In practice, this did not work well, and some 10 years after the offer and implementation of the external support, the users of Baise Kulo got tired of the situation and brought charges against the chairman. The immediate disturbance caused by the offer of a potentially huge investment in an irrigation system has several outcomes. First, there is a chance to improve irrigation and thereby food production for all users of the irrigation system. Second, there is a chance to increase irrigation and power even more for those who have canals running through their land. Third, there is a chance of making a lot of money as a contractor by being awarded the contract to carry out the physical construction work.4 Fourth, there is an opportunity to change the leadership, the institutional structure and the distribution of power. A number of processes are triggered, mainly related to the institutional rather than physical structures of the irrigation systems (Figure 4.3). The first task is to agree whether to accept the offer. This process involves agreeing on what to apply for, where the improvements A contractor refers to a person contracted by the organisation or authority offer-

4

ing support to implement the physical construction work. A contractor can be an outsider or one of the farmers in the irrigation system. Being awarded the contract to do construction work in an irrigation system provides an opportunity for making large profits.

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Figure 4.3â•… Offer of external support flowchart.

or new physical structures are to be located and how to mobilise the required input. Once the users agree to accept the support, they need to draw up a constitution and get the water users’ association registered. Here, the path is divided among those systems that write their own constitution and those that have help from the staff of the project or local authority in drawing one up. In the second case, a ‘blueprint

Adapting to change: irrigation systems in Nepal

constitution’ may be used, which often seems to lead to confusion about whether to let the old ways or the new constitution rule. Sometimes the users are bypassed in deciding whether to accept or notÂ€ – an opportunistic individual may simply fill in the required forms and get the support going without involving the actual users. This is probably what happened in Baise Kulo (Example 5). The result is an improved canal but also two parallel institutional structures: one mainly a paper product used for dealing with the authorities and for construction purposes, the other real but unofficial and perhaps invisible to the authorities. This situation undermines the authority of the traditional rules and leadership and may result in improved physical structures but deteriorating institutional structures. The most frequently needed action is to make decisions: about whether to accept the offers, what procedures to follow, what to do about parallel institutional structures and so on. Furthermore, the offer of support often results in conflicts and confusions that have to be resolved. The water users’ association must produce a written constitution and use it to register with the local authorities. This requires frequent contact with authorities and project staff. If a new constitution is drafted, there must be extensive discussions and negotiations among the users. Alternatively, existing rules must be written down. If a contractor seizes the opportunity, the same actions will be taken but by different individuals. If the new constitution causes confusion or increased rule-breaking and conflicts, the conflicts must be resolved and rules changed. After a period of parallel institutional and leadership structures the farmers often reorganise the management structure, change leadership or change the whole institutional structure.

4.3.4â•‡ Implementation of infrastructure support The second part of infrastructure support is the construction work. How this is done, and the effect it has on both physical and institutional structures, depends on the outcome of the offer of support but also, to a large extent, on the way the support is perceived by the users. Example 6.â•‡ When the Jayashree irrigation system was improved it was also extended, bringing new users into the system. This resulted in management problems and later a change of

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organisational structure. It also affected the frequency of meetings: after the reconstruction, new methods and materials were required for the maintenance work on the canal structures. This led to an increase in the frequency of meetings of the executive committee but decreased interaction among the other users, as the amount of labour needed for repair and maintenance decreased drastically. Example 7.â•‡ When the canals of Nawalpur Tallo Tal Kulo were extended to irrigate a new area, the new users argued that it was unfair to let the labour contribution for maintenance be household-based. These were poor farmers, with small landholdings, who would logically prefer contributions to be based on landholding. After they had argued their point for quite some time, the rules were changed. Example 8.â•‡ The irrigation canals of Shivpur Martal Kulo were greatly improved under a large-scale irrigation system Â�development programme. One immediate effect was an increase in the availability and reliability of water for irrigation, but later the system experienced management problems. The users felt it was no longer their system but the government’s, so why should they put their labour into annual repair and maintenance and why should they come to the meetings? The attendance at the general assembly became so low that it did not meet the requirements for making decisions. The executive committee members, including the founder and chairman of 30 years, grew tired of the situation and wanted to retire from their positions but could not: there was no one to take the decision to replace them. The rules did not work because of a low attendance at meetings, and the low attendance made it impossible to change the rules. After registering the water users’ association, two more things are usually required before the users (or contractor) are eligible for support: a certain amount of the total construction cost has to be supplied by the users as cash, and they have to agree to contribute some labour to the actual construction work. If the process is driven by a contractor, he usually supplies the cash without involving the farmers. Otherwise, cash is collected from the farmers, mostly on the basis of landholding size. The money is deposited in a bank account, often in the name of the water users’ association. Labour is supplied either on a household basis or on a landholding-size basis, and the

Adapting to change: irrigation systems in Nepal

Users collect required cash

or

Contractor supplies required cash

Users contribute required labour

External support Improved and/or extended canal

Extended command and/or irrigated area

Increased availability and/or reliability of irrigation

Changed maintenance methods

Less labour required for maintenance

Decreased interaction

New users (Figure 4.2) De/Increased scope for water stealing

Decreased scope for rulebreaking

Increased crop productivity

Increased labour supply

Change rules? Yes

Increased outside incomes

Change institutional structure

Increased food sufficiency

New institutional structure

Increased income sufficiency

Decreased dependency on irrigation

Figure 4.4â•… Implementation of external support flowchart.

work is often carried out under the direction of an engineer or project personnel. The processes after construction is completed run along four paths (Figure 4.4). The most prominent change is often less need for labour for regular repair and maintenance of the systems. In Chipleti, the need decreased from 3500 to 1500 man-days per year; in Baireni

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from 1700 to 400, and later to 200. This obviously makes the old rules for labour contribution obsolete but also results in more labour being available to pursue income from other sources. This in turn increases total incomes and decreases the relative dependency on irrigation, although it should be emphasised that agriculture is often said to be the preferred source of income. Furthermore, it also weakens the link between the users’ cooperative efforts and decreases the scope for their interaction. A second effect is to change the maintenance methods needed, for example a change from using manual labour to de-silt the canals to using cement to repair them. This increases the need for cash contributions, making it more difficult for poorer users to contribute their share. Third, when irrigation availability and reliability increases, farmers can diversify their crops and use improved seeds, increasing harvests. The increased availability and reliability of irrigation also affect the extent of water stealing, in some cases increasing it and in other cases decreasing it. Fourth, when canals are extended new areas are included in the irrigation systems and when irrigation is improved new users are attracted into the area. The first thing to decide is often the basis for cash and labour contributions. Someone has to collect the cash and mobilise and coordinate labour. New rules must be developed and implemented to accommodate changes in maintenance methods and water supply. If the frequency of maintenance meetings decreases, there may need to be new arenas for discussions and problem-solving. The decision about the basis for contributions seems to be taken by the general assembly, and the actual collection of money is often made by the secretary of the water users’ association. The physical work is quite extensive and requires specialist knowledge; usually an engineer leads the work. After the completion of the physical improvements, decisions to change the rules are taken either by the leader alone or by the executive committee or general assembly of the water users’ association, depending on the institutional structure. Changes in maintenance practices are mainly decided by leaders or executive committees. Finally, making accommodation for the wishes of new users is often done by the leader. 4. 4â•‡

analysis

The data presented give insights into the immediate and long-term effects of the disturbances, the actions taken by users to counter these effects and who takes these actions. There is limited variation in the

X

X X

(X) (X) (X)

X

Reaction

X X

X

X

X

X

(X) (X)

X

X

X (X)

X

Change Reconstruction Conflict-solving Change rules Change leader institutions

X

X X

Decision-making Repair

X, action triggered by primary process; (X), action triggered by secondary process.

Floods and landslides New users: same socioeconomic status New users: different socioeconomic status External support: offer External support: implementation

Disturbance

Table 4.1â•‡ Disturbances and actions

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actions taken, and they can be arranged into seven groups. Table 4.1 illustrates which actions are triggered by which disturbances. 4.4.1â•‡ Actions and actors Quite naturally, decision-making is the most frequently taken action. Among the irrigation systems covered here, there are two common types of decision-making entities: the single leader and the water users’ association. In the old days, in the Tharu-dominated systems, the zamindaar was the single leader, making more or less all the decisions, although sometimes after consulting with the other farmers. In practice, there is also often a single leader in systems that have a water users’ association. Many statements in the narrative data point to a dependence on one individual: for example, ‘Without this person the system would not work.’ An important aspect of decision-making is that the decision is implemented; that is, the decision has to be accepted by those who are supposed to implement it. In the systems originally constructed by Tharus, this became a particular challenge after migration brought new users, with different traditions, to the area. As long as all users were Tharus, the authority of the zamindaar was unquestioned and often appreciated. The Hill migrants, coming from another culture, were not as ready to follow the word of the zamindaar. In other cases of personal leadership the situation seems to be similar to that in the Tharu communities, in which people listen to and willingly follow the words of the leader. The repair and reconstruction work after floods and landslides involves planning what should be done, how, by whom and when, motivating the farmers and, if needed, gathering external resources to contribute labour and cash. When it is time to carry out the work, the resources have to be coordinated and used according to plan. The leader (zamindaar or chairman of the water users’ association) usually both organises and coordinates the repair and reconstruction work. The role of the other users is to carry out the physical work and make cash contributions for materials when needed. Solving minor conflicts between a few users, for example regarding water distribution, is part of the leader’s responsibility. More serious conflicts, which involve many users or large subgroups, often have their origin in cultural differences of opinion, such as conflicts about the basis for labour contribution. The conflict is often old versus new users, but sometimes small versus large, poor versus rich or upstream

Adapting to change: irrigation systems in Nepal

versus downstream farmers. The categories often coincide: for example large, rich, upstream farmers against poor, downstream smallholders. If they also coincide with Tharu versus Hill migrants, the conflicts tend to be about more fundamental issues and often develop into conflicts about leadership and institutional structure, that is, about the distribution of power. Changing operational-level rules is a way of adapting to changes in social or physical conditions in the irrigation system. One example is when new Hill users cause the rule for labour contribution to be changed from household- to landholding-based, which is fairer according to their customs. Triggers for change in operational-level rules are usually either changes in the physical characteristics of the irrigation system or changes in the composition of its users. Although the demand for change may come from a subgroup of users, the decision to change the rules is made either authoritatively by a single leader, by the executive committee or at the general assembly, that is, what Ostrom refers to as ‘collective-choice arrangements’ (Ostrom 1990, p. 90). There is a close connection between leaders, leadership and institutions. Thus changing leadership often implies changing the institutional structure. When zamindaars were replaced with other leaders, this implied changing the institutional structure of the irrigation systems. Similarly, the users of one system formed a water users’ association and introduced democratic elections to replace a bad leader (a ‘contractor-chairman’). The data show that there is great concern about the need to have good leaders but there are few instances of power struggles between individuals for leadership. When a dedicated individual steps forward and shows willingness to take on the task of leadership, the other users often willingly accept him as leader. Changing the institutional structure of an irrigation system may seem more fundamental than changing the leadership, and in some cases this is supported by the data, such as when the zamindaari system was abolished and the leader replaced. However, in other cases, changes in the institutional structure have been initiated by changes in leadership. The ways that institutions change show great variation: in the traditional Tharu systems the zamindaar held power, but as his power was solidly based in the traditional institutional structure, he could not make overly extensive changes without risking his position. In other ‘one-man show’ irrigation systems, the leaders had the power to

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implement substantial changes in the institutional structures. There are also systems in which the users themselves created water users’ associations, controlled by a general assembly of the users and run by an executive committee. These irrigation systems most closely resemble the irrigation systems described by Ostrom (1992) but are by no means the only long-lasting ones. Institutional changes arising from external causes, such as the contractor that made himself chairman of a ‘fake’ water users’ association, or when blueprint constitutions offered by external agencies were used in place of the users’ own rules, were the ones least likely to last. 4.4.2â•‡ A link to business organisations Looking at the list of actions taken by users, the resemblance to other kinds of organisations is striking. Decision-making, physical repair or reconstruction and, to some extent, conflict resolution can be compared to the activities involved in the daily management of a business organisation or project management. Changing rules, leadership and institutional structures can be interpreted as organisational development activities. Managing or solving the larger-scale conflicts that evolve from the incorporation of users with a different culture is similar to a merger between two business corporations with different organisation cultures. Foss (2001), quoting sources from organisation theory, describes the essence of organisation as a coordinated response to volatility. This statement fits well with what seems to be most important to the farmers of the irrigation systemsÂ€– to keep their irrigation systems working despite disturbances.5 The fact that many of the actions are carried out by one or a few individuals is another similarity to business organisations, in which the leaders and management are recognised as crucial to the success of the organisation (Mintzberg 1973, Milgrom and Roberts 1992). This suggests that we need to explore organisational theory, and particularly theories about leadership, in order to understand what makes the actors in social–ecological systems able to adapt to disturbances. One step in this direction is taken by Westley (2002), who describes the struggle of an individual manager in a series of resource management challenges. Westley, citing Gunderson etÂ€ al. (1995), concludes that individuals and small groups of individuals Foss (2001), who refers to Galbraith (1973) and Thompson (1967).

5

Adapting to change: irrigation systems in Nepal

exert extraordinary influence by performing certain distinct roles within and outside institutions as the key to the reality of the adaptive management of complexity. 4.4.3â•‡ Causes, immediate impacts and long-term effects The long-term effects of a disturbance seem to depend on what part of the system’s structure they hit: floods and landslides have an immediate impact on the physical structures but little effect in the long run, except when the damage is very extensive or when farmers take the opportunity to improve the canals and this attracts new users. The inclusion or immigration of new users changes the composition of user groups and affects social structures. If the new users come from a different socioeconomic background, the long-term effect is often extensive changes in the institutional structure. The offer of external support has both immediate and long-term effects on institutional structure and seems to be the disturbance to which users have most difficulty adapting. While the implementation of external support improves the physical structure, it often requires some adjustment of the institutional structure. By tracing the disturbances backwards, we can divide them into being caused by the natural environment, by population growth and by government policies. Floods and landslides are caused by heavy rainfall and are regarded mainly as acts of nature, although they also have a human component.6 The immigration and inclusion of new users can be traced further back to the push and pull factors that make people move into the area. While population growth in the Hill areas is the main push factor, the government’s resettlement, land title and malaria eradication programmes are pull factors. The external infrastructure support programmes result from a combination of government policies and financial support provided by NGOs. Table 4.2 shows that government policies have had the most extensive impact on irrigation systems. Natural disturbances are the easiest to adapt to, perhaps because while floods and landslides may be unusual events, they are not unexpected. Both immigration and The users of several irrigation systems commented on the increased frequency of

6

floods after 1943 and connected it with increased upstream deforestation. In one of the systems the farmers organised a forest user group to protect and regenerate the forest upstream of their canal.

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Table 4.2â•‡ Sources and effects of disturbances. Source

Effect

Natural

Physical structure Floods Landslides Social structure Institutional structure

Population growth

New users New users

Government policies and NGO support External support: implementation New users External support: offer and implementation

external support, at least on this scale, are more difficult to anticipate and can be regarded as both unusual and unexpected events. Thus we may conclude that the extent to which an event is unusual is perhaps less important than the extent to which it is unexpected. 4. 5â•‡

conclusions

The actions that farmers take to solve or avoid the problems caused by disturbances can be summarised as a fairly limited set of activities: decision-making, physical reconstruction work, conflict management, changing operational-level rules, changing leadership and changing the institutional structure. These issues are regularly dealt with in other human organisations, such as businesses. Hence one conclusion is that we should take a closer look at theories of organisational development and management if we wish to understand fully how people in social–ecological systems adapt to changes. Many of the actions identified as important in the present analysis are carried out by single individuals; leaders. There is an intricate link between change of leadership and institutional change. Change in institutional structure is sometimes preceded by or is simultaneous with a change of leadership, and often institutional changes are initiated and implemented by leaders. Thus, one of the most crucial characteristics of a system that is able to adapt to disturbances seems to be a well-functioning leadership. The disturbances that cause the largest and most long-lasting change in the irrigation systems studied are those that change the composition of the group of users so that they become more heterogeneous, and those that directly affect the institutional structure. Looking at the origin of the different disturbances, we find that, sadly,

Adapting to change: irrigation systems in Nepal

the most serious disturbances are caused by government interventions. This gives cause for caution when designing government policies. For example, when designing infrastructure support programmes, the effect on institutional structures should be carefully considered to avoid damage. The results are in line with and provide explanations for the results of previous statistical analyses of the data (Ternström 2002), which indicated that having a single leader and a homogeneous group is strongly correlated with the level of cooperation among the users. The results also give empirical support and explanations for why heterogeneity (in terms of economic inequality or cultural differences) has a negative effect on cooperation (Ternström 2002).7 The present analysis has dealt with the internal reactions to external disturbances. Of course, there are many other disturbances that could have more devastating effects and other irrigation systems that are less able to counter the effect of disturbances. However, irrigation is such a crucial input in farming that it is very hard to find irrigation systems that have actually failed. Perhaps this makes them less suitable study objects for analysing resilience, as the dependency may simply be too high to allow failures. Or perhaps they are an excellent choice, as they simply have to have adaptive capacities. Without irrigation, many of these farmers would find it very difficult to make a living.

acknowledgements

I am grateful for the support the users of the irrigation systems studied have given by granting me access to their time, files and memories, and to the team at the Water Management Study Program (WMSP), Tribhuvan University, for collecting the information. I am grateful for comments from Carl Folke and an anonymous referee. A previous version of this chapter was presented at the WOW3 conference at the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis, Indiana University; comments from participants are gratefully acknowledged. This work was supported by the Swedish Council for Forestry and Agricultural Research and by the Swedish Research Council for Environment, Agricultural Sciences and Spatial Planning.

See Alesina and La Ferrara (2002) and Bardhan and Dayton-Johnson (2002) for

7

another approach to heterogeneity.

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references

Alesina, A., and La Ferrara, E. 2002. Who trusts others? Journal of Political Economy, 85, 207–234. Bardhan, P., and Dayton-Johnson, J. 2002. Unequal irrigators: heterogeneity and commons management in large-scale multivariate research. In Ostrom, E., Dietz, T., Dolšak, N., etÂ€al., eds., The Drama of the Commons. Washington, DC: National Academy Press. Berkes, F., and Folke, C., eds. 1998. Linking Social and Ecological Systems: Management Practices and Social Mechanisms for Building Resilience. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Berkes, F., Colding, J., and Folke, C., eds. 2003. Navigating Social–Ecological Systems: Building Resilience for Complexity and Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cavendish, W. 2000. Empirical regularities in the poverty-environment relationship of rural households: evidence from Zimbabwe. World Development, 28, 1979–2003. Foss, N. 2001. Leadership, beliefs and coordination: an explorative discussion. Industrial and Corporate Change, 10, 357–388. Galbraith, J. 1973. Designing Complex Organizations. Reading, MA: AddisonWesley. Gunderson, L., and Holling, C. S., eds. 2002. Panarchy: Understanding Transformations in Human and Natural Systems. Washington, DC : Island Press. Gunderson L., Holling, C. S., and Light, S., eds. 1995. Barriers and Bridges to the Renewal of Ecosystems and Institutions. New York, NY: Columbia University Press. Jodha, N. 1986. Common property resources and the rural poor. Economic and Political Weekly, 21, 1169–1181. Milgrom, P., and Roberts, J. 1992. Economics Organization and Management. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Mintzberg, H. 1973. The Nature of Managerial Work. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Ostrom, E. 1990. Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ostrom, E. 1992. Crafting Institutions for Self-Governing Irrigation Systems, San Francisco, CA: ICS Press. Scheffer, M., Westley, F., Brock, W., and Holmgren, M. 2002. Dynamic interaction of societies and ecosystems: linking theories from ecology, economy and sociology. In Gunderson, L., and Holling, C. S., eds., Panarchy: Understanding Transformations in Human and Natural Systems. Washington, DC: Island Press. Ternström, I. 2002. The management of common-pool resources: theoretical essays and empirical evidence. Stockholm Economic Research Institute, Stockholm School of Economics. Thompson, J. 1967. Organizations in Action. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill. Walker, B., Holling, C., Carpenter, S., and Kinzig, A. 2004. Resilience, adaptability and transformability in social–ecological systems. Ecology and Society, 9(2), 5. www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol9/iss2/art5. Westley, M. 2002. The devil in the dynamics: adaptive management on the front lines. In Gunderson, L., and Holling, C. S., eds., Panarchy: Understanding Transformations in Human and Natural Systems. Washington, DC: Island Press.

5 Creating incentives for increased public engagement in ecosystem management through urban commons johan colding

The ‘commoners’ of the past are the ‘stakeholders’ of the present and future. Bonnie J. McCay (2000)

5. 1 â•‡

introduction

Over half the world’s population currently lives in urban areas; by 2030, nearly five billion people are expected to live in cities (Ash etâ•¯al. 2008). Between 2010 and 2030, the amount of the built mass on the earth is predicted to double, creating ever-greater demands on the services that nearby and distant ecosystems provide (Grimm etâ•¯al. 2008). With a greater proportion of humans living in metropolitan areas,1 urban ecosystems will experience increased land-use and land-cover change. Currently, urbanisation endangers more species and is more geographically ubiquitous than any other human activity; urban sprawl is rapidly transforming critical habitats of global value, such as the Atlantic Forest Region of Brazil, the Cape of South Africa and coastal Central America (Elmqvist etâ•¯al. 2008). Urbanisation leads not only to increased homogenisation of fauna and flora (McKinney 2002) but also to an impoverished biology in metropolitan areas, which Metropolitan areas are defined as ‘extended urbanised zones that are demo-

1

graphically, economically and socially interconnected, … and include a variety of urban forms, such as high-density residential and commercial areas, lowerdensity suburbs and lower-density peri-urban sites that are often still used for agricultural production’ (Solecki and Leichenko 2006). Adapting Institutions: Governance, Complexity and Social–Ecological Resilience, ed. Emily Boyd and Carl Folke. Published by Cambridge University Press. © Cambridge University Press 2012.

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arguably serves as a constant reminder of the presumed unimportance of biodiversity and so may contribute to ‘environmental generational amnesia’ among the greater public (Miller 2005). To gain the much-needed broad-based public support for a sustainable use of ecosystems, both within and outside cities, the places where people live and work need to offer opportunities for meaningful interactions with functioning ecosystems (Rosenzweig 2003, Miller 2005, Andersson etâ•¯al. 2007, Colding 2007). In this respect, and to help mitigate the growing disconnection of urban residents from nature (Pyle 1978, 1993), the dynamics of property rights determining human relationships to land can have powerful ramifications and be worthy of scholarly analysis to provide propositions about both the manner in which land ownership in cities evolves (Webster 2003) and its potential outcomes, such as the provision of the ecosystem services critical to human well-being (Daily 1997, Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 2005). It is increasingly recognised that today’s institutions match current changes in ecosystems and their dynamics poorly (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 2005, Folke etâ•¯al. 2007). The UN-supported Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) concluded that globally, ecosystem services are diminishing alarmingly and putting such strains on the environment that the ability of the planet’s ecosystems to sustain future generations can no longer be taken for granted. The MA showed that, with appropriate actions, it is possible to reverse the degradation of many ecosystem services, but also that the required changes in policy and practice are substantial and not currently happening. Furthermore, urban settings represent a priority area for the increased actions needed for capacity building of ecosystem services (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 2005). In this chapter, I argue that urbanisation results in an increasing proportion of people becoming landless. Two critical outcomes result: first, ecological illiteracy among people may increase as direct human interaction with the land diminishes, and second, prospects for ecosystem management, which depends on local stakeholder involvement, are further limited. As outlined here, the dynamics of property rights act as one of the most prominent causes behind the observed pattern of ecosystem (or green area) loss in urban areas. Urbanisation in market-driven, industrialised countries inevitably leads to a scarcity of land, accompanied by a rise in land prices and an increasing subdivision of land, which favours the growth of private land ownership (for example, club goods). The current shift to private organisations for providing and managing urban services is so pervasive that some

Creating incentives through urban commons

property-rights scholars regard it as a global phenomenon, independent of a country’s wealth or political ideology (Webster 2003, Lee and Webster 2006). As a result, lands in the public domain increasingly become enclosed by private land and often part of urban development, further reducing opportunities for the majority of city residents to have meaningful interactions with their ecosystems. While it may make economic sense for governments to sell public land to private actors, this may not always provide desirable social–ecological outcomes in cities. In this context, I bring forward the notion that common property rights regimes offer important institutional arrangements for providing a range of ecosystem services in urban settings, as well as for promoting ecological literacy and environmental stewardship among urban citizens. In common property rights regimes, management rights to natural resources are held by an identifiable community or group of users that may craft their own institutions for resource management within given legislative forms of society (Ostrom 1990, Berkes and Folke 1998, Berkes etâ•¯al. 2003). I refer to such systems as ‘urban commons’, representing Â�social–ecological urban landscape areas in which natural resources are commonly governed and managed by many individuals (e.g. Ostrom 1990). The chapter is organised as follows. Section 5.2 provides descriptions of some general land characteristics of urban settings. Section 5.3 describes how the dynamics of property rights provide powerful explanations for much of the land development patterns in urban areas; the theoretical underpinnings for this argument are largely based on work by Webster and colleagues (Webster 2002, 2003, Lee and Webster 2006). Section 5.4 deals with examples of ‘urban commons’ from various parts of the world, based on a literature review, covering community gardens in the USA, allotments in Europe and some emerging forms of collectively managed land. In Section 5.5, I suggest ways in which urban commons could contribute to sustainability in metropolitan areas, including promoting ecosystem services, and discuss their applicability in urban ecosystem management. The chapter ends with a summary of the broader insights generated in this chapter. 5. 2 â•‡u r b a n

land characteristics and implications for

land interaction

While quantitative data on urban land cover do not always come readily to hand, a key characteristic of urban land is that, to a greater extent than any other landscape type, it comprises built-up patches. The proportion

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of built-up land differs, of course, between cities, with the size of cities and where, along a rural–urban continuum, the analyses are made. For example, in a land-use survey of Leicester, UK, residential and commercial areas accounted for 65% of land cover (Carr and Lane 1993); in Brussels, about 50% of the land area consisted of built-up areas (Gryseels 1995); in the heart of London, open spaces made up only some 7.5% of the urban landscape, of which nearly half was regarded as ‘green’ (Plummer and Shewan 1992); in Berlin, vegetation cover ranged from 32% in the built-up areas of the city to 95% in the outer suburbs (Sukopp etâ•¯al. 1979). Often, however, when semi-natural lands are taken into account (Kendle and Forbes 1997), the actual coverage of urban green space is considerably greater than official estimates would suggest. For example, private gardens in residential areas in and around Stockholm comprise over 16% of the total land area but are officially registered as built-up land in land classification statistics (Colding etâ•¯al. 2006). Ownership of land in cities differs markedly from ownership patterns of other land types. As one moves from rural settings towards metropolitan areas, and especially into urban core areas, the proportion of landless people increases, because they live in multi-family dwellings without associated land (Figure 5.1). In city centres, green spaces tend to be owned by state authorities, such as a local municipality, or by powerful private organisations; examples include public parks, churchyards, alleys and various types of green space associated with large organisations, such as that surrounding schools, hospitals and industrial parks (Kendle and Forbes 1997). As one proceeds outward from the city centre, suburban green patches cover quite extensive and cohesive chunks of the metropolitan area, with a progressively increasing amount of green areas located in the semi-rural urban fringe (Colding etâ•¯al. 2006). An increase in the proportion of per capita ownership of land often also follows this progression. For example, at 5–7 km from the centre of Stockholm, the proportion of people living in one- and two-dwelling buildings with domestic gardens increases quite substantially. Different bundles of property rights are associated with ownership of land (Ostrom and Schlager 1996), of which rights of access, withdrawal, management, exclusion and alienation are the most prominent (Table 5.1). While green spaces in urban cores mostly allow public access, not all do.2 For instance, over a third of the open land in the more central parts of London is closed Access refers to ‘the right to enter a defined physical area and enjoy nonsubtrac-

2

tive benefits’ (Ostrom and Schlager 1996).

Creating incentives through urban commons

Table 5.1â•‡ Bundles of property rights associated with positions

Owner Access Withdrawal Management Exclusion Alienation

X X X X X

Proprietor X X X X

Claimant X X X

Authorised Authorised user entrant X X

X

The five property rights in the table are independent of one another, but are frequently held in the cumulative manner arranged as shown. They include the rights of access (i.e. ‘the right to enter a defined physical area and enjoy nonsubtractive benefits’); withdrawal (‘the right to obtain the resource units or “products” of a resource’); management (‘the right to regulate internal use patterns and transform the resource by making improvements’); exclusion (‘the right to determine who will have an access right, and how that right may be transferred’); and alienation (‘the right to sell or lease either or both of the above collective-choice rights’) (Ostrom and Schlager 1996, p. 133). The bundles of property rights are held by individuals with different positions and named accordingly. Adapted from Schlager and Ostrom (1992, p. 252).

Figure 5.1â•… The proportion of people living in one- and two-dwelling buildings decreases successively with population density, with major, larger cities typically having the lowest proportion. Examples derived from Sweden. Source: Statistiska Centralbyrån (2007).

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to the public (Plummer and Shewan 1992). While public green spaces may exist in densely populated neighbourhoods of multi-family dwellings, residents are often denied both withdrawal rights and management rights over these lands. Hence, much of the urban population is removed from the opportunity to own land, to have an input into the use of urban land and, arguably, the ability to understand or have concern for land conservation outside and within their cities (Rhode and Kendle 1997). Instead, most bundles of property rights associated with green space tend to be vested in governmental authorities, such as traditional local authority maintenance staff or private contractors, who favour simple, structurally monotonous land use, with large tracts of uniform grass, either with or without planted trees, characterised by Kendle and Forbes (1997) as ‘green deserts’. The emphasis in such management practice is on aesthetic ideals of cleanliness and tidiness rather than ecological ideals (Colding 2007). 5. 3â•‡

dynamics of property rights in urban areas

Descriptive accounts of urban areas seldom consider the dynamics of property rights as an explanatory factor in land change and loss of green areas in growing metropolitan regions. It has, however, been proposed that the same mechanisms that operated in the transformation of common land in Great Britain are also common to the land development pattern observed in many cities in market-driven, industrialised countries. This ultimately plays out as a game of propertyrights change. Formerly, in rural Britain, a substantial amount of common land existed. A historical change in agricultural land value occurred in the sixteenth century, as the demand for wool rose quickly and sheep farming consequently became the most profitable form of agriculture (Lee and Webster 2006). With the rising value of land driven first by national and then by international trade, common land became increasingly more scarce and private property rights increasingly prevailed throughout England and Wales (Lee and Webster 2006). Technological and economic development led to a significant change in land yield.3

The social costs of the enclosure of common land in Britain adversely affected the

3

welfare of the landless, but many of the displaced peasants and their descendants became, in the longer run, co-beneficiaries of rural land enclosure, which yielded long-term gains for society as a whole (Lee and Webster 2006).

Creating incentives through urban commons

Central to this economic property-rights argument is that as the value of land increases there is an inescapable trend towards the subdivision of property rights, with common rights giving way to private rights (Barzel 1997, Lee and Webster 2006), and a further likelihood of subdivision proceeding within an organised system of exchange (North 1990). Clearer boundaries (for which, read ‘privatisation’) make for more efficient exchange, equating to a lowering of transaction costsÂ€– or the costs of creating and policing contracts that establish ownership over a commodity such as land (Webster 2002). A fundamental proposition behind the property-rights argument made by Lee and Webster (2006) is that ‘the more accessible land is, the more scarce it is and central land becomes increasingly scarce as the city grows’. They use the growth of Manhattan as an illustrative example: Prior to the Dogan Charter of 1686 which conferred on the municipality ownership of all land in Manhattan, no land was granted or sold to individuals. Under municipal ownership, however, land became the ultimate source of funds required to manage the municipality and to maintain its famous low taxes. Parcels of common land, whose boundaries were still irregular, were sold to individuals during this period. By the last quarter of the nineteenth century, private ownership had become prevalent in parts of the island.

Privatisation of land still helps push New York’s economy. Today, more housing units are being built in New York City than at any time since the height of the post-World War II boom in the early 1950s, with large sections of the former industrial waterfront in Brooklyn and Queens being rezoned for residential development (Solecki and Leichenko 2006). Urban spatial order can also emerge spontaneously without explicitly planned government control over land use (as was the case in Manhattan), through numerous bilateral exchanges in the marketplace. As an instructive example, Lee and Webster (2006) use the subdivision in the suburbs of Bangkok, Thailand, in which urban transformation began with squatters occupying the narrow strips between rice paddies and canals: As the value of agricultural land increased with the size and wealth of the urban population, rice paddies were subdivided into higher vegetable gardens. At some stage the value of land increased to the point where land was sold to developers who turned strips of paddy land into housing estates. As the value of land continued to rise, further subdivision progressed through densification and by further spatial subdivision and by building upwards.

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Certain dimensions of public domains,4 which affect the stability of public domain space or land (Lee and Webster 2006), are particularly important for understanding the enclosure of cities. One is congestion, which refers either to the degree of competition within a public domain or to ‘the numbers of individuals who jointly consume it and the range of tastes amongst those individuals (or groups)’ (Lee and Webster 2006). When congestion generates excessive costs,5 there is likely to be pressure to reform property rights and subdivide the public domain either into private domains or into smaller public domains (for example, club goods). When public domains become congested, they must be governed in such a way that use rights are clear and enforceable. However, designing, creating and administering such a system of rights is costly (that is, their transaction costs are high); if costs for establishing such rights are politically or financially too high, ‘then the public domain remains contested and unsubdivided and effectively becomes unsustainable’ (Lee and Webster 2006). Another dimension is separation of attributes, which is likely to be established if it is cost-effective and if sufficient demand exists. For example, the rights regarding the different attributes of a lake can be separated and allocated to various groups of consumers, such as recreational space for windsurfers, habitats for fish, swimming areas etc. In a congested public domain, markets and governments will strive towards a separation of these rights according to different attributes (Lee and Webster 2006). A telling example of the separation of attributes happens to some public green spaces as a consequence of the increasing financial costs of maintenance for local governments. In Stockholm, for example, there are several instances where public parks have become degraded through underfunding. In conjunction with the restoration of these parks, local government agencies open up to private businesses, such as cafés, amusement areas etc. While the income from rents and property taxes makes park restoration and management feasible, this occurs at the expense of green space, patches of which are transformed into built-up areas. A public domain is defined as a ‘sphere of resource consumption within which

4

consumption rights are unallocated’ (Lee and Webster 2006). In cities these include parks, public transport, places of entertainment and worship, schools, hospitals and roads. Lee and Webster (2006) provide examples of the costs of queuing and costs of

5

resolving conflicts between users.

Creating incentives through urban commons

As a result of excessive costs related to congestion and maintenance of public domain space,6 there has been a rapid emergence of club-based organisations, for example privately governed ‘commoninterest housing developments’ (CIDs) including gated communities,7 townhouse and condominium projects and other planned communities (McKenzie 2003). In the USA, this massive privatisation of local government functions includes more than 230 000 developments, housing about 47 million people or one-sixth of the US population (cf. McKenzie 2003). It has been argued that this worldwide trend towards ‘club goods’ (Buchanan 1965) can be explained by the emergence of property rights that more effectively deal with the problems related to the increasing transaction costs associated with public domains (Lee and Webster 2006). Club-based organisation of public land may also include miniature cities, with security, financial and business headquarters (Lee and Webster 2006). The shift towards privatisation in urban areas pertains not only to land ownership but also to the provisioning and management of urban infrastructure and other services (Lee and Webster 2006). 5. 4â•‡

urban commons

Research shows that active land management can contribute to the promotion of understanding about the feedback between ecosystems and people by increasing environmental knowledge in urban populations, in which such knowledge tends to be poor (Theodori etâ•¯al. 1998, McKinney 2002, McDaniel and Alley 2005). Kaplan and Kaplan (1989) even argue that people who do not experience nature early and regularly are less likely to develop the strong emotional ties that motivate costly conservation efforts. Hence, reconnecting (or reconciling) humans to nature in urban areas is critical if future generations are to have the necessary knowledge, attitudes and skills to make decisions that take the natural environment into account (Palmer etâ•¯al. 2005). Several different types of reconciliation approaches to nature This has been the case in parts of the London green belt, where because of

6

underfunding habitats have become degraded and largely avoided by the public (Colding etâ•¯al. 2006). According to the 2001 American Housing Survey, about 6% of US households

7

are currently located in developments behind walls and fences (Solecki and Leichenko 2006). These ‘gated communities’ are becoming the fashion in many US metropolitan areas and several other countries, including China. Privately built, managed and governed neighbourhoods are the predominant form of new development in the USA, with more than 15% of housing stock in ‘common-interest development’ in 2000 (cf. Lee and Webster 2006).

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have been suggested in recent years (Rosenzweig 2003, McDaniel and Alley 2005, Colding etâ•¯al. 2006), including urban design and adaptive co-management approaches (Colding 2007). However, little thought has been devoted to how lands managed as commons could contribute to the mitigation of ecological illiteracy in city dwellers by promoting land management approaches and ecosystem services.8 I use ‘urban commons’ in the sense that users hold all bundles of property rights to these lands, with the exception of ownership rights. Hence, these common property systems for the most part represent systems where the users are proprietors (Table 5.1). Examples include community gardens in the USA, allotment areas in Europe and some emerging forms of collectively managed land. This is followed by a discussion of how urban commons provide ecosystem services and how, more broadly, they could be designed to promote ecosystem management approaches in urban areas. 5.4.1â•‡ Community gardens In 1998, some 23% of all land in US cities was classified as vacant (Bowman and Pagano 1998).9 Many neighbourhood communities transformed these urban spaces into ‘community gardens’, which represent publicly or privately held lots which residents do not own but on which they grow food, flowers or greenery (Schukoske 2000). Community gardens have been described as ‘neighbourhood commons’ (Linn 1999) that build social capital by encouraging neighbours to work and socialise together, providing opportunity for residents to ‘bond’ with others of their own group and also serving as ‘bridges’ between diverse groups (Shinew etâ•¯al. 2004). As of 1994, some 300 000 households in the USA took part in community gardening (Linn 1999). Common lands have become rare in industrialised countries, with few examples

8

in cities. Collectively owned and managed lands are more common in developing countries, although privatisation of land is increasingly replacing them (Pretty and Ward 2001). Examples of common lands include village woods, pastures and irrigation systems (Ostrom 1990), community-managed forests (Alcorn and Toledo 1998), pastoralist systems (Niamir-Fuller 1998) and the Maine clam and lobster fishery in the USA (Acheson 1988, Hanna 1998). However, in many cases, local communities’ land claims, such as those of indigenous societies, may be highly contested by governments. Hence, stable common property systems need the support and recognition of local governments (Alcorn and Toledo 1998). Vacant land includes publicly and privately owned, unused or abandoned land that

9

once had buildings on it, and land with structures that have been abandoned or are derelict, boarded up, partially destroyed or razed (Bowman and Pagano 1998).

Creating incentives through urban commons

Community gardening is a grassroots movement, which depends upon the collaborative efforts of diverse residents to succeed (Shinew etâ•¯al. 2004).10 In community gardening, people work together on a vacant lot, usually located in the centre of a city or in a low-density suburban area (Janson Waddick 2000).11 The vacant-lot gardens are usually small, such as in New York City, where gardens are 5-by-15 metre lots (Schmelzkopf 1995). If residents want to lease city-owned property, they need to organise an association, clear up the lot, bring in soil and negotiate for gardening supplies as well as take certain workshops before they can begin management (Schmelzkopf 1995).12 From a property-rights perspective, community gardens, at least in the USA, are an extremely unstable type of property-rights domain, usually representing an interim use for vacant land awaiting construction. In the USA, less than 2% of community gardens are permanent (Linn 1999). In some city jurisdictions in which publicly owned vacant land is used for gardening, the duration of garden lot leases is specified by law. These durations range from as long as five years (renewable) in Seattle, to two years in Boston and as little as A telling account of the development of this grass-roots movement is given

10

by Schmelzkopf (1995) in her study of the Loisaida neighbourhood in New York City. Loisaida was severely affected by the fiscal crisis that New York City endured during the 1970s, when funds for public services were cut by more than 30%, followed by dis-investment as landlords abandoned properties and banks and insurance companies withdrew investments. Because of foreclosures due to non-payment of taxes, many of the properties reverted to city ownership; more than 3400 housing units were demolished and at least 70% of the population was displaced. The vacant lots became open spaces, which in 1973, beginning with a small group of people who later called themselves the Green Guerrillas, became a resource for urban gardeners. Today, Loisaida contains more than 75 gardens, of which 35 are on land leased from the city, at least two on land leased from private owners and almost 40 are ‘squats’ on private and city-owned land. New York City became involved in urban gardening in 1976, when the Department of Housing Preservation and Development designed and built gardens throughout the city as an interim use of vacant land awaiting construction. However, the city failed to consult or include neighbourhood residents in their design and building, and the gardens were quickly vandalised and abandoned (Schmelzkopf 1995). Instead, the city created Operation Green Thumb (OGT) in 1978, a programme devoted to supporting gardeners rather than to building gardens. OGT is now one of the largest city-run gardening programmes in the United States. Public land that has been made available for this activity has usually been mar-

11

ginal, located next to railway lines or on industrial sites (Linn 1999). This includes dividing the lots into individual plots, deciding on membership

12

fees or other means to cover costs of the garden and finally starting to till, fertilise, plant and manage the gardens (Schmelzkopf 1995).

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one growing season in New York (Schukoske 2000). Interestingly, lease durations correlate closely with garden appearance: gardens with long-term leases demonstrate a sense of permanency, with an abundance of slow-growing trees, perennials and lawns and features such as benches, gazebos and brick paths (Schmelzkopf 1995). Hence, as property-rights theory would predict, the longer the leases they have, the more community residents are willing to invest in gardening activities.13 Of key importance for securing land for community gardens has been the formation of the metropolitan gardening organisations (MGOs), which support thousands of gardens in the United States (Janson Waddick 2000).14 In addition, the Trust for Public Land also secures public land for community gardens and helps community organisations legally establish themselves as non-profit organisations to purchase and administer open space for gardens (Linn 1999). Public agencies and private non-profit corporations, for example public housing authorities, public schools, churches and settlement houses, have made land available as community gardens to their own constituencies (Linn 1999). Another way of securing land for community gardens is through their incorporation in the comprehensive planning process. For example, the city of Seattle, Washington, was first in the USA to include community gardens in its comprehensive plan, aspiring to have one community garden within walking distance for every 2500 residents and including a performance measurement for community gardens (Janson Waddick 2000). 5.4.2â•‡ Allotment areas A considerably more stable form of common property rights in urban areas is allotment gardens. An allotment area can be defined as an area of tiny pieces of garden-sized plots with individual or family management rights, usually owned by a local municipality, located in urban or Some leases are terminable at short notice, such as the Adopt-A-Lot programme

13

in Baltimore, Maryland, which provides renewable one-year leases that can be terminated at 30 days’ notice if the lot is required for another public purpose by the city. In Chicago, community garden organisations are permitted to use sites that the city has agreed not to develop for three years, but the city refuses to enter into any leases with community garden groups (Schukoske 2000). MGOs work with individuals and local associations to secure land for commu-

14

nity gardens, organise effective garden groups and expand resources for urban gardening (Janson Waddick 2000).

Creating incentives through urban commons

semi-urban areas, usually on prime fertile soils (Colding etâ•¯al. 2006).15 These areas may differ quite widely in size; in the Stockholm metropolitan area, for example, they range between 3450 m2 and 70 000 m2 (Andersson etâ•¯al. 2007). Allotments represent well-demarcated, green, lush areas that often are very old (sometimes more than 100 years old), constituting well-managed flower, bush and tree-rich areas where users grow vegetables and fruits for self-sufficiency. Currently, Europe has some 3 million allotment gardens (Björkman 2000), of which Germany has an estimated 1.4 million gardens, covering an area of 47 000 ha (Parker 2003) and involving nearly 5% of the German population (Holmer etâ•¯al. 2002).16 Allotment gardens originate from a social movement at the beginning of the twentieth century, which sought to improve workers’ health conditions. It had its earliest roots in Germany and Britain (Parker 2003). Hence, in contrast to the situation for many community gardens in the USA, various governmental bodies supported allotments from an early date. This is reflected in the fact that leases are usually long term: for example, renewable leases of up to 25 years between a local allotment association and the local municipality are common in Stockholm.17 Furthermore, in contrast to community gardens, leasehold of an allotment plot is not determined by membership of a neighbourhood community. In Sweden, for example, gardeners living in a neighbourhood other than the one in which the allotment is located may travel long distances to their plots. Often, however, they are required to reside in the municipality where the allotment garden is situated, and only residents living in multi-family dwellings qualify to lease plots. European allotment areas are effectively organised, nested all the way from the local level to the international; some have websites and magazines.18 Colding etâ•¯al. (2006) found that about one-fifth of all allotment areas in greater

15

Stockholm were located next to nature reserves. In the United States and Canada, allotment gardening did not develop until rela-

16

tively late in the nineteenth century, as a result of economic crises and war, and urban gardens in these countries followed the pattern found in European countries: after crises waned, gardens fell into disuse. At the peak of the gardening movement, 20 million gardens existed in the United States (Parker 2003). In 1988, there were a reported 5 million allotment holders in the United States (Crouch and Ward 1988). Even though there are many cases in which European allotments have been

17

expropriated, removed and relocated to other areas (often from the urban core to a more suburban setting), allotment areas constitute a quite stable common property rights regime. In Sweden, each allotment area is organised by an allotment association, of which

18

plot holders are members with equal voting rights and shares. Plot holders pay

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During World Wars I and II, allotment areas were so common in Europe that they became an avenue through which urban dwellers could survive in times of crisis. During World War I, allotments played a crucial role in supplying the British people with food. The government gave permission to local authorities to transform unoccupied lots into gardens (Parker 2003) and the number of allotment gardens surged from 600 000 to 1.5 million. By 1918, allotment gardens had provided the British with 2 million tons of vegetables (Select Committee 1998). World War II sparked a new explosion in allotment gardening, and the number of allotments rose from around 800 000 to 1.4 million. Today Britain has some 200 000 allotment gardens (Björkman 2000). France had about 600 000 allotments in World War II. After the war ended, urbanisation increased pressure on areas with allotments. In 1979, the French Environment Ministry passed reforms of allotment gardens, attempting to secure existing sites where possible and provide alternative sites when it was not. Funding was also created for the formation of new sites (Crouch and Ward 1988). The allotment garden movement spread from Holland and on to the Scandinavian countries at the beginning of the twentieth century (Crouch and Ward 1988).19 In Sweden, the first allotment area was established in 1904. During World War I and the 1930s economic depression, approximately 10% of the garden products produced in Sweden were supplied by the nation’s 130 000 allotment gardens (Parker 2003). 5.4.3â•‡ Emerging urban commons Urban commons do not only include gardening activities. In the UK, a number of ‘community forests’ have emerged in recent years. These lands are collectively managed by a diverse set of stakeholders. One example is the community forests in the London green belt, covering several hundred hectares of land under diverse ownership, including an annual rent of 4000–5000 SEK for the plot. Currently, some 275 local allotment associations exist in Sweden, in turn organised into regional allotment associations. These associations act on behalf of the plot holders to negotiate lease agreements with the municipality and help evaluate prices for cabins and associated equipment when leaseholders wish to give up their allotment. The regional associations are in turn members of a national organisation, with some 27Â€000 members. The Swedish Allotment Association is a member of the Nordic Allotment Association, which in turn is a member of the International Allotment Association. The national organisation has its own magazine, Kolonisten, through which useful gardening tips and other relevant issues are communicated. Denmark has some 40Â€000 allotment gardens, Finland 5000 and Norway 2500

19

(Björkman 2000).

Creating incentives through urban commons

farmers, local authorities, nature conservation organisations and local businesses (www.thameschase.org.uk). Activities include the restoration and creation of woodlands through active management, volunteer days, the planting of new hedgerows and the creation of paths to make areas more accessible for the public. UK community forests represent a mosaic of wooded landscapes, located on the edge of major towns or cities, close to where people live and work.20 In some municipalities of Stockholm County there is an increasing trend towards the establishment of partnership contracts between a local municipality and local neighbourhood groups. Such contracts are referred to as brukaravtal (user rights agreements), and they transfer management responsibility for portions of state-owned lands (often degraded habitats) to local neighbourhood groups that then use them for activities such as habitat restoration and improvement.21 5. 5 â•‡

urban commons and sustainability in cities

While common lands in cities face similar, if not even greater fragmentation than public land, they may be an effective alternative to land privatisation for governments to consider seriously. For example, governments may reduce transaction costs related to the maintenance and management of much public land by devolving management rights to local user groups (Colding etâ•¯al. 2006). In such institutional arrangements, governments may retain the ownership of land but transfer other bundles of property rights to local user groups that bear most of the costs of its maintenance and management. HenceÂ€– and as argued hereÂ€– urban commons could contribute to a larger proportion of urban green space that is adequately maintained, managed and preserved. As the examples of urban commons reviewed in this chapter suggest, governments need to provide sufficiently stable property-rights conditions to stimulate self-organising, long-term investment in active land management. As touched upon here, such incentives include the establishment of long-term leases of state-owned land or the incorporation of urban commons in local plans. While profound economic One example is the Thames Chase community forest to the east of London,

20

which has plans to increase woodland cover by planting 5.5 million trees on some 2000 ha of land by 2030,. Since 1990, over 1.3 million new trees have been planted on 470 ha of woodland (www.thameschase.org.uk). One example is Enskede, where some 20 brukaravtal have been established (Peter

21

Grimms, Enskede Parkförvaltning, personal communication, April 2005).

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rationales might lie behind an increasing loss of public land in urban settings, the long-term environmental consequences of such pathÂ�dependent development need to be adequately addressed in the creation of sustainability in growing cities. For example, the development of housing units on the formerly industrial waterfront of Brooklyn and Queens may be positive for the economic and community vitality of New York City but may have negative implications for its longerterm sustainability through limited consideration of environmental factors. Currently, thousands of housing units are being built in lowlying, coastal, flood-prone locations, subject to the increased flooding threat associated with climate change, including induced sea-level rise (Solecki and Leichenko 2006). Furthermore, governments need to consider land uses able to mitigate the current and global dissipation of ecosystem services (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 2005), of which many are locally and regionally generated by the green spaces of cities. In Table 5.2, I have summarised a range of ecosystem services provided by the urban commons dealt with in this chapter. Furthermore, Box 5.1 describes examples of ecological benefits provided by allotments. Most of these represent services that can be described as ‘public goods’ and for which efficient property rights are difficult, if not impossible, to establish. Such services also tend to be extremely difficult to value in economic terms (Carpenter and Folke 2006, Hougner etâ•¯al. 2006). 5.5.1â•‡ Applicability of commons in urban areas While urban commons may be used in the redesign and modification of already developed urban core areas, it is not easy to modify or enlarge existing urban green patches (Colding 2007).22 Throughout the world, urban core areas have seen little or moderate growth in recent years, while the surrounding suburban and peri-urban territories have grown more quickly, with a typical development of new suburban expansion spilling out from the core of the city (Solecki and Leichenko 2006). Urban biodiversity usually also peaks in the suburbs, where species tend to be ‘urban adapters’ (Blair 2001, McKinney 2002). Hence, the opportunity for the development of urban commons is likely to be greatest in the suburbs of metropolitan areas, for example when development of new housing and associated services takes place. Alternatively, urban An interesting exception is Shanghai, where green areas have increased in par-

22

allel with urban expansion, from less than 9 km2 in 1975 to more than 250 km2 in 2005 (Elmqvist etâ•¯al. 2008).

Creating incentives through urban commons

Table 5.2â•‡ Ecosystem services provided by community gardens and allotment areas. These include provisioning services (the products obtained from ecosystems); cultural services (the non-material benefits people obtain from ecosystems through spiritual enrichment, cognitive development, reflection, recreation and aesthetic experiences); regulating services (the benefits obtained from the regulation of ecosystem processes); and the supporting services (those that are necessary for the production of all other ecosystem services) (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 2005) Provisioning services Food (fruit and vegetables): source of food and subsistence income (1) Ornamental resources (flowers) (2) Cultural services Aesthetic values: bringing some sense of nature into an area (3); greening of areas (4); significant positive effects on surrounding property values (5) Inspiration: acting as a mental stimulus for elderly people, delaying the onset of dementia (6) Nature education: gardens as arenas where urban residents can shape their relation to nature and may learn the importance of positive human inputs into landscape most clearly (7) Recreation: safe environment for outdoor activities (8); physical health benefits (9); mental health benefits (10) Social relations: building a sense of community among neighbours; improve social contact (11); abate criminal activity (12); fostering positive interracial relationships (13) Regulating services Air filtration (14) Erosion regulation Noise reduction Nutrient retention Pest regulation Regulation of microclimate Surface water drainage Supporting services Habitat for flora and fauna (15) Seed banks for rare vegetable species (16) Soil formation Seed dispersal Pollination (17) Water cycling

Sources: (1) Select Committee 1998, Linn 1999, Björkman 2000; (2) Björkman 2000, Colding etâ•¯al. 2006; (3) Schmelzkopf 1995; (4) Schukoske; (5) Voicu and Been 2006; (6) Stigsdotter and Grahn 2002; (7) Rhode and Kendle 1997; (8) Shinew etâ•¯al. 2004; (9) Kaplan and Kaplan 1989; (10) Select Committee 1998; (11) Lewis 1992, Select Committee 1998; (12) Schmelzkopf 1995, Linn 1999; (13) Shinew etâ•¯al. 2004; (14) Select Committee 1998; (15) Select Committee 1998; (16) Select Committee 1998; (17) Colding etâ•¯al. 2006; Andersson etâ•¯al. 2007; see also Box 5.1.

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Box 5.1â•‡ Ecological values of allotment areas Few scientific studies exist on the ecological values of allotment areas. However, their role in contributing to biodiversity conservation in urban settings is presumably large. A study from the United Kingdom reveals that allotment garden plots and allotment sites hold on average up to 30% higher species diversity than urban parks (Select Committee 1998). Also, in a study from Stockholm City, allotment sites were found to hold a much higher abundance of bumblebees than cemeteries and urban parks (Andersson etâ•¯al. 2007). While allotment areas cover only some 0.3% of the land in greater Stockholm, they tend to be extremely biodiversityrich (Colding etâ•¯al. 2006). In Stockholm City, for example, an allotment plot was found to contain 447 different plant species on an area of just 400 m2 (Björkman 2000). Allotment gardeners adopt several practices that promote conditions for pollinating insects, which are declining in many European countries and which represent a functional group for many wild plants, as well as for food cultivars associated with agriculture (Colding etâ•¯al. 2006). Because of the cultivation of colourful flowers that increase flower richness, and because of intensive management that extends the length of the flowering period compared to other areas, allotment gardeners provide a prolonged supply of nectar for pollinators. Moreover, 45% of the allotment gardeners in Stockholm City intentionally plant flowers with the sole intention of attracting pollinators. In addition, many native plant species which do not fit the aesthetic ideals of entrepreneurialmanaged cemeteries and public parks, such as Salix spp., are allowed to grow on allotment sites, where they provide a key food source for early-flying bumblebee species (Andersson etâ•¯al. 2007). Hence, management practices in the allotment gardens of Stockholm clearly benefit pollinators, with several bumblebee species found only in allotment areas (i.e. Bombus sylvarum, B. subterraneus, B. ruderarius and B. norvegicus) (Andersson etâ•¯al. 2007). In fact, the network of allotment sites in the Stockholm urban core is likely to be functionally connected by several invertebrate metapopulations (Colding etâ•¯al. 2006).

Creating incentives through urban commons

commons should be considered as an alternative for management of the many green patches of cities that are biologically impoverished, such as by improving the uniform tracts of land, the ‘green deserts’, which exist in cities. Such land could, for example, be developed into community gardens or be leased by residents, such as the Swedish brukaravtal. As described in this chapter, several forms of ecosystem services could be promoted through such institutional arrangements. Urban commons could also be explicitly designed to promote ecosystem management in cities. For example, local governments could make sure that some proportion of public land be collectively managed to reach certain ecological goals through partnership arrangements between local governments, conservationists and nature stewardship groups. This may involve adaptive co-management designs in different parts of the urban landscape.23 Such participatory designs could be created by governments as part of local Agenda 21 initiatives to lower transaction costs of ecosystem management, most notably the costs incurred in monitoring ecosystems, designing regulations, coordinating users and enforcing regulations (Colding etâ•¯al. 2006). Such designs could involve ‘wildlife gardening’, where the goal is to manage and restore the missing components of a landscape that will best meet animals’ needs (Colding etâ•¯al. 2006, Colding 2007). They could also be used to promote ‘focal species’ known to have broad-scale ecosystem effects, including those considered as ‘keystone’ and ‘umbrella’ species (Dale etâ•¯al. 2000, Bani etâ•¯al. 2002) as well as ‘mobile link species’ that transfer matter and energy across trophic levels or link ecosystems over space (Lundberg and Moberg 2003). Urban commons with adaptive Â�co-management could also serve as arenas for ‘designed experiments’ to improve ecological functions in cities (Felson and Pickett 2005). Presently, in many cities, the demand for lands managed as commons is considerable. In the USA, for example, it has been estimated that some 6.7 million households would take up community gardening if an organised programme existed nearby (Janson Waddick 2000). Demand for allotments is high in many countries (Select Committee 1998, Björkman 2000). Many consumers in rich countries want to return to locally supplied foods to cut the ‘air miles’ travelled by their Adaptive co-management is an approach tailored to specific places and situ-

23

ations, supported by and working with various organisations at different levels in society (Gadgil etâ•¯al. 2000, Folke etâ•¯al. 2003, Olsson etâ•¯al. 2004). Adaptive co-management emphasises learning-by-doing management, in which management objectives are treated as ‘experiments’ from which people can learn by testing and evaluating different management policies (Walters 1986).

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daily bread, and rapidly growing megacities in poor countries often lack the means of organising food imports, which means there is presently a huge demand for urban farms in cities throughout the world (Pearce 2006). Maintaining options for urban agriculture through intelligent local policies in urban areas should therefore be part of capacity-building in growing cities, and in this context both community gardens and allotment areas should be more widely supported. A number of environmental organisations and neighbourhood associations are demanding a voice in zoning and planning decisions that affect their communities (McDaniel and Alley 2005); however, few approaches exist for their inclusion in ecosystem management activities (Colding 2007). 5. 6â•‡

conclusions

The various implications of property-rights issues in urban areas have received scant interest from scholars and researchers working at the interface of social and ecological systems. Based upon an economic theory of property rights, I have described why many public-domain spaces in cities throughout the world, including green areas, are inherently unsustainable and increasingly face fragmentation. Urbanisation, driven by market incentives, inevitably leads to increased privatisation and subdivision of land. Local governments often lack adequate funding for the efficient maintenance and management of public-domain spaces and in consequence are often compelled either to sell public land or to subdivide it. In parallel, and as a result of urbanisation, a greater proportion of humans have become landless. These factors contribute to an overall risk of increased ecological illiteracy among a greater number of city residents, and to a further erosion of urban ecosystem services. In this context, it is essential for governments to develop and promote opportunities for people to actively take part in land management schemes. As proposed here, urban commons represent viable alternatives for governments for cost-effective ecosystem management, increasing the chances for a wider range of urban residents to take part in such management and potentially making a positive contribution to the reconciliation of humans with nature in urban settings. They should be much more widely considered for building resilience in ecosystem services in cities, since they can efficiently incorporate both social and ecological considerations in the built environment, and hence have an important role in urban sustainability planning and design. While common property rights issues

Creating incentives through urban commons

have received scant interest in sustainability creation in cities, I have here sought to illuminate ways in which urban residents could become active stakeholders in ecosystem management.

acknowledgements

Johan Colding’s work has been funded by research grants from the Swedish Research Council for Environment, Agricultural Sciences and Spatial Planning (FORMAS), the FORMAS Urban-Net Program and Mistra (the Foundation for Strategic Environmental Research) with the support of the Stockholm Resilience Centre. The author expresses his gratitude to the people and sea of Puerto de la Cruz, Tenerife, and to Elisabeth for the peaceful supportive atmosphere created while completing this manuscript. The author is also grateful to several anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments on the manuscript.

references

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Part IIâ•…Adapting and governing public institutions for uncertainty and complexity

6 Adaptive capacity and the ecostate andreas duit

6. 1 â•‡

introduction

Contemporary discussions on issues of resilience and adaptation in linked social–ecological systems (SES) have, to a large extent, overlooked the state as an object of study and theorising. This is unfortunate, since the state, despite continuing globalisation, remains a primary unit of environmental decision-making, management and policy-making. Failing to include the state as a relevant unit of analysis in social–ecological system studies therefore carries the risk of omitting perhaps the single most influential source of agency in contemporary environmental management. A closer look at the nation-state reveals that there is already an extensive and growing set of governance systems, aimed at regulating the use of natural systems, in place in most industrialised countries. This rapid process of capacity-building has been going on since the 1960s. This trajectory towards what can be called an emerging environmental state (or ecostate) is a highly critical development for anyone wishing to understand how the current ecological crisis can be, and has been, addressed through administrative means. Although the emergence of ecostates marks a significant development in how societies are responding to environmental degradation, it can still be questioned how well ecostate governance systems are suited to the task of governing complex and volatile ecological systems. SES scholars have long emphasised that to achieve long-term robustness, the governance of complex ecological systems must have a sufficient level of adaptive capacity (Ostrom 2005, Folke 2006, Duit and Galaz 2008). A key

Adapting Institutions: Governance, Complexity and Social–Ecological Resilience, ed. Emily Boyd and Carl Folke. Published by Cambridge University Press. © Cambridge University Press 2012.

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challenge for the study of ecostates is therefore to develop a framework for assessing the level of adaptive capacity of different types of ecostates. The first part of this chapter argues the case for the state as a highly relevant unit of analysis for SES scholars, and goes on to discuss how the adaptive capacity of states can be conceptualised and measured. The second part introduces the notion of the ecostate and the accompanying idea of the environmental governance regime (EGR), and includes a short discussion of the driving forces behind the emergence of the ecostate. The third part uses cross-national data to consider the adaptive capacity of the environmental state. The conclusion from this preliminary analysis is that to enhance the adaptive capacity of EGRs, increased resources, rather than more or different policies, Â�policy instruments and institutions are needed. 6. 2 â•‡

the state as a social–ecological system

The processes of global environmental change are rapidly undermining the long-term ability of coupled social–ecological systems to provide ecosystem services essential for human well-being. This development is ultimately the result of a vast number of multi-level, multisector and multi-actor governance failures; in other words, failures to design institutions capable of regulating the sustainable use of complex natural resources. Recent approaches to natural resources management, such as ‘adaptive management’ and ‘adaptive co-management’, are often suggested as suitable for enhancing the resilience of a social–ecological system (Olsson etÂ€al. 2004, Armitage etÂ€al. 2007). Through stakeholder collaboration, multi-scale links and policy experiment, more robust management regimes are thought to emerge (Folke 2006, Folke and Rockström 2009). These are all, in many ways, promising approaches to the problem of how to manage complex social–ecological systems but they are primarily concerned with the management of smalland medium-scale resource systems. This is probably a legacy of the focus of early resilience theory work on the management of natural reserves, which also tended to associate the state with ‘command-andcontrol management’ (Holling and Meffe 1996). The state is usually encountered as part of a discussion on the importance of establishing multi-level and multi-scale links between local resource management and administrations and higher-level organisations (Ostrom and Janssen 2004, Folke 2006, Winter 2006). Undoubtedly, the state’s

Adaptive capacity and the ecostate

‘clearing-house’ function has a strong impact on the resilience of local and regional social–ecological systems, and it is therefore an important analytical category. But the state does so much more than link actors and organisations at different geographical and political scales. The problem with this approach to natural resources governance in Â�social–ecological systems is that it tends to overlook the considerable amount of Â�social–ecological interaction dynamics that occur at the state level. States enact environmental law, ratify international environmental agreements, design environmental institutions, devise environmental policies, allocate resources for solving environmental problems and manage natural resources. Therefore, the omission of the state as a relevant unit of analysis is likely substantially to hamper efforts to understand the behaviour of social–ecological systems. Recognising the state as a significant unit of analysis does not mean that the theoretical underpinnings of adaptive management and resilience thinking do not apply to issues of state-level resource management, rather that they must be adapted to account for state-level features of the Â�social–ecological system. For example, lessons learned from how local stakeholders are using adaptive management practices to combat eutrophication in a freshwater system (Olsson etÂ€al. 2004) are difficult to apply in addressing eutrophication on a national or international level. The dynamics of policy-making and institution-building at the national level are quite different from those encountered at a local level. For instance, in a liberal democracy, policies and institutions are normally designed through the legislative process, which involves multiple actors and complex systems of rules, and from which the end result often consists of compromises and solutions based on smallest-winning-coalitions. Due to these and other circumstances, state-level policy processes are often considered to be non-linear, unpredictable and highly sensitive to idiosyncratic factors (Pressman and Wildavsky 1973, Kingdon 2003) in a way that is not necessarily so in policy-making at the local level. Furthermore, national environmental policy-making does not take place in isolation but is deeply intermeshed with neighbouring policy arenas, such as public planning, waste management, agricultural policy and so on, which, unlike in many local settings, makes it difficult to consider environmental policy-making as a unitary activity. National-level policies and institutions are normally intended to cover the policy domain of the entire country and are subject to the demands of rule-of-law of public governance (Rothstein and Teorell 2008). These and other circumstances of

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state-level environmental management and policy-making mean that findings from local studies of social–ecological systems, such as the importance of leadership and vision, cross-scale links and social capital (Olsson etÂ€al. 2004), become less useful for understanding sources of adaptive capacity at the state level. Analysing state-level adaptive capacity therefore requires a somewhat different approach. 6. 3 â•‡T h e

adaptive capacity of states

Perhaps from fear of the dark legacy of social Darwinism, social science scholars have historically been reluctant to include adaptive or evolutionary components in theoretical frameworks. Nevertheless, there are some noteworthy exceptions to be found within mainstream political research. For instance, the notion of ‘transformative capacity’ has previously been employed by Linda Weiss in her studies of the effects of globalisation on the capacity of nation-states to govern their economies. For Weiss, transformative capacity refers to ‘the ability of state to adapt to external chocks and pressures by generating ever-new means of governing the process of industrial change’ (Weiss 1998, p. 4). She goes on to emphasise that transformative capacity should not be considered a uniform concept, in the sense that transformative capacity will be expressed in different strategies and policies in different countries. Peter Katzenstein’s classic Small States in World Markets (1985) is another example of how the processes of adaptation can be studied. Based on case studies of small European states, Katzenstein argues that the combination of a high level of exposure to world markets and small domestic markets forced small states to develop institutional responses such as corporatism and a consensual style of democratic decision-making to secure long-term growth. In a similar vein, Douglass North’s Understanding the Process of Economic Change (2005) makes the argument that explanations of economic prosperity cannot rely solely on accounts based on the rational construction of well-functioning institutions but must also consider the role of non-irrational factors, such as knowledge, culture and beliefs, to understand continuous adaptation to changes in world markets and emerging technologies. Within the field of environmental science, the majority of recent works on the topic of adaptive capacity of nations originate from researchers associated with the Tyndall Centre. Brooks etÂ€ al. (2005) developed a set of nation-level indicators of vulnerability and the ability to adapt to climate change. They found that higher adaptive

Adaptive capacity and the ecostate

capacity was mainly linked to literacy rates, good governance and property rights. Nelson etÂ€al. (2007: 400) define adaptive capacity as: a way to describe the preconditions necessary for a system to be able to adapt to disturbances. It is represented by the set of available resources and the ability of the system to respond to disturbances and includes the capacity to design and implement effective adaptation strategies to cope with current or future events. Resources include economic capital, technology and infrastructure, information, knowledge, institutions, the capacity to learn and social capital.

This way of viewing adaptive capacity has a number of advantages. First, it emphasises that there is no external standard against which the value of societal functions is assessed. Unlike in biological, ecological or economical systems, the adaptive capacity of sociopolitical systems carries no assumption of optimisation or teleology; that is, that through time adaptation somehow produces better societies or that societies progress through different stages. On the contrary, adaptation in this vein is seen neither as necessarily and objectively Pareto-improving for individuals or collectives, nor as entailing any assumptions about evolutionary fit. The adaptive capacity of a social system is its capacity to respond to changes that actors within it perceive as threats or possibilities. Whether or not these changes enhance overall welfare (and not just the well-being of certain individuals, groups, nations, generations and so on) raises thorny questions of efficacy or fit and should therefore not be included in the definition of adaptation. Second, adaptive capacity is a trait attributed to a collective of actors and their interdependence, not to the system. It can be argued that this definition of adaptive capacity therefore produces a higher analytical leverage, as it does not involve underlying assumptions about objective values, and attributes agency to actors rather than systems (cf. Haddad 2005). Third, this definition also allows for positivesum adaptation, as, under certain circumstances, external checks and stresses might allow actors to improve their situation when adapting to new circumstances, rather than just maintain the status quo.

6. 4 â•‡

the environmental state

The emergence of welfare states from the mid twentieth century represents, in a historical perspective, the process of most radical transformation of the scope and function of the state. From a situation

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in which the state accepted few responsibilities towards its citizens other than upholding law and order and protecting them from invading powers, the combined forces of industrialisation, urbanisation and internationalisation, and the emergence of market economies, gradually transformed the state into an entity that, in some cases, permeated almost every aspect of its citizens’ lives. Compared to their predecessors, even the most limited varieties of contemporary welfare states accept far-ranging responsibilities towards their citizens and spend large sums of money on the provision of welfare services and social security. What caused this remarkable reorientation of the state? Although a comprehensive answer to this question is beyond the scope of this chapter, some scholars of the origins of welfare states point to the problem of the externalisation of social costs as one possible explanation (Pierson 2000). In essence, the welfare state can be seen as an institutional response to the appearance of market economies, propelled by external factors, such as social and human suffering and exploitation. As the market economy grew, the escalating problems of the externalisation of human costs such as health care, pensions, child care, education and so on created a growing need to mitigate these effects through some sort of government intervention. By definition, externalities are costs that no single actor has the incentive to pay for unilaterally (cf. O’Neill 1995, Paavola and Adger 2005). Despite the fact that market economies need healthy and educated workers to maintain their long-term functionality, it is highly unlikely that the market would be able to produce universal public goods (for example, health care, pension systems and schools) through its own logic, but by means of resources collected through taxation and the build-up of a substantial set of institutions and administrations the welfare state can provide some of the public goods that the market is unable, or at least very unlikely, to create. James Meadowcroft has pointed out that it is possible to discern a similar development in regard to responses to environmental degradation. Since the latter half of the 1960s, most states in the developed world have erected institutions and implemented policies aimed at limiting or curtailing problems of environmental degradation, and many developing countries are rapidly increasing their involvement in environmental issues (Dietz and Kalof 1992, Meyer etÂ€al. 1997, Frank etÂ€al. 2000). Meadowcroft (2005) argues that this development can be interpreted as a move towards an emerging environmental stateÂ€– a state that accepts far-ranging responsibilities for counteracting the

Adaptive capacity and the ecostate

effects of the market’s externalisation of ecological costs and which has developed an extensive set of institutions and policies to work towards this end. Several recent works develop similar notions of the role of the state in addressing environmental degradation. Drysek etÂ€al. (2003) analyse the role of social movements in the development of what they term the ‘Green State’, while Robyn Eckersley (2004) has developed the theoretical foundations for a Green State that is radically more adapted than its liberal counterpart to addressing environmental concerns. Barry and Eckersley (2005) also note that the policy paradigm of ecological modernisation can be understood as an attempt to internalise externalised ecological costs. But due to the paradigm’s focus on supply-side win–win environmental policies, this is only done to a very limited extent. It is important to keep two things in mind when pursuing this analogy. First, just as the welfare state did not put an end to human suffering and social injustices, so the emergence of ecostates does not signify the end of all forms of environmental degradation. Institutional responses to problems of externalisation of environmental cost can be more or less comprehensive, and environmental policy-making, like all policy-making, is not always completely effective. Second, although they are a response to the same underlying problem of externalisation of environmental costs, ecostates are likely to exhibit a considerable amount of national variation in scope and substance. Structural and historical differences between industrialised countries have led to marked differences between different types of welfare state regimes (Esping-Andersen 1990), and we can expect similar dynamics in the formation of ecostates through time. In other words, we should expect to see distinct environmental governance regimes emerge in different ecostates. 6. 5â•‡

environmental governance regimes

What aspects of the ecostate, as the unit of analysis, should be included when trying to assess the adaptive capacity of national responses to environmental degradation? From a political perspective, a state consists of innumerable individual actors, groups, organisations, networks, institutions, interests, ideas and perceptions, all interacting and connecting in a multi-level, highly complex and constantly evolving system. Add to the mix interactions with equally complex ecological systems within and beyond the nation’s borders and it becomes analytically impossible to capture such a system in its entirety. Some

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simplification is needed, and it is for this reason that the concept of the environmental governance regime (EGR) has been developed. The qualifier ‘environmental’ indicates that the focus is on those aspects of a state’s governance arrangements that are most closely involved with environmental issues. As environmental concerns are becoming integrated into more and more areas of policy-making, this is a far from clear-cut criterion for defining the boundaries of the EGR. Nevertheless, it can be useful, in so far as it directs analytical attention to the ‘core’ of the EGR; that is, to those policies and institutions that are directly and explicitly involved in managing environmental resources and combating environmental degradation. But what is a governance regime? The concept of ‘regimes’ has a long history in political and social science (for an excellent overview of the concept in political science, see Jochim and May 2009). Scholars of international relations tend to view regimes as ideas, routines and concepts that are shared by most actors within a policy domain. Such belief-based factors, together with institutions, make international governance possible as they enable international coordination and cooperation. Oran Young’s (1999) work on international environmental regimes represents this use of ‘regime’ within environmental politics. In policy analysis, the concept of policy regimes is often used to denote a mix of separate policies within a certain policy domain (for example, different policies addressing air pollution), whereas students of comparative politics tend to use the concept to mean patterns of power constellations and state-civil society relations (Jochim and May 2009). The utility of the regime concept is primarily that it pays equal attention to policies and institutions, thereby enabling more comprehensive descriptions of the ecostate. Rather than trying to understand how policies are transformed into institutions, how institutions influence policy outcomes and how political actors shape, and are shaped by, institutions and policies, the regime approach is more interested in understanding the structure of a given society’s response to a certain problem; that is, to understand the macro-pattern of administrative, regulatory and organisational structures used to deal with nationwide problem complexes (cf. Pierre and Peters 2005). An additional advantage of the regime concept, as argued by Jochim and May (2009), is that it is well suited to analysing issues that span several policy sectors. As this is clearly the case in environmental policy, considering governance regimes might even be a prerequisite to understanding how states are mitigating externalisation of ecological costs.

Adaptive capacity and the ecostate

The concept of an environmental governance regime can be defined as the set of institutions, policies and agencies involved in environmental management in a state. Another way of defining an EGR is to understand it as all those actions undertaken, participated in or initiated by the state for the purpose of mitigating externalisation of ecological costs. As much of its analytical value lies in facilitating comparisons, the EGR concept is primarily intended to be used as a generic description of the main characteristics of the way in which a state issues its administrative, regulatory and institutional responses to environmental problems. Unlike Esping-Andersen’s (1990) concept of the welfare state regime, actors and actor-constellations (for example, environmental NGOs and green parties) are not included as necessary parts of the regime but are considered to be an important explanatory factor behind national variations in governance regime configurations. Moreover, the term ‘governance’ is usually associated with Â�policy-making and pubic steering either beyond or alongside the traditional Weberian bureaucracy (Pierre 2000, Rhodes 2000), and it may seem confusing to use the term in a discussion of how states respond to environmental crises. However, an EGR need not (but is very likely to) include some forms of public steering or policy instruments usually found under the ‘governance’ heading. But much as environmental politics has not entirely left the state for the global arena, ‘governance’ has far from replaced ‘government’ in environmental management: the interesting thing is the mix between the two in a country’s EGR. The term ‘governance’ in EGR is therefore intended to refer both to new and to older means of public steering and problem-solving within the environmental realm. 6.5.1â•‡ A brief history of the environmental state Recent advances in cross-national data collection on environmental politics and policy can be used to track emerging ecostates, as well as to study the composition of different EGRs. Since the 1960s, developed states have responded to increasing problems of environmental degradation by developing new sets of institutions, implementing new policies and opening an entirely new sub-field of politicsÂ€– environmental politicsÂ€– in which new parties and interest groups have emerged and old parties and organisations have been forced to develop positions. In the perspective of political history, this is a remarkably rapid development: in less than 50 years, environmental issues have gone from

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25 Environmental protection (issue saliency) % No. of policies in place 20

15 Mean

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0 1945

1955

1965

1975

1985

1995

2005

Year Figure 6.1â•… The emerging ecostate. Figure based on data from 23 countries. Estimates of environmental issue saliency for Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovenia are available only after 1990. Source: ENVIPOLCON dataset, developed by Knill etÂ€al. (2010). See www.uni-konstanz.de/FuF/Verwiss/knill/projekte/envipolcon/projecthomepage.php for additional information on coding and study design. See also Holzinger (2008) for a summary of findings from analyses based on this data. Estimates of the saliency of the environmental issue were collected from the Comparative Manifesto Database, which contains data for textual contents of electoral programmes for all parties in 25 countries for the period 1948–2005. For further details on coding etc. see Budge (2001) and Klingeman etÂ€al. (2006).

not being recognised as a problem at all (letÂ€alone as problems requiring government involvement) to becoming a core area of politics and policy-making in most contemporary states. An illustration of this historical process is shown in Figure 6.1, which plots the frequency of environmental policies and the saliency

Adaptive capacity and the ecostate

of environmental issues over time. The graph is based on data from 23 countries, using estimates of whether 29 types of environmental policies were in place in four different years (1970, 1980, 1990, 2000) (Fig. 6.1). The graph also shows the mean percentage of textual content in election manifestos pertaining to environmental issues, used as a reflection of the saliency of environmental issues (Fig. 6.1). Both lines display a steady increase over the years, although the saliency of environmental issues drops slightly towards the end. In 1970, a few years after the ‘discovery’ of environmental problems in the mid 1960s, the average number of environmental policies was 3.71, although there is a considerable amount of variation around the mean: countries at the forefront, such as Japan, Germany and the UK (seven policies) and Sweden (eight policies) had issued a relatively comprehensive response to the newly discovered problem, whereas laggards such as Romania (no policies) and Greece, Ireland, Italy and Mexico (one policy) were slow to respond to environmental challenges through administrative reforms. The steady increase of the saliency of environmental issues in election manifestos reflects a gradual shift in the perception of environmental problems as political problems: parties start to establish positions around environmental issues when they seek voters’ support. This does not, per se, constitute a governance response, but increasing political attention to environmental issues has been an important factor behind the emergence of EGRs.1 By 2000, the average number of policies had risen to 21.4 and the gap between laggards and forerunners ranged from 10 out of 29 policies (USA) to 26 out of 29 (Denmark and Sweden). The development of policies and politics reflected in these data supports the assertion of emerging ecostates. We now turn to a discussion of how the adaptive capacity of the ecostate can be assessed. 6. 6â•‡

modelling the adaptive capacity of

environmental governance regimes

Presently, we have very little systematic and empirically grounded knowledge about which factors enhance or erode the adaptive capacity of political systems in general and social–ecological systems

In a recent study of 18 OECD countries combining data from the ENVIPOLCON

1

project and the Comparative Manifesto Database, Knill etÂ€al. (2010) identified an independent effect of more pro-environmental policy positions among political parties on the number of environmental policies adopted in a country.

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in particular (Duit etÂ€ al. 2010). One of the main challenges for SES research is to gain an understanding of how different types of governance systems behave under different processes of change (for example, steady-state versus punctuated equilibrium), as it is likely that governance regimes well suited to one type of change might not do well when faced with transformative processes for which they are not well adapted (Duit and Galaz 2008). One dominant view of resilience holds that the key to long-term resilience in social–ecological systems lies in the level of diversity found in the governance system. The core notion is that a system’s ability to cope with surprises and external shocks depends on its internal level of diversity (or ‘response diversity’, as this feature is sometimes called: cf. Ashby 1956). This ‘diversity hypothesis’ predicts that a system with a higher level of response diversity would be more likely to survive an external shock or surprise simply because the range of available actions is greater (cf. Ostrom 1995). In a similar vein, Ostrom and others have argued the case for polycentrismÂ€– governance structures of multiple and sometimes overlapping institutions and hierarchiesÂ€– as being more effective than single-peaked hierarchical organisations (McGinnis 2000, Ostrom 2005). The notions of institutional redundancy (Low etÂ€al. 2003) and institutional robustness (Anderies etÂ€al. 2004) rest on similar foundations: that overlapping, and sometimes even contradicting, institutions and governance systems within a certain area can, at times of rapid change or unexpected events, be more resourceful in response than a single institution. Transferring this line of reasoning to the ecostate, a tentative hypothesis is that a greater level of policy diversityÂ€– the number of different policy instruments used in environmental policy-makingÂ€– is an important source of its adaptive capacity. Environmental governance regimes that rely on a limited number of policy instruments for all forms of environmental policy-making are more likely to run into difficulties when hit by a broad-scale disturbance. For example, if a state relies heavily on economic policy instruments (tax, subsidies and fees) for environmental governance, fluctuations in the market economy are likely to have an impact on their effectiveness. Subsidies become less powerful when the economy is doing well, whereas taxes and fees run the risk of becoming too stringent when times are harsh. Being in possession of a well-stocked policy toolbox makes it easier to switch from one policy instrument to another: decision-makers and officials have a larger array of policy instruments to choose from, should the need for a different approach to an unexpected problem arise.

Adaptive capacity and the ecostate

A larger set of policies can also be expected to facilitate a better adaptation of policies and institutions to local contexts, in terms of a better fit both between institutions and ecosystems (Galaz etÂ€al. 2008) and between policies and social structures (cf. O’Brien etÂ€ al. 2006). Finally, a wider repertoire of policy instruments might have the side effect of raising the level of experience and knowledge of government officials involved in environmental management. Having more, and different, policy instruments means that officials must acquaint themselves with differing policy methodologies, which facilitates the introduction of new policy instruments into new policy areas. 6.6.1â•‡ Policy diversity in EGRs: a first look The adoption of new policy instruments in a state is often a result of policy diffusion, in which a certain policy model is transferred from one state to another. Policy diffusion has a dual effect on the adaptive capacity of EGRs. One the one hand, policy diffusion disseminates policy instruments, best practices and policy paradigms and knowledge among countries and can act as an important driving force towards more stringent environmental standards (Holzinger etÂ€ al. 2008). On the other hand, policy diffusion carries the risk of homogenisation of policy portfolios, in the sense that the policy repertoire of different countries tends to become increasingly similar. For example, in a comprehensive study of policy convergence in 24 countries between 1970 and 2000, Holzinger etÂ€al. (2008, p. 228) found that policy similarity between an average pair of countries in the sample rose from 3% in 1970 to 56% in 2000. A possible drawback of this tendency towards more homogeneous EGRs is that it is likely to weaken the populationlevel capacity (for example, developed states) to respond to novel and unforeseen disturbances. However, rising homogeneity is probably an asset for steady-state management, as coordination and cooperation regarding environmental standards and trade rules between different countries is facilitated by similarities in policy instruments and institutions. Figure 6.2 provides an interesting illustration of how countries can differ in their EGR construction. In terms of policy diversity, national variation ranges from nine different policy instruments (Sweden) to three (Austria, Belgium and Bulgaria). Sweden uses all nine possible categories of instruments in its EGR and is also one of four countries in which the largest instrument category (obligatory standard, prohibition or ban) accounts for less than half of the

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Spain

Germany

Mexico

Slovenia

Switzerland

Poland

Ireland

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United Kindom

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Italy

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Figure 6.2â•… Policy diversity in 24 countries. Source: ENVIPOLCON dataset.

Sweden

Norway

Bulgaria

Belgium

Austria

United States

Romania

Japan

France

Voluntary insrument

Information-based instrument

Data collection/monitoring programme

Public investment

Planning instrument

Liability scheme

Subsidy or tax reduction

Tax or levy

Technological prescription

Obigatory standard, prohibition or ban

Adaptive capacity and the ecostate

instruments in use. (The other three are Ireland, Romania and the USA.) There is a tendency for countries with a higher number of policies (that is, policies for a wider range of environmental problems) to exhibit a greater variation in policy instruments, but the number of policies is not a strong predictor of policy diversity. The most common policy instrument is obligatory standard, prohibition or ban, which is used in all EGRs and about 60% of policies. The rarest instrument is taxes and levies,2 which is used in roughly 1.5% of environmental policies and in only five EGRs (Finland, Sweden, Denmark, France, Spain). To summarise, there are substantial national differences in policy diversity between the 24 EGRs in the sample and it is highly plausible that even larger differences will be encountered in a larger sample. An important task for future research is to investigate how differences in policy diversity affect the ability of EGRs to navigate both slow and rapid change, as well as respond both to established needs and to novel challenges. 6. 7 â•‡

the need to strengthen the ecostate

Although far from comparable to the size of the welfare state, contemporary EGRs have reached a point at which further institutional and policy expansion might not be what is most urgently needed. EGRs in most developed countries have well-developed institutional structures and relatively well-stocked policy toolboxes. Their officials and scholars have acquired a sufficiently detailed knowledge of environmental systems to allow for goal-directed and responsive policy-making, albeit that the system dynamics are not completely understood. Improving the resilience of EGRs will therefore not primarily consist of issuing additional policies, designing new institutions or gathering further knowledge about ecosystems’ traits and characteristics. Put simply, we already know what must be done to address environmental degradation, and we possess the policy tools and institutions required. What we have not done is to use this knowledge and these policy tools to their fullest extent. A more urgent need is to strengthen EGRs through the transfer of resources. On average, industrialised countries allocate about 0.017% of total governmental expenditure to environmental protection This is likely to have changed substantially since 2000, as environmental taxes

2

and levies have become increasingly popular policy tools (Christoff 2006).

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(OECD 2009).3 This figure includes all actions taken by national governments in relation to environmental management and protection and provides a clear illustration of how public investments are nowhere close to matching the externalisation of ecological costs. For instance, the OECD recently calculated that not doing anything about air pollution in Europe (that is, implementing policies no more stringent than today’s) would cost about 3–10% of GDP in the EU25 region (OECD 2008). Not doing anything about climate change is calculated to be vastly more expensive: the Stern Report (2007) found that global warming costs about 5% of annual global GDP. Action is relatively cheap: stabilisation at around 500–550 ppm CO2 would cost about 1–2% of global GDP (Stern 2007). Using simulations of a hypothetical policy package capable of addressing today’s most pressing environmental problems, the OECD has concluded that even marginal increases in the stringency of policy would yield a dramatic reduction of the costs associated with environmental degradation. If this package were implemented, global GDP would grow by 97% rather than by 99% (or about 0.03 % lower annual GDP growth) by 2030, but emissions of air pollutants would be reduced to one-third of today’s levels and the increase of greenhouse gas emissions would be 13% rather than 39% (OECD 2008). Policy-making is myopic and not easily persuaded by arithmetic such as this, but these figures indicate a possible impetus for continued expansion of the environmental state. As scholars of ecosystem services have long recognised, society and the economy are highly dependent on ecosystem services such as air filtration, pollination, waste management and water purification. As ecosystems come under increasing pressure from the processes of environmental change, their ability to continue providing these services will be diminished or even abolished (Costanza etÂ€al. 2000). Losses of economic assets and decreases in social welfare are likely to follow in the wake of dwindling ecosystem services, which in turn might stimulate calls for further-reaching state involvement in securing the continued functionality of core ecosystem services. The question remains of whether the feedback from faltering ecosystems will be strong and early enough to enable the ecostate to expand into providing protection for core ecosystems and, through that, securing human well-being. The resources of the ecostate are not on a par with the urgency of environmental problems. Just as it is impossible to determine the appropriate size of a welfare state, there is no optimum or appropriate Based on data for 2000, or the closest available year, from 19 OECD countries

3

(OECD 2009).

Adaptive capacity and the ecostate

size for an ecostate against which all nations can be measured. The present and future size and structure of the ecostate will be the result of complex political processes, and there will be a number of different end positions. The key issue is that the current level of resources available in most EGRs is simply insufficient even to begin seriously engaging with problems such as global warming, resource depletion and biodiversity loss. Another way of understanding the discrepancy between the costs of environmental degradation and spending on environmental protection is that contemporary EGRs are, at present, unable to internalise enough of the ecological costs externalised by the market economy to avoid the possibility of losing ecosystem services. Why has the full potential of the ecostate not been realised, despite the severity of environmental degradation? There are several reasons why the ecostate has not been able to reach a size which would allow for a more comprehensive approach to concerns over global environmental change. Meadowcroft (2005) argues that one crucial difference between the welfare state and the ecostate is that the former was the product of a historical struggle between powerful social forces, affecting the day-to-day well-being of almost every individual, whereas the emergence of the ecostate has primarily been supported by environmental interest groups, scientists and environmental officials. Environmental degradation has so far had a most limited impact on the everyday well-being of most citizens in developed countries, which means that environmental issues have been unable to build the same kind of momentum as the social upheavals that led to the welfare state. Another difference is that while the political struggles shaping the welfare state were battles of redistribution between different strata of existing populations (for example, between the poor and the wealthy), the ecostate is mainly poised at the conflict between present and future goods and harms. This conflict is between present and future generations, which severely hampers its intensity and political momentum and thereby the pace of environmental reform. Add to this the inherently short-sighted character of human governance (Underdal 2010) and the limited expansion of the ecostate seems almost inevitable. 6. 8 â•‡

conclusions: rethinking the role of the state in

addressing environmental change

Yet another obstacle to the emergence of a fully fledged ecostate is the way that environmental problems, historically and presently, have been framed in a policy context. Recent research has shown that

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there is a strong link between how a certain problem is describedÂ€– framedÂ€ – and the way in which political actors attach policy solutions to it (Bacchi 1999, Nelson and Oxley 1999, Jacoby 2000, Kingdon 2003, Drysek 2005). If one wishes not only to understand more about the problems at hand but also to be able to formulate new solutions that transcend older descriptions of the problems, it is important to scrutinise the process from problem to political solutions. We can discern roughly three overlapping stages or paradigms in environmental policy-making: the limits-to-growth perspective of the 1960s and 1970s (Carson 1963, Meadows 1972), the sustainable development paradigm of the 1980s (World Commission on Environment and Development 1987) and the ecological modernisation paradigm of the 1990s and later (Christoff 2006, Mol etÂ€ al. 2009). These three phases in environmental policy-making have in common the absence of a pronounced reliance on the state as a vehicle for the improvement of environmental systems. Due to a perceived connection between representative liberal democracy and sustained economic growth on the one hand and an opposition between economic growth and degradation of environmental systems on the other, scholars and activists have been reluctant to attribute a more prominent role to the state in combating environmental degradation. This is not to say that the state has not been involved in environmental management during this time, only that the notion of a more comprehensive state involvement, similar to the way in which the state has been charged with the task of solving many other kinds of social problems through public administration financed by taxation, is yet to emerge in environmental politics (cf. Barry and Eckersley 2005). This signifies the need for a comprehensive re-evaluation of the role of the state in environmental management, which goes beyond the dominating role of today’s ecological modernisation paradigm and considers issues of adaptive capacity, flexibility, effectiveness, fairness and robustness. references

Anderies, J. M., Janssen, M. A., and Ostrom, E. 2004. A framework to analyze the robustness of social–ecological systems from an institutional perspective. Ecology and Society, 9(1), 18. www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol9/ iss1/art18. Armitage, D., Berkes, F., and Doubleday, N., eds. 2007. Adaptive Co-Management: Collaboration, Learning and Multilevel Governance. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press.

Adaptive capacity and the ecostate Ashby, W. R. 1956. An Introduction to Cybernetics. London: Chapman & Hall. Bacchi, C. 1999. Women, Policy and Politics: The Construction of Policy Problems. London: Sage. Barry, J., and Eckersley, R. 2005. An introduction to reinstating the state. In Barry, J., and Eckersley, R., eds., The State and the Global Ecological Crisis. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Brooks, N., Adger, N., and Kelly, M. 2005. The determinants of vulnerability and adaptive capacity at the national level and the implications for adaptation. Global Environmental Change, 15, 151–163. Budge, I. 2001. Mapping Policy Preferences: Estimates for Parties, Electors and Governments 1945–1998. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Carson, R. 1963. Silent Spring. London: Hamish Hamilton. Christoff, P. 2006. Ecological modernisation, ecologial modernities. In Stephens, P. H. G., Barry, J., and Dobson, A., eds., Contemporary Environmental Politics: From Margins to Mainstream. New York, NY: Routledge. Costanza, R., Daly, H., Folke, C., etÂ€al. 2000. Managing our environmental portfolio. Bioscience, 50, 149–155. Dietz, T., and Kalof, L. 1992. Environmentalism among nation-states. Social Indicators Research, 26, 353–366. Drysek, J. S. 2005. The Politics of the Earth. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Drysek, J. S., Downes, D., Hunold, C., Schlosberg, D., and Hernes, H.-K. 2003. Green States and Social Movements: Environmentalism in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, and Norway. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Duit, A., and Galaz, V. 2008. Governance and complexity: emerging issues for governance theory. Governance, 21, 311–335. Duit, A., Galaz, V., Eckerberg, K., and Ebbesson, J. 2010. Introduction: governance, complexity and resilience. Global Environmental Change, 20, 363–368. Eckersley, R. 2004. The Green State: Rethinking Democracy and Sovereignty. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Esping-Andersen, G. 1990. The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism. Cambridge: Polity Press. Folke, C. 2006. Resilience: the emergence of a perspective for social–ecological systems analyses. Global Environmental Change, 16, 253–267. Folke, C., and Rockström, J. 2009. Turbulent times. Global Environmental Change, 19, 1–3. Frank, D., Hironaka, A., and Schofer, E. 2000. The nation-state and the natural environment over the twentieth century. American Sociological Review, 65, 96–116. Galaz, V., Olsson, P., Hahn, T., Folke, C., and Svedin, U. 2008. The problem of fit among biophysical systems, environmental regimes and broader governance systems: insights and emerging challenges. In Young, O., Schroeder, H., and King, L. A., eds., Institutions and Environmental Change: Principal Findings, Applications, and Research Frontiers. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 147–186. Haddad, B. 2005. Ranking the adaptive capacity of nations to climate change when socio-political goals are explicit. Global Environmental Change Part A, 15, 165–176. Holling, C., and Meffe, G. 1996. Command and control and the pathology of natural resource management. Conservation Biology, 10, 328–337. Holzinger, K., Knill, C., and Arts, B. 2008. Environmental Policy Convergence in Europe: The Impact of International Institutions and Trade. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jacoby, W. 2000. Issue framing and public opinion on government spending. American Journal of Political Science, 44, 750–767.

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Andreas Duit Jochim, A., and May, P. 2009. Beyond subsystems: policy regimes and governance. Fifth Transatlantic Dialog Conference, Washington, DC. Katzenstein, P. 1985. Small States in World Markets: Industrial Policy in Europe. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Kingdon, J. W. 2003. Agendas, Alternatives and Public Policies. New York, NY: Longman. Klingeman, H., Volkens, A., Bara, J., Budge, I., and McDonald, M., eds. 2006. Mapping Policy Preferences II: Estimates for Parties, Electors and Governments in Eastern Europe, European Union and OECD 1990–2003. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Knill, C., Debus, M., and Heichel, S. 2010. Do parties matter in internationalised policy areas? The impact of political parties on environmental policy outputs in 18 OECD countries 1970–2000. European Journal of Political Research, 49, 301–336. Low, B., Ostrom, E., Simon, C., and Wilson, J. 2003. Redundancy and diversity: do they influence optimal management? In Berkes, F., Colding, J., and Folke, C., eds., Navigating Social–Ecological Systems: Building Resilience for Complexity and Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 83–114. McGinnis, M., ed. 2000. Polycentric Games and Institutions: Readings from the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Meadowcroft, J. (2005). From welfare state to ecostate. In Barry, J., and Eckersley, R., eds., The State and the Global Ecological Crisis. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Meadows, D. H. 1972. The Limits to Growth: A Report for the Club of Rome’s Project on the Predicament of Mankind. New York, NY: Universe Books. Meyer, J., Frank, D., Hironaka, A., Schofer, E., and Tuma, N. 1997. The structuring of a world environmental regime 1870–1990. International Organization, 51, 623–651. Mol, A., Sonnenfeld, D., and Spaargaren, G., eds. 2009. The Ecological Modernisation Reader: Environmental Reform in Theory and Practice. London: Routledge. Nelson, D., Adger, W., and Brown, K. 2007. Adaptation to environmental change: contributions of a resilience framework. Annual Review of Environment and Resources, 32, 395–419. Nelson, T., and Oxley, Z. 1999. Issue framing effects on belief importance and opinion. Journal of Politics, 61, 1040–1067. North, D C. 2005. Understanding the Process of Economic Change. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. O’Brien, K., Eriksen, S., Sygna, L., and Naess, L. 2006. Questioning complacency: climate change impacts, vulnerability and adaptation in Norway. Ambio, 35, 50–56. OECD. 2008. OECD Environmental Outlook to 2030. Paris: OECD. OECD. 2009. National Accounts of OECD Countries, Vol. II. Detailed Tables. Paris: OECD. Olsson, P., Folke, C., and Hahn, T. 2004. Social–ecological transformation for ecosystem management: the development of adaptive co-management of a wetland landscape in southern Sweden. Ecology and Society, 9, 2. O´Neill, J. 1995. Public choice, instituitonal economics, environmental goods. Environmental Politics, 4, 197–218. Ostrom, E. 1995. Designing complexity to govern complexity. In Hanna, S., and Munasinghe, M., eds., Property Rights and the Environment: Social and Ecological Issues. Washington, DC: World Bank. Ostrom, E. 2005. Understanding Institutional Diversity. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Adaptive capacity and the ecostate Ostrom, E., and Janssen, M. 2004. Multi-level governance and resilience of social–ecological systems. In Spoor, M., ed., Globalisation, Poverty and Conflict: A Critical ‘Development’ Reader. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Paavola, J., and Adger, N. 2005. Institutional ecological economics. Ecological Economics, 53, 352–368. Pierre, J., ed. 2000. Debating Governance: Authority, Steering, and Democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pierre, J., and Peters, B. 2005. Governing Complex Societies: Trajectories and Scenarios. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Pierson, P. 2000. Three worlds of welfare state research. Comparative Political Studies, 33, 791–821. Pressman, J., and Wildavsky, A. 1973. Implementation: How Great Expectations in Washington are Dashed in Oakland, or, Why it’s Amazing that Federal Programs Work at All. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Rhodes, R. 2000. Governance and public administration. In Pierre, J., ed., Debating Governance: Authority, Steering and Democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Rothstein, B., and Teorell, J. 2008. What is quality of government? A theory of impartial government institutions. Governance, 21, 165–400. Stern, N. 2007. The Economics of Climate Change: The Stern Review. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Underdal, A. 2010. Complexity and challenges of long-term environmental governance. Global Environmental Change, 20, 386–393. Weiss, L. 1998. The Myth of the Powerless State: Governing the Economy in a Global Era. Cambridge: Polity Press. Winter, G., ed. 2006. Multilevel Governance of Global Environmental Change: Perspectives from Science, Sociology and the Law. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. World Commission on Environment and Development. 1987. Our Common Future. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Young, O., ed. 1999. The Effectiveness of International Environmental Regimes. Causal Connections and Behavioral Mechanisms. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

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7 Food systems and adaptive governance: food crisis in Niger sirkku juhola

7. 1â•‡

introduction

Many developing countries are struggling to provide adequate food to their population. The impact of global environmental change on food security is largely unknown, and this increasing uncertainty highlights the need to identify the governance institutions that underpin food security and the potential of these institutions to adapt to changing circumstances. Considering the increasing population and the increasing number of under- and malnourished people in the world, this is increasingly important. Current understandings of food security, drawing on agricultural economics, have largely been dominated by a research agenda that focuses on the demand for and supply of food, but since the 1990s a more holistic concept of food security has been advocated. It is argued that a systemic understanding of food security includes not only the production and consumption of food but also processes within the environment in which the activities related to food take place, and interactions between those activities and the environment. A new way of understanding food security opens up the possibility of discussing adaptive governance and adaptive institutions in changing environments in relation to food security, as more emphasis is placed on issues of governance and institutions. This chapter reviews the current state of the world’s food insecurity, highlighting the challenge of an increasing number of foodinsecure people. This is followed by a brief overview of how food security is understood and what responses to counter such insecurity have been developed internationally and nationally. However, these Adapting Institutions: Governance, Complexity and Social–Ecological Resilience, ed. Emily Boyd and Carl Folke. Published by Cambridge University Press. © Cambridge University Press 2012.

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responses are far from perfect, as is demonstrated by an analysis of a recent food crisis in Niger. The chapter acknowledges four aspects of adaptive governance necessary for a social system to be responsive to change. These four aspects are analysed in relation to the crisis in Niger, clearly showing the lack of adaptive capacity in the institutions involved. The 1996 World Food Summit, held in Rome, set as its objective the reduction by half in the number of chronically undernourished people, to be achieved by 2015. A decade later, the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) reiterated this goal (United Nations 2006), and it was further stated at the 2009 World Food Summit (FAO 2009). Despite these efforts, progress has been less than satisfactory. After limited success in the early 1990s, the number of undernourished people in sub-Saharan Africa and eastern Asia has risen. Severe rises in food prices, as well as the global financial crisis, hampered success in 2007–08. The FAO estimates that the number of undernourished people increased by 75 million in 2007 and by 40 million in 2008, largely due to price rises (FAO 2008a). Worldwide, the number of malnourished people has risen to 1.02 billion (FAO 2008b). However, it is acknowledged that these sudden problems cannot wholly be blamed for the increases, as numbers were rising before these shocks (FAO 2009). The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA), completed in 2005, highlighted the impact of degradation of ecosystem services on future human well-being. Globally, more land has been converted to cropland since the mid twentieth century than in any other comparable time in the history of humankind (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 2005). Although this has enabled an exponential growth in agricultural productivity, it has had a serious impact on the ability of ecosystems to support human activities. According to an MA estimate, the demand for food crops is projected to grow by 70–85% by 2050, but it is unclear to what extent the earth’s ecosystem can support this increase (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 2005). As if the current situation was not challenging enough, a consensus seems to be forming about the changes in the global environment. Global environmental change (GEC) is set to increase uncertainty with regards to the ecosystem services that the earth provides. This increased uncertainty creates a further burden on current food production and distribution systems. Even now, when global food production has increased enormously, famine and severe food crises remain common occurrences. This raises the questions of why our current

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institutional responses are failing and whether we can build the adaptive capacity of institutions relevant to food security to meet further challenges arising from GEC. This chapter examines the possibilities for adaptive governance and institutions with regard to food security. By examining the 2004–05 humanitarian crisis in Niger, it shows how national and international institutional failures led to a food crisis, first by highlighting the general problem of food insecurity in the world and second by focusing on the definition of food security. Third, it goes on to illustrate the national and international institutional landscape that has emerged to deal with food insecurity. Fourth, the case of the recent humanitarian crisis in Niger is analysed to tease out the lessons that can be learned with regard to adaptation in institutions. The case of Niger clearly highlights the need to build the adaptive capacity of institutions, and some early recommendations are reached in the conclusion. 7. 2â•‡

the state of the world’s food security

Despite the phenomenal increases in food production since the 1950s, hunger and malnutrition are still persistent and widespread. Of the 824 million currently suffering from hunger, 10 million die each year of hunger-related causes, 24 000 every day (Belgasmi 2006). During the twentieth century, the mortality figures for famine-related deaths have been estimated at 70 million (Devereux 2000). Most of those suffering from hunger live in developing countries; currently 65% live in just seven countries: India, China, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Pakistan and Ethiopia (FAO 2008a). Progress in reducing hunger varies between countries and continents. There are also significant differences between urban and rural populations. According to 2003 UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates, 820 million of the world’s undernourished people live in the developing world (FAO 2006). While China has been one of the few countries able to reduce the number of the undernourished, partly as a result of urbanisation, in the rest of the developing world the numbers are not so promising (von Braun 2005). The situation is particularly dire in sub-Saharan Africa, where the number of hungry people has increased by 20% since the 1990s. Within sub-Saharan Africa, the situation has worsened in southern Africa and parts of central and western Africa. However, there are some successes: Ghana has reportedly achieved Millennium Development Goal 1 (FAO 2006).

Food systems and adaptive governance: food crisis in Niger

Table 7.1â•‡ Projections of food and hunger indicators by region. Source: Pingali etÂ€al. (2006)

Years

Near East Sub-Saharan and North South Africa Africa Asia

Latin America and Developing East Asia Caribbean countries

Per capita food consumption (kcal/person/day) 1964–66 2058 2290 2017 2195 3006 2403 1997–99â•›a 2015 2360 3090 2700 2030 2540 3170 2900 Millions of persons undernourished 1990–92 168 25 289 1997–99â•›a 194 32 303 2015 205 37 195 2030 183 34 119 Percentage of population undernourished 1990–92 35 8 26 1997–99â•›a 34 9 24 2015 23 7 12 2030 15 5 â•‡ 6 a

1957 2921 3060 3190

2393 2824 2980 3140

2054 2681 2850 2980

275 193 135 â•‡ 82

59 54 40 25

815 776 610 443

16 11 â•‡ 6 â•‡ 4

13 11 â•‡ 6 â•‡ 4

20 17 11 â•‡ 6

Projections to 2015 and 2030 have 1997 as their base period.

While there is renewed international interest in and attention to eradicating hunger, nevertheless the opportunities for doing so are slim. The most recent FAO estimate is that there are 925 million suffering from hunger, with the majority of these in Asia and Africa (FAO 2010). The situation in 2015 is predicted to be even worse, if there are no significant changes in the current state of affairs (Runge etÂ€al. 2003). In addition, 128 million preschool children will be malnourished (von Braun 2005). Table 7.1 shows FAO projections of food indicators in different geographical regions. 7. 3â•‡ U n d e r s t a n d i n g

food security

Understanding famine and food insecurity has been the subject of longstanding effort and remains a widely debated issue in academic and policy circles (Maxwell and Smith 1992, Maxwell 1996, Davis etÂ€al. 2001, Young etÂ€al. 2001, Carr 2005, Pinstrup-Andersen 2009). The concept of food security emerged in the 1970s, when the emphasis was

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placed on food availability and relative international and national price stability (FAO 2003). The occurrence of several famines in the 1970s, despite the technical successes of the Green Revolution, led observers to broaden the definition to include issues of access. Since the 1990s, definitions have moved away from a focus on food availability to incorporating not only food access but also issues such as good nutrition and food preferences (Maxwell and Frankerberger 1992, Smith etÂ€al. 1992). Food security is defined as ‘access by all people at all times to the food needed for a healthy life’ (von Braun etÂ€al. 1992, p. 6), and food security can now be defined at several levels, from individual, to household, to national and regional. The World Food Summit definition adopts a more complex approach: Food security exists when all people at all times have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and satisfy their food preferences and thus conduct a healthy and active life. (World Food Summit 1996)

In a review of twentieth-century famines and writing on famines, Devereux examined the evolving discourses and how they are seen through different disciplinary lenses (Devereux 2000). Explanations have ranged from environmental triggers such as drought (although many examples now show how countries have been able to avoid famine despite prolonged shocks to production: DeRose etÂ€al. 1998), population growth, the process whereby a region’s carrying capacity is exceeded (Ehrlich 1968), entitlement failures (Sen 1981, Drèze and Sen 1989), political failures (de Waal 1997) and complex emergencies (Keen 2008). The literature distinguishes between two types of household food insecurity. Chronic food insecurity is defined as a persistently inadequate diet caused by a continuous inability to acquire the necessary amount of food, and transitory food insecurity is a temporary decline in the household’s ability to secure food. This separation between transitory and chronic is crucial, as it often determines not only the type but also the timing and targeting of responses to a situation. A persistent confusion arises from the difficulty of distinguishing between the factors triggering famine and the structures and processes that increase the vulnerability of the population to famine. Although acknowledging the difference, most analysts tend to focus only on one or the other. As a result, a magnitude and intensity scale in defining famine has been proposed (Howe and Devereux 2004). Since the 1970s, numerous national and intergovernmental institutions have been set up to respond to famines. In addition to

Food systems and adaptive governance: food crisis in Niger

intergovernmental institutions, there has also been an expansion in civil society and other non-governmental agents in the humanitarian sector. After the Sahel famines of the 1970s, at the 1974 World Food Conference UN agencies and donors agreed that early warning systems (EWS) were to be developed to monitor international and national food production. The EWS, which were later established by both the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the FAO, aimed both to provide an early indication of the need for intervention and to facilitate responses before the onset of a food crisis. These ‘food balance sheet’ approaches use satellite imagery and national harvest statistics to analyse food availability country by country (Moseley and Logan 2001). As the understanding of the complex causes of food insecurity has evolved, so has the development of EWS and indicators of vulnerability to food insecurity. Several indicators, ranging from vegetation cover to food supply, food access and the health and prices of livestock, are now incorporated into famine EWS (Moseley and Logan 2001). Increasingly, these indicators are analysed to determine the changes, whether improvement or deterioration, in food security. Responses to food insecurity take many forms, ranging from emergency relief to development aid. Food aid can be characterised as international concessional flows in the form of food or cash to purchase food in support of food assistance programmes (Barrett and Maxwell 2005). Donor governments or international organisations, mainly the World Food Programme (WFP), deliver this form of food aid through food programmes, via special projects and as emergency relief. The alleviation of chronic food insecurity through longer-term development responses has evolved from technical assistance to a more holistic concept of social protection (Devereux and Sabates-Wheeler 2004). It encompasses both public and private initiatives, such as cash transfers that aim to protect the vulnerable from financial shocks that can worsen the situation. As responses to food insecurity and famine at the institutional level include international, state and sub-national agents, it is not surprising that the response to food insecurity is complex. Increasing knowledge of global food security and famine relief has been part of, and has contributed to, the global capacity to deal with humanitarian crises. Global databases and resources have made international organisations and NGOs important actors, responding to situations in different regions of the world. Simultaneously, state responses have become increasingly important as the importance of governance in ensuring

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food security becomes more apparent. However, there remains tension between national and international responses, bringing up questions of sovereignty, accountability and democratic decision-making even at times of crisis. Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, new ways of understanding food security have emerged. These approaches move beyond a single discipline and build conceptual models that enable food systems to be analysed holistically. A significant contribution to this work has been made by the Global Environmental Change and Food Systems project (GECAFS: Ericksen 2006a, 2006b). Ericksen (2006b) identifies three gaps in the understanding of food security. First, there is an analytical separation between the supply and demand sides of food security. Second, food security is often discussed at the household level, with no reference to the broader context. Third, there is a gap between environmental and social explanations of food security. It is argued that reconceptualisation is necessary to move towards a more responsive and adaptive governance structure. This issue is addressed in more detail with regard to the food crisis in Niger. Overall, the trend in food security analysis to explain the causes of food insecurity has moved away from reductionist approaches that rely on a single academic discipline (for example, agricultural economics and variables) to more holistic approaches. Yet while our understanding of the complexities of food security has become deeper, our responses arguably remain inadequate. The question of how our understanding of food security can be improved arises, especially when one considers the increasing uncertainty caused by GEC. Furthermore, how can these advances be translated into more appropriate institutional responses? This chapter will try to answer this question by looking at one of the most recent cases of food crisis in Africa, to see what relevant lessons can be learned from Niger when thinking about adapting institutions in relation to food security. 7. 4â•‡

the niger humanitarian crisis

2 0 0 4 –0 5

One of the recent food crises in Africa unfolded in Niger in 2004.1 Although figures vary, it is estimated that approximately 3.3 million Some commentators have been hesitant in calling this crisis a famine, because

1

the shortages did not result in large-scale mortalities. Instead terms such as ‘humanitarian crisis’ or ‘food crisis’ are used.

Food systems and adaptive governance: food crisis in Niger

Figure 7.1â•… Ranking of Niger in the UNDP Human Development Index (UNDP 2006).

people were affected by severe food shortages.2 The difficulty in characterising the situation was among the reasons why the response was far from adequate. More importantly, this case clearly highlights the need for more adaptive governance structures, not only in the assessment of the food security situation but also with regard to the responsiveness of national and international organisations. Niger is a landlocked country, bordering the Sahara Desert in West Africa, with a population of more than 14 million in 2008 (IFAD 2010). Annual demographic growth is 3.3%, one of the highest in the world (IFAD 2010). Niger is one of the poorest countries in the world (Figure 7.1), (HDI) ranked last in the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Human Development Index (UNDP 2006). According to UN Millennium Development Goal statistics, approximately 60% of the population lives below the poverty line (UNDP 2006). Life expectancy in Niger stands at 44.6 years, and adult literacy rates are under 30%. According to HDI figures, half the population has 2

This analysis of the Niger humanitarian crisis is based on a review of secondary sources. Surprisingly little has been written about the situation in 2004–05.

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no access to improved water sources and 40% of under-fives are underweight. Niger’s neighbouring countries, most notably Chad and Mali, face similar challenges in terms of food security and development, while Nigeria, a more affluent neighbour, plays an important role in regional markets. Nigeriens rely heavily on subsistence agriculture and livestock rearing, predominantly in the south of the country. In the years before 2004, the region as a whole had benefited from relatively good rainfall and regionally integrated agricultural markets. However, even in good years, Niger is deficient in food and relies heavily on donors to make up for the shortages. 7.4.1â•‡Assessment of the food security situation in Niger The Global Information and Early Warning System (GIEWS) run by FAO and the Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWSNET) run by USAID began to signal warnings after the 2004 harvest. (See Box 7.1 for the different institutions and actors relevant to this analysis.) A joint FAO, WFP and CILSS mission visited Niger in October 2004 to estimate the levels of crop production and supply (FAO/GIEWS/WFP 2004). From the information collected, this mission outlined two factors that had influenced the 2004 harvest. First, there had been insufficient rainfall during the 2004 planting season, which had affected the agri-pastoral and northern areas of the country. Farmers had begun to plant their crops in April when the rains started but the rains then suddenly stopped for 3–6 weeks. In some areas this led to replanting of crops in June, but water stress on crops continued in several places. The rains also stopped earlier, towards the end of August. Second, the mission stressed the impact of locust infestations on the crops. Locusts were a regional problem in West Africa during 2004, hitting Niger particularly hard and leading to the loss of 20–47% of the millet harvest and 12–30% of the sorghum harvest. The assessment mission found factors signalling the onset of a food crisis: a rapid increase in the price of cereals immediately following the harvest, a drop in the price of livestock, unavailability of local food commodities and human consumption of cereal seeds. In addition, massive early departure of villagers, especially male labourers, was witnessed. This coincided with early transhumance of herders, which led to increased herder–farmer conflicts. The joint assessment mission estimated that the net cereal production for 2004–05 stood at 2 651 571 tonnes of millet, sorghum,

Food systems and adaptive governance: food crisis in Niger

Box 7.1â•‡ Relevant institutions and early warning systems in the Sahel • AGRHYMET: Agricultural, Hydrological and Meteorological programme of CILSS, with its regional centre in Niamey, that provides training and information to stakeholders in agroecology. • CILSS: Comité permanent Inter-Etats de Lutte contre la Sécheresse, the Permanent Interstate Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel, for nine countries. • FCPNS: Food Crisis Prevention Network of the Sahel, an annual discussion forum of the CILSS and six OECD donors, Canada and the European Economic Community. • FEWSNET: Famine Early Warning System Network, a programme for sub-Saharan Africa funded by USAID. Informs USAID on funding issues but also strengthens the abilities of countries and organisations to manage risk of food security through early warning and vulnerability information. • GIEWS: Global Information and Early Warning System of the FAO, monitors food security globally. • SWAC: Sahel and West Africa Club, a discussion forum that links the West African countries and the OECD countries, including the public and the private sector. Source: Adapted from Clay (2005). maize, rice and fonio. The mission estimated the provisional cereal deficit at 278 350 tonnes or about 9% of the national need. The report further stated that ‘although the deficit does not seem enormous at the national level, this should not obscure the fact that more than 3 million people in some 3000 villages, located mainly in the agriÂ�pastoral zone in the centre and north of the country, are now extremely vulnerable to food insecurity’ (FAO/GIEWS/WFP 2004, p.1). The early conclusion of the EWS was that there was not, as yet, a major food crisis but that there was an increase in pockets of acute food insecurity. The information was collected and shared by all parties, including the Food Crisis Prevention and Mitigation Mechanism (DNPGCA), which is the national coordinating body for food security in Niger. In early 2005, before the rains began in May, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) witnessed a dramatic increase in the number of admissions at their therapeutic feeding centres (Médecins Sans Frontières

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2005a). According to MSF, in the villages they visited, one in five children was at risk of malnutrition. More worryingly, weekly child admissions to the feeding centres had gone up from 170 to nearly 250. MSF stated that their capacity had already been filled three months before the beginning of the usual critical period. The EWS and the joint assessment mission highlighted the increased vulnerability of parts of the Nigerien population and recognised the situation as more than a short-term emergency. However, the donor community was generally agreed that a large-scale famine or mass starvation was not imminent. In March 2005, the Niger government, UN agencies and NGO partners carried out another joint assessment, according to which 3.6 million people, in 2988 villages, were vulnerable to food crisis (USAID 2005). Of those 3.6 million, 800 000 were children under five years of age, 20% of whom were suffering from moderate wasting and 4% from severe wasting. 7.4.2â•‡National and international responses to the crisis The impacts of drought and locusts on agricultural production were known to international organisations, in collaboration with the government of Niger, as early as October 2004, that is, directly after that year’s harvest. Yet in 2005, more than 3 million people suffered from acute food shortages. If the early signals indicating likely food shortages were recognised and acknowledged, why was the response insufficient? Could the responses have been timed and targeted correctly to predict the deterioration of the situation? After the first joint assessment mission, which estimated the shortfalls in the 2004 harvest, the government of Niger, with the support of the WFP, launched an appeal for 78 000 million tonnes of emergency food (AfricaFocus 2005). This call went unheeded. As the situation developed, the UN country team in Niger and the Nigerien cabinet organised a donors’ meeting in Niamey to raise funds for the organisations involved. An appeal for US$7 million was made but hardly any funds were forthcoming, perhaps because of other drains on resources, such as the Indian Ocean tsunami. The DNPGCA began subsidised sales of cereals in the worst affected areas, carried out in several rounds and totalling approximately US$36 million (OCHA 2005). In June 2005, the WFP described the situation in Niger as ‘dire’. Only 11% of the funding required had been received (World Food Programme 2005), and the WFP doubled the number of people it was

Food systems and adaptive governance: food crisis in Niger

helping, to 1.2 million. The head of UN humanitarian operations, Under-Secretary-General Jan Egeland, sent an alert that 500 000 children faced imminent death unless donations increased (Fleshman 2005). In mid July the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) reported on the crisis (Barou 2005). Significantly, as the television images spread across the world, the WFP received more pledges in 10 days than they had in the previous 10 months. UN officials pointed out that while the initial appeals were for US$16 million, the situation had deteriorated and US$30.7 million was actually needed. When the first appeals went out, just US$1 per day per person could have mitigated the crisis, but by June 2005 US$80 per person was needed (Gosline 2005). Emergency operations continued throughout 2005, helped by good rainfall. However, in many places, farmers lacked seed for planting because seed stocks had been eaten by people (Gosline 2005). An assessment of food security and food supply for the 2005–06 season revealed that the crisis of the previous year had further increased the long-term vulnerability of people’s livelihoods (FAO/GIEWS 2005a). It was estimated that ‘given the seriously depleted state of most of the population’s income, the 2005 mission anticipates that within three to at most six months, up to one third of Nigerien rural households are at risk of having a major food access problem’ (FAO/GIEWS 2005a, p. 2). Levels of moderate and severe acute malnutrition remained high, and admissions to feeding centres barely levelled off from the peaks of early 2005. In 2006, pockets of food insecurity persisted in the country (SWAC 2006). Considering that over half of the Nigerien population live in chronic poverty, it should come as no surprise that the country is highly vulnerable to shocks related to food security. What was special about the 2004 season that allowed relatively minor shocks to escalate into a crisis? Was the information collected by the EWS sufficient to predict this kind of food crisis? Was there a need to evaluate national and international responses, and to what extent were they timely and adequate? Bearing in mind that information about increased vulnerability to food insecurity in parts of Niger was well known, this is especially important. 7.4.3â•‡Food insecurity as a result of institutional failures Analysis makes it clear that the Niger crisis was a result of institutional failures that happened both during the assessment of the situation and

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during the response to the crisis. The responding institutions failed to adapt to relatively minor environmental shocks, and as a result 3.3 million people faced an acute shortage of food. It is necessary to evaluate the institutions relevant to food security, to see how their adaptive capacity failed and how it can be improved. The literature on adaptive governance explores the social dimension that enables adaptive ecosystem-based management and response to uncertainty and change (Dietz etÂ€al. 2003, Folke etÂ€al. 2005). At the centre of ideas of adaptive governance is the recognition that the social–ecological system is integrated and coupled and that appropriate governance responses require understanding of both social and ecological changes at many scales. 7. 5 â•‡e x p l o r i n g

adaptive governance in relation

to food security

How does this way of conceptualising social–ecological systems help improve the adaptive capacity of the institutions governing these systems to improve food security? Very little has been written about adaptive governance as arising from resilience thinking (Folke 2007), combined with food systems thinking as it is reconceptualised (Ericksen 2008, Ericksen etÂ€al. 2009). This chapter aims to highlight some issues that focus on the adaptive capacity of institutions in social systems. In one of the key texts in the emerging adaptive governance literature, four interacting aspects, which contribute to the social responsiveness of ecosystem dynamics, are highlighted: knowledge and practice, institutional learning, co-management and social capital. These are four essential parts of a social system capable of responding to ecosystem change (Folke etÂ€al. 2005), and they provide a good entry point to the exploration of adaptive governance in relation to better food security. 7.5.1â•‡ Knowledge and practice According to Folke etÂ€al. (2005), for a social system to be responsive, knowledge is essential. All sources of knowledge, both local and scientific, need to be taken into account, including knowledge from the social and the ecological system and the dynamics of their interaction. Knowledge played a key part in Niger: the institutions that gathered data and sent out early warning signals were in place and provided warnings; however, some have argued that they failed to capture the severity of the situation because of their reliance on a particular type

Food systems and adaptive governance: food crisis in Niger

of data. This raises questions of the conceptual understanding of food security and to what extent this hampers our ability to design responsive institutions. The EWS picked up the unusual pattern of rainfall and the infestation of locusts affecting the whole region but focused predominantly on data affecting crop production, indeed almost exclusively on cereals (SWAC 2005). The EWS did not take account of qualitative information but relied mainly on quantitative analysis of the aggregate food availability (ALNAP 2005). This was a major shortcoming in the assessment of the situation. The EWS did not adequately stress the substantial increase in the prices of cereals, which were 75–80% higher than the average of the previous five years (FEWSNET 2005). Also, some have pointed out that the effect of regional markets was not taken into account (FAO/GIEWS 2005b). The role of the Nigerian market in influencing the markets of its economically weaker neighbours has been underestimated. The rise in prices prevented many farmers from buying food, although it remained available in parts of the affected areas. Their ability to purchase food was affected by the drop in livestock prices, which negated the most common coping strategy, that of selling livestock to buy food. During early assessments by international organisations, farmers and other local stakeholders were interviewed. However, most of the analyses are surprisingly silent about the farmers’ views of the severity of the situation. In one of the few reports that mention these views, the farmers stated that the 2004–05 crisis was as serious as the 1973 and 1984 droughts, which had a much larger impact on crop production in the Sahel (FAO/GIEWS 2005a). It can be argued that the failure of the EWS to capture the situation is a result of their narrow conceptualisation of food security. EWS rely on data from food demand and supply and take a snapshot view of the post-harvest situation. Similarly, the links between GEC (and particularly climate change) and food security have largely been unexplored in relation to food productivity and impacts on crop production. There is a recognition of the need to move beyond that (Gregory etÂ€al. 2005) and to acknowledge the problem of scale (Cash etÂ€al. 2006), and new ways of conceptualising food security take a more systemic view of food systems (Ericksen 2008). In addition to these new ways of defining food security, new concepts such as vulnerability, adaptation and resilience have emerged, for example vulnerability to food insecurity in the Sahel (Tschakert 2007). This new avenue of research offers the best starting place for the study and design of adaptive governance of food security.

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7.5.2â•‡ Institutional learning An integral part of adaptive systems is the use of different kinds of knowledge and their incorporation into institutional responses. Adapting institutions should be able to establish practices that enhance continuous monitoring and evaluation of responses to ecosystem changes. Management practices can then change and adapt as a result of these evaluations, to make the system more resilient. In Niger, the lack of adaptive capacity was hindered by the lack of institutional learning. Although the signals of an emerging crisis were picked up by the EWS and continuous monitoring was in place, the response was characterised by lack of integration of different sources of knowledge. Some commentators have argued that defining the Niger situation as a chronic and transitory crisis paralysed action (ALNAP 2005), in that failure to accept that exceptionally high levels of malnutrition existed led to unnecessary deaths, because no emergency appeal was made. It was unclear whether the situation was exceptional or whether it was simply receiving more attention than in previous years and these levels of malnutrition were relatively normal for Niger. FEWSNET pointed out that no baseline existed to which the current levels of malnutrition could be compared, in determining whether the situation warranted an emergency response. Moreover, in July 2005, FEWSNET reported that frequent misinformation and misinterpretation was impeding appropriate emergency assistance (FEWSNET 2005). Another point has been raised concerning the ability and preparedness of the government of Niger to respond to the escalating situation. Some have argued that the government continuously played down the scale of the crisis for political reasons and failed to take note of increasingly alarming reports (BBC 2005). Some have drawn attention to the type of response made by the government (ALNAP 2005). Criticism has been expressed of the Nigerien government’s decision to respond to the crisis with sales of subsidised cereals, given that many subsistence farmers were unable to purchase food in the first place. The government’s unpreparedness is hardly surprising, considering that Niger is one of the poorest countries in the world and its capacity to deal with food shocks has eroded over the years. The government launched the first appeal immediately after the harvest of 2004; as the situation worsened in the spring of 2005, the ability of the government and WFP to respond was hampered by lack of funds.

Food systems and adaptive governance: food crisis in Niger

It has been asked why the government of Niger and the UN agencies working in Niger failed, over 10 months, to convince donors and the international community that funds were needed to alleviate the worsening situation. This raises further questions about the accountability of political institutions in relation to food insecurity, not only nationally but internationally (Devereux 2005, Le Vallée 2006). 7.5.3â•‡ Co-management The third point that Folke etÂ€ al. (2005) consider crucial in achieving responsive social systems is co-management (see also Olsson etÂ€al. 2004, Plummer and Armitage 2006). In co-management structures, management power and responsibility is shared among a wide variety of institutional actors, operating at different levels of social organisation. Flexibility is a key factor in these institutional systems. In Niger, various actors were involved, and central coordination was provided by the DNPGCA as an agency in which the government and major donors joined. Weekly meetings with donor agencies and NGOs started at the end of June 2005 (UNICEF 2005). However, before this, and earlier in the crisis, it has been pointed out that donors did not necessarily have partners on the ground through which they could effectively channel resources (ALNAP 2005). The question of the timeliness of the response is directly related to the assessment of the situation. As already discussed, there was no agreement, either among humanitarian actors or among development actors, on the need for intervention (Clay 2005). Once the need for emergency response is recognised, the international relief effort is not as flexible as one would hope. For example, USAID food aid takes approximately 4–5 months to arrive and the European Union is constrained by its decision-making and tendering procedures (Clay 2005). Bilateral donors are more flexible, but in Niger bilateral donors are few. NGOs already operating can increase their efforts (Médecins Sans Frontières 2005b), as they are somewhat more flexible and can respond before donor funding is available. However, NGOs’ ability to take action is also constrained by their funding. In fact, MSF funded its considerable response in Niger from funds reallocated from the Indian Ocean tsunami appeals. This apparent inflexibility has led many to call for a reform of the international humanitarian emergency system. These initiatives include not only the donors but the operational system as well, including the independent review commissioned by UN Under-SecretaryGeneral Jan Egeland in response to the situation in Darfour (Adinolfi

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etÂ€al. 2005). There have been calls for an emergency reserve fund that would enable agencies to react to situations more flexibly. The case of Niger is quoted as an example of a crisis that would have benefited from such a fund, ensuring a more timely response (Humanitarian Policy Group 2005). In addition to the reform of the humanitarian system, there have been calls for more contingency planning and collective planning-based scenarios. 7.5.4â•‡ Social capital Social capital is crucial in preparing to deal with external shocks (Fine 2001, Cleaver 2005). It can be built up by investing in social relationships through building leadership, and horizontal and vertical networks that involve a variety of stakeholders. Trust is a crucial element in adapting institutions. The issue of trust became central to the ‘deafening silence’ (Egeland 2005) with which appeals for funding for Niger were met at the international level. Some commentators argued that the Nigerien government and the UN country teams failed to convince the international community, which led to delays in response. This has led some to question whether the international community was sceptical about the strategy being proposed and the ability of agencies to deliver the response (ALNAP 2005). The inability of the Nigerien government to deal with the crisis was apparent, yet its appeals were not heeded until a response was triggered by the BBC broadcast. This has led some to blame the failure not on the Nigerien government but on the global humanitarian industry (Devereux 2005). Niger is heavily dependent on international donations; almost half of its annual budget derives from these sources. Faced with a relatively minor shock to food production, the government was unable to respond. The international community can be highly interventionist in countries like Niger, but there is neither accountability nor responsibility to respond in times of shock (Wood 1996, Chesterman etÂ€al. 2005). The food crisis of 2004–05 has further increased the vulnerability of the Nigerien population (FAO 2005a, 2005b). With over half the population living in chronic poverty, short-term responses can be considered inadequate. The focus should be on developing appropriate safety nets that help to improve and sustain the people’s livelihoods. However, designing and building relevant safety nets is more difficult than providing emergency food aid, and the complexities in such transition have been recognised, for example by the FAO’s Twin Track

Food systems and adaptive governance: food crisis in Niger

Table 7.2â•‡ Adaptive governance principles in relation to the Niger crisis of 2004–05 Adaptive governance principles

Niger 2004–05 crisis

Knowledge and practice

Building of different kinds Over-reliance on food of knowledge bases from production indicators various different sources Farmer knowledge not incorporated

Institutional learning

Feeding the knowledge Definitional difficulties back into the system and paralysed the ability to continuous evaluation of respond responses Failure to convince the donors and the international community Niger government’s refusal to distribute free food

Co-management

Management responsibility No agreement on the and power are shared severity of the crisis amongst various amongst stakeholders stakeholders Inflexibility of international donors

Social capital

Social networks and leadership are essential in preparing the system for uncertainty and shock

Lack of response from the international community No investment in social capital

approach (Pingali etÂ€al. 2005). Many NGOs are reliant on US food aid, and European governments (who mostly provide monetary aid) are reluctant to become involved because of longer-term budgetary commitments (Clay 2005). Unfortunately, safety nets and social protection are likely to be the only way to improve long-term food security in Niger. These four aspects are crucial to preparing a social–ecological system for adaptive governance. In Niger, the lack of adaptive capacity seemed be a contributing factor in the food crisis (see Table 7.2 for adaptive governance principles and recommendations in relation to Niger). However, some recommendations can be made. A move towards ‘food systems’ rather than just ‘food security’ is recognised by some as a necessary step (Ericksen 2008). Although this will result in a more complex ‘reality’ and make it more difficult to design EWS, it

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is highly desirable. Such a concept will help to overcome the chronic– transitory dichotomy that paralysed the response in Niger, as more weight is placed on the temporal scales. It would also help in the design and development of appropriate local safety nets and social protection measures. Analysts have already picked up some of these issues, and there have been calls for the reform of the international humanitarian system. In addition to the reform of this system, more accountability is needed to ensure that appeals for help are no longer met with a deafening silence. 7. 6â•‡

conclusions

Since the 1960s, the world has produced enough food to feed the whole population, yet famines still occur and millions live with chronic food insecurity. Increasing uncertainty due to global environmental change, coupled with an increasing world population, is making food security even more of a challenge. Efforts to improve the situation are especially important, given that some of our current assessments and responses seem inadequate, inappropriate or ill-timed. This chapter has explored ideas of adaptive governance and adapting institutions in relation to food security. The case of Niger clearly demonstrates the different institutional failures that led to a food crisis. Very little has been written about the Niger food crisis, but some early conclusions can be drawn using four key tenets necessary for responsive social systems, found to be missing or weakened in Niger. Food systems governance can be made more adaptive by improved knowledge of food systems and food systems dynamics and by the reform of international humanitarian systems. To meet future challenges, more research is needed.

acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Claudia ten Have for her discussions and comments on this chapter. references

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8 Public–private partnerships in the provision of environmental governance: a case of disaster management emma l. tompkins and lisa-ann hurlston

8. 1 â•‡

introduction

Disaster planning is an activity most often performed by the state, through which disaster risk reduction is provided as a public good. State institutions manage this role with varying degrees of success. State provision of disaster risk reduction occurs when there is financial and political commitment to risk reduction, effective institutional structures and the alignment of political interests with those of powerful stakeholder groups. This chapter analyses a novel approach to disaster risk reductionÂ€– the use of a public–private partnershipÂ€– and shows how adaptive governance can work in practice. Specifically, the chapter analyses the role of public and private responsibility in the provision of disaster mitigation, early warning systems, disaster response and post-impact recovery. This is achieved through a review of the emergence and transformation of the Cayman Islands’ National Hurricane Committee (NHC). The NHC is a novel hybrid institution that emerged through spontaneous collective action by various members of Cayman Islands society, some of whom were civil servants. The NHC is now an official public–social–private partnership that uses relational contracting transactions, hierarchical management relationships and recurrent contractual transactions to prepare the Cayman Islands for storms and manage the islands’ recovery in a state of emergency. This chapter reveals that public–private partnerships can provide effective governance structures for weather-risk management, if they exhibit the features commonly associated with adaptive Adapting Institutions: Governance, Complexity and Social–Ecological Resilience, ed. Emily Boyd and Carl Folke. Published by Cambridge University Press. © Cambridge University Press 2012.

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governance, that is, they are participatory and deliberative, they build trust, they are multi-layered, they link knowledge, action and hazard context, and they are accountable. However, such public–private partnerships need to be carefully crafted and delivered to ensure that the distribution of costs and benefits from their existence is not captured by a small group of powerful individuals. The term public–private partnership (PPP) describes a range of initiatives that bring together the public and private sectors for long-term partnerships of mutual benefit. PPPs have been described as ‘an institutionalised form of cooperation of public and private actors who, on the basis of their own indigenous objectives, work together towards a joint target, in which both parties accept investment risks on the basis of a predetermined distribution of revenues and costs’ (Nijkamp et al. 2002). PPPs are often created in response to specific challenges, and hence they tend to be novel in structure and function (Savas 2000). The structures of the PPPs tend to be shaped by the nature of the exchange. Ring and Van de Ven (1992) identify three main types: First, recurrent contractual transactions, which describes repeated contracts between government and other partners (such as contracting-out, franchises and concessions). These tend to occur when the public sector outsources services on a long-term basis, for example when a city government outsources the cleaning of government buildings to a private firm. Second, relational contracting transactions, such as private marketing arrangements for public goods and services, which occur when government services are sold using privatesector expertise and finance. An example of this can be seen in the partnership to manage parks in London, UK, to bring in revenues from activities such as concerts, sponsorship, publishing and licensing opportunities using the ‘Royal Parks’ brand (HM Treasury 2000). Third, hierarchical managerial transactions, in which power is retained by government but resources are extracted from the private sector, often where there is controlled competition. An example would be equity buy-ins, in which private investors purchase shares in state-owned businesses, for example following flotation of government-owned industries on the stock market.

Public–private partnerships in disaster management

Hybrid governance structures are increasingly found in all aspects of public service delivery (Klitgaard and Treverton 2003), although, as Wettenhall (2003) notes, working relationships between the public and private sector have existed for many decades. Recent examples of PPPs can be seen in urban land-use planning (Nijkamp et al. 2002), water resources management (Stewart and Gray 2006) and a variety of other areas in the UK, including air traffic control, public transport, nuclear energy, medical research, public procurement, social housing and health (HM Treasury 2000). The recent trend towards more PPPs for public service delivery in the UK and other Western democratic states mirrors a trend, which has emerged over the past few decades in natural resource management, towards hybrid forms of governance, such as co-management of resources (Lemos and Agrawal 2006). Co-management involves joint management through some degree of power-sharing between government and resource-user groups (often comprising the private sector, individual users and community groups). Adaptive co-management has come to mean the testing of hypotheses through management action and the bringing together of interdisciplinary science, experience and traditional knowledge in decision-making, through ‘learning by doing’ (Walters 1997). Co-management has been used for a variety of purposes, for example to gain public support, to reduce government costs of enforcing legislation and to enhance resource quality (Agrawal 2001). Proponents argue that effective adaptive management contributes to more rapid knowledge acquisition, better information flows between policy-makers and ensuring the shared understanding of complex problems (e.g. Lee 1993). Examples of adaptive management abound in ecosystem management (Johnson 1999, Ladson and Argent 2002). Lessons from adaptive co-management could provide guidance for disaster risk reduction, although as yet there is little evidence that knowledge is crossing between these two areas (exceptions include Thompson and Gaviria 2004, Tompkins 2005). Rather, there has been a focus on risk transfer and decentralising risk, so that those who experience risks gain direct benefits from risk mitigation (Kunreuther 2006). There is also evidence of a trend to legislate to avoid risk (e.g. Sanders and Phillipson 2003). We hypothesise that adaptive governance could potentially support effective governance of disasters. Research into adaptive governance of coupled social–ecological systems shows the importance of encouraging widespread participation (and deliberation) to

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build trust and to allow institutional self-organisation, multi-layered and nested institutions that build adaptive capacity, and accountable authorities that can distribute the costs and benefits of participation (Lebel et al. 2006). At the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in 2002, discussions focused on the potential for PPPs to enhance government achievement of environmental or sustainable development objectives. Of most interest was the role of voluntary participation by wider society to work with the government; these types of partnership are referred to as ‘type II’ partnerships (Kara and Quarless 2002). This chapter focuses on type II partnerships (that is, soft ‘social-public’ engagement) as well as more formalised PPPs and their respective roles in managing the natural hazards and risks associated with weather. In the following section, we review the types of PPPs that are becoming more commonly associated with risk and hazard management, and we will consider the justifications given for their use and the issues associated with their use. Section 8.3 presents in detail the PPP created in the Cayman Islands to manage hurricane risk (the Cayman Islands National Hurricane Committee), focusing on its history, rules and structure. The effectiveness of the National Hurricane Committee is explored in Section 8.4: specifically, who bears responsibility for risk management of weather-related hazards, who pays, who bears the risk and who participates in decision-making? We conclude that PPPs can provide effective governance structures for weather-risk management that exhibit many of the characteristics of adaptive co-management. However, they need to be carefully implemented to ensure that the distribution of costs and benefits from their existence is not captured by a small group of powerful individuals. 8. 2â•‡p u b l i c – p r i v a t e

partnerships for

environmental governance

Governance has been defined in many ways (e.g. Adger et al. 2003, Bulkeley and Mol 2003, Jordan et al. 2003, Davidson and Frickel 2004, Liverman 2004, Pelliszoni 2004). However, the key theme running though the definitions relates to the broadening and deepening of participation in decision-making beyond politicians to wider society. Several authors argue that new environmental policy tools being developed reveal a movement away from government and towards governance (Bulkeley and Mol 2003, Jordan et al. 2003). Individuals,

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firms, the state or hybrids of these three (such as PPPs) can participate in these new forms of governance (Williamson 1999). There are three main arguments in favour of PPPs: they enable wider participation in social decision-making, they expand the reach of government and they make decision-making more cost-efficient. First, PPPs permit non-government members of society to have an active role in decision-making and management, allowing citizens and businesses to become partners and beneficiaries in the provision of public goods and services (Stewart and Gray 2006). The second argument in favour of PPPs is their opportunity to expand the natural boundary, scope and flexibility of the state (HM Treasury 2000). In the words of Kara and Quarless (2002, p. 2), PPPs ‘should serve as mechanisms for the delivery of the … agreed commitments by mobilising the capacity for producing action on the ground’. Bloomfield (2006) suggests that PPPs can exploit private philanthropy to improve public service quality, share risks with the private sector and produce cost savings. The third argument is the one most often used to justify the use of PPPs: that they increase the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of policy implementation (Portney and Stavins 2000, Savas 2000, Besley and Ghatak 2001, Birner and Wittmer 2004). Klitgaard and Treverton (2003) and Nijkamp et al. (2002) argue that PPPs are rarely used to enhance participation; rather, they provide cost savings and less risky provision of public services. Proponents of PPPs argue that the large size and lack of incentives within government mean that the public sector is not always the ideal provider of public goods and services (for a summary of this argument see Kamieniecki et al. 1999). This last argument is built on a significant amount of literature on public choice theory and transactions costs which recognises the cost and inefficiency issues associated with government provision of some public goods and services (North 1990, Williamson 1999). Those who argue against greater investment in PPPs often raise two criticisms: first, the danger of power-sharing among unelected groups leading to a loss of legitimacy, as power is devolved, and second, a potential loss of innovation, especially where services are contracted out. Mikalsen et al. (2007) argued that as Norwegian fisheries became collectively managed by the fishers and the government, the co-management group assumed power and effectively blocked government decision-making in relation to fisheries management. As power is devolved from government to non-elected groups, the legitimacy of decisions taken in the ‘public interest’ can decline (Birner and Wittmer 2006). If PPPs are developed to reduce the cost of provision

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of government services, there is also the possibility that cost-cutting could reduce the long-term social benefit, as investment in research and development or new innovations is unlikely to be made (Bennett and Iossa 2006). In the 1990s, there was significant investment in understanding the role of deliberation and public participation in decision-making about natural resource management, to assess their potential to enhance the quality of decision-making about the environment; much of this literature is reviewed in Burgess (2005). Other significant contributions come from risk research (e.g. Renn et al. 1995), psychology (Connolly et al. 2000), research into resilience (e.g. Berkes and Folke 1998), development research (Berkhout et al. 2003) and research into participatory decision-making (e.g. O’Riordan et al. 1999, Kasemir et al. 2003). Broadly, participatory decision-making was promoted as a critical element in achieving wider societal support for decisions, despite some significant critiques, such as those by Cooke and Kothari (2001) and Bulkeley and Mol (2003). As participation in environmental decision-making became the standard, rather than the exception, investigations began into how to identify successful or effective processes for public inclusion in decision-making. Rowe and Frewer (2000) identified two central elements in effective participatory governance: the acceptability of the institutional structure and the effectiveness of the process by which people are engaged. Acceptability relates to levels of representativeness (broader is better), removal of biases from process (ideally no steering from within), timing of involvement (early is better), power to change the status quo and transparency of process. Effective processes were identified by having adequate resources, clear task definition, structured decision-making and cost-effectiveness. Leach and colleagues (2002), from their work on US watershed management, recognised the time-cost of delivering participatory governance; trust building between partners took 4–6 years. This time was needed to educate participants, overcome distrust, reach agreements, secure funding and begin implementation. Partnerships designed to provide support for government policy and regulations are only likely to enhance policy and implementation if there is true cooperation and trust between the partners. Wettenhall (2003) argues that where there is a hierarchical relationship between the partners, for example under equity buy-ins, there is unlikely to be this sense of true cooperation. Where there is equality between the partners with no one party superior to any of the others, then social

Public–private partnerships in disaster management

capital, in the form of reciprocated social interactions and relationships, becomes a significant element in the relationship, as does trust (Lovrich 1999). Social capital and trust (in the institutions involved, between the institutions and between the individuals involved) can become stumbling blocks and limits to the effectiveness of the partnerships (Ramonjavelo et al. 2006). This chapter focuses on a variety of governance arrangements between the Cayman Islands government, the private sector and the wider community in the Cayman Islands, designed to improve storm hazard management in the Cayman Islands. The lessons from the Cayman Islands could be useful for other islands and local government agencies struggling, with limited resources, to enhance their storm-risk management. 8. 3 â•‡c a y m a n

islands hurricane preparedness

and the national hurricane committee

The Cayman Islands, three low-lying islands, are located in the North Atlantic hurricane belt. They are subject to an annual storm risk during the ‘hurricane season’ which usually lasts from the beginning of June until the end of November, although the intermittent appearance of storms in December has led to speculation that the hurricane season is extending. Based on hurricane activity in the past 50 years, the islands experience a major hurricane (that is, category 3 or higher on the Saffir–Simpson scale) once every seven years on average. During tropical storms (including hurricanes) the Cayman Islands are very vulnerable to high-magnitude waves, coastal inundation due to storm surge, high winds and driving rain, which can lead to severe flooding and the weakening of building foundations and walls. Little published information exists on the impacts of past storms on the Cayman Islands. Reporting has historically focused on deaths and the mechanisms by which the community copes: for example, The ’32 Storm, a compilation of recollections of a storm in 1932 that killed 67 people and damaged many homes (McLaughlin 1994), or more recent documentation of the very short-term economic impact of Hurricane Ivan on the Cayman Islands (ECLAC 2005). Between 2001 and 2005, an assessment of the Cayman Islands hurricane-coping capacity was made (Tompkins and Hurlston 2003). That assessment showed that between 1988 and 2002 the Cayman Islands government trebled the speed with which it could protect its buildings from advancing storms (Tompkins and Hurlston 2003). Much

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of this improvement can be attributed to the actions of a type II PPP, the National Hurricane Committee. The NHC drives all stages of tropical storm risk management in the Cayman Islands. This includes longterm planning for risk reduction through NHC member participation on development planning boards, annual preparedness exercises, provision of early warning and evacuation advice, response advice while a storm is in progress and recovery of the islands after the storm. Annual planning for the hurricane season involves developing detailed plans of who should act, and in what way and when, when hurricanes are approaching the islands. At the end of every hurricane season, there is a review of the mistakes made and the lessons learned with a view to enhancing the capacity to respond in the following year. This learningbased approach is central to the process of hurricane planning in the Cayman Islands. At the time of the study, the NHC was participatory, self-organising and a multi-layered structure: a composite of 18 subcommittees loosely operating within four groupings: support services, emergency response, human concerns and infrastructure (Figure 8.1). Each subcommittee reports to and takes direction from the NHC chair. The NHC was initially a voluntary committee, comprising concerned individuals from different parts of Cayman Islands society: the churches, the voluntary sector, the government, the regulated utility industries, the private sector and individuals. Following a combination of the championing of hurricane preparedness by the Cayman Islands fire chief, a series of near-misses with hurricanes in the 1980s and 1990s and a positive attitude to committee-driven management, the NHC was strengthened and enhanced (Tompkins and Hurlston 2005). The NHC is now a more structured entity and is formally incorporated into the hurricane-planning process in the Cayman Islands through legislation (Figure 8.1). Under the Emergency Powers Law (1997), in the event of a storm-related disaster, the NHC has the mandate to manage many aspects of post-storm recovery (Box 8.1). Subcommittees within the NHC can organise themselves as necessary to achieve their objectives. As a result, the subcommittees use different organising structures and have varying levels of participation by government, the private sector and individuals. Some subcommittees comprise solely civil servants. These mostly relate to support services and keeping government functioning in the event of a storm: for example the Emergency Response and Continuity of Operations committees. Most other subcommittees have some degree

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Figure 8.1â•… Formal government hurricane preparedness and response strategy. Source: National Hurricane Committee (2006).

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Box 8.1â•‡ Section 4 of the Emergency Powers Law (1997) In the event that a proclamation of emergency has been made by the governor, he is empowered under section 4 of the Emergency Powers Law (1997 revision) to make regulations for securing the essentials of life to the community … Such regulations are to be laid before for the legislative assembly as soon as possible after they are made and they remain in force for the period of 7 days … Standard/suggested regulations are made available to the governor by the Attorney General, which may be adopted or amended at the discretion of the Governor. Once the standard/suggested regulations have been made they have effect as if enacted in the Emergency Powers Law (1997 revision) and may be added to altered or revoked by resolution of the legislative assembly … Section 3 (2) of the standard/suggested regulations appoints the following specific personnel as requisitioning officers for all purposes essential to public safety and the life of the community: 1. 2. 3.

4. 5.

The chairperson and members of the National Hurricane Committee All constables All members of the special constabulary called out for service by the commissioner of police with the approval of the governor under section 74 (1) of the Police Law (1995 revision) All members of the fire brigade Any other person in Her Majesty’s service or otherwise acting on Her Majesty’s behalf

Source: National Hurricane Committee (2006). of public and private participation. In terms of the lowest levels of multi-partner participation, the Joint Communications subcommittee is essentially a government department that uses the private sector to achieve objectives. The Joint Communications subcommittee’s remit is to encourage individual responsibility for planning for hurricanes with education about preparedness activities, to inform the public about health and safety, to provide timely information about impacts and responses and to keep lines of communication open. The Joint Communications subcommittee achieves this by using the private,

Public–private partnerships in disaster management

national and international media as mouthpieces through which to deliver timely and accurate information. Hierarchical management relationships are used in other subcommittees, for example the Utilities and Communications subcommittee, to ensure that regulated industries continue to provide essential services after a storm. The Utilities and Communications subcommittee is responsible for maintaining utilities and communications around the islands. The local electrical utility company (CUC) and the local telecommunications company (Cable and Wireless, Cayman Islands) both have clauses in their long-term licence agreements with the government committing them to providing and maintaining their services during and after storms. By far the majority of the subcommittees use relational contracts with the private sector to achieve their objectives. For example, the Resource Support subcommittee creates formal agreements with the private sector to ensure that enough resources (notably construction equipment and vehicles) are available to enable the government to continue to function and reconstruct after a storm. This involves working in partnership with the Hardware Supply Association to ensure that they will assist the NHC by coordinating procurement of essential hardware and distribution of this hardware following a storm. It also involves working with owners of construction equipment and other vehicles that could be used after a hurricane. The Initial Clearance and Debris Management subcommittee uses ‘debris hauling contracts’ with private contractors (through the Heavy Equipment and Vehicle Operators Association) to ‘activate local hauliers to collect and dispose of debris on preplanned district routes, to predetermined transfer, separation and storage sites’. Relational contracts are also used to provide social support through NGOs. For example, in the provision of shelter operations, an NGO (the Cayman Islands Red Cross) trains shelter staff and provides assistance within shelters. These contracts essentially ensure that the benefits of preparedness are distributed throughout society. Subcommittees invite participation from private companies or individuals who are instrumental to the achievement of their objectives. Hence the composition and structure of each subcommittee is influenced by its desired objectives. It could be argued that the level of participation by non-government actors reflects benefits that each perceives they can extract from participation in and possible ownership of the outcomes of that group. From the shape of the NHC, and the inclusion of the private sector in hurricane planning, the Cayman Islands

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government has implicitly set the rapid resumption of economic activity to be a post-storm priority. With this focus, the benefits to the private sector from participating in the NHC are clear. After a storm, if they work collectively with the NHC, they are more likely to be able to continue to function and make money in the aftermath and in the longer term. Birner and Wittmer (2006) have found similar behaviour in Guatemala, where the need for shared common interest was critical to guarantee effective group working for forest management. In the following section, the effectiveness of the various types of PPP within the NHC is considered: specifically, has the NHC been effective, who has benefited from its existence and in what way? 8. 4â•‡p a s t

and future effectiveness of the

national hurricane committee

Using time taken to prepare all government buildings for hurricanes as a measure, the National Hurricane Committee has proven effective in enhancing the quality of hurricane preparedness in the Cayman Islands (Tompkins and Hurlston 2003). The sharing of critical elements of disaster-risk reduction between government, private sector and wider society has been central to this enhancement. All parties now take responsibility for risk management, thereby sharing the burden of preparedness, response and recovery. There has also been a sharing of the costs of managing the risk. For example, the private sector faces short-term losses by allowing its potentially profitable equipment to be requisitioned by the NHC in times of need. Such equipment is in high demand after hurricanes and could be rented out at high prices. By allowing the NHC to commandeer equipment, the private sector could be regarded as buying insurance. If an NHC partner’s business has been affected, they will gain benefits because the NHC will come to their assistance as part of the wider relief efforts. A history of experience and exposure to past events has shown that participating in the scheme is a wise risk-management approach. Similarly, through the NHC, the risks are essentially shared, as each participant both provides assistance and guarantees assistance for others, in the event that it is needed. In terms of generating reduced risk exposure, it appears that the NHC has been effective. In terms of the longevity and legitimacy of the NHC it is also useful to consider the effectiveness of the process involved in achieving the outcome. Institutions that rely on committees can generate high transactions costs, especially where individuals must sit on multiple

Public–private partnerships in disaster management

committees and their time is taken from other productive activities. A clear danger with committee structures requiring voluntary participation is that only those with the time and resources to participate do so. This can lead to subversion of the committee agenda to achieve personal goals. Assessing the effectiveness of the system of governance that shapes any public–private partnership is therefore also important. Empirical evidence shows that systems with resilience are better suited to living with change (Berkes and Folke 1998). Examples abound of cases where a lack of resilience created a system collapse (e.g. Gunderson 2001, Anderies et al. 2006), yet far fewer cases exist where effective governance has delivered system resilience. One case study, of wetland management in Sweden, suggests that effective governance for resilience can be created through emergent institutions that bring users together, support knowledge generation and collaborative learning, resolve conflicts and create trust: that is, bridging institutions (Hahn et al. 2006). These ideas are reinforced by Pelling et al. (2008), whose work with dairy farmers in the UK adapting to climate change revealed the need for space ‘within and between’ local organisations to support social learning. All these ideas reinforce the need for participatory and multi-layered institutions that are inclusive, accountable and learning-based (Lebel et al. 2006). In considering the process effectiveness of the NHC, the method of delivery of hurricane preparedness needs to be evaluated in terms of whether the institution is supported (acceptable, legitimate, trusted and providing equitably distributed benefits), inclusive, multi-scalar and able to sustain its quality of service over time (that is, it continues to be effective in achieving desired outputs). The widespread acceptance of the subcommittee structure by the private sector and voluntary organisations in the Cayman Islands is partial evidence that the NHC is supported at present. Whether the NHC can sustain itself in the long term is perhaps the better test of process effectiveness. The longevity of PPPs appears to depend on strong networks and ties between participants, capacity within the government to participate in the PPP (Birner and Wittmer 2006), trust between people, within organisations and between institutions (Ramonjavelo et al. 2006), careful contract management and strong governance structures to avoid problems associated with long-term contracts, especially lack of transparency (Bloomfield 2006). The very nature of the Cayman Islands, and the structure of the NHC, means there are already high levels of collaboration between individuals, and strong ties are apparent, both

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through familial connections and through other social relationships (Tompkins 2005). Trust in all committees and the nature of the contracts may be the issues that affect the longevity of the NHC. At present, there is no effective competition in the provision of hurricane preparedness. The NHC takes responsibility for management of the risk and tries to ensure wide participation in the NHC to share the burden of that risk. There is no guarantee that introducing competition, for example in the form of private-sector risk advisors, would increase the competitiveness of the NHC. However, there is a risk that it could undermine the functioning of the committee structure by reducing engagement with and trust in the institution. PPPs have been criticised as lacking legitimacy and as being nonelected bodies that take power from elected bodies. It is not yet clear how the government and the private sector can ensure they create a policy environment in which the ‘right partnerships’ develop over time. One challenge is to put in place conditions that put a check on the pursuit of profits by private-sector participants through manipulation of contracts to produce longer-term gains from participation. Regular review of the contracts that exist between government and the private sector after the annual review of the planning process might be one method of ensuring that risks and costs are equally balanced. In the case of the NHC, it is clear that the multiple forms of relationship between the government, the private sector and the wider society provide a form of legitimacy for the institution. In addition, the effectiveness of the NHC in reducing exposure to storms and in returning the islands to full functioning after the passage of storms could be argued to generate further support. However, the NHC is clearly nonelected and holds significant power. In the Cayman Islands, a remote small-island nation with a small population and limited resource base, it could be argued that the nested and polycentric committee structure works well to ensure that adequate human and financial resources can be found to meet the needs of hurricane preparedness. Whether this structure would work effectively in other settings, where these constraints do not exist, remains to be seen. 8. 5â•‡c o n c l u s i o n s :

lessons for public–private

partnerships in hazard management

In this chapter, we have considered the way in which weather-related hazards can be managed and risks shared through investing in a variety of public–private partnerships. Despite limited resources to invest

Public–private partnerships in disaster management

in long-term planning, short-term preparedness, event response and post-event recovery, public–private partnerships have facilitated effective diffusion of hurricane risk. While there are high costs of participation in terms of the time required of committee members, the total costs to the government of providing hurricane preparedness are shared, as are the risks from hurricane exposure. Clearly there are benefits to governments from this arrangement, as there are for the non-governmental partners. In the Cayman Islands, to date, the NHC has proven effective in responding to hurricane risk, partly because of the relationships that have developed bringing the private sector and wider society into partnership with the government. It could be argued that this can be attributed to the fact that the NHC operates on small islands and there is a need for novel forms of institutional structure where resources are limited. However, these type II more voluntary relationships have been built on the back of more formalised PPPs, which operate though contracts which oblige the private sector to participate. Formalised contracts of this nature make the government accountable to the people before and after hurricanes have occurred, thereby contributing to the governance capability of the NHC. The institutionalisation of the NHC has clearly increased social benefits without significantly increasing the costs of provision, due to the multiple layers of the committee structure and widespread participation. This can partly explain the public support for the NHC, which is essentially an unelected body with significant power to influence future development in the Cayman Islands. Nonetheless, this current support could easily waver in the event of a series of near-misses, where private-sector partners might make significant time investments in preparedness which proves unnecessary, or where recovery after a major storm is slow to happen or does not happen in the way the majority of islanders expect. The ability of the NHC to adapt to changing risk levels under different future climates, changing levels of vulnerability and the shifting adaptive capacity of the islands will determine its long-term effectiveness. The annual process of review, renewal and lesson-learning of national hurricane planning will be critical to ensuring that the high level of responsiveness maintained by the NHC is retained. However, as the adaptive governance literature points out, institutions do not need longevity to deliver progress towards resilience: institutions that can evolve and regenerate following stress or collapse may be better able to address changing climate risks (Olsson et al. 2006).

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The question that remains is whether the success of the NHC in the Cayman Islands is a factor of the size and nature of the islands. They are small islands with constrained resources, wide social networks and strong social ties. Could such a model of formal contractual PPPs, which transform into type II PPPs, be useful for coastal storm planning in the UK, tsunami planning in Sri Lanka or earthquake planning in Chile? The conclusion from this research is that the learning-based, multilayered committee approach that brings together public and private actors is useful for sharing risk and bringing those who are exposed together to share collectively the burden of planning and recovery.

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Emma L. Tompkins and Lisa-Ann Hurlston Lovrich, N. P. 1999. Policy partnering between the public and the not-for-profit private sectors: a key policy lever or a dire warning of difficulty ahead? American Behavioral Scientist, 43, 177–193. McLaughlin, H. R., ed. 1994. The ’32 Storm: Eyewitness Accounts and Official Reports of the Worst Natural Disaster in the History of the Cayman Islands. Grand Cayman: Cayman Islands National Archive. Mikalsen, K. H., Hernes, H. K., and Jentoft, S. 2007. Leaning on user-groups: the role of civil society in fisheries governance. Marine Policy, 31, 201–209. National Hurricane Committee. 2006. C.I. National Hurricane Plan 2006. George Town: Cayman Islands Government. Nijkamp, P., van der Burch, M., and Vindigni, G. 2002. A comparative institutional evaluation of public–private partnerships in Dutch urban land-use and revitalisation projects. Urban Studies, 39, 1865–1880. North, D. C. 1990. Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Olsson, P., Gunderson, L. H., Carpenter, S. R., et al. 2006. Shooting the rapids: navigating transitions to adaptive governance of social–ecological systems. Ecology and Society, 11(1), 18. www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol11/ iss1/art18. O’Riordan, T., Burgess, J., and Szerszynski, B. 1999. Deliberative and Inclusionary Processes: A Report from Two Seminars. CSERGE Working Paper, PA-1999–06. Norwich: CSERGE. Pelling, M., High, C., Dearing, J., and Smith, D. 2008. Shadow spaces for social learning: a relational understanding of adaptive capacity to climate change within organisations. Environment and Planning A, 40, 867–884. Pelliszoni, L. 2004. Responsibility and environmental governance. Environmental Politics, 13, 541–565. Portney, P. R., and Stavins, R. N., eds. 2000. Public Policies for Environmental Protection. Washington, DC: Resources for the Future. Ramonjavelo, V., Prefontaine, L., Skander, D., and Ricard, L. 2006. A course in the development of the PPP: the institutional, interorganisation and interpersonal confidence. Canadian Public Administration–Administration Publique du Canada, 49, 350–374. Renn, O., Webler, T., and Wideman, P., eds. 1995. Fairness and Competence in Citizen Participation: Evaluating Models for Environmental Discourse. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Ring, P. S., and Van de Ven, A. H. 1992. Structuring cooperative relationships between organizations. Strategic Management Journal, 13, 483–498. Rowe, G., and Frewer, L. J. 2000. Public participation methods: a framework for evaluation. Science, Technology and Human Values, 25, 3–29. Sanders, C. H., and Phillipson, M. C. 2003. UK adaptation strategy and technical measures: the impacts of climate change on buildings. Building Research and Information, 31, 210–221. Savas, E. S. 2000. Privatisation and Public–Private Partnerships. New York, NY: Chatham House. Stewart, A., and Gray, T. 2006. The authenticity of ‘type two’ multi-stakeholder partnerships for water and sanitation in Africa: when is a stakeholder a partner? Environmental Politics, 15, 362–378. Thompson, M., and Gaviria, I. 2004. Weathering the Storm: Lessons in Risk Reduction from Cuba. Boston, MA: Oxfam America. Tompkins, E. L. 2005. Planning for climate change in small islands: insights from national hurricane preparedness in the Cayman Islands. Global Environmental Change, Human and Policy Dimensions, 15, 139–149.

Public–private partnerships in disaster management Tompkins, E. L., and Hurlston, L.-A. 2003. Report to the Cayman Islands Government. Adaptation Lessons Learned from Responding to Tropical Cyclones by the Cayman Islands Government, 1988–2002. Norwich: Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, University of East Anglia. Tompkins, E. L., and Hurlston, L.-A. 2005. Natural hazards and climate change: what knowledge is transferable? Tyndall Centre Working Paper 69. Norwich: Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, University of East Anglia. Walters, C. 1997. Challenges in adaptive management of riparian and coastal ecosystems. Conservation Ecology, 1(2), 1. www.consecol.org/vol1/iss2/art1. Wettenhall, R. 2003. The rhetoric and reality of public–private partnerships. Public Organisation Review, 3, 77–107. Williamson, O. E. 1999. Public and private bureaucracies: a transaction cost economics perspective. Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, 15, 306–342.

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Part IIIâ•…Adapting multi-level institutions to environmental crisis

9 Double complexity: information technology and reconfigurations in adaptive governance victor galaz

9. 1 â•‡

introduction

The sustainability science community has for decades focused on the governance challenges associated with incremental environmental stresses, such as climate change, biodiversity loss, deforestation and environmental pollution. That is likely to change, due to the increased acknowledgement of the possibilities of rapid, interacting and cascading environmental change. The possible implications of abrupt climate change, the notion of interacting multiple social–ecological crisis at the global scale (Walker et al. 2009), suggestions of interacting ‘thresholds’ or ‘tipping points’ at the planetary scale (Lenton etÂ€ al. 2008, Rockström et al. 2009), as well as the surprising nature of rapid multi-level change in social–ecological systems (Gunderson and Holling 2002, Steffen et al. 2004), all bring to light the need to understand the governance challenges of rapid non-linear change. This also raises the issue of societies’ ability to steer complex adaptive and global social–ecological systems, with institutions, organisations and collaboration patterns that by themselves are highly complex, and face one of the most rapid information technological changes in human history (Castells 2009). Bluntly put: can state and non-state actors really govern complex social–ecological systems, with complex governance systems, in times of rapid unexpected change? This dual challenge is what I denote ‘double complexity’.

Adapting Institutions: Governance, Complexity and Social–Ecological Resilience, ed. Emily Boyd and Carl Folke. Published by Cambridge University Press. © Cambridge University Press 2012.

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I elaborate this issue by exploring three contested theoretical puzzles for scholars interested in adaptive modes of governance. As I intend to show, these puzzles assume a narrow and static view of governance. Instead, I argue that reversible reconfigurations in ways of steering are of critical importance for understanding the governance challenges posed by complexity, surprise and rapid change. In the last section, I elaborate the issue further, with results from current studies of global epidemic preparedness and response. Although this is part of unfinished work (see Galaz 2009a, 2009b for parts of the study), it includes a range of examples from secondary literature, as well as a few first-hand interviews with probably the most prominent players in epidemic preparedness and response today. This chapter is intentionally explorative but includes a range of empirical illustrations. 9. 2â•‡

puzzles in adaptive governance

Since the 1980s there have been a number of worldwide shifts in the organisation of society and politics (Pierre and Peters 2005, Biermann and Pattberg 2008). Decentralisation initiatives, the growth of public–Â� private partnership arrangements, the augmented influence of nongovernmental organisations and epistemic communities on policy processes at a number of political levels, as well as the increased impact of multi-lateral agreements on domestic policy, all contribute to a shift away from a command-and-control understanding of governing by central governments and the increased influence of non-state actors and policy-making beyond the centralised state. These phenomena have recently attracted great interest from political scientists. Despite considerable empirical and theoretical efforts, the discussion is often devoid of an analysis of the implications of these shifts, and of the capacity of actors at multiple scales to deal with unfolding surprises that stem from rapidly evolving changes in the biosphere (Walker et al. 2009, Galaz et al. 2010a). This lack of theorising is problematic from a resilience perspectiveÂ€– that is, if we are interested in analysing the features of modes of governance able to deal with both slow and rapid change at multiple scales (what Dietz etÂ€al. 2003 and Folke et al. 2005 call ‘adaptive governance’). One way to understand the implications of this shift is to identify and elaborate on what I view as three fundamental ‘puzzles’ in the discussions of the features of adaptive modes of governance: the roles of institutional diversity, robustness and centralisation. As the following sections discuss, we are far from being able to provide easy answers.

Double complexity: information technology and reconfigurations

9.2.1â•‡ The puzzle of institutional diversity The impacts of institutional diversityÂ€– that is, a variation in the rules for the governing of joint resources (Becker and Ostrom 1995)Â€– seem to pose a hard-to-resolve dilemma. Two different perspectives exist. The first tells how diversity can enhance the capacity of social actors to cope with uncertainty and change. For example, Dustin Becker and Elinor Ostrom (1995) and Thomas Dietz and colleagues (2003) elaborate the risks of promoting top-down, homogeneous and Â�‘universal’ solutions to common-pool resource problems and the strength of allowing for institutional diversity to emerge instead through selforganisation (see also Ostrom 2005). Folke and colleagues (2005) and Cummings and Norberg (2008) present a slightly different argument, based more explicitly on complex systems thinking. Their point is that diversity not only means variety in general but also implies having a greater range of options for responding to environmental change (see also Folke et al. 2005). While this insight builds on observations made in the context of local management of natural resources, similar arguments have been made for global governance in the case of different trading emission credits for carbon dioxide. As argued by David Victor and colleagues, the fact that six parallel trading systems have emerged provides an effective way not only to decrease emissions but also to promote innovation and flexibility in the face of changing circumstances (Victor et al. 2005). A similar argument has been made by scholars stressing the importance of heterogeneity for innovations in socio-technical systems such as energy and transport systems (Kemp et al. 1998, Rotmans et al. 2001). The second perspective takes a different view of diversity (see Stirling 2007 for a more detailed discussion of diversity). The governance failure in the UK associated with the sudden outbreak of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSEÂ€ – often called ‘mad cow disease’) is an interesting case. As argued by Gerodimos (2004), the diversity of actors and institutions paved the way for conflict, lack of coordination and late and ineffective response. The mechanism at play in this case seems to be that institutional diversity parallels the development of organisational fragmentation and interdepartmental conflict. As a result, scientific information is skewed, vested interests engage closely, to their own benefit, with political decision-making and rapid response is delayed. Arjen Boin and colleagues (2005) highlight that a diversity of organisational actors can lead to serious obstacles for information

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integration. Concerted efforts to bring data together from complex organisational settings can never be taken for granted, as ‘information gets filtered, watered down, distorted, polished or squeezed under the table for reasons wholly unrelated to the situation at hand’ (Boin et al. 2005, p. 23). Similar concerns about the negative implications of increasingly diverse institutional settings have been raised repeatedly by scholars of global environmental governance (Pahl-Wostl et al. 2008, Biermann et al. 2009). 9.2.2â•‡ The puzzle of institutional redundancy Institutional redundancyÂ€ – that is, the overlap of tasks assumed by institutionsÂ€– is another puzzle to consider when debating the features of adaptive governance in dealing with rapid change and surprise. Low et al. (2003) suggest that redundancy of institutions and their overlapping functions across organisational levels may play a central role in absorbing disturbance and in spreading risks. Polycentric systemsÂ€ – governance systems with multiple and overlapping units, as denoted by Elinor Ostrom (2005, p. 283 onward)Â€– are increasingly argued to have the capacity to compensate for failures at different levels of societal organisation. A second, less optimistic, picture highlights the risks of decreased controllability in complex modern societies. Put bluntly, increased redundancy in governance systems could result in decreasing levels of compliance among social actors (Mayntz 1993), increased transaction costs that may result when more actors are involved in decision-making (Imperial 1999) and increased deficits of efficiency and legitimacy of central institutions and decision-making, due to the enhanced autonomy of societal actors at diverse scales (Hirst 2000, p. 20 onwards). Sagan (2004) even argues that redundancy might increase the possibility of major negative surprises. The mechanisms at play are, theoretically, two. First, the addition of one more component (that is, institution) might increase the likelihood of failure for all related components. The clearest example can be found in analysis of technological systems such as Boeing aircraftÂ€– an example normally used to illustrate the strengths of redundancy (Low et al. 2003). Each additional engine not only increases the likelihood that the redundant engine will keep the plane in the air if all other engines fail but also increases the probability that a single engine will cause an accident, by blowing up or catching fire, and so destroying all the other engines (Sagan 2004). Second, institutional redundancy in governance

Double complexity: information technology and reconfigurations

systems can also lead to ‘social shirking’, which reduces the reliability of individuals or organisations through the diffusion of responsibility. In short, individuals or organisations might simply fail to intervene when necessary, or might become less likely to report certain events, as they expect that others will take up the slack (Sagan 2004). While these two latter phenomena might seem difficult to translate to governance systems, Thomas Gehring and Sebastian Oberthür describe something very similar in the case of environmental institutions, which they call ‘negative institutional interaction’. As an example, the objective of maximising carbon uptake within the Kyoto Protocol by monocultural forest plantations, reinforced by the economic incentives built into the same protocol, may defeat the competing objective of preserving natural biodiversity-rich ecosystems under the Biodiversity Convention. Similarly, activities under the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) that help fund climate protection projects in developing countries have been found potentially to clash with efforts to phase out ozone-depleting substances under the Montreal Protocol to protect the ozone layer (Gehring and Oberthür 2008).1 9.2.3â•‡ The puzzle of leadership versus decentralisation A final critical challenge that puzzles scholars of adaptive governance is the balance between centralised and decentralised decision-making. Fikret Berkes summarises this puzzle very nicely: ‘the balance of evidence from the commons literature of the past few decades is that neither purely local-level management nor purely higher-level management works well by itself’ (Berkes 2002, p. 293; see also Berkes et al. 2003, Olsson et al. 2004). While this particular insight was discussed in relation to co-management strategies to deal with uncertainty in ecosystem management, coping with rapidly evolving surprising events also seems to require a similar delicate balance between centralisation and decentralisation. A popular notion for coping with rapidly evolving surprises is central coordination and control (Boin et al. 2005). The expectation is that authoritative, centrally placed and adequately prepared decisionmakers have the ability to be ‘in charge’ during a crisis. However, recent empirical research highlights that this is seldom the case. There are also synergies and positive interactions. See Gehring and Oberthür

1

(2006).

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The reason for this is related to the nature of a crisis. Many urgent problems arise simultaneously in different and remote places, where central control is often impossible. Centralised decision systems are also likely to fail in times of large surprises and crises, as they will be unable to gather, process and disseminate the explosive flow of reports and information and escalating requests for reliable information (Boin and ’t Hart 2003, Boin and McConell 2007). Prompt responses to surprises are therefore likely to be an emergent property that results from the actions of self-organised response networks, rather than from centrally placed actors (Boin et al. 2005, pp. 42–56). Yet overly decentralised systems are also likely to fail in coping and reorganising after large-scale surprises. The reason for this is the constant need not only for centrally distributed resources but also for information processing and coordination, either between existing organisations or through more ad-hoc and informal networks (Boin et al. 2005, pp. 56–65, Klijn and Koppenjan 2000). 9. 3â•‡

adaptive reconfigurations in governance

The role of multi-level governance in coping with large-scale surprises is far from simple. On the one hand, heterogeneous, networked and multi-level modes of governance can fail drastically to cope with rapidly unfolding crises that follow from the non-linear behaviour of social–Â�ecological systems. On the other hand, it is exactly these settings which seem to promote the innovations, multi-level links and polycentricity needed to cope with the behaviour of complex systems. However, it would be a mistake to see these contrasting images of governance (centralised vs. decentralised and institutional/homogeneous vs diverse) as mutually exclusive. On the contrary, governance systems are themselves likely to be reconfigurable in response to changing circumstances. The fact that governance can be viewed as a complex system is not a novel insight (e.g. Kooiman 2003, Koppenjan and Klijn 2004, Ostrom 2005, Voss et al. 2006). However, the dynamics of coordination and reorganisation in governanceÂ€– that is, how actors and networks are able to rapidly shift from one mode of governance to anotherÂ€– are considerably less understood. Shifts from one mode of governance to another are indeed not a new topic to the adaptive governance community (e.g. Rotmans etÂ€al. 2001, Olsson et al. 2004, 2008, Folke et al. 2005, Pahl-Wostl 2007, Pahl-Wostl et al. 2007). However, I am interested in a different aspect of transition, which deals with reversible changes from one mode of

Double complexity: information technology and reconfigurations

governance to another.2 More precisely, I intend to elaborate the processes that allow actors to move back and forth between different network configurations and rearrange decision-making procedures to suit changing circumstances.3 This is what I denote an ‘adaptive reconfiguration’ in governance, which can be seen as an additional capacity needed in adaptive modes of governance facing rapid and unexpected change (e.g. Folke et al. 2005). Previous research has often focused on non-reversible shifts that play out over years, and even decades. My focus is on changes that play out reversibly within time frames that can be as short as hours or days.4 These sort of reconfigurations occur in many complex systems and have been used to explain phenomena as diverse as the onset of magnetisation, transitions between the solid, liquid and gaseous phases of water and the propagation of cultural fads (Watts 2003). As I discuss in the next section, these reconfigurations happen in governance systems as well. 9.3.1â•‡High-reliability organisations as adaptive reconfiguration The idea of adaptive reconfigurations might seem not to apply to social systems, institutions and governance. In fact, a considerable amount of literature, for example in political sciences, stresses the inbuilt path-dependencies and rigidities associated with institutions. There is also a vast literature on the dynamics of institutional change (see Streeck and Thelen 2005 for a summary of both). But the question remains: Is it possible for governanceÂ€– again, broadly defined as patterns of collaboration in networks (Ansell 2008)Â€ – to change rapidly and reversibly in response to changing circumstances? The need to strike the right balance between centralisation and decentralisation is a widely debated topic for crisis-management scholars. An interesting research stream within the field is the study of ‘high-reliability organisations’ (HROs). HROs are organisations able to secure very high performance and avoid catastrophic outcomes, The following section is the result of repeated and inspiring discussions with my

2

colleague Per Olsson. Note that my emphasis in ‘governance’ here is on actors and networks, rather

3

than on formal institutions or regimes. This is not to say that the latter are not interesting, but rather that the theoretical and empirical emphasis is different (Ansell 2008). This is, of course, a matter of time perspective in the analysis.

4

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despite continous disturbances and change. Examples of HROs include the organisation of air traffic control, nuclear submarines, nuclear aircraft carriers, nuclear power plants and large hospitals. One of the most interesting features of HROs is the fact that the organisation and decision-making structure is dependent on changes in the surrounding environment. Incremental change and ‘normal’ events are usually steered by regular and often hierarchichal structures, while rapid, unexpected, change triggers a reconfiguration of decision-making structures and information flows. This structure is based on ad-hoc groups, in which strict hierarchy is temporarily left aside and response is secured by self-organised networks closest to the problem. Table 9.1 is a very simplified illustration of the different reconfiguration phases assumed by HROs in the face of changes in their environment. This fluent, and apparently effective, dynamic between centralisation and decentralisation, central coordination and local innovation and response might seem too good to be true. Yet there seems to be a range of parallels to additional theoretical and empirical insights. The network theorists Dodds and colleagues (2003), for example, mathematically explore the features of what they call ‘ultra-robust organisational networks’. These networks have a structure that gives them an astonishingly strong capacity to recover from a range of different disturbances. The key seems to be very dense communication links across scales, which can be activated to promote innovative and self-organised recovery efforts (Dodds et al. 2003; for an elaboration see Watts 2003, p. 2085 onwards). Organisational theorists, such as Mintzberg and McHugh (1985) and Salerno (2009), explore the features of organisational design in companies facing the need to respond to technological change in a highly competitive environment. Again, the ability to reconfigure the decision-making in multi-layered authority structures and reshape communication flows to changing circumstances is critical. While the features of HROs are interesting, it should be noted that they operate around one clearly defined object and often at a single spatial scaleÂ€– that is, a submarine, a power plant, a hospital, an airport. This is not to say that these are simple organisations or simple systems. On the contrary, as explored by Roberts (1990), even ‘small’ HROs, such as nuclear aircraft carriers, are sometimes the size of a small city, with 6000 men and a 24-floor-high airport on the roof. The steering challenges associated with global environmental change, however, require multi-level responses, ranging from global to local (Steffen et al. 2004, Berkes 2010). In addition, issues of legitimacy and

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Respond to directions, report unexpected events

Role of locally placed actors

Phase 3 Recovery and learning

Decentralised, ad hoc, flexible Hierarchical Rich vertical and horizontal flows of Evaluation and learning communication to secure prompt understanding and fast response Coordinate to secure prompt Secure post-crisis learning and understanding, facilitate fast suggested improvement reponse by locally placed actors measures Coordinate to secure prompt Contribute to post-crisis understanding and response learning, realise suggested improvement measures

Phase 2 Surprises, fast-evolving and uncertain change

Based on Roberts (1990), LaPorte and Consolini (1991), Bigley and Roberts (2001), Weick and Sutcliffe (2007).

Role of centrally placed actors

Hierarchical Used to steer (top-down) early detection of potential problems (bottom-up) Steer and direct standard operating procedures

General character Information content and direction

Phase 1 Incremental change, routine matters

Table 9.1â•‡ Adaptive reconfigurations in high-reliability organisations (HROs)

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accountability are considerably easier in HROs, compared to multilevel governance. In HROs, legitimacy and accountability rest on clearly defined formal structures of authority, for example seniority, expertise and ranking. Multi-level settings, however, are characterised by highly complex actor constellations, contested problem framings and notoriously diffuse structures of authority, legitimacy and accountability. This latter issue has been explicitly explored in terms of human health and emerging infectious diseases, for example by Kickbusch (2000), Scoones and Forster (2008) and Leach et al. (2010). However, I will focus less on these issues than on function: that is, on the processes that seem to promote rapid detection and coordinated multi-level response. This is not to downplay the observation that the framing of the complex social–ecological dynamics that drive emerging infectious diseases has important implications for legitimacy and accountability (Stirling and Scoones 2009), but the analysis should be viewed as a complementary perspective. To summarise: Are multi-level and large-scale HROs possible? Which are their main reconfiguration phases and how would they emerge? These are important questions, as they force us to ask ourselves whether the features of HROs are intriguing outliers of little general interest or fundamental and seldom-explored pillars of adaptive governance. As the next section shows, the latter seems to be the case. 9. 4â•‡m u l t i - l e v e l

governance, reconfigurations

and emerging infectious diseases

Emerging infectious diseases (EIDs) might seem an odd choice when it comes to discussing the features of adaptive governance in dealing with rapidly evolving ecological surprises. However, it should be noted that a range of emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases such as avian influenza, Ebola, Nipah virus and West Nile fever have a range of drivers and triggers which evolve from social–ecological changes that play out non-linearly at multiple spatial and temporal scales (Patz et al. 2004, Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 2005). This underlying social–ecological complexity has important implications for health policies and governance for sustainability. Rather than a limited set of defined rules and regulations, an opaque cluster of institutions tends to frame both the emergence of and the social response to EIDs. Hence, early warnings and interventions typically engage a wide range

Double complexity: information technology and reconfigurations

of public and private actors at multiple levels of social organisation. At the global level, these actors include the World Health Organization (WHO), the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE), the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Health Canada and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). At the national level, epidemics engage affected national and local governments, scientific communities, including veterinary medicine and epidemiology and non-governmental organisations, such as Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). Consequentially, these actors are embedded in a highly complex institutional and legal setting, ranging from local implementation of national health policies and environmental law to international health regulation. Despite slower social–ecological drivers, EIDs pose a range of early warning and response challenges to multi-level governance (Galaz 2009a, Galaz et al. 2010a). More interesting is the fact that global collaboration patterns and institutions seem to have reorganised into a multi-level governance model that is similar to that elaborated for HROs, theoretical ultra-robust networks and reconfigurable business organisations. That is, the emerging governance structureÂ€ – including international law, collaboration patterns and information flowsÂ€ – has the ability to reconfigure itself depending on changing circumstances. Three issues seem to be of fundamental importance: the role of information and communications technologies (ICT), an emphasis on highly adaptive flows of communication, and the emergence and active investment in ‘networks of networks’. 9.4.1â•‡ Early warning and information technology The need for early and reliable warning of pending infectious disease outbreaks has been a major concern for the global community since the creation of the first international health regulations in the mid nineteenth century. Recent advances in ICT are fundamentally improving the potential to detect surprising disease outbreaks. This evolution started in the mid 1990s with the creation of ProMED, a moderated, Internet-based reporting system for the global dissemination of information about outbreaks of infectious diseases of chemical origin. Health experts can now rapidly share information about EID events via a moderated email list, which has made a major difference in disseminating early warnings (Galaz 2009a). A second, and perhaps more important, information technology innovation was the Global Public Health Intelligence Network (GPHIN). Health Canada developed this

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early detection system for WHO in the mid 1990s. GPHIN is based on ‘web crawlers’, software programs that automatically and methodically browse the World Wide Web for particular information. GPHIN gathers data about unusual disease events by monitoring Internetbased global media sources such as news wires, websites, online local newspapers and public health email information services in seven different languages. GPHIN can detect the first hints of about 40% of the 200–250 outbreaks WHO subsequently investigates and verifies each year (Galaz 2009a). WHO’s use of Internet-based unofficial data may represent a fundamental shift in global health governance, both in terms of the type and speed of information that flows through its networks and in its legislative framework (International Health Regulation: Fidler 2004, Galaz 2009a). The older (pre-Internet) model was explicitly built on respecting the information authority of member countries. This model resulted in serious failures in the international surveillance system as a whole when countries chose to conceal information about unfolding disease events to avoid social, political and economical repercussions. This happened during a well-known bubonic plague outbreak in Surat (India) in 1994, and during the 2003 SARS outbreak in southern China (Fidler 2004). 9.4.2â•‡ Communication, not information The shift from national reporting and monitoring to ICT-based collaboration and early warnings might seem minor but in fact indicates a fundamental shift from information to communication. As argued by Salerno (2009), while information often implies monodirectional flows of orders in hierarchical settings, communication implies inter-comprehension among actors, self-adjustment to changing circumstances and the creation of self-organised adhocracies (Mintzberg 1993; cf. Folke etÂ€al. 2005). For example, Reed (2004) describes the vital role played by the Internet and information technologies in the prompt analysis of and response to a monkeypox outbreak in central Wisconsin in 2003. A three-and-a-half-year-old girl visited local doctors for treatment of an infection that occurred after a pet prairie dog had bitten her hands. The doctors initially assumed that the infection could easily be cured with antibiotics. However, events took an unexpected turn as the doctors struggled to come up with a diagnosis. Highquality images of the child’s skin lesions were circulated via email

Double complexity: information technology and reconfigurations

to clinical and laboratory consultants. At the same time, reports of similar infections were received from other health care providers in the region. Doctors at the Wisconsin Department of Health and Family Services convened a teleconference that linked physicians with representatives of local, state and federal agencies. The group decided to place images of the infection on a website, to support communal problem-solving and communication. As Reed reports, the results were: extraordinary. In less than an hour, scientists across the United States were able to have a clear view of the situation. The diagnosis of monkeypox was confirmed two days later and the images became highly valuable for healthcare providers around the country trying to find additional cases and limit the extent of the outbreak. (Reed 2004)

It should be noted that this example of how information and communications technologies supported early warning, a coordinated response and communal problem-solving is far from unique and seems to play out at the global level. Dr David Heymann, director (1995–98) of the WHO Programme on Emerging and other Communicable Diseases, reflected on the implications of Internet-based monitoring systems for WHO EIDs operations: All of a sudden, we had a very powerful system that brought in much more information from more countries. And we were able to go to countries confidentially and validate what was going on, and if they needed help, we provided help. And we provided help by bringing together many different institutions from around the world that started to work with us. (Galaz 2009a)

9.4.3â•‡Networks of networks in global health governance However, communication is not only a matter of information-Â�sharing and problem-solving. On the contrary, rapid changes in ICTs also have the ability to transform collaboration patterns and, in the longer term, governance modes. The main mechanism at play is the rapidly decreasing transaction cost of information retrieval, analysis and dissemination (Shirky 2008, Castells 2009). Solving coordination problems depends heavily on whether actors have access to information about other actors’ intentions, preferences and reputations. If information retrieval is associated with high costs, a mutually beneficial collaboration may simply not materialise.

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As the costs of information analysis and dissemination decrease, the span of global collaborations of the kind explored in Wisconsin expands. This motivates the creation of a global strategy for dealing with epidemic outbreaks that explicitly focuses on improving, expanding and coordinating a range of international surveillance and response networks. There is some evidence that such a strategy is emerging. The clearest example is the 1997 creation of the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network (GOARN) coordinated by WHO to make better use of limited economic and human resources once epidemic outbreaks unfold. In addition, a range of similar and parallel attempts is expanding collaboration between monitoring and response systems at supra-national and regional levels, including laboratory and response networks in the Amazon region, the Pacific, Europe (expanding to Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union) and the Great Lakes region of Africa (Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Uganda and the United Republic of Tanzania) (Galaz 2009b). These partially overlapping networks interact loosely and create an international pattern that could be denoted as ‘networks of networks’ (Galaz et al. 2008, Galaz 2009b). As Patrick Drury, coordinator for GOARN, says in relation to how these different collaborations on EID are coordinated loosely by WHO: David [Heymann] wanted to take the GPHIN business and what WHO was doing and develop a ‘network of networks’. These would be highly unformalised, highly unstructured, as chaotic as possible, because if we allowed it to coagulate or set down at any part of the WHO, the apparatus of the organisation, then 45–50 years old, would start to drag it down … ‘this is a steering committee’ or ‘this is a technical advisory committee’ … All of these rules would just slow down what was trying to be done. So, they brought together the 70 institutions that we were aware of being involved in the field and responding to these things [EIDs]. And this came from those technical institutions. People in the CDC or people in the South African laboratories or the people in MSF or people in Health Canada or the Red Cross. We really wanted to create a mechanism for this. (Galaz 2009b)

9.4.4â•‡Governance reconfigurations and ‘networks of networks’ To return to the question of adaptive reconfigurations in governance, it should be noted that the features of EID governance described earlier all take place in a polycentric, institutional, redundant, diverse

Double complexity: information technology and reconfigurations

and multi-authoritative structure. While WHO plays a critical role as a facilitator and authoritative disseminator of information during crises, both large agencies (for example, FAO, CDC and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control), as well as smaller actors (for example, the International Federation of the Red Cross and MSF), operate independently at multiple levels. While this chaotic structure of partly overlapping and globally spanning networks could be seen as a major obstacle for rapid coordination, it does also seem to provideÂ€– with WHO as a key playerÂ€– the sort of diversity and reconfiguration capacity needed to improvise and coordinate multi-level responses in changing circumstances. The A/H1N1 or ‘swine flu’ outbreak is very illustrative of this (see Galaz 2009a for details). GPHIN sent the first alert of the outbreak of an unknown infectious disease in Mexico to WHO on 10 April 2009. The warning was based on local media reports posted online through healthmap.org in the first week of April and described an unusual cluster of flu-like respiratory illnesses in the Veracruz region (Brownstein et al. 2009). WHO officials contacted the Mexican authorities the same day to verify the reports. The answer arrived two days later: the outbreak had already been investigated and all cases had proved to be normal influenza. One week later, WHO officials again contacted Mexican health authorities after receiving unofficial reports of unusual pneumoniatype deaths. Mexican authorities again responded that tests indicated nothing unusual. Everything changed on 22 April, when the Mexican health authorities sent WHO a formal report indicating a rapidly increasing rate of unexpected pneumonia cases. The next day, the CDC reported that the virus found in Mexico had also been identified in California. What began as isolated cases of respiratory illnesses in a small Mexican town was billed five days later as a possible pandemic. With the first early warnings promptly confirmed, WHO could at that instant start to mobilise its response capacities. The first large scientific meeting took place on 29 April 2009: a teleconference that included more than 100 participants, hosted by WHO. This was the start of a continuous stream of international scientific, technical and consultation meetings hosted by WHO with the object of integrating and disseminating scientific information and helping its member countries to mitigate the adverse impacts of the A/H1N1 influenza. This shift from preparedness to confirmation and response seems to be necessary for dealing with epidemic surprises. Similar stories can be found in the responses to epidemic emergencies such as SARS

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(2003), Ebola haemorrhagic fever in Gulu, Uganda (2000), CrimeanCongo haemorrhagic fever in Kosovo (2000), investigation of febrile deaths of unknown cause in young adults in Bangladesh (2001), prevention of epidemics of yellow fever in Côte d’Ivoire (2001) and the coordinated health responses in the aftermaths of the Asian tsunami (2004). For HROs, this capacity has taken years, if not decades, to build. David Heymann, the first director of the WHO Programme on Emerging and other Communicable Diseases, commented on the implications for a number of high-profile epidemic outbreaks from 1995 onwardsÂ€– for example, bubonic plague in India, Ebola in Congo: These were important in getting a way to work. Whenever there was an outbreak, we put the terms of reference of what support was needed, and we would go out to GOARN, and those people would come and work with us. So we had a system in place. That system was only functioning for national epidemics but when a new international occurred, we used the same system. And it worked. If we hadn’t had that system in place, we probably would not have been able to really coordinate the response to SARS as we were able to do. (Galaz 2009b)

It should be noted that this response capacity is far from being merely global, and is not coordinated solely by WHO. Dan Sermand of MSF in Stockholm, who has more than 15 years’ experience of response operations in the field, was interviewed on the subject of how activities are coordinated in field settings when many organisations at multiple levels are involved: Q. What if you are facing some uncertainty of the disease? How do you coordinate your [MSF] networks? A. Each time we have a suspected case of fever or something very wrong, the first thing we do, is that we contact WHO. Immediately. So we give you the sample, say the stool sample or the blood sample or whatever and we work with them immediately … So the collaboration is, I will say, immediate. We are not waiting for the people to start to die, to smell that something is shit-smelling and that something could be … So there is immediate collaboration, so we call them and ‘send you the sample with the first plane’ or the first car or whatever. So, ‘please go on with your laboratory and tell us what’s going on’. That is systematic. Q. So that is not formalised? A. No, no, but it’s not personal. WHO knows that we will always call them if we are suspecting things or something is very bizarre. (Galaz 2009b)

Double complexity: information technology and reconfigurations

This illustrates not only flexibility in responses depending on the nature of the problem but also the fact that information and response can travel from local (MSF doctor in the field), to global (WHO and its associated laboratory partners). Hence, the emerging collaboration pattern that exists to deal with EID outbreaks is able to reconfigure itself through at least three phases: from pre-crisis, when routine and predictable matters are in focus, to the coordination of scientific networks and medical ‘communities of practice’ to reduce uncertainty, and finally to response. It should be noted that the sort of actors involved in each of these phases can be highly fluid and change according to circumstances, such as the sort of disease, the locality and available human and economical resources (Table 9.2). 9. 5 â•‡

conclusions

Is it at all possible to govern complexity, when complexity is in an era of rapid, uncertain change? This is likely to become one of the most critical puzzles for scholars of adaptive governance, as scholars and policy-makers increasingly focus on rapid climate change, multiple-interacting global crises and the need to steer the implications of transgressing possible ‘planetary boundaries’. Rapid change and crises are indeed extreme and rare events. But that does not make them uninteresting from an adaptive governance perspective. On the contrary, the dynamics of crises (that is, unexpected, highly uncertain, with cascading dynamics and having limited time to act) from an institutional point of view pose quite different challenges to those normally addressed by the adaptive governance research community. These are related to the need for early warnings, multi-level networked responses and improvisation. In addition, crises force us to reconsider the way we look at communication technologies in global environmental governance. This conclusion holds not only in local and global settings but also in multi-level contexts. Shifts from one mode of governance to another are not a new topic to the adaptive governance community. The focus in this chapter has been slightly different, with an emphasis on the processes that allow actors to move back and forth between different network configurations and adapt decision-making procedures to changing circumstances. As I see it, understanding this reconfiguration capacity is crucial in settings in which multiple actors, at multiple scales, attempt

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Continuous multi-level information sharing, routine matters and preparedness Early detection of potential diseases of concern (bottom-up and automated through ICT) Guidelines, assessments, synthesis by key actors such as WHO, FAO, OIE, CDC Maintain reliable automatic early detection, expand networks to build better preparedness Routine matters, local early warnings of possible epidemic outbreaks of potential concern

Facilitate response networks to secure prompt response Coordinate local response, isolation, crisis communication

Coordinate health officials and laboratories to secure prompt understanding

Warning response, coordinated response at multiple levels Rich vertical and horizontal flows of communication to secure prompt response

Warning confirmation and joint problem-solving at multiple levels Rich horizontal flows of communication to secure prompt understanding

Coordinate expert networks to secure prompt understanding

Phase 3 Response

Phase 2 Surprises, fast-evolving and uncertain change

Based on Galaz (2009a, 2009b), Michelson (2005), Heymann and Rodier (2004), Reed (2004).

Role of centrally placed actors (WHO, FAO, OIE, CDC, ECDC) Role of nationally and locally placed actors

Communication content and direction

General character

Phase 1 Pre-crisis, routine matters

Table 9.2â•‡ Simplified adaptive reconfigurations in emerging infective disease (EID) governance

Double complexity: information technology and reconfigurations

to overcome the problems posed by institutional fragmentation and segmentation and respond to rapidly unfolding surprise. It would be a mistake to assume that the issues explored are unique to the governance of infectious diseases. On the contrary, a range of phenomena, such as large-scale ecological surprises, invasive species, human, animal and plant diseases, rapid loss of ecosystem services (such as collapsing fish stocks), requires overcoming a range of obstacles posed by institutional segmentation, knowledge fragmentation and lack of coordination. Information processing and communication are fundamental to adaptive reconfigurations, communal problem-solving and response. These examples of how information and communications technologies support early warning, reconfigurations and flexible networked responses and joint problem-solving are far from unique. On the contrary, once we look closer, we find many of these examples both in the health sector (Galaz 2009), in ecological monitoring (Galaz et al. 2010b), as well as in rapidly evolving, large-scale forest fires (explored by Boyd 2008). Research on adaptive governance is moving into highly interesting and important times. I have elaborated not only the challenge posed by ‘double complexity’ but also the research and policy challenges that play between emerging global risks, information technology and multi-level governance. Hopefully, this contribution has shed some new light on novel possible solutions. Acknowledgements This work was supported by the Futura Foundation and Stockholm Resilience Centre (Stockholm University) through grants from the Foundation for Strategic Enviromental Research (Mistra). I am grateful to the editors and reviewers for constructive comments on an earlier version of the chapter.

references

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10 Adaptive governance and natural hazards: the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami and the governance of coastal ecosystems in Sri Lanka alison ashlin

10. 1 â•‡

introduction

This chapter considers the impact of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami on the governance of coastal ecosystems in Sri Lanka. Specifically, it asks whether in the wake of the tsunami (a rapid-onset natural hazard) the approach to governance of coastal ecosystems in Sri Lanka was adaptive and what changes occurred in governance institutions following this social–ecological shock. To tease out the facets of coastal ecosystem governance in Sri Lanka and to evaluate whether the tsunami created a space for change, field-based and desk-based data collection techniques, combined with qualitative and quantitative analysis, were employed. In Sri Lanka, 75% of an identified population of 122 stakeholders were sampled using semi-structured interviews, informal meetings and electronic correspondence. Additionally, 134 documents were collected and critically assessed, including national coastal policy documents, national action plans, legal documents, press releases, newspaper reports and documentation referring to individual coastal environmental initiatives (for example, marketing material, strategy reports, management plans and evaluation documents). A total of 40 pre-tsunami coastal environmental initiatives and 48 post-tsunami coastal environmental initiatives were identified and analysed.

Adapting Institutions: Governance, Complexity and Social–Ecological Resilience, ed. Emily Boyd and Carl Folke. Published by Cambridge University Press. © Cambridge University Press 2012.

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10. 2â•‡

natural hazards and ecosystems

Increasing shares of the damage caused by natural hazards stem from ecologically destructive practices and from humans putting themselves in harm’s way. In some instances, ecosystems have been altered to such an extent that their resilience (that is, their ability to bounce back from disturbance) has been greatly diminished and they are no longer able to withstand natural disturbances (Abramovitz 2001). For example, chronic overfishing combined with declining water quality has made coral reefs, and therefore coastal communities, less resilient to cyclones and global warming (Adger et al. 2005), while deforestation has damaged watersheds, increased the risk of wild fires and worsened the negative impacts of storms, leading to landslides, flooding, silting and ground- and surface-water contamination (Susman et al. 1983, Abramovitz 2001, Derose et al. 2006, Srinivas and Nakagawa 2008). While it is not possible to eliminate natural hazards, by protecting healthy ecosystems and restoring degraded ecosystems it is theoretically possible to reduce the number of disasters. For example, restoring a flood plain to allow a greater area to function normally can reduce the future impact of floods on human settlement and Â�economic activities, while simultaneously providing valuable and biodiverse habitats. Additionally, when natural ecosystems are resilient and healthy, communities can recover more quickly and easily from natural hazards, allowing individuals to diversify and/or re-establish their livelihoods (Miller et al. 2006). Instead of relying purely on structural engineering, recognising, protecting and promoting the services provided by healthy resilient ecosystems such as wetlands, flood plains and forests (which all act as sponges for floodwater) is conceptually a win–win solution for both nature and society. Viewed in this light, ecosystem restoration and rehabilitation has been posited as an effective tool in disaster risk reduction and disaster recovery (Birkland et al. 2003, UNEP and Stockholm Resilience Centre 2008). 10. 3â•‡

the

2004

indian ocean tsunami

The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami is one of the largest natural disasters in living memory (Ramachandran et al. 2005). On 26 December 2004, an earthquake on the Sumatra–Andaman fault (where the Indo-Australian and Eurasian tectonic plates join) released 4.3 × 1018 J of energy and displaced more than 30 km3 of seawater (Bilham 2005, Coenraads 2006). The earthquake was so powerful that it caused a wobble in the earth’s

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rotation (Lay et al. 2005). With a moment magnitude of 9.3, the earthquake was the second-largest ever instrumentally recorded (Bilham 2005) and the largest seismic event for more than 40 years (Lay et al. 2005). The tsunami it created travelled at speeds of around 800 km/h (Coenraads 2006), hit coastal communities in 12 countries and killed over 250 000 people. In addition to the huge number of people who lost their lives, millions were displaced and their homes and livelihoods were destroyed. Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand and India were the worst-affected countries (Rodriguez and Wachtendorf 2006). Alongside the initial aid effort, environmental organisations quickly produced scientific reports detailing the environmental impact of the tsunami (UNEP 2005, WWF 2005). The direct environmental impacts of the tsunami included damage to coastal forests and wetlands (UNEP 2005), salt-water intrusion, dispersal of solid waste and debris (Srinivas and Nakagawa 2008), the burying of corals under sand, the loss of sea turtle nesting grounds due to the removal of sand from beaches (Lindemayer and Tambiah 2005, Ramachandran et al. 2005, Sharma 2005, Srinivas and Nakagawa 2008) and the trapping of aquatic life in ghost nets (UNEP 2005). Indirect environmental impacts included the extraction of building materials (including timber, sand and cement) for the reconstruction and redevelopment of affected areas, the disposal of debris (Vidanaarachchi et al. 2006), the creation of temporary camps for displaced people, the over-pumping of wells and increased catch rates and over-exploitation of the marine environment due to the replacement of fishing boats and equipment at greater levels than before the tsunami (Pauly 2005, Pomeroy et al. 2006). 10.3.1â•‡ The impact of the tsunami in Sri Lanka Sri Lanka lies approximately 1500 km west of the epicentre of the Sumatra–Andaman earthquake that triggered the tsunami, yet it took less than two hours for the first wave to reach the island (Coenraads 2006). The earthquake occurred at 6.58 am Sri Lankan time; the first wave hit the east coast at 8.35 am (Jayasuriya et al. 2006). The geographic impact of the tsunami in Sri Lanka was uneven (Wijetunge 2009); two-thirds of the country’s coastline was affected. The tsunami was made up of three waves, arriving at intervals of between 20 and 30 minutes. Each surge was followed by a retreat, and the third wave was the biggest. In some places, the waves swept as much as 3 km inland (Environmental Justice Foundation 2006), and 68% of wave

Adaptive governance: the 2004 tsunami in Sri Lanka

height measurements were between 3 m and 7.5 m, with a median height of 5 m (Forbes and Broadhead 2007). Although used to dealing with natural hazards such as periodic floods, landslides, droughts and cyclones, Sri Lanka was unprepared for the occurrence and impact of the tsunami (Kurita et al. 2006, Rodriguez and Wachtendorf 2006). Statistics from the Sri Lankan Task Force for Rebuilding the Nation (TAFREN 2005) detail the social impact and the loss of capital in Sri Lanka. Over 35 000 people died, over 21 000 were injured and over half a million were internally displaced. The value of lost assets was some US$900 million. Approximately 88 000 homes were destroyed, as well as schools, health facilities and hotels. The extent of the damage to Sri Lanka’s coastal ecosystems varied, with the east coast being more adversely affected than the southern and northern coasts. On the east coast, almost a third of the reef at Dutch Bay (near Trincomalee) was destroyed (Rajasuriya 2005), while reefs on the northwest coast and the Rumasalla Sanctuary reef on the south coast remained relatively unharmed (UNEP 2005). The damage within individual reefs was also reported to be uneven (Tamelander and Rajasuriya 2008). Overall, coral structures facing the open ocean fared worse than those within reef lagoons. Most damage occurred where the underlying substrate was composed of dead fragile coral and coral rubble (Rajasuriya 2005, Tamelander and Rajasuriya 2008). The damage to mangroves and coastal forests (including casuarina trees and coconut palms) also varied. According to DahdouhGuebas et al. (2005), who carried out post-tsunami surveys of mangrove lagoons and estuaries in Sri Lanka’s southwest, south and southeast coasts, mangrove fringes near the shoreline were damaged but there were virtually no records of uprooted adult mangrove trees. Moreover, mangrove sites with no cryptic degradation,1 those well protected by being some distance inland and those dominated by Rhizophora species all experienced low impacts, while forests dominated by less typical mangrove species were severely damaged. Severe beach erosion was observed in the east and southwest of the island. Early reports detailed damage to turtle nesting beaches, hatcheries and adult foraging habitats (Hamann et al. 2006). However, in the year following the tsunami, the number of adult female turtles returning to nesting beaches in Bundala National Park was almost Cryptic ecological degradation occurs where non-mangrove vegetation begins to

1

dominate a forest of true mangrove species with no overall change in forest area (Dahdouh-Guebas et al. 2005).

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unchanged from previous years (Brodie et al. 2008). Although the sea turtles of Bundala National Park represent only a fraction of the turtles nesting in Sri Lanka, because the park is located on the southeastern corner of Sri Lanka (one of the hardest-hit areas), Brodie et al. (2008) conclude that if these turtles were only slightly affected by the tsunami it is likely that those in other areas may have been affected even less. Another impact of the tsunami was the colonisation of various areas by prickly pears (Opuntia), an invasive alien species (Ingram et al. 2005). 10.3.2â•‡The governance of coastal ecosystems in Sri Lanka before the tsunami The governance of coastal ecosystem conservation in Sri Lanka before the tsunami evolved largely in response to coastal erosion. Between the 1950s and the 1990s, state-centred environmental governance with respect to the conservation and protection of coastal ecosystems dominated, and legislation and regulation were the norm in terms of managing potential threats to the environment. However, towards the end of the 1980s, it became increasingly evident that this top-down, regulatory approach to coastal management was not working as intended. Local resource users failed to abide by the Coast Conservation Department’s (CCD) rules and regulations, and environmental degradation in the coastal zone continued unabated (Olsen et al. 1992, Landstrom 2006). Consequently, early in the 1990s, attitudes at the national level regarding the management of coastal ecosystems shifted from strict state-centred control towards more participatory mechanisms and approaches (Landstrom 2006), and in 1992 the CCD decentralised some of its activity. By delegating the issuing of permits for development activity in the coastal zone to local authorities, the CCD relaxed the previously strict central state control. Although on paper the empowerment of local authorities may be deemed progressive, failure to monitor the cumulative impacts of decisions made at the district and local level undermined the efficacy of this decentralisation. In 1990, the first Coastal Zone Management Plan (CZMP) for Sri Lanka was formally adopted by the Sri Lankan government. At the same time, the Natural Resources and Environmental Policy (NAREP) project, aimed at improving public and Â�private institutional performance in the preservation of natural resources, came into operation (Lowry 2003). One of the outputs of NAREP was the preparation of Coastal 2000: Recommendations for a Resource Management Strategy for Sri Lanka’s Coastal

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Region (Olsen et al. 1992). This seminal document addressed coastal issues through and beyond the 1990s and marked the transition towards integrated coastal resource management in Sri Lanka (Aeron-Thomas 2003). Coastal 2000 highlighted the need to consider the relevant socioeconomic factors of coastal management and suggested plans for managing coastal resources that could be implemented simultaneously at national and local levels. The report stressed the importance of scale (local, national and regional) and of multi-stakeholder participation (Clemett et al. 2004). It also stated the need for collaboration between government agencies and between governmental and non-governmental agencies. It argued that institutional and human capacity should be strengthened and that awareness of the CZMP strategies should be raised among national and provincial government personnel and non-governmental organisations (NGOs). Another output of NAREP was the formulation of Special Area Management (SAM) plans in 1991. A key component of the SAM planning process was the inclusion of local government, local NGOs, fishers and other resource users in the design and implementation of coastal resource management in local areas (Ekaratne et al. 2000, Lowry 2003, Clemett et al. 2004). The SAM planning processes aimed to be collaborative, adaptive and flexible, and to give local people a greater degree of influence over the management of coastal resources in their area. Although government agencies participated in the process, they assumed less prominent roles than previously, acting mainly as facilitators and technical advisors. Unfortunately, the success of the SAM planning process in Sri Lanka is debatable. Landstrom (2006) found that SAM projects in Hikkaduwa and Rekawa were only partially successful, and that the institutional and collaborative aspects of the SAM projects had problems, specifically with respect to local participation and the relinquishing of state control. Clemett et al. (2004) state that the SAM process failed to demonstrate that it was a viable and effective tool for coastal zone management, as it had not achieved its desired objectives and had consumed time and money. In addition to these state-run initiatives, a handful of projects were facilitated by Sri Lankan NGOs (for example, the Turtle Conservation Project and MANDRU) and three small grant schemes were funded by international organisations (the Global Environment Facility Small Grants Programme, launched in 1994, the Community Environment Investment Fund, established in 1997, and the Local Environment Fund). These all involved the local community, either directly or via local NGOs or community-based organisations (CBOs).

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Table 10.1â•‡ Environmental legislation and regulation from 1885 to 2003, as applicable to coastal ecosystems in Sri Lanka Date

Legislation and environmental policy documents

1885 1937 1968

The Forest Ordinance No. 16 of 1885, as amended in 1907 The Fauna and Flora Protection Ordinance No. 2 The Colombo District (Low-Lying Areas) Reclamation of Development Board Act No. 15 The National Environment Act No. 47 The National Aquatic Resources Research and Development Agency Act No. 54 The Coast Conservation Act No. 57 National Conservation Strategy The Coast Conservation (Amendment) Act No. 64 The first Coastal Zone Management Plan (CZMP) was formally adopted by the Sri Lankan cabinet Environmental Action Plan National Environmental Action Plan (NEAP) The Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Act No. 2 The National Aquaculture Development Authority of Sri Lanka Act No. 53 Caring for the Environment 2003–2007Â€– Path to Sustainable Development

1980 1981 1981 1988 1988 1990 1990 1991 1996 1998 2003

Sources: Clemett et al. (2004), Harakunarak (n.d.), Hettiarachchi and Samarawickrama (2005), IUCN (2000), World Bank (2004), SACEP (2008), UNEP et al. (2001).

Despite a comprehensive legislative and policy framework dating back to 1885 (Table 10.1) and the initiatives for coastal conservation described above, Sri Lanka’s coastal ecosystems faced numerous threats prior to the tsunami. The tsunami waves hit already degraded coastal and marine ecosystems. Seagrass beds around coral reefs and lagoons had been damaged by destructive fishing techniques and the commercial harvesting of polychaete worms for broodstock feed in shrimp hatcheries (Government of Sri Lanka 2006). Significant areas of mangrove forests had been destroyed by encroachment, land conversion for aquaculture, lowland agriculture and resource extraction. Figure 10.1 illustrates the dramatic decline in mangrove forest area in Sri Lanka between 1980 and 2008. Coral reefs were also degraded due to coral mining, sedimentation and nutrient run-off, destructive fishing methods, coral

Adaptive governance: the 2004 tsunami in Sri Lanka

Figure 10.1â•… The decrease in mangrove forest area in Sri Lanka between 1980 and 2008, extrapolated using data from IUCN (2000), Ariyadasa (2002), FAO (2003), Government of Sri Lanka (2006), Mangrove Action Project (2007).

bleaching and the proliferation of invasive species such as the crown-of-thorns starfish (Acanthaster planci) (Lowry et al. 1999, UNEP et al. 2001, Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources 2003, Clemett et al. 2004, Rajasuriya 2005, Government of Sri Lanka 2006, Weerakkody 2006). Additionally, sand-mining from rivers, beaches and estuaries was prevalent (Hettiarachchi and Samarawickrama 2005, Government of Sri Lanka 2006). Solid waste disposal was largely inadequate, so many coastal ecosystems were used as dumping grounds (Vidanaarachchi et al. 2006). Pollution in lagoons and estuaries included chemical run-off from shrimp farms, sewage, untreated industrial effluents, urban waste and coconut husk retting (Government of Sri Lanka 2006). 10.3.3â•‡The governance of coastal ecosystems in Sri Lanka after the tsunami Soon after the tsunami, reports appeared in the scientific literature, the grey literature and the media detailing the abilities of healthy ecosystems to buffer the tsunami’s waves and the detrimental impacts of damaged or destroyed coastal ecosystems (Pearson 2005, Miller et al. 2006, Ashlin and Ladle 2007, Barbier 2008). The illegal removal of coral along Sri Lanka’s coastline increased the damage caused by the tsunami (Marris 2005). In areas where there was extensive coral mining, the impacts of the tsunami were magnified, with greater wave heights and water inundations (Fernando et al. 2005, 2008). It was noted that vegetated coastal sand dunes in the Yala and Bundala National Parks

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acted as biological shields, completely stopping the waves, which were only able to head inland where the dune line was broken by river outlets (UNEP 2005). Some scientists reported that coastal stretches with trees were damaged less than areas devoid of such vegetation (Mascarenhas and Jayakumar 2008, Sonak et al. 2008). However, others called into question the effectiveness of trees and forests in shielding coastlines from the tsunami (Dahbouh-Guebas and Koedam 2006, Danielsen et al. 2006, Kathiresan and Rajendran 2006, Kerr et al. 2006, Alongi 2009), and the protective role of coastal vegetation (particularly mangroves) became a hotly debated topic among academics (Forbes and Broadhead 2007). Although the popular view remained that mangroves and coastal forests acted as ‘living dykes’ (that is, bio-shields), the academic debate surrounding the protective function of coastal vegetation revealed the imprecise nature of existing knowledge and the various factors and local anomalies that influence the mitigation capacity of a given patch of coastal vegetation. Despite the contested nature of these scientific reports and the devastating impact of the tsunami in Aceh, the disaster drew attention to the protective role of coral reefs, mangroves and sand dunes and the importance of coastal-zone management (Ramachandran et al. 2005, Barbier 2008).2 Knowledge of the link between human health and well-being and the health of coastal ecosystems increased and subsequently, in Sri Lanka, there was an increase in the number of coastal environmental initiatives aimed at restoring and conserving the coastal ecosystems damaged by the tsunami (Ashlin 2009). The biggest increase in coastal environmental initiatives was observed in the number centred on conserving and restoring mangrove ecosystems. Additionally, a focus on sand-dune restoration emerged, an activity that did not previously exist. Along with the rise in the number of coastal environmental initiatives, there was a rise in the diversity of funding streams and groups involved. The implementation of coastal environmental initiatives involves various stakeholders, each with specific roles and positions.

In coastal regions close to the epicentre of the earthquake (that is, areas within

2

the maximum-intensity tsunami wave) little could have prevented the catastrophic coastal destruction. Post-tsunami studies of the buffering capacity of healthy coral reefs off the north coast of Aceh show that these reefs did not mitigate the damage on land; instead, inundation distance was largely related to wave height and coastal topography (Baird et al. 2005).

Adaptive governance: the 2004 tsunami in Sri Lanka

Figure 10.2â•… The distribution of funds for coastal environmental initiatives. Donor agencies disperse funds to a number of facilitators, who then redistribute monies to project implementers ‘in the field’.

These stakeholders can be categorised by role and grouped into three simple categories: donors, facilitators and implementers (UNEP 2007). Donor agencies (typically official agencies, foreign governments and international organisations with access to funds raised from the international community) disperse funds to a number of facilitators (principally international and national NGOs) who redistribute the monies to project implementers ‘in the field’ (usually communities living on the coast) (Figure 10.2). An examination of the pathways used to fund, facilitate and implement coastal environmental initiatives both before and after the tsunami (Figures 10.3 and 10.4) provides evidence of a shift in the governance of coastal ecosystems. The make-up of these pathways has clear sociopolitical impacts, and trade-offs have been made between democracy and efficiency in terms of project funding and facilitation. By comparing these pathways (Figure 10.5) it is apparent that after the tsunami the governance of coastal ecosystems is more complex and diverse than before, and the role of civil society and the international community has grown. The majority of post-tsunami coastal ecosystem initiatives have been facilitated by international organisations (that is, intergovernmental organisations, international NGOs and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, IUCN), and a large proportion of the funds for post-tsunami environmental initiatives has been channelled through these organisations. Although at the facilitation stage the role of the state has been overshadowed (theoretically making the post-tsunami governance of coastal ecosystems less democratic), at the implementation stage there is greater involvement of local stakeholders, such as local NGOs and CBOs (potentially making post-tsunami governance of coastal ecosystems more representative).

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Figure 10.3â•… A flowchart mapping the different pathways used to fund, facilitate and implement coastal ecosystem initiatives in Sri Lanka before the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.

Adaptive governance: the 2004 tsunami in Sri Lanka

Figure 10.4â•… A flowchart mapping the different pathways used to fund, facilitate and implement coastal ecosystem initiatives in Sri Lanka after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.

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Figure 10.5â•… A comparison of the mechanisms employed for implementing coastal ecosystem initiatives in pre-tsunami and post-tsunami Sri Lanka. Dark grey, government organisations; light grey, international NGOs, international membership organisations, intergovernmental organisations; dappled grey, local NGOs, CBOs and other community groups.

Adaptive governance: the 2004 tsunami in Sri Lanka

10. 4â•‡

adaptive governance

In an adaptive system, actors demonstrate flexible, collaborative, learning-based approaches to managing social–ecological systems (Folke et al. 2005, Leach et al. 2007). Adaptive governance is based on three key concepts: • • •

collaboration with a network of multiple actors social memory and learning experimental/flexible approaches.

10.4.1â•‡Cooperation and collaboration in a network of actors In the immediate aftermath of the tsunami, a central coordinating body was established by the government of Sri Lanka to help coordinate the humanitarian relief effort: the Task Force for Rebuilding the Nation (TAFREN). TAFREN (supported by the World Bank) was one of three task forces set up by presidential directive after the tsunami, with a mandate to facilitate, enable, coordinate and monitor post-tsunami reconstruction efforts. TAFREN, along with the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs’ Who Does What Where database (www.humanitarianinfo.org/sriLanka_hpsl/whowhatwhere.aspx), helped ensure that the information required to assess and to meet humanitarian needs was freely available. Although no coordinating system is foolproof, and there have been criticisms of TAFREN (Gnanadass 2006, Samaratunge et al. 2008), there are obvious benefits in having widely recognisable bodies with which to work. A central coordinating mechanism that efficiently manages information and ensures an appropriate and timely response during a disaster or emergency situation is a key priority. However, whether the same sense of crisis prevails with respect to the environmental sector’s response to the tsunami depends on what lens is looked through. The ‘brown’ impacts (issues related to debris, waste management, pollution and the salination of drinking wells) can, and should, be framed as crises which need to be dealt with in a timely manner. However, so long as the brown concerns are handled correctly, thereby removing immediate and chronic stresses on the social–ecological system, the restoration and rehabilitation of ecosystems do not require crisis management and the time pressures are less. Nevertheless, a central

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coordinating system or mechanism that allowed the funders, implementers and facilitators of ‘green’ environmental activity to share information, build on past experiences and collaborate would have been advantageous. In contrast to efforts for coordinating the humanitarian response, there was no government-run task force or United Nations body coordinating the environmental response in Sri Lanka, so in the post-tsunami period, knowing ‘who had done what and where’, in terms of coastal ecosystem rehabilitation, both before and after the tsunami, was no easy task. Without this information, the capacity for building on past experiences and experimentation was limited. However, despite the lack of a central coordinating mechanism for post-tsunami environmental activity there is evidence of collaboration between some of the facilitators of coastal environmental initiatives in Sri Lanka. In some instances several organisations worked together to facilitate specific initiatives. One example is a multi-partner regional initiative, Mangroves for the Future (MFF), which evolved through consultation and collaboration with government agencies, NGOs, CBOs, research institutes, universities, UN agencies and other multi-lateral bodies. By the end of August 2006, a detailed and inclusive process of consultation and dialogue had been undertaken, involving several hundred key agencies and individuals working at international, national and local levels (IUCN and UNDP 2007).3 The MFF initiative brings together insights and lessons learned from past and current programmes of work on the needs, challenges and priorities for coastal ecosystem conservation and livelihood support in the tsunami-affected region (MFF 2008). Another example of cross-scale collaboration was the Green Coast initiative, developed in response to the tsunami by WWF, IUCN, Both ENDS and Wetlands International. This programme was developed to restore damaged coastal ecosystems such as mangroves, beach forest, coral reef and sand dunes in coastal areas affected by the tsunami. In Sri Lanka, Green Coast funds were administered by IUCN and used to provide small grants for community-based rehabilitation projects. Additional Green Coast funds were used to influence the government, aid agencies and the private sector to manage and restore natural coastal resources sustainably, through the publication and dissemination of tsunami assessments, best-practice worksheets and policy documents. The high level of consultation and collaboration demonstrated by the MFF initia-

3

tive was the exception rather than the norm.

Adaptive governance: the 2004 tsunami in Sri Lanka

10.4.2â•‡ Social memory and learning In respect of learning within projects (that is, between project funders, facilitators and implementers), the mechanisms for bottom-up learning (from CBOs and communities to project facilitators) was generally not as well established as top-down mechanisms, reducing the degree of bottom-up learning. However, when various post-tsunami planting projects were failing (for example when mangroves were planted at a substrate depth out of their natural range, at too high an elevation or in the stomping grounds of cattle and water buffalo (Mangrove Action Project 2007)), there was evidence of a desire for knowledge transfer and increased learning. A Sri Lankan NGO, the Sewalanka Foundation, set up and ran two ecological mangrove restoration workshops in conjunction with four international trainers from the Mangrove Action Project (MAP). The workshops (one on the south coast and one on the east) focused on community-based ecological mangrove restoration and took place in February 2007. Fifty-five university researchers and students, government officials, United Nations staff, INGO and NGO representatives and Fisheries Cooperative Society members participated in the workshops, which consisted of lectures, presentations on case studies and field visits. At the end of the first workshop, a discussion was held on the importance of staying in touch, through the establishment of a Sri Lankan Mangrove Restoration Network. It was recognised that to succeed, the process must be collaborative and voluntary. There was an emphasis on continuing to learn from each other by visiting other organisations’ sites, sharing information and expertise, and maintaining a social network. It was suggested that a yearly network manager should be elected, and it was noted that a Sri Lankan mangrove field guidebook was needed.4 Another platform for learning and sharing information was the post-tsunami Living Lakes conference: Restoration of Mangroves and Re-establishment of Livelihoods in Sri Lanka. This took place in April 2007 and was organised by the Global Nature Fund in conjunction with two local grassroots NGOs (EMACE and the Nagenahiru Foundation). More than 100 people from 10 countries (Sri Lanka, Indonesia, India, Thailand, Germany, Spain, France, Great Britain, Belgium and the USA) attended This latter point indicates a lack of knowledge transfer and/or social memory, as

4

the Small Fishers Federation had prepared a guidebook, Mangroves in Sri Lanka, in 1996.

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the conference, which was opened by the Head of Operations of the EU Commission in Sri Lanka, the Sri Lankan Minister of Environment and Natural Resources and the Chief Minister of the Southern Provincial Government. In his speech, the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources recognised the importance of mangrove ecosystems (in terms of livelihoods and natural barriers) in Sri Lanka and the urgent need to protect and rehabilitate mangrove habitats. 10.4.3â•‡ Flexible and experimental approaches Some of the stakeholders who were actively engaged with the conservation and restoration of coastal ecosystems in Sri Lanka alluded to the fact that they were learning by doing and said that, based on these lessons, they either had changed or would change the manner in which they conducted any future work. Stakeholders spoke about the process of learning from the experience of implementing coastal initiatives as well as learning by attending the mangrove restoration workshop (that is, through knowledge transfer). Lessons related to: •

• •

ecological informationÂ€– the correct depth and density for planting species and the correct time to plant species (for example, not at the end of the dry season) technical capacityÂ€– the need to improve monitoring social understandingÂ€ – the need for active community participation, community mobilisation, community involvement and community ownership.

Both informal and formal institutional changes occurred in Sri Lanka. After the tsunami, there was an increase in awareness and a shift of attitudes at the local and national level about the role of coastal ecosystems as natural barriers, which led to changes in behaviour, including an increase in mangrove restoration projects and, according to anecdotal evidence, a reduction in coral mining (Ashlin 2009). In terms of formal changes to coastal policy, immediately after the tsunami, the Sri Lankan government introduced buffer zones (strict no-construction conservation zones of 100 m in the south and 200 m in the east). When the buffer zones proved unpopular, the limits for construction in coastal areas reverted to pre-tsunami levels in accordance with those listed in the Revised Coastal Zone Management Plan of 1997. Despite the about-turn in coastal policy, the CCD, which traditionally focused its efforts on the use of hard structures for the prevention of coastal erosion, shifted its stance towards the inclusion of

Adaptive governance: the 2004 tsunami in Sri Lanka

soft structures (that is, coastal vegetation) for coastal protection. This change at state level was accompanied by publication of technical and best-practice guidelines for the establishment of a coastal green belt (IUCN and CCD 2007a, 2007b). 10. 5 â•‡

conclusions

Given that good governance is central to the successful management and stewardship of the environment, as well as a critical aspect of effective disaster management, it is important to review the approaches used by donors, facilitators and implementers to govern natural resources after the tsunami. Following a sudden shock, adaptive governance may be an appropriate response for effectively managing social–ecological systems and developing governance structures with the resilience to cope with, and adapt to, unexpected change (Carpenter et al. 2009). The impact of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami on the governance of coastal environmental initiatives has been described in this chapter. Elements of adaptation in the governance of post-tsunami coastal ecosystems have been expressed as (1) stakeholders collaborating and cooperating in cross-scale networks, as demonstrated by the Green Coast and Mangrove for the Future initiatives, (2) stakeholders sharing information and learning from one another at workshops and conferences, and (3) evidence of learning by doing and adaptation, as demonstrated in formal and informal institutional changes. However, the lack of a central mechanism for coordinating posttsunami coastal environmental initiatives, combined with the limited bottom-up learning within the donor/facilitator/implementer pathways, restricted the extent of reflexive feedback and social networking. Additionally, with a rise in the number and diversity of donor/ facilitator/implementer pathways and coastal ecosystem restoration activity there was a risk that the structure of coastal ecosystem governance in Sri Lanka might have become weaker after the tsunami, due to the fragmentation of responsibilities and overlaps between different organisations. However, the creation of the Sri Lankan Mangrove Restoration Network, which resulted from the ecological mangrove restoration workshops, may be able to address some of these shortfalls as well as increase the capacity for social capital and social memory. With this in mind, one recommendation for increasing the adaptive capacity of coastal ecosystem governance in Sri Lanka is for the Coast Conservation Department, the IUCN or one of the

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Â� long-established Sri Lankan NGOs to consider incorporating the position of network manager. This will ensure that, when the bubble of activity following the tsunami bursts, the knowledge of the status of ecosystem restoration and rehabilitation is not lost but managed and shared effectively. To knit the organisations and individuals within the Sri Lankan Mangrove Restoration Network closely together, a common platform should be created that enables the stakeholders to capture, manage and share the knowledge generated in the area of coastal ecosystem conservation, restoration and rehabilitation in Sri Lanka. Tools to connect stakeholders and to encourage knowledge transfer include physical interaction (for example, conferences and workshops), and the documentation of experiences and the sharing of information on easily accessible information communications and technology (ICT) platforms (for example, SMS text messaging, email, Twitter, social networking websites, weblogs, wikis, video blogs and online datasets). The network manager should be mindful that effective knowledge management is not just about capturing best practice and experiences and storing information in databases; it is, more importantly, about getting the right knowledge into the right place at the right time (Mohanty et al. 2004). Large amounts of and/or contradictory information and guidance can be overwhelming and paralysing, so it is important that information shared by the Mangrove Restoration Network is a trusted source of reliable information which donors, facilitators and implementers can all access. Having a long-term region-wide initiative such as MFF will be a key benefit if it is able to provide a coordinated strategy for national and regional ecosystem conservation and rehabilitation. To do this, MFF must learn the lessons of the tsunami and provide an element of reflexivity. It must also maintain and strengthen the links it created at its inception, when leaders of MFF consulted widely with international, national and local stakeholders. In achieving this, MFF has the potential to be a sophisticated advocacy network with a ‘joined-up’, multiscale approach to governing and protecting coastal ecosystems across the Indian Ocean region. Given the high-profile support for MFF, it should last longer than many one-off, short-term, post-tsunami ecosystem restoration projects, which have already dwindled in number as post-tsunami funding runs dry. Finally, although it may be instinctive to repair or restore something that has been damaged, ecosystem restoration initiatives have to be considered with a degree of caution. If people have to be resettled further inland to create or restore coastal ecosystems, such projects

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may do more harm than goodÂ€– potentially resulting in tension, conflicts and negative consequences on lives and livelihoods, both for the relocated and for their ‘host’ communities. Moreover, planting the wrong species in the wrong places, only planting one species (thereby creating a monoculture) or removing a local community’s right to access coastal ecosystems because they need to be protected can be detrimental. It has been argued that allowing natural recovery of damaged coastal ecosystems, investing in environmentally sustainable management and development of the coast, may be more Â�cost-effective than restoring damaged ecosystems after a catastrophe.

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Adaptive governance: the 2004 tsunami in Sri Lanka IUCN and CCD. 2007a. Best Practice Guidelines for the Establishment of a Coastal Greenbelt. Colombo: IUCN Sri Lanka Country Office. IUCN and CCD. 2007b. Technical Guidelines for the Establishment of a Coastal Greenbelt. Colombo: IUCN Sri Lanka Country Office. IUCN and UNDP. 2007. Briefing Note: Development of Mangroves for the Future. Colombo: IUCN Sri Lanka Country Office. Jayasuriya, S., Steele, P., and Weerakoon, D. 2006. Post-Tsunami Recovery: Issues and Challenges in Sri Lanka. Tokyo: Institute of Policy Studies of Sri Lanka, Asian Development Bank Institute. Kathiresan, K., and Rajendran, N. 2006. Reply to Comments of Kerr et al. on ‘Coastal mangrove forests mitigated tsunami’. Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science, 67, 542. Kerr, A. M., Baird, A. H., and Campbell, S. J. 2006. comments on ‘Coastal mangrove forests mitigated tsunami’ by K. Kathiresan and N. Rajendran (Estuar. Coast. Shelf Sci. 65 (2005) 601–606). Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science, 67, 539–541. Kurita, T., Nakamura, A., Kodama, M., and Colobage, S. R. N. 2006. Tsunami public awareness and the disaster management system of Sri Lanka. Disaster Prevention and Management, 15, 92–110. Landstrom, I. 2006. Towards Collaborative Coastal Management in Sri Lanka? A Study of Special Area Management Planning in Sri Lanka’s Coastal Region. Uppsala: Department of Social and Economic Geography, Uppsala University. Lay, T., Kanamori, H., Ammon, C. J., et al. 2005. The great Sumatra–Andaman earthquake of 26 December 2004. Science, 308, 1127–1132. Leach, M., Bloom, A. D., Ely, A., et al. 2007. Understanding governance: pathways to sustainability. STEPS Working Paper 2. Brighton: STEPS Centre. Lindemayer, D. B., and Tambiah, C. R. 2005. 2004 tsunami cleanup. Conservation Biology, 19, 991. Lowry, K. 2003. The evolution of coastal management in Sri Lanka. In Olsen, S., ed., Crafting Coastal Governance in a Changing World. Narragansett, RI: University of Rhode Island Coastal Resources Center, pp. 117–146. Lowry, K., Pallewatte, N., and Dainis, A. P. 1999. Policy-relevant assessment of community-level coastal management projects in Sri Lanka. Ocean and Coastal Management, 42, 717–745. Mangrove Action Project. 2007. Ecological Mangrove Restoration Workshop Series. Proceedings Report. Port Angeles, WA: Mangrove Action Project. Marris, E. 2005. Tsunami damage was enhanced by coral theft. Nature, 436, 1071. Mascarenhas, A., and Jayakumar, S. 2008. An environmental perspective of the post-tsunami scenario along the coast of Tamil Nadu, India: role of sand dunes and forests. Journal of Environmental Management, 89, 24–34. MFF. 2008. Mangroves For the Future. www.mangrovesforthefuture.org (accessed November 2008). Miller, F., Thomalla, F., Dowling, T., and Chadwick, D. 2006. Resilient ecosystems healthy communities: human health and sustainable ecosystems after the December 2004 tsunami. Oceanography, 19, 50–51. Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources. 2003. Caring for the Environment 2003–2007: Path to Sustainable Development. Colombo: MENR. Mohanty, S., Panda, B., Karelia, H., and Issar, R. 2004. Knowledge Management in Disaster Risk Reduction: The Indian Approach. New Delhi: Ministry of Home Affairs. Olsen, S., Sadacharan, D., Samarakoon, J. I., et al. 1992. Coastal 2000: Recommendations for a Resource Management Strategy for Sri Lanka’s Coastal Region, Volumes I and II. CRC Technical Report 2033. Coast Conservation

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Alison Ashlin Department, Coastal Resources Management Project, Sri Lanka, and Coastal Resources Center, University of Rhode Island. Pauly, D. 2005. Rebuilding fisheries will add to Asia’s problems. Nature, 433, 457. Pearson, H. 2005. Scientists seek action to fix Asia’s ravaged ecosystems. Nature, 433, 94. Pomeroy, R. S., Ratner, B. D., Hall, S. J., Pimoljinda, J., and Vivekanandan, V. 2006. Coping with disaster: rehabilitating coastal livelihoods and communities. Marine Policy, 30, 786–793. Rajasuriya, A. 2005. The status of coral reefs in Sri Lanka in the aftermath of the 1998 coral bleaching event and the 2004 tsunami. In Souter, D., and Linden, O., eds., Coral Reef Degradation in the Indian Ocean: Status Report 2005. Kalmar: University of Kalmar Press, pp. 83–96. Ramachandran, S., Anitha, S., Balamurugan, V., et al. 2005. Ecological impact of tsunami on the Nicobar Islands (Canorta, Karchal, Nancowry and Trinkat). Current Science, 89, 195–200. Rodriguez, H., and Wachtendorf, T. 2006. A snapshot of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami: societal impacts and consequences. Disaster Prevention and Management, 15, 163–177. SACEP. 2008. South Asia Co-operative Environment Programme: Chronology of Major Events leading to Environment Protection & Sustainable Development, During the Last Two Decades. Samaratunge, R., Coghill, K., and Herath, H. M. A. 2008. Tsunami engulfs Sri Lankan governance. International Review of Administrative Services, 74, 677–702. Sharma, D. C. 2005. Tsunami damages Indian islands’ ecology. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 3, 69. Small Fishers Federation. 1996. Mangrove Eco-Systems in Sri Lanka: Flora, Fauna, and their Socio-Economic Significance. Prepared by Dr Mala D. Amarasinghe. National Aquatic Resources Research & Development Agency, July 1996. Pambala: SFF Mangrove Information Centre. Sonak, S., Pangam, P., and Giriyan, A. 2008. Green reconstruction of the tsunami-affected areas in India using the integrated coastal zone management concept. Journal of Environmental Management, 89, 14–23. Srinivas, H., and Nakagawa, Y. 2008. Environmental implications for disaster preparedness: lessons learnt from the Indian Ocean tsunami. Journal of Environmental Management, 89, 4–13. Susman, P., O’Keefe, P., and Wiser, B. 1983. Disasters: a radical interpretation. In Hewitt, K., ed., Interpretations of Calamity. Winchester, MA: Allen & Unwin, pp. 263–283. TAFREN. 2005. Task Force for Rebuilding the Nation. www.tafren.gov.lk (accessed November 2005). Tamelander, J., and Rajasuriya, A. 2008. The status of coral reefs in South Asia: Bangladesh, Chagos, India, Maldives and Sri Lanka. In Wilkinson, C., ed., Status of Coral Reefs of the World. Townsville: Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network and Reef and Rainforest Research Center. UNEP. 2005. After the Tsunami: Rapid Environmental Assessment. Geneva: United Nations Environment Programme Asian Tsunami Disaster Task Force. UNEP. 2007. After the Tsunami: Coastal Ecosystem Restoration. Lessons Learnt. Geneva: United Nations Environment Programme Asian Tsunami Disaster Task Force. UNEP and Stockholm Resilience Centre. 2008. Ecosystems and Disaster Risk Reduction: Working Paper in Contribution to the Global Assessment Report.

Adaptive governance: the 2004 tsunami in Sri Lanka UNEP, NORAD, SACEP, and Government of Sri Lanka. 2001. State of the Environment: Sri Lanka 2001. Bangkok: United Nations Environment Programme, Regional Resource Centre for Asia and the Pacific (UNEP-RRC.AP). UNEP-WCMC. 2006. In the Front Line: Shoreline Protection and Other Ecosystem Services From Mangroves and Coral Reefs. Cambridge: UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre. Vidanaarachchi, C., Yuem, S., and Pilapitiya, S. 2006. Municipal solid waste management in the Southern Province of Sri Lanka. Waste Management, 26, 920–930. Weerakkody, P. 2006. Reef Help Guide: An Introduction to Assisted Restoration of Degraded Coral Environments in Sri Lanka. Colombo: Nature Conservation Group (NATCOG). Wijetunge, J. J. 2009. Field measurements and numerical simulations of the 2004 tsunami impact on the east coast of Sri Lanka. Pure and Applied Geophysics, 166, 593–622. World Bank. 2004. Implementation completion report on a credit in the amount for SDR 10.7 million (US$14.8milion) to the government of Sri Lanka for the environmental action 1 project. WWF. 2005. Tsunami disaster: WWF update one month on. www.panda. org/about_wwf/where_we_work/asia_pacific/where/india/news/index. cfm?uNewsID=18110 (accessed November 2005).

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11 Adapting to global climate change: evaluating resilience in two networked public institutions emily boyd

11. 1 â•‡

introduction

From a sociopolitical perspective, a crisis results from a breakdown in collective sense-making or role structure, or from the failure of followers’ belief in leadership and cultural norms (Habermas 1975, Turner 1976, O’Connor 1987, Weick 1993, Wang 2008). While climate change exhibits many of these factors, it will also entail a host of biophysical changes, such as droughts, floods and extreme events. A combination of social and biophysical understandings is therefore pertinent to the analysis of institutional responses to climate-change risks. Institutions are broadly defined in this chapter as the ‘rules of the game’ that emerge from formal and informal norms, practices and organisational structures. Some institutions with a role and function in delivering aid or cultivating relations with governments in the global South are beginning to think about how to integrate information on climate change into their projects, programmes and strategies. These institutions are increasingly confronted with managing difficult climate-related decisions under conditions of imperfect and uncertain information. In this context, this chapter aims to address unanswered questions such as how institutions are adapting in practice, whether they are adapting successfully and whether they are adapting beyond business-as-usual. Public institutions have an important role in leading action on adaptation policy, but they also face potentially difficult challenges

Adapting Institutions: Governance, Complexity and Social–Ecological Resilience, ed. Emily Boyd and Carl Folke. Published by Cambridge University Press. © Cambridge University Press 2012.

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in ensuring feedback within their networked systems (Davies 2004, 2005). This chapter builds on a study by Boyd and Osbahr (2010), which compared the features of adaptive capacity and social learning in four UK-based development organisations. This chapter focuses instead on how two networked public institutions are adapting to climate change, examining through a resilience lens whether these institutions are adapting beyond business-as-usual and how resilient their responses to climate change are. The chapter looks at two government departments, the Department for International Development (DFID) and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), as these traditionally play a central role in delivering development aid and security to public and civil society actors and communities in the global South. The UK has a history of international development that is linked closely to its colonial heritage (Harriss 2005). The representation of development as a Western philanthropy has evolved over time, yet remains part of the vision and mandate of many UK institutions that are engaged in and provide the delivery of financial resources, capacity and support for development assistance (Kothari 2005). These institutions are networked across hundreds of country offices across the globe. They are distinct in size, structure, history, ideology and culture, yet also have a common mandate to address climate-change risks, security and poverty and to enhance resilient development. In this chapter, I focus only on the experts at the strategic level, as this is where the responsibility for decisions about design, funding and institutional policy in particular lies. Section 11.2 lays out the concepts and definitions from the literature on resilience, institutions and evaluating adaptations. Section 11.3 presents the case-study descriptions and analysis of findings. Section 11.4 discusses the findings within the context of the wider literature. The chapter closes with a synthesis of key conclusions.

11. 2 â•‡e v a l u a t i n g

adaptations in practice: added

value of a resilience perspective

11.2.1â•‡ Existing frameworks and their limitations Adaptation is defined as adjustments in natural or human systems in response to actual or expected climatic stimuli or their effects, which moderate, harm or exploit beneficial opportunities (IPCC 2001). Designing adaptation strategies includes ‘changes in processes, practices and structures to moderate potential damages or to benefit from

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opportunities associated with climate change, as well as adjustments to reduce the vulnerability of communities, regions or activities to climate change and variability’. (IPCC 2001:881). A number of frameworks for assessing adaptation and adaptive capacity exist. For example, the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) has developed a framework that aims to monitor how well the United Kingdom is doing in terms of adaptation. It is based on the IPCC’s concepts and guiding principles of ‘good adaptation’Â€– that is, principles of sustainable development, proportionate and integrated, collaborative and open, effective, efficient and equitable (DEFRA 2010). The framework is a meta-level evaluation of policy processes and outcomes and in essence provides policy-makers with the principles for assessing the bigger questions of how to achieve ‘no-regret’ options in decision-making and how to spend resources under severe environmental constraints. The limitation of the framework is that it is largely based on rational economic principles and does not offer guidance on how to account for feedbacks in decision-making processes or how spontaneous institutional adaptations occur. An alternative model is the DPSIR framework, used by the European Environment Agency. This is an integrated approach for reporting on adaptation and stands for Driving forces (economic sectors, human activities) through Pressures (emissions, waste) to States (physical, chemical and biological) and Impacts (on ecosystems, human health and functions), leading to political Responses (prioritisation, target setting and indicators). It is a useful tool for assessing sectoral, regional or national level adaptation through systematic mapping; nonetheless, the framework has been criticised for allowing interest-based biases, such as conservative biodiversity priorities, and obscuring multiple stakeholder and civil society perspectives and definitions in the framework (Svarstad et al. 2008). The Institute for Development Studies (IDS) has developed a framework for measuring climate-change adaptation interventions (CCAI) (McKenzie Hedger et al. 2008). The framework offers a way to think about how to add value to development through adaptation interventions. It highlights the importance of scale, as well as temporal dimensions, in assessing adaptations at household, project, programme, national and international levels. The framework is based on principles of sustainability, flexibility, efficacy, efficiency and equity.1 The IDS framework incorporates efficacy (reaching objectives), efficiency (meas-

1

uring costs of outcomes), equity (impacts on welfare), sustainable development (integration) and flexibility.

Adapting to global climate change in two public institutions

McKenzie Hedger et al. (2008) suggest that to be able to evaluate interventions there is a need for universal agreement on what constitutes ‘successful’ adaptation. This might prove difficult, given the contextspecific nature of adaptations. TearFund offers an alternative assessment tool, Mainstreaming Disaster Risk Reduction: a Tool for Development Organisations (La Trobe and Davis 2005). This is an organisational selfevaluation tool that focuses on indicators of change such as policy, strategy, geographical planning, project cycle management, external relations and institutional capacity. This framework offers easy entry points to evaluate institutional development in ways that fit with risk assessment, and it would be particularly useful in conducting an audit of progress in development institutions. While this list of frameworks is not exhaustive, it provides examples of ways to think about the feedback between resource allocation and adaptation processes or outcomes. However, none of these frameworks offers ways to think about the nature of adaptations as part of flexible decision-making in institutions, the importance of buffering and preparing for uncertainty and shocks or how to factor in feedbacks and stock-taking in institutions. There are very few examples available to guide us on what is a flexible institution and what is a good adaptation in an institution. One possible example is the Thames Estuary 2100 project, in which the Environment Agency in the United Kingdom has taken into account DEFRA’s adaptation framework in the design of adaptations for new flood management infrastructures (Environment Agency 2011). Nevertheless, the focus of this example is on the appraisal of the adaptation intervention rather than on the evaluation of adaptation processes or outcomes.

11.2.2â•‡Adding a resilience perspective to evaluating adapting institutions Why are institutions important, and why is it important to evaluate adaptations in institutions?2 On 26 July 2005, the city of Mumbai experienced severe flooding covering up to 100 km2, which resulted

Organisations are collectives that direct, maintain and negotiate the rules of insti-

2

tutions (Boyd and Osbahr 2010; cf. Pelling et al. 2008). Institutions are defined as ‘the prescriptions that humans use to organise all forms of repetitive and structural interactions’ (Ostrom 2005, p.1).

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in the deaths of up to 1000 people, significant damage to property and the displacement of thousands of vulnerable people living in the lowlying areas of the city. In 24 hours, the city received approximately 95 cm of rainfall; a once-in-a-hundred-years event, which caught the city ‘unaware’ (Revi 2005). While local humanitarian organisations, families and individual slum-dwellers largely acted collectively in response to the crisis, the official institutional response was far less effective, despite the existence of city disaster risk reduction management plans. Many institutions for flood management exist in Mumbai, but none of these authorities were prepared for the 2005 floods, and many competing departments, with little synergy, failed to deliver assistance. Information was also lacking on early warning. In the weeks following the flooding, these acute failings were highlighted by the launch of the Concerned Citizen’s Commission events by non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and civil society, which subsequently led to some institutional adaptations in the public sector, such as new infrastructure, projects and planning processes, although more needs to be done (Boyd and Boykoff 2010). This is a prime example of how public institutions have to rethink, adapt to public pressures regarding the environment and adopt new strategies for managing uncertainty and risk. This case is also relevant to those public institutions, organisations and government departments that are increasingly required to respond to complex global-change problems, such as climate-change risk. Resilience is relevant, because institutions can no longer be thought of as isolated from the wider social–ecological context within which they operate. According to Folke (2006) a resilient social–ecological system (SES) does not bounce back to what it once was, but persists in developing in the current development trajectory (or trajectories). Folke (2006) outlines efforts to apply resilience notions to social systems, governance and learning in the context of natural-resources management. A system does this through self-organising, buffering and building adaptive capacity through feedback. The added value of a resilience perspective helps us to think about how to go beyond existing standards and frameworks to prepare for uncertain futures and surprises. In particular, environmental systems such as the climate are complex in terms of time lag and thresholds and how these features can be incorporated into social planning and operational systems to build institutional resilience.

Adapting to global climate change in two public institutions

Table 11.1â•‡ Features of ecological, social–ecological and institutional resilience

Ecological resilience features (managing responses in ecological systems) Self-organising

Buffering

Feedbacks

Social–ecological resilience features (managing responses in social–ecological systems) Self-organising: scaling up relations through small pockets of social–ecological nodes, linking ecological knowledge and sociology Leadership capacity, managing integrated wetlands, conservation and development Monitoring, taking stock, inventories, learning

Institutional resilience features (managing responses in social systems) Networks: informal spaces where decisions are made based on tacit knowledge, experience and chance

Leadership capacity within an institution, navigating, planning and backup, vision and strategy for unknowns, setting objectives Mechanisms for feedback of information and experiences, evaluation of objectives and capturing learning

As discussed in Chapter 1, resilience thinking offers an opportunity to reflect on how flexibility plays out in institutions and how this relates to decision-making and building capacity to protect, prepare and capture learning. I hypothesise that it is helpful to translate three key features of resilience (self-organising, buffering and feedbacks) into principles for institutional resilience (Table 11.1). In an effort to enhance existing frameworks, this chapter hopes to provide important insights into ways that institutions are responding to climate change and whether leaders of public institutions are thinking beyond business-as-usual to transformative adaptations. Moreover, efforts to enhance existing frameworks might also offer insights into the processes that build adaptive capacity and lead to good adaptation decisions.

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11.2.3â•‡Linking institutional features to decision-making and adaptation Features of institutional resilience can be summarised thus. First, both informal and formal networks are spaces where institutional development, learning and decision-making occur (Shaw 1997). Second, preparing and providing direction in an institution or organisation requires buffering in the form of leadership, vision and strategies (Olsson et al. 2006). Third, the link between networks and leadership requires feedback loops between institutional actors, knowledge and levels in the form of monitoring and learning. The three resilience features examined in this chapter are: (1) (2) (3)

self-organising through informal and formal networks buffering through leadership and preparing for unknowns feedback by monitoring and taking stock.

11. 3 â•‡

case studies: descriptions and findings

The chapter presents research conducted between June 2008 and November 2009. The main data collection was conducted through a set of informal conversations and formal semi-structured interviews with key informants in institutions working at the forefront of international relations and overseas development assistance. Interviews were carried out with gatekeepers across the DFID and the FCO and key informant semi-structured interviews were conducted in the respective climate-change/environment programmes. All interviews were conducted in confidence, and the names of interviewees are withheld by mutual agreement. The case studies were cross-checked for factual errors. Analysis of the in-depth interviews drew on ethnographic methods involving familiarisation with the research material through iterative processing of the key informant interviews and subsequent sense-making of the data through submersion, and follow-up checks with the key informants (Kvale 1996). The findings are summarised in Table 11.2. 11.3.1â•‡Department for International Development (DFID) The Department for International Development (DFID) has existed in its current form since 1997. It is the UK government department

Buffering

Self-organising and scaling-up relationships

Resilience features

Policy aims

Mechanisms of continuity and reflexivity

Informal networks

Vision/goal

Tools and mechanisms for building networks

Formal networks

Resilience criteria

Resilience indicators Outposted 12 senior climate champions, staff to tackle responses to climate change Shadow networks, informal conversations with field officers Reduce risk and enhance opportunities from low carbon growth

Department for International Development (DFID)

Shadow networks, leadership of individuals, filtering between London and outposting Reduce risk and enhance opportunities from low carbon growth, stability and security of nations

Campaigns, annual review, weblog (e.g. Secretary of State and Foreign Affairs)

Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO)

Working to new ideas of development, new ways of framing climate change

Leaders’ important role linking to informal networks

Information-oriented workshops, meetings and websites

Comments: opportunities and constraints

Table 11.2â•‡ Syntheses of potential resilience criteria and indicators for evaluating adapting institutions, based on the case-study findings

Feedbacks

Resilience features

Table 11.2 (cont.)

Sources of information and mechanisms of informationsharing

Availability of tools and mechanisms

Scale and operational capacity

Institutional infrastructure

Tools and mechanisms for learning (about climate-change uncertainty) Mechanisms of continuity and reflexivity, sources of information

Presence of and quality of leadership

Leadership

Resilience criteria

Resilience indicators

IPCC, some feedback from country offices, ad hoc

Key leadership across programmes, new personnel Government department, large operation, working in over 100 developing countries, 40 climate-change staff New learning tools and modules for climate change

Department for International Development (DFID)

Old forms of learning through informationsharing in in-house climate units, linking to security campaigns IPCC, Stern Review, embassies, local offices

Government department, mega-operation network of 260 international postings, 30 climatechange staff

Key leadership personality and proactive individuals

Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO)

Use of scientific information, communication channels through outposted staff, ad hoc/ filtering

FCO use of networks for learning. DFID testing new organisational mechanisms

Proactive engagement between headquarters and field, building capacity across DFID, challenge of scale of operation Human capacity is a constraint. In DFID logistical frameworks unable to factor in surprise (due to costs and linearity of administrative reporting). Low budget to FCO by past administration

Comments: opportunities and constraints

Adapting to global climate change in two public institutions

that administers international development aid and is headed by a Secretary of State for International Development, with cabinet rank, assisted by a Permanent Secretary of State and advised by non-executive directors. DFID is structured into specialist divisions, strategies and programmes, units and departments and works in more than 100 countries worldwide across a variety of cross-cutting social-development and environmental sectors that include agriculture, forests, water and sanitation, health and disaster risk reduction. (1)â•‡ Self-organising: DFID reshaping itself for climate change DFID began to engage seriously with climate change in 2007, the year after the publication of its White Paper (DFID 2006). Engagement on climate change has gradually shifted within DFID, in part reflected in the subsequent DFID White Paper Eliminating World Poverty: Building Our Common Future, published in 2009. For example, in this document, ‘climate change’ is mentioned more than 100 times and ‘resilience’ 10 times. DFID has established a climate and development knowledge network (CDKN) managed by the Overseas Development Institute and PricewaterhouseCoopers, consisting of Southern and Northern research institutions to provide policy advice and knowledge and to help developing countries decide how best to adapt and what measures are best suited to build resilience to climate change (DFID 2009). The DFID climate and environment team comprises some 40 staff, including the adaptation team of 6–7 people, as well as the low-carbon and water research frameworks, the financing teams and strategy units. DFID is increasingly focusing on how it can reshape itself and integrate its climate-change activities and information across its programmes. In 2008, DFID created regional divisional ‘climate-change champions’. These champions constitute a senior and diverse group of DFID staff who have influence with the business sector, arising from their position. The climate champions dedicate some of their time to reflecting on climate-related policy and learning, raising the profile of the issue throughout the institutions, sharing best practice and acting as ‘challengers’, that is, as a sounding board. The group aims to meet every 3–6 months. The climate advisors are based in country and are important sources of information for DFID’s learning. The numbers of climate-change advisors increased in certain countries in 2009: for example in China, Nepal, Indonesia, Brazil, Tanzania and Kenya. DFID has ‘top ten’ priority deliverables, which are linked to the UK ministry and the climate champion meetings.

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In less than a year, DFID went from having no formal climatechange network (in which advisors and champions can network and share lessons), to a position at the end of November 2009 in which it was considering how to address this formally, in response to a need and demand to share learning across the office. For example, it was thinking about creating an internal learning hub. DFID was unable to formalise its networks and outputs at the expense of losing its existing shadow networks of informal learning, through one-to-one communication by email and information exchange between those in headquarters and the field. However, many staff in the field did not have time to carry out their ‘reflective learning’ communication, because of a high workload (cf. Boyd and Osbahr 2010). (2)â•‡ Buffering: building preparedness and leadership in DFID Making DFID ‘climate smart’ involves preparing and building knowledge on climate risk and assessment of ‘real’ risk exposure. Resilience is more broadly interpreted in terms of how sensitive national economies are to climate change and to eliminating poverty; adaptive capacity is measured through vulnerability to climate change. DFID’s other core activities focus on low-carbon growth and adaptation. One interviewee comments that ‘to convince people that the science is uncertain and to tone down the message from the press and more accessible scientific journals remains a challenge. A lot of “facts” are still hypothetical and do not yet warrant intervention … there are huge chunks of our portfolio that are not at risk of climate change; many of the countries we work in are unlikely to suffer significant impacts between now and 2050. It is difficult to convey the message of variability as there is actually a very wide range of possible futures for many parts of the world where we work’ (YB, personal communication, February 2009). This suggests that DFID has had a focus on evaluating climate risks and on taking action on the risks that they can define, and this raises the question of how prepared they are for a potential tipping point, which by definition is hard to identify. In 2009, DFID shifted its thinking on climate change, starting to think in terms of ‘opportunity’ for resilient low-carbon growth and looking at climate change from a more strategic perspective. A key informant at DFID considers that there are opportunities in opening up new markets in low-carbon and innovation technologies. The general discourse on what this means for adaptation is under discussion;

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DFID is engaging in defining what resilience means for communities and what it means for their institution. As an example, DFID has employed a staff member to examine ongoing adaptation discussions about what climate-resilient development could look like for programmes and approaches. This member of staff notes that research forms an important part of how DFID learns, how it gathers evidence and how it raises awareness and changes thinking and behaviour on climate change. DFID realises that the dynamic nature of climate change is problematic. As one staff member notes, ‘this arena is a very dynamic area, changing fast, and our processes of learning and raising awareness around the issues also need to respond quickly’. She highlights the promotion of lunch-time seminars (many open to other government departments and NGOs) and talks in all the DFID offices that expose staff to new and emerging issues, for example energy, growth, climate science, food security and climate change. In terms of learning, she notes that ‘increasingly, we are using an action learning approach and reflection on tasks; we use facilitated dialogues as a way of raising awareness of climate change impacts, for example, through the Health Dialogue in India. We are actively engaged with the World Bank and Multilateral Development Banks on learning from processes such as the Pilot Project on Climate Resilience’ (JC, personal communication, November 2009). A key informant points out that ‘climate change discourse does not just stop with the climate change and environment advisers; the livelihoods advisers are very active on issues such as agriculture and health. Health advisers are also actively engaged in exploring what climate change means for their work. Other strands of work include collaboration with Institute of Development Studies looking at social protection and climate change. Water is a key sector, as is disaster risk reduction and the conflict and humanitarian sector and there is increasing engagement across all sectors.’ She concludes that ‘this is very fast moving, and virtual learning and policy groups are emerging, for example the agriculture and climate change virtual group’ (JC, personal communication, November 2009). (3)â•‡Feedback: monitoring and ad-hoc learning on climate change in DFID There is no formal structure for information-sharing, other than a more dispersed communication with spotlighted articles and emails

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from the headquarters in London. Key climate information sheets have been prepared and distributed to staff via the DFID intranet. The climate and environment team has developed training workshops for DFID staff, with key outputs and presentations made available on the intranet. The focus of the training is on the science, carbon models, adaptation, and vulnerability and risk assessment. There is a growing demand in London and among outposted staff on how to understand climate resilience and how to factor in assessment. For example, South Asia has looked at this in some detail: ‘There is a demand from countries for more of a narrative around low-carbon resilience and what that could look like’ (EB, personal communication, November 2009). In the absence of clarity on what climate resilience means, DFID is drawing on the example of the Disaster Risk Community. Broader e-learning modules for staff have been discussed, based on a model developed by the World Bank (in cooperation with the Swedish International Development Agency). These modules include the economics and finance of climate change, adaptation and transition to low-carbon economies. These modules will be made available to a core group in DFID as a pilot study and will be updated following an appraisal workshop. Within DFID itself, there are many challenges of scale. One is the multiple learning needs across the institution. The head office has decided to protect staff from the heavy burden of ‘getting climate information into the mainstream’. It is felt necessary to not confuse the core message of ‘Making it Happen’ with ad-hoc climate network outputs. The climate team is working on a climate-change implementation plan, an internal working document they hope will help to guide management. This document contains a useful annexe on what to do on climate change. The process of developing indicators for climate change for monitoring and evaluation is informally linked to existing systems and annual review processes. There is more work to be done on developing this system. Another challenge is that although the capacity of the climate and environment group has increased, it appears that rapid staff turnover is a problem: ‘as soon as people know about climate change they are in demand elsewhere, in some ways HQ is the perfect training ground and then people move on’ (KB, personal communication, February 2009). The core staff within the climate and environment team also feel that learning would be more effective if staff were given a specific climate-related task to focus on.

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11.3.2â•‡ Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) was established under the first Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, appointed in 1782. Among other things, the FCO is responsible for the security of British nationals overseas through a network of 260 embassies, high commissions and diplomatic positions abroad. The FCO also sets policy goals for threats to the UK, such as counter-terrorism. The institutional structure of the FCO falls under the Secretary of State and various ministers. It is governed by an eight-member board, under the directorate chairmanship of the Permanent Under-Secretary of State, responsible for a network of 233 international postings. The FCO notes in its 2008 Departmental Report Better World, Better Britain that its ‘network is essential for its knowledge, listening and engagement skills’ (FCO 2008). The FCO administers its networks through its London-based geographical directorates and units. (1) Self-organising: influencing climate-change decisions The FCO is networked into a wide range of contacts, including DFID, DEFRA, the Department for Energy and Climate, the United Nations Framework on Climate Change, the International Energy Agency, the Stern Group and so on. Examples of its campaigns, projects and programmes include activities on climate security, low-carbon prosperity, equity, coal and the EU–China economic relationship. One successful example is the FCO’s work with China to help its government think about how they could set up low-carbon pilot zones. The FCO has a suite of campaigns on climate change, including those on security, prosperity and equity: for example, one narrative campaign concerns the redefinition of the climate-change issue, with the objective of ‘waking up’ new constituencies that previously were not aware of the climate challenges to security. According to the Special Representative, these kinds of activities have animated the actions of hundreds of individuals both in London and across their international network: ‘This is not only influencing the approach that other governments are taking to Copenhagen negotiations but also helping to re-frame the core political debate about climate change and to catalyse the formation of the new coalitions that will be necessary to drive a rapid transition to a low-carbon economy. The machinery we have created is the best example I know of

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in government anywhere of adaptive network behaviour. We have worked hard to instil political empathy as a key value, since what we say to others will only make an impression if it is framed in a way that makes sense in terms of their politics as well as ours’ (Special Representative, personal communication, 2009). (2) Buffering: building preparedness to climate change The FCO’s climate-change work underwent a sea change in 2006, under the overarching theme of building high-growth, low-carbon global economies. Margaret Beckett, then Foreign Secretary, made climate change a priority for the FCO. John Ashton, the first FCO Special Representative on Climate Change, was appointed in 2006 and the Foreign Secretary led the initiative to put the argument for consideration of climate change as a security issue at the UN Security Council. The FCO also has a Climate Security Envoy for Vulnerable Countries. A later Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, also helped to secure climate change as a political issue, sharing the belief that climate change was a core foreignpolicy issue. Through its understandings of political, cultural and social circumstances, the FCO is uniquely placed internationally, and through its extensive network of diplomats it plays a central role in helping the UK to influence the international agenda (Collin Challen, Chairman of the Subcommittee of the Environmental Audit Committee: EAC 2007). Before 2006, the FCO had a supporting role on climate change, behind DEFRA. Beckett changed that dynamic, by making climate change more than just an environmental issue. She raised it to a foreign-policy issue that fitted with the FCO’s mandate to secure external conditions for a safe world. In parallel with the UNFCCC climate negotiations, through its diplomatic networks and political coalitions the FCO mobilises to ensure that the ‘right political conditions’ exist for a shift to a low-carbon economy in order to stabilise the climate, judging a stable climate to be a prerequisite for prosperity and security. The FCO has recognised that, to enable an adequate response, climate change has to be seen as a prosperity and security issue. The FCO is examining how climate change will affect its operations and will be considering its climate response. It has been making the case for some time that climate change will affect foreign-policy goals. (3) Feedback: various forms of stocktaking in the FCO The Special Representative on Climate Change is an interesting hybrid figure: an expert on the issues and also a strategic player. This is partly

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what has helped to push things forward in the FCO. A small unit of four staff supports the Special Representative. There is also a Climate Change and Energy group in the FCO, of about 30 staff, which works very closely with the Special Representative’s unit. The FCO formulates strategy in its geographical directorates; its strategy on climate security varies from region to region. The Climate Change and Energy group works with different geographical directors on issues that have special geographical implications for their regions. These directorates are London-based and closely linked and in direct contact with people posted to the regions. The security campaign is in the process of developing climate-related materials and information to be shared with its network of embassies. The FCO considers that it is building adaptive capacity across its network. The delivery of information on climate change is done both systematically and ad hoc, through messages from the Foreign Secretary, Special Climate Representative or others, depending on whoever is most effective on the issue and what their objectives are (JC, personal communication, April 2009). The FCO also has a communications directorate for systematic messaging of climate change internally and externally. 11. 4 â•‡

discussion

In this section, I first examine how the case studies help us to think about the practice of adaptation by comparing the two. Second, the discussion reflects on the limits and barriers to assessing adaptations in institutions and areas that are manageable and unmanageable. Finally, I briefly discuss ways to move forward. 11.4.1â•‡Institutional resilience and good adaptations in practice In this section, I reflect on institutional resilience and adaptation in the two institutions. (1)â•‡ Networks Both DFID and the FCO rely heavily on ‘informal’ spaces of information exchange and shadow networks across country operations. Griffin et al. (1999) make a compelling case that self-organising and shadow networks are not something that can be ‘managed’ for greater gains by the institution. In other words, capitalising on the outcomes of

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self-organisation processes, for example ‘best practice’ models, risks undermining the very processes that lead to that successful outcome. The institutions are building on existing networks and structures in their efforts to accommodate climate change. The FCO has to respond to many sources of information; in its case those responsible for the climate-change issue have good understanding of the subject and the space to sift the matter. It appears that FCO staff in London give significance to the information that comes from those in outposts, who also filter information: ‘There is a great deal of trust in London towards the people outposted to bring good information and vice versa. Information given out to posts and received from them is based on a long trusting relation of sharing information’ (JC, personal communication, April 2009). The FCO has a network structure that seems to be more fluid than the administrative model of DFID. DFID has a network structure (headquarters in the UK with global nodes) with messaging taking place through its programmes or project leaders. The FCO, in contrast, has its headquarters and its geographical divisions in London and decision-making takes place through political leaders. It has a history and tradition of information exchange. DFID has some way to go to ensure that new concepts about climate-change impacts and adaptation filter beyond its organisational headquarters. Nevertheless, DFID has people ‘on the ground’ who are eager to engage with action on climate change and who have a good understanding of local needs and priorities. (2)â•‡ Buffering The case studies show that individuals and leaders have taken the climate-change message seriously and have pushed the issue up their agenda. Both institutions are sending out messages to their networks and people in ways that encourage action. In other words, rather than scaring people into action, the FCO and DFID take the line that there is a need to adhere officially to a world in which temperatures will not be allowed to rise by more than 2 °C. Both DFID and FCO also are ramping up the game in terms of mobilising actions. The FCO needs to go further in thinking about adaptation strategies for its own operations. These actions are potentially buffering the impacts of climate change and showing proactive responses. The FCO is perhaps unique as a government organisation in that the Special Representative and the Climate Change and Energy groups take the time to ‘stop and

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think’. While government institutions are often less well equipped for thinking about what information they need, the FCO has identified and responded by having people in place who can find and filter information. This is an example of buffering in an institution. Resilience is reflected in the operations of the FCO as an institution. It is particularly resilient in terms of information-sharing, political mobilisation, knowledge capacity and leadership. The FCO is predominantly focused on transition to a new global carbon economy, which involves significant engagement with the private sector but with an emerging focus on framing climate as a high-level security issue. Meanwhile, DFID is charged with the complex task of addressing the elimination of poverty and climate change. In other words, their challenges and priorities are distinct. On leadership, the FCO Special Representative on Climate Change is an expert on the issues and also a strategic player, which has helped to push the climate agenda in the FCO and on the international stage. This is an example of the importance of leadership in responding to climate change. DFID has a broader and more structured approach. They have taken the step of employing someone full time to examine the challenge of climate-change resilience. However, they still have to face the challenge of how to link their knowledge networks on climate change and how to address their strategic planning. (3) Feedback Feedback, in the form of institutional learning, occurs in both institutions. In both case studies, the availability of tools, mechanisms, sources of information and information-sharing about climate change are evident. In DFID, they are testing new institutional mechanisms such as the climate-change champions, and in the FCO they rely on old forms of learning identified through conventional forms of information-sharing. For example, the FCO relies on existing networks for learning and messaging; the Climate Change and Energy group works with the geographical directors on issues that have special geographical implications for their regions. The FCO Special Representative on Climate Change plays an important role in these processes, for example by sending positive messages about climate change to other constituents, underpinned by its proposition that a prosperous world requires a stable climate. Both FCO and DFID rely on the IPCC reports for climate-related information. They also both rely on outposted staff to channel and filter climate-related information.

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Nevertheless, neither organisation is willing to burden its staff with too much knowledge. For example, in DFID, the issue of time constraints was raised as a limit to developing climate-related activities. In particular, inertia between decisions to buffer shocks (for example, investing in development) and decisions to react rapidly (in response to a disaster) are considered a trade-off. Scale issues matter greatly across the institutions, including beliefs about what should be known at what institutional scale, about the absence of information in different nodes in their networks and about how to ensure there is continuous feedback from the field or outposts to headquarters. As noted by Davies (2004), it appears that operational scale is one of the fundamental barriers to feedback across the institutions. The immense amount of information that exists is ‘wasted’ when not shared across the institutions as a whole. This is perhaps the paradox of successful decentralisation and institutional growth in times of crises. While it is necessary to think about how to prepare for multiple shocks, this is often overwhelmed by too many institutional signals in some cases and too few in others. 11.4.2â•‡ Barriers and limits to evaluating adaptation This chapter has posed a set of questions relating to adapting institutions, and has proposed that a resilience lens could help to provide novel insights into how institutions are adapting to climate change. The results suggest that in the case of two UK public institutions, important institutional adaptations to climate change are taking place through the establishment of new networks, engagement of leadership, vision and planning, and feedback in the form of investments in formal and informal mechanisms. This section turns to examining the gaps, barriers and limitations of the resilience approach to evaluating the success of adapting institutions. These include the issues of how to determine the efficiency and equity of outcomes and how to tackle the complex multi-layered nature of climate change in practice. McKenzie Hedger et al. (2008) suggest there is a need for universal agreement on what constitutes ‘successful’ adaptation, and that good adaptations can be evaluated through principles of sustainability, flexibility, efficacy, efficiency and equity. There is most overlap between the flexibility principle and the resilience principles identified in this study, in sofar as projects, programmes and institutions must include uncertainty as part of strategy and planning. I will consider each of these

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principles briefly and how they relate to the resilience lens used in this study. Principles 1 and 2: sustainability and flexibility in adapting institutions Adaptation has been the main discourse for considering how to manage policy responses to climate-change impacts and has received increased attention from the international community (for example UNFCCC, World Bank, Red Cross), particularly concerning how to integrate sustainable adaptation and development. There has been increasing attention paid to the process of ‘mainstreaming’ climate change and international development. However, the process of mainstreaming climate change into institutions has not resolved some specific notions of framing of risk, precaution, the costs and benefits of different pathways. It remains difficult to know how to measure and implement flexibility in institutions at different levels of decision-making. For example, in DFID there are limits, such as time constraints, to putting feedback into practice. DFID still seems more closely wedded to the idea of risk management and precaution in its focus on reviewing screening tools, and it is less ready to engage with experimental learning. However, this has begun to change since 2009. The resilience lens offers ways to think about how to tackle the integration aspect: in particular in terms of feedback between different parts of the institutional network and system. Principle 3: efficacy in adapting institutions On evaluating efficacy (that is, meeting objectives) it appears that both DFID and FCO have a clear overarching objective, which is to comply with the European Union’s 2â•›°C target and principles of sustainable developmentÂ€– that is, to support economic development and prosperity while transiting to a low-carbon world. These overarching objectives are difficult to measure for resilience, but the institutions appear to be confident that they are meeting these objectives primarily through buffering and networking. In theory, efficacy should be fairly straightforward to include with a resilience lens. Principle 4: efficiency in adapting institutions In no way does a resilience lens offer opportunities to evaluate the costs of outcomes in adapting institutions. In particular, the outcomes

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of soft adaptations such as vision and leadership qualities are hard to evaluate. However, the costs and benefits of buffering in relation to infrastructure, scale and operational capacity could be measured in terms of costs and benefits of actions with direct climate benefits. For example, DFID and FCO both invest significantly in international postings and climate-change staff. Further work is required to evaluate the costs and trade-offs in building resilient institutions. Principle 5: equity in adapting institutions Principles of equity include ensuring that welfare and fairness in society are considered in adaptation planning and implementation. Equity principles are important, for example, in ensuring the protection of vulnerable populations in coastal regions against storm surges, erosion, floods and sea-level rise. Equity also includes the legitimacy and transparency that institutions have in Â�decision-making processes. For example, in DFID there exists inertia between decisions to buffer shocks (for example, investing in development) and decisions to react rapidly (in response to a disaster). In particular, the causes of inertia will be influenced by internal organisational dynamics between groups within institutions. Resilience thinking fails to consider how power and fairness influence outcomes, however important they might be to institutional resilience. One way round this might be to go beyond simple descriptions of self-organised networks and instead examine how self-organised networks emerge and evolve in ways that lead to adaptation among marginal groups and people in institutions. 11.4.3â•‡ Strategies for evaluating adapting institutions This section lays out some key points for thinking about how to go about measuring successful adaptations in institutions. This study illustrates that there are different ways to evaluate adaptations in institutions. Overall, it shows the difficulties of assessing decision-making outcomes. While processes are easy to study, the costs and benefits of outcomes are harder to measure. Moreover, climate change is a long-term issue, and therefore in the short term it might not be possible to evaluate what is a successful adaptation or resilient organisation. It is only possible to put in place learning mechanisms and use foresight to decide now what might be the best option to take for the future.

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The overriding lesson learned is that it is important to consider why adaptations should be evaluated. What is the objective of evaluation, and what is its context? While considering the impacts of climate change, institutional adaptation is a societal choiceÂ€ – that is, what to adapt to, how to buffer and self-organise, and what to monitor. In adapting institutions it will be important to build on existing frameworks and to consider how resilience can also help to take account of the surprising elements of climate change and the societal responses in terms of self-organising (how decision-making takes place) and what feedback and forms of buffering lead to better decisions. 11. 5â•‡

conclusions

In conclusion, both the institutions studied have a clear conceptual framing of climate change and are aware of the need to plan for the unexpected. However, putting plans into operation remains a challenge. The institutions are not yet able to show how they will incorporate scientific uncertainty into their strategies and frames, or by what means they will scale up climate-related information from the extensive shadow networks in the field to the central formation of strategy. Over and above that, it is possible that learning and reflexivity will do little more than ‘tinker’ around the edges of the much greater challenges of reforming global economic security. Despite the crisis that climate change poses to societies, I argue that it is important to remain focused on developing in ways that lead to recovery. Of particular relevance, the issues that have been identified in this research provide both positive and negative messages to those who are planning for a global climate future through the delivery of climate resilience. The study has highlighted some early indicators for evaluating institutional adaptations to climate change. These are important in how we begin to make sense of climate change. In particular, I have tried to explore a better understanding of the links between resilience and adapting institutions. Future research avenues could include questions about how to evaluate the indicators that have been identified in this research.

acknowledgements

Thanks are extended to two anonymous reviewers. Special gratitude is extended to Henny Osbahr, who contributed to earlier parts of this study.

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Boyd, E., and Boykoff, M. 2010. Permissible vulnerabilities: examining institutional adaptation to climate change through flood responses in urban India. Paper prepared for the Planning and Environmental Research Group (PERG) of the Royal Geographical Society Sustainable Futures Workshop, 6–7 May 2010. Boyd, E., and Osbahr, H. 2010. Resilient responses to climate change: exploring organisational learning in networked development organisations. Environmental Education Research, 16, 397–411. Davies, R. 2004. Scale, complexity and the representation of theories of change. Evaluation, 10(1), 101–121. Davies, R. 2005. Scale, complexity and the representation of theories of change II. Evaluation, 11(2), 133–149. DEFRA. 2010. Measuring Adaptation to Climate Change: A Proposed Approach. London: HMSO. DFID. 2006. Eliminating World Poverty: Making Governance Work for the Poor. London: HMSO. DFID. 2009. Eliminating World Poverty: Building Our Common Future. London: HMSO. EAC. 2007. Trade, Development and Environment: The Role of FCO. London: House of Commons. Environment Agency. 2011. Flexible Planning: Thames Estuary 2100. www.environment-agency.gov.uk/research/planning/109030.aspx (accessed May 2011). FCO. 2008. Better World, Better Britain. Departmental Report, 1 April 2007–31 March 2008. London: HMSO. Folke, C. 2006. Resilience: the emergence of a perspective for social–ecological systems analyses. Global Environmental Change, 16, 253–267. Griffin, D., Shaw, P., and Stacey, R. 1999. Knowing and acting in conditions of uncertainty: a complexity perspective. Systemic Practice and Action Research, 12(3), 295–310. Habermas, J. 1975. Legitimation Crisis. Boston, MA: Beacon Press. Harriss, P. 2005. Great promise, hubris and recovery: a participant’s history of development studies. In Kothari, U., ed., A Radical History of Development Studies: Individuals, Institutions and Ideologies. London: Zed Books. IPCC. 2001. Summary for Policymakers: A Report of Working Group 1 of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. www.ipcc.ch/pub/spm22–01pdf (accessed 30 April 2010). Kothari, U., ed. 2005. A Radical History of Development Studies: Individuals, Institutions and Ideologies. London: Zed Books. Kvale, S. 1996. Interviews: An Introduction to Qualitative Research Interviewing. London: Sage. La Trobe, S., and Davis, I. 2005. Mainstreaming Disaster Risk Reduction: A Tool for Development Organisations. Teddington, Middlesex: Tearfund. McKenzie Hedger, M., Mitchell, T., Leavy, J., Greeley, M., and Horrocks, L. 2008. Evaluating Climate Change Adaptation from a Development Perspective. IDS Research Summary. www.ids.ac.uk/go/evaluating-adaptation-to-climatechange (accessed 12 July 2010). O’Connor, J. 1987. The Meaning of Crisis. New York, NY: Blackwell. Olsson, P., Gunderson, L. H., Carpenter, S. R., et al. 2006. Shooting the rapids: navigating transitions to adaptive governance of social–ecological systems. Ecology and Society, 11(1), 18. www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol11/iss1/art18.

Adapting to global climate change in two public institutions Ostrom, E. 2005. Understanding Institutional Diversity. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Pelling, M., High, C., Dearing, J., and Smith, D. 2008. Shadow spaces for social learning: a relational understanding of adaptive capacity to climate change within organisations. Environment and Planning A, 40, 867–884. Revi, A. 2005. Lessons from the deluge: priorities for multi-hazard risk mitigation. Economic and Political Weekly, 3, September 2005, 3911–3961. Shaw, P. 1997. Intervening in the shadow system of organisations consulting from a complexity perspective. Journal of Organisational Change Management, 10, 235. Svarstad, H., Petersen, L. K., Rothman, D., Siepel, H., and Wätzold, F. J. 2008. Discursive biases of environmental research DPSIR. Land Use Policy, 25, 116–125. Turner, B. 1976. The organizational and interorganizational development of disasters. Administrative Science Quarterly, 21, 378–397. Wang, J. 2008. Organisational learning capacity in crisis management. Advances in Developing Human Resources, 10, 425–445. Weick, K. E. 1993. The collapse of sensemaking in organisations: the Mann Gulch disaster. Administrative Science Quarterly, 38, 628–652.

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12. 1 â•‡

introduction

This book has examined adapting institutions, adaptive governance and complexity from the perspective of social–ecological resilience. As stated in the introduction, we have been interested in exploring and understanding social–ecological features involved in adaptations that may help societies move towards sustainability, across a range of scales from local to global. These scales are interdependent. We have in particular looked at adapting institutions and sources of social–ecological resilience to features of change, such as shocks and surprises, through a set of case studies to assess what adaptations have emerged at local, state and global levels. We have combined resilience thinking with research on adapting institutions and governance challenges. Through the case studies the content is rooted in reality, complemented with conceptual contributions and the move in ideas towards adapting institutions with new pathways of development for dealing with complexity and sustainability (Folke etÂ€al. 2010, Olsson etÂ€al. 2010). Where are we now? The events that people term ‘extremes’ will most likely in the next 100 years become the norm. While ecological and atmospheric changes are manifesting themselves, as one-off events or as slow change, human societies are responding. Whether new institutions, new norms and rules, new collaborations and new ways of looking at the problems will emerg e as fast as the climate and the global environment seems to be changing is still written in the stars. For instance, it is not clear what level of societal change is taking Adapting Institutions: Governance, Complexity and Social–Ecological Resilience, ed. Emily Boyd and Carl Folke. Published by Cambridge University Press. © Cambridge University Press 2012.

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place, to what extent institutions, organisations and individuals are responding, changing or transforming in a deep sense, and what is simply marginal adjustments on current development trajectories. It is in this context that we have applied the resilience lens to adapting institutions to explore, in 10 chapters, diverse situations of how social–ecological systems respond to change. And not to change or adaptation in general, but specifically to environmental change and ecosystem dynamics. The issue is one of matching the social with the ecological to improve stewardship of natural resources and ecosystem services for human well-being and sustainabilityÂ€– often referred to as the problem of fit. In particular, we have focused on the social features of such adaptations in social–ecological systems. 12. 2â•‡

the problem of fit and adaptive governance

Often, approaches to environmental governance fail to consider the feedbacks or coupling between ecological and social systems, and instead search for simplified blueprints to deal with resource situations (Ostrom 2007, 2009). Fit is about the match (or mismatch) between ecosystem dynamics and institutional dynamics across levels and scales in complex social–ecological systems (Folke etÂ€al. 1998, 2007, Young 2002, Brown 2003, Galaz etÂ€al. 2008). The analytical framework of adaptive governance is an extension of the challenges posed by the problem of fit, recognising the need for flexibility in the governance structure (Dietz etÂ€al. 2003, Huitema etÂ€al. 2009) to allow for ecosystem-based management and stewardship of dynamic landscapes and seascapes (Folke etÂ€ al. 2005). Adaptive governance encapsulates the concepts of adaptive management (Holling 1978) and co-management (e.g. Pinkerton 1989, Carlsson and Berkes 2005) combined into adaptive co-management (Olsson etÂ€al. 2004). This provides a framework in which to consider the social dimensions in the management of ecosystems, and focuses on local management practices to see how local groups, often embedded in multi-level governance systems, manage resources and actively engage in collective and adaptive management (Armitage etÂ€al. 2007). These concepts were linked to resilience by Berkes and Folke (1998) and Berkes etÂ€al. (2003), with the aim of tightening the theoretical basis, drawing on case studies of social–ecological systems. The link to resilience gave the concepts depth by explicitly connecting the social with the dynamics of ecological systems and vice versa, recognising their coevolutionary interdependence (Gual and Norgaard 2010).

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Still there are many unexplored dimensionsÂ€ – the diverse features of governance that allow for ecosystem stewardship and how they relate to multiple and cross-scale complex social–ecological interactions (e.g. Janssen 2002, Duit and Galaz 2008). Such unexplored dimensions are central challenges of the fit problem. Inquiry into ecosystem stewardship increasingly makes the links to actors and actor groups, diversity of knowledge systems, social–ecological memory and learning under complexity and uncertainty, self-organisation and institutions, and the role of social networks and bridging and boundary organisations in these contexts (e.g. Olsson etÂ€ al. 2006, Ernstson etÂ€al. 2008, Bodin and Crona 2009, Barthel etÂ€al. 2010, Chapin etÂ€al. 2010, Crona and Hubacek 2010, Franks 2010, Krasny etÂ€al. 2010, Schultz etÂ€al. 2011). Cash etÂ€ al. (2006) suggest that the advent of co-management structures and conscious boundary management that includes knowledge co-production, mediation, translation and negotiation across scale-related boundaries may facilitate solutions to complex problems that decision-makers have historically been unable to solve. Resilience is the ability to reorganise following crisis, continuing to learn, evolving with the same identify and function, and also innovating and sowing the seeds for transformation. It is a central concept of adaptive governance. The concept allows us to raise questions about what are the features of institutions that allow them to adapt or transform towards social–ecological sustainability. There exist social–Â�ecological systems that maintain their identity and function, yet innovate and change the content of their mandate, and in that way are successfulÂ€– what Folke etÂ€al. (2003) call ‘framed creativity’. An example of framed creativity in a resilient social–ecological system with adapting institutions from the art world is the British Royal Academy of Arts and its Summer Exhibition, which is a 241year-old tradition of showcasing new work by known and unknown artists in painting, printmaking, photography, sculpture and architecture (www.royalacademy.org.uk/exhibitions/summer-exhibition). Conversely, the UK Royal Agricultural ShowÂ€ – a centuries-old institutionÂ€ – collapsed in 2008 following a number of cascading shocks, including bad weather, lack of funds and the failure of the institution to adopt new ideas. There are many reasons for this, and there are also now alternative shows emerging, which are reportedly successful. These examples raise important questions about what it is that leads to different outcomes. Is it that the governance in the first example is adaptive (learning) and flexible (open to new ideas), and that in the second example the flexibility was lacking, or is it simply that funds

Conclusions: adapting institutions and resilience

were not available to support the agricultural sector, or did the collapse in one place create the opportunity for innovation and novelty in other places? While these examples are limited in their transferability, what is interesting is the way that adaptive governance can help us to think about the connectivity between features of resilience, dynamic change, outcomes and processes. This includes identifying social factors, knowledge and organisations for managing ecosystems or climate change and addressing dynamic interaction among key individuals, social networks, organisations and institutionsÂ€ – a key focus of this book. In the case of social–ecological systems or coupled climate and development, we are still searching for ways to think about what a ‘good’ governance system may look like, one that takes into account multiple perspectives, learning and knowledge in ways that are experimental yet fair and equitable (Adger etÂ€al. 2009). There are numerous examples of failure and social suffering because of strategies that do not allow for learning in relation to crisis (e.g. Huitric 2005, Sterner etÂ€al. 2006). The co-production of knowledge looks to be a big part of this, recognising the role of local knowledge as well as social networks for spreading knowledge, technology and risks (e.g. Scoones etÂ€al. 1994, Leach and Mearns 1996, Leach etÂ€al. 2010). Given that these are global problems, it is also important to understand that adaptation and management pose new problems of unprecedented scale at the local level, and at the same time to realise that the local is embedded and shaped by broader-scale contexts, and vice versa (Young etÂ€ al. 2006, Walker etÂ€al. 2009). 12. 3â•‡

summary of chapter insights

The combination of resilience thinking and adapting institutions is reflected in the preceding 10 chapters, where almost all of the contributions are concerned with interacting periods of gradual and abrupt change in social–ecological systems and the role of adapting institutions in this context. Some have focused more on the gradual changes that build up, like the creeping impact of Christianity on indigenous Malagasy social–ecological systems (Maria Tengö and Jacob von Heland), the growing disconnect between people in cities and their dependence on healthy ecosystems (Johan Colding), or envisioned climate-change impacts and institutional response (Emily Boyd). Others deal with adapting institutions in relation to abrupt changes such as food crises (Sirkku Juhola), disasters (Emma Tompkins and Lisa-Ann

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Hurlston), tsunamis (Alison Ashlin) or even government interventions (Ingela Ternström). Several of the chapters combine the two. Below, we report on the findings. 12.3.1â•‡Adapting local institutions, networks, leadership and learning The literature on common-pool resource management has convincingly illustrated how groups of people can come together, Â�self-organise and through collective action develop ‘the rules of the game’, i.e. the norms, rules and practices, or institutions, for how to relate to a complex fluctuating environment in a sustainable manner and over time (Berkes 1989, Ostrom 1990). The first four case-study chapters of this book build on this tradition and expand it into investigations of adaptation in relation to social networks, leadership and agency, deep cultural beliefs and novel approaches for stewardship through urban commons in local contexts. In contrast to most work on governance, they also make explicit the links to ecosystem services and dynamics as part of adaptation in the search for sustainability. Obviously, flexibility for adaptation relies on social features of governance that allow for continuous learning in the face of complexity and uncertainty (Pahl-Wostl etÂ€al. 2007, Armitage etÂ€al. 2008, Reed etÂ€al. 2010). Without learning there will be no adaptation. Learning that can help prepare for turning crises into opportunities for a prosperous sustainable development is a key feature of resilience thinking and adaptive governance. Agencies such as leadership and actor groups with the capacity to develop, nurture and mobilise social networks are instrumental in adaptation processes. The chapters on local social–ecological dynamics help us think about and learn from adaptation challenges, lifting the focus from simplistic beliefs in stakeholder participation or blueprint solutions such as policy instruments or economic incentives towards a deeper understanding of social responses and the significance of realising that the social dimension of the problem of fit and the governance challenges of social–ecological systems is a complex entity. The chapters illustrate that building resilience for sustainability is about truly Â�interdependent social–ecological systems. The chapter by Beatrice Crona and Örjan Bodin, on the social network of a coastal fishing community in Kenya, identifies the distribution of different types of actors and their knowledge in a diverse complex ‘social landscape’. They show that social or institutional

Conclusions: adapting institutions and resilience

entrepreneurs, with the ability to navigate and tie together the social landscape, are crucial in connecting disparate subgroups, facilitating communication and, hopefully, improving governance. Crona and Bodin provide a very important insight, namely that despite the existence of cross-scale links to external hierarchies of government bodies or other agencies, collective action for the benefit of sustainable resource management has not been achieved. The case really captures the problem of fitÂ€ – reflecting that an analysis of only the adapting institution, without explicit connection to the ecosystem on which it depends, may lead to apparent social success, but at the cost of social–ecological vulnerability. Hence, people may be very flexible and adaptive but simultaneously deplete their natural resource base. This case study clearly highlights the significant role of key actors, such as opinion leaders and social entrepreneurs, in adapting institutions and social–ecological resilience. Maria Tengö and Jacob von Heland bring in the cultural dimension and illustrate that the taboo forests in southern Madagascar and the associated belief system are significant parts of the Androy-Tandroy social–ecological system, where people’s existence dynamically and relationally responds to social, political, economic and ecological changes from outside as well as within the Tandroy world. They identify sources of adaptive capacity and resilience of the taboo forests and the communities that rely on them, including (1) a short feedback loop between people and ecosystems, (2) a place-based cultural identity that is shared across religious and clan geographical divides, and (3) mechanisms for conflict resolution and reorganisation following violation or fault. These features of adapting institutions seem to be able to deal with shocks such as climatic events, but slower creeping changes like the expanding cleft in society between ancestral cultists and Christians seem to erode the current social–ecological systems and their associated taboo forests. Hence, path dependencies and scale constraints may restrict opportunities for adapting institutions. This chapter exemplifies an important, valuable and often unperceived cultural dimension to governance of ecosystems in practice, and provides new insights for the understanding of social–ecological systems. Ingela Ternström’s chapter on irrigation and farmers in Nepal contributes an understanding of internal reactions and actions to external disturbances, including disturbances caused by government interventions. The adapting institutions solve or avoid problems caused by disturbances through decision-making, physical reconstruction work, conflict management, changing operational-level rules,

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changing leadership and changing the institutional structure. Here, the significance of leadership in institutional change becomes clear. Ternström finds that change in institutional structure is sometimes preceded by or is simultaneous with a change of leadership, and that institutional changes are often initiated and implemented by leaders. Like Crona and Bodin, her work illustrates the leadership dimension of adapting institutions, with important implications when designing government policies such as infrastructure support programmes. Johan Colding’s chapter on urban ecosystem management works on the mind-set of urban dwellers and decision-makers with the purpose of finding pathways to reconnect people to the biosphere. As one such pathway, Colding, based on diverse urban experiences, proposes urban commons as a tool for cost-effective ecosystem management. Working with urban commons increases the likelihood of a wider range of urban residents taking part in ecosystem management and could positively contribute to the reconciliation of humans with nature in urban settings. Furthermore, urban commons incorporate both social and ecological considerations in the built environment, and generate valuable ecosystem services in cities. Colding’s chapter highlights a new area of social–ecological systems research, emphasising urban social–ecological resilience and adapting institutions with insights that should become part of urban sustainability planning and design. 12.3.2â•‡Adapting and governing public institutions for uncertainty and complexity Understanding the challenges of multi-level governance and adapting institutions is central to the global environmental-change research community (e.g. Young etÂ€ al. 2008). There are numerous studies on international relations and negotiations, from law to psychology, particularly in relation to climate change but also concerning global environmental change more generally (e.g. Adger and Jordan 2009, Desai 2010). A new research arena called Earth System Governance has developed, focusing on the interrelated system of formal and informal rules, rule-making systems and actor networks at all levels of human society (from local to global) that are set up to steer societies towards preventing, mitigating and adapting to environmental change and earth system transformation, within the normative context of sustainable development (www.earthsystemgovernance.org, Biermann etÂ€ al. 2010). There is a revitalised interest in deliberative democracy coupled

Conclusions: adapting institutions and resilience

with calls for novel forms of public–private governance (Pattberg 2010), stakeholder consultations and networks, to promote effective environmental policy performance as well as increased deliberative and participatory quality (Bäckstrand etÂ€al. 2010). Andreas Duit, in his chapter on adaptive capacity and the ecostate, pleads for a revival of the role of the state in multi-level and cross-scale connections. He argues that environmental policy-making has always been characterised by the absence of a pronounced reliance on the state as a vehicle for the improvement of social–ecological systems. Due to a perceived connection between representative liberal democracy and sustained economic growth on the one hand and between economic growth and environmental impact on the other, scholars and activists have been reluctant to attribute a more prominent role to the state in combating environmental degradation. This is an interesting proposition, and it may call for more comprehensive state involvement to deal with truly interconnected social–ecological systems and global sustainability. Sirkku Juhola explores adaptive governance and adapting institutions in relation to public institutions and food security, using four key tenets necessary for responsive social systemsÂ€ – knowledge and practice, institutional learning, co-management and social capital. Through the Niger food crisis she identifies different public institutional failures that led to the crisis and shows that the responding institutions at all scales failed to adapt to relatively minor environmental shocks, as a result of which 3.3 million people faced an acute shortage of food. Juhola puts her finger on the critical barriers and bridges of governing across public institutions and across nations, in particular the challenge for these institutions to remain engaged in such collaborations and to be prepared for surprise and expect the unexpected, to be able to mobilise adaptive responses towards sustainability in times of crisis. Emma Tompkins and Lisa-Ann Hurlston concentrate on public– private partnerships in relation to disaster management. They show how such adapting institutional arrangements emerged as a response to hurricanes, and that there are benefits both to governments and to non-governmental partners from such arrangements. In the Cayman Islands, voluntary relationships were built on the back of more formalised contracts which oblige the private sector to participate. Formalised contracts make governments accountable to the people before and after hurricanes have occurred, thereby contributing to the governance capability. Adapting institutions do not need longevity to

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deliver progress towards social–ecological resilience. Institutions that can evolve and regenerate following stress or collapse may be better able to address changing environmental risks. A key lesson from their work is that a learning-based, multi-layered committee approach that brings together public and private actors is useful for sharing risk and bringing those who are exposed together to share collectively the burden of planning and reorganisation following abrupt change. 12.3.3â•‡Adapting multi-level institutions to environmental crisis Globalisation is widespread, not only in its social and economic dimensions but also ecologically, and with its interconnectedness a new dynamics of social–ecological systems is emerging (Young etÂ€al. 2006, Steffen etÂ€al. 2007). In particular, the scale of human actions and speed of change has escalated. Things move faster, whether through rapidly emerging markets or diverse information technologies. What is new is that policy arenas and sectors engaged with the environment, still working as rather separate entities, are now strongly interconnected and part of development (Walker etÂ€al. 2009). Interconnectedness opens up space for big shifts, such as the cascading effects of a local disease outbreak, or lack of transparency in financial markets causing shocks throughout the global society. Resilience thinking emphasises that such shifts can open up space for innovation and for transformation into improved development trajectories. This is a positive message in times of turbulent change, but for this to happen sources of resilience need to be in place (Adger etÂ€al. 2005, Barthel etÂ€al. 2010), and if the situation allows, social networks and agencies will mobilise and recombine these sources of experiences, or memories, into social innovations that spread across levels and scales, tipping the future into development pathways that contribute to social–ecological sustainability. There are many novel multi-level governance challenges posed by the behaviour of complex social–ecological systems, and a more refined understanding of the dynamics of rapid, interlinked and multiscale change is very much needed. Adapting institutions will have to deal with converging trends of global interconnectedness and increasing pressure on social–ecological systems (Galaz etÂ€al. 2010). The three chapters of this section really capture such challenges, by putting governance into a framework of dealing with shocks and surprises that move across scales, exemplified through diseases, disasters and climate

Conclusions: adapting institutions and resilience

change. They focus on adaptation strategies and adapting institutions. In this context, it is important to stress the significance of sources of social–ecological resilience for handling such challenging phenomena, and turning shocks and crisis into opportunities. Accumulated experiences, knowledges, understandings and social capitals are all of relevance as part of the social–ecological memory for renewal and reorganisation after such shocks. In the first chapter of this section Victor Galaz asks the question: Can state and non-state actors really govern complex social–ecological systems with complex governance systems, in times of rapid unexpected change? He denotes this dual challenge ‘double complexity’. Galaz argues that reversible reconfigurations in ways of steering are of critical importance for dealing with environmental crises such as large-scale ecological surprises, invasive species, human, animal and plant diseases, and rapid loss of ecosystem services (such as collapsing fish stocks). Dealing with such crises requires overcoming a range of obstacles posed by institutional segmentation, knowledge fragmentation and lack of coordination. No doubt, information processing and communication are significant tools for adaptive reconfigurations in a fast-moving globalised society. This is explored through studies of global epidemic preparedness and adapting institutions. By stressing the reconfiguration capacity to respond to rapidly unfolding surprises, this contribution nicely highlights that adapting institutions, with multiple actors at multiple scales, require social processes allowing actors to move back and forth between different network configurations, and must adapt decision-making procedures to changing circumstances. Alison Ashlin takes us to Sri Lanka and the impact of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, where she identifies elements of adaptation in the governance of post-tsunami coastal ecosystems, including collaborating and cooperating in cross-scale networks, sharing information through meetings and learning-by-doing, all of which reflect some major institutional changes. But according to Ashlin those were fragmented and restricted due to lack of a central mechanism for coordinating the post-tsunami coastal initiatives (too many and too diverse) combined with limited bottom-up learning within the donor/facilitator/implementer pathways. She points to the risk that the structure of coastal ecosystem governance in Sri Lanka might have become weaker after the tsunami, due to the fragmentation of responsibilities and overlaps between organisations. In this sense, there were two shocks to the coastal social–ecological systems, first the devastating tsunami and than the widespread global engagement landing in one place.

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Ashlin proposes several features that would increase adaptive capacity to these two shocks and turn crises into opportunities for improved livelihoods: (1) social entrepreneurs (network managers) to coordinate diverse organisations and make sure that coastal ecological knowledge is nurtured and shared effectively in the right place at the right time; (2) a common platform and tools to continuously connect international, national and local stakeholders; (3) a bridging organisation with a sophisticated advocacy network and a multi-scale approach to governing coastal ecosystems across the Indian Ocean regions affected by the tsunami. Emily Boyd explores indicators for evaluating public institutional responses to climate change, focusing in particular on links between resilience and adapting institutions. She looks into the Department for International Development (DFID) and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), two major UK institutions networked across hundreds of country offices across the globe, with a common mandate to address climate-change risk, security and poverty and to enhance resilient development. Are these institutions adapting beyond business-as-usual, and how resilient are their responses to climate-change risk? The results suggest that within both of these public institutions important adaptations to climate change are taking place through the establishment of new networks, engagement of leadership, vision and planning and feedback in the form of investments in formal and informal mechanisms. Boyd argues that the two public institutions are not yet able to show how they will incorporate scientific uncertainty into their strategies and frameworks, or by what means they will scale up climate-related information from the extensive shadow networks in the field to the central formation of strategy. She highlights the difficulty of how to determine the efficiency and equity of outcomes, and how to tackle the complex multi-layered nature of climate-change risk in practice. An important reflection concerns whether or not institutional learning and reflexivity will do little more than tinker around the edges of the much greater challenges of truly reforming global economic security. 12. 4 â•‡d r a w i n g

the pieces together: insights

for social–ecological resilience

In this book we have explored adapting institutions, focusing on the capacity of people, as part of social–ecological systems, from local groups and private actors, to the state, to international organisations,

Conclusions: adapting institutions and resilience

to deal with complexity, uncertainty and the interplay between gradual and rapid change. In this context, institutions must be flexible in adapting their norms and rules, not only in the short term but also in response to long-term challenges, including the challenges posed by deep legacies and belief systemsÂ€– which may act as barriers but can also become bridges to adaptation. The added value of a resilience perspective helps us to think about how to go beyond existing standards and frameworks to prepare for uncertain futures and surprises. We have combined adapting institutions with resilience thinking and social–ecological systems research. Drawing on the contributions of this book, we end this chapter with a set of findings and propositions for adapting institutions in a social–ecological resilience context. Some of these reinforce insights from previous work, while others emerge from this book. 12.4.1â•‡What have we learned about adapting institutions, adaptive governance and complexity? •

•

•

•

The importance of appreciating and understanding complexity and issues like the interplay between gradual and rapid change is becoming increasingly evident across social–ecological systems and their institutions. Across all chapters, institutions are adapting to complexity challenges at local, national and international levels, but there are also major obstacles to adaptations such as robust institutional and cultural frameworks and beliefs. Throughout the book authors address features of adapting institutions such as shared visions among actors, social capital and networks, collaborative decision-making and learning platforms, boundary and bridging organisations, and foresight to tackle a whole set of complex problems exacerbated by lack of able or responsible institutions. Networks are essential features of adapting institutions, and several chapters highlight the critical role played by key network actors, including social entrepreneurs and leaders, in adaptation and in connecting governance across levels and organisations (Crona and Bodin, Ternström, Ashlin). Another important concept is the notion of global networks of networks of governance (Galaz). But understanding the need for well-functioning and adapting institutions does not necessarily imply a solution to the problem

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•

•

•

•

of sustainability. Adapting institutions that seem to work beautifully in the social dimension may contribute to creating ecological vulnerability. Adapting institutions have to be connected and combined with ecosystem stewardship for social–ecological sustainability (Crona and Bodin). Mechanisms for creating short and visible feedbacks between the social and the ecological include urban commons to engage people in ecosystem stewardship, and the rituals and beliefs of indigenous societies that sustain ecosystem services (Colding, Tengö and von Heland). Deep cultural norms and rules between people and nature may make social–ecological systems robust to shocks, but vulnerable to creeping changes (Tengö and von Heland). Actions of institutions to deal with environmental challenges may seem adaptive but may be ‘tinkering around the edges’ (Boyd) and only lead to incremental adjustments within well-established development pathways. The multi-level social–ecological approach allows us to reframe the local within the global and discover big gaps in cross-scale governance of public institutions and nations in relation to challenges such as the complexity of food production, disaster management and environmental crises (Juhola, Ashlin, Boyd). The ecostate may emerge as a significant cross-level connector and bridge-builder to deal with social–ecological systems dynamics and global change (Duit). Crises may open up space for new forms of collaboration and new pathways of development better prepared for dealing with change, such as new types of partnerships (e.g. public–private) and the creation of flexible mechanisms that allow for rapid emergence of new collaborative forms of adapting institutions (Tompkins and Hurlston, Ashlin). A fast-moving globalised society will require diversity of options and reversible reconfigurations of adapting institutions for flexible governance of shocks, surprises and uncertainties (Galaz). Learning and adapting at one level only, whether local, regional or global, will be insufficient in an increasingly interconnected world faced with global change (Juhola, Ashlin, Tengö and von Heland). Multi-layered committees, multi-level collaborative platforms, interacting boundary and bridging organisations with well-developed social networks and effective agencies that connect levels of governance come through as essential in adapting institutions and social–ecological resilience across

Conclusions: adapting institutions and resilience

several chapters (Juhola, Tompkins and Hurlston, Ashlin, Boyd). Allowing central actors to move back and forth between different network configurations is of importance in adapting institutions for dealing with complexity and change (Galaz). Out of these we contemplate three generic features of adapting institutions for social–ecological resilience: • •

•

BufferingÂ€– building adaptive capacity to allow for backup and capacity to translate signals (specified resilience) FeedbacksÂ€– channels that allow for ideas from international to local and back on the science of ecology or climate-change evaluation and re-evaluation between local knowledge and models Self-organisationÂ€– the ability to construct flexible/transparent networks that can evaluate and absorb new ideas and prepare for unknown unknowns (generalised resilience).

In this book we have drawn out and explored lessons emerging across cases of local, national and regional responses to different social–ecological challenges. The focus has been on combining resilience thinking with adapting institutions. The problems are differentÂ€ – ranging from depleted fish stocks to extreme weather eventsÂ€– but all chapters capture the cross-scale nature and complexity of the governance challenge. They face the challenge of dealing with change, both rapid and slow, and really capture opportunities and constraints in learning, collaborating and reorganising following crisis, in addition to innovating and sowing the seeds for new pathways of development, which are central issues of adaptive governance. It still remains a huge challenge to bring about a convergence between resilience thinking and adapting institutions. Armed with further empirical evidence, we can now advance towards new insights on the subject. references

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Index

A/H1N1 influenza (swine flu), 207 adaptation definition, 3 adapting institutions, 11 definition, 3 findings and propositions, 274–7 insights for social–ecological resilience, 274–7 local networks, leadership and learning, 268–70 multi-level institutions and environmental crisis, 272–4 public institution governance in uncertainty and complexity, 270–2 summary, 267–74 SeeÂ€alsoÂ€institutional adaptation to climate change adaptive capacity definition, 40, 131 environmental governance regimes, 137–9 states, 130–1 adaptive co-management, 173 adaptive governance, 3–4, 265–7 centralised vs decentralised decision-making, 197–8 challenge of governing complexity, 209–11 challenge of rapid unexpected change, 193–8 double complexity challenge, 193–4, 209–11 emerging infectious diseases, 202–9 features of, 229–33 institutional diversity puzzle, 195–6 institutional redundancy puzzle, 196–7 negative institutional interaction, 197

puzzles and perspectives, 194–8 rapidly evolving surprise events, 193–211 shifts in organisation of society and politics, 194–8 adaptive reconfigurations in governance, 198–202 high-reliability organisations, 199–202 networks of networks, 206–9 reversible changes of mode, 198–9 Agricultural, Hydrological and Meteorological programme (AGHRYMET), 157 alien species invasion, 220 allotment gardens, 112–14 biodiversity, 118 ecological value, 118 ancestral beliefs, 41–2, 49–50 funeral rituals, 58–63 tensions with Christianity, 57–63, 66–8, SeeÂ€alsoÂ€burial forests animal sacrifice. SeeÂ€ritual sacrifice avian influenza, 202 Bangkok urbanisation, 107 Biodiversity Convention, 197 biodiversity in allotment gardens, 118 blood sacrifice. SeeÂ€ritual sacrifice Both ENDS, 230 bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), 195 British Broadcasting Corporation, 159 bubonic plague, 204, 208 buffering in institutions, 250–1, 254, 256–7, 277 burial forests, 47–8, 50, 54–5, 58–63, 66–8

281

282

Index business management applications, 96–7 carbon dioxide emission trading systems, 195 Cayman Islands. SeeÂ€hurricane risk management, Cayman Islands Cayman Islands Red Cross, 181 centralised networks, 25–6 centralised vs decentralised decisionmaking, 197–8 Christianity and social change in Madagascar, 56–63 spread in Madagascar, 56–7 tensions with ancestral beliefs, 57–63, 66–8 CILSS (Permanent Interstate Committee for Drought Control), 156–7 Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), 197 climate change global crisis, 1 impact on food security, 149–50, SeeÂ€alsoÂ€institutional adaptation to climate change climate-change adaptation interventions (CCAI), 242 climate-change knowledge network (CCKN), 249 Coast Conservation Department Sri Lanka, 220, 232–3 coastal ecosystems. SeeÂ€coastal ecosystems, Sri Lanka; fishing community, Kenya coastal ecosystems, Sri Lanka, 235 alternatives to ecosystem restoration, 234–5 Coast Conservation Department, 220, 232–3 Coastal Zone Management Plan (CZMP), 220–1 collaboration in a network of actors, 229–30 coordination of post-tsunami environmental activities, 229–30 damage to coastal forests, 219 damage to coral reefs, 219, 222–3 damage to mangroves, 219, 222 ecosystem degradation processes, 222–3 environmental initiatives after the tsunami, 224–5 experimental approaches to restoration, 232–3 features of adaptive governance, 229–33

flexible approaches to restoration, 232–3 governance after the tsunami, 223–5 governance before the tsunami, 220–3 governance data collection, 216 Green Coast initiative, 230, 233 impact of the tsunami on Sri Lanka, 218–20 improving adaptive governance, 233 Indian Ocean tsunami (2004), 217–18 invasion by alien species, 220 learning and sharing information, 231–2 local stakeholder involvement in governance, 224–5 Mangroves for the Future initiative, 230, 233–4 natural hazards and ecosystem resilience, 217 Natural Resouces and Evironmental Policy (NAREP), 220–1 recognition of protective role, 223–4 social memory, 231–2 Special Area Management plans, 221 Task Force for Rebuilding the Nation (TAFREN), 219, 229 Turtle Conservation Project, 221 coastal storm risk planning. SeeÂ€hurricane risk management, Cayman Islands Coastal Zone Management Plan (CZMP) Sri Lanka, 220–1 co-management, 173 common-pool resources, 11 role in adaptive governance, 163–4 common property rights regimes urban areas, 103 common-pool resource management, 11, 11, 75–6 commons. SeeÂ€urban commons Community Environment Investment Fund, 221 community forests, 114–15 community gardens, 110–12 community-based organisations, 231 coastal ecosystem initiatives, 225 conservation initiatives, 220–1 mangrove restoration initiatives, 230–2 complexity approach understanding adaptation, 3

Index conservation influence of indigenous cultures, 38–9 programme in Madagascar, 48 role of local institutions, 37–8 role of taboos, 38–40, 52–6, 68–70 use of reserves and parks, 37, SeeÂ€alsoÂ€coastal ecosystems, Sri Lanka; fishing community Kenya; urban commons. coral reef damage Sri Lanka, 219, 222–3 Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever, 208 decentralised networks, 25–6 decentralised vs centralised decisionmaking, 197–8 decision-making centralised vs decentralised, 197–8 deforestation Western Androy, Madagascar, 52 Defra, 253 Defra adaptation evaluation framework, 242–3 Department for Energy and Climate (DEC), 253 Department for International Development (DFID), 253 case study, 246–52, 255–60 disaster risk management, Cayman Islands approach to hurricane risk management, 177–82 effectiveness of the NHC, 182–4 Emergency Powers Law (1997), 178–80 factors in the success of the NHC, 184–6 hurricane and storm risk, 177 National Hurricane Committee (NHC), 171–86 public–private partnerships (PPPs), 171–86 structure of the NHC, 177–82 disaster risk reduction role of coastal ecosystems, 217, SeeÂ€alsoÂ€institutional adaptation to climate change diversity hypothesis resilience in social–ecological systems, 138 DNPGCA (Food Crisis Prevention and Mitigation Mechanism, Niger), 157–8, 163 double complexity challenge for adaptive governance, 193–4, 209–11

DPSIR adaptation evaluation framework, 242 drought conditions Madagascar, 46–7, 51–6 early warning systems emerging infectious diseases, 203–6, SeeÂ€alsoÂ€famine early warning systems. Ebola, 202, 208 ecological systems interdependence with social systems, 1–2 economic challenges financial markets crisis in 2008, 1 economic systems dependence on social–ecological systems, 1–2 ecostates development of environmental politics, 135–7 emergence of, 127–8, 131–3 environmental governance regimes, 133–5 history of environmental states, 135–7 inadequate resources, 141–3 increase in environmental policies, 135–7 limited expansion of, 141–3 need to strengthen, 141–3 paradigms in environmental policy-making, 143–4 policy diversity and adaptive capacity, 138–9 policy diversity in environmental governance regimes, 139–41 sources of resilience, 137–9 state role in environmental management, 143–4 ecosystem management. SeeÂ€coastal ecosystems, Sri Lanka; fishing community, Kenya; urban commons ecosystem resilience and recovery from natural hazards, 217 ecosystem services loss in urban areas, 102–3, 116 loss of, 1 ecosystem stewardship, 3–4 efficacy of adapting institutions, 259 efficiency in adapting institutions, 259–60 EMACE (non-governmental organisation), 231 emerging infectious diseases A/H1N1 influenza (swine flu) outbreak, 207

283

284

Index adaptive flows of communication, 204–5 adaptive governance, 202–9 challenges to multi-level governance, 203 early warning systems, 203–6 global collaboration, 205–6 networks of networks, 205–9 range of actors and institutions involved, 202–3 social–ecological complexity, 202 use of information technology, 203–5 use of Internet-based unofficial data, 203–4 use of the Internet, 204–5 environmental change global crisis, 1 environmental degradation state-level responses, 132–3 environmental generational amnesia, 101–2 environmental governance role of public–private partnerships (PPPs), 174–7 environmental governance regimes, 133–5 modelling adaptive capacity, 137–9 need to strengthen the ecostate, 141–3 policy diversity, 139–41 environmental policy-making historical approaches, 143–4 environmental politics development of, 135–7 environmental states. SeeÂ€ecostates epidemics. SeeÂ€emerging infectious diseases equity in adapting institutions, 260 externalisation of environmental costs, 131–3 famine adaptive governance issues, 159–60 chronic food insecurity, 152 crisis relief institutions, 152–3 early warning systems, 152–3, 156–62, 165 hunger-related death rate, 150 impacts of climate change, 149–50 institutional failures, 159–60 need for timely, flexible response, 163–4 number of undernourished people worldwide, 149 predictions for future food shortages, 151 pressures on ecosystems, 149 problem of food insecurity, 150–1

progress in reducing hunger, 150 responses to, 153–4 transitory food insecurity, 152 understanding famine and food insecurity, 151–4 vulnerability to food shortage, 155–6 SeeÂ€alsoÂ€humanitarian crisis, Niger (2004–5) Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWSNET), 156–7, 162 farmer-managed irrigation, Nepal, 75–99 actions and actors, 94–6 analysis, 92–8 business management, 96–7 causes and effects, 97–8 changing institutional structure, 95–6 changing leadership, 95–6 changing operational-level rules, 95 common-pool resource management, 75–6 data collection, 78–80 decision-making, 94–5 effects of new users, 83–6 factors affecting adaptive capacities, 98–9 floods, 80–3 immediate impacts of disturbances, 97–8 implementation of infrastructure support, 89–92 institutional structure, 77 landslides, 80–3 long-term effects of disturbances, 97–8 methodology, 78–80 nature of irrigation systems, 76–7 offers of infrastructure support, 86–9 organisation theory, 96–7 repair and reconstruction work, 94 resilience in social–ecological systems, 76 rules for irrigation systems, 77 solving minor conflicts, 94–5 study systems, 76–8 tracing disturbances, processes, and reactions, 80–92 feedback in institutions, 253, 254–5, 257–8, 277 financial markets crisis in 2008, 1 fishing. SeeÂ€coastal ecosystems, Sri Lanka; fishing community, Kenya fishing community, Kenya, 12–19 boundaries of the study population, 16

Index case description, 12–14 centralised network, 25–6 factors affecting collective action, 32, gathering relational data, 16–17 history of fishing activities and management, 14–15 identifying influential individuals, 18 influential individuals, 27–30 lack of regulatory enforcement, 14–15 leadership, 27–30 leadership and network position, 18 local ecological knowledge distribution, 17–18 measures of influence, 18 monsoon seasons, 12–13 network analyses, 17–18 network position analyses, 18 network positions and incentives, 27–8 networks and knowledge distribution, 18–19 occupational groups, 17 social blockers, 27 social brokers, 27 social network perspective, 15–16 social networks, 19, social–ecological system, 12–14 study methodology, 16–18 theoretical perspective, 15–16 weakening of traditional governance structures, 14–15 flexibility of adapting institutions, 259 floods Mumbai (2005), 243–4 Nepal, 80–3 Food Crisis Prevention and Mitigation Mechanism, Niger (DNPGCA), 157–8, 163 Food Crisis Prevention Network of the Sahel (FCPNS), 157 food insecurity chronic, 152 transitory, 152, SeeÂ€alsoÂ€food systems governance food security. SeeÂ€food systems governance food systems governance, 166 adaptive governance issues, 159–60 chronic food insecurity, 152 co-management, 163–4 conceptualisation of food security, 160–1 definitions of food security, 151–2 elements of adaptive governance, 160–6

factors which trigger famine, 151–2 famine early warning systems, 152–3, 156–62, 165 famine vulnerability factors, 151–2 food crisis relief institutions, 152–3 humanitarian crisis in Niger (2004–05), 154–66 hunger-related death rate, 150 impacts of climate change, 149–50 indicators of famine vulnerability, 152–3 institutional failures in Niger, 160–6 knowledge about food systems, 160–1 Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 149 need for flexibility, 163–4 need for institutional learning, 162–3 number of undernourished people worldwide, 149 predictions for future food shortages, 151 pressures on ecosystems, 149 problem of food insecurity, 150–1 progress in reducing hunger, 150 responses to food insecurity and famine, 153–4 social capital, 164–6 transitory food insecurity, 152 understanding famine and food insecurity, 151–4 Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) case study, 246, 253–60 forest conservation programme in Madagascar, 48 role of taboos, 38–40, 52–6, 68–70 forest damage Sri Lanka, 219 forest governance sacred kaya forests, Kenya, 66, SeeÂ€alsoÂ€taboo forests, Madagascar forest regeneration Madagascar, 53–4 funeral rituals burial forests, 47–8, 58–63, 66–8 global climate change institutional adaptation. SeeÂ€institutional adaptation to climate change Global Environment Facility Small Grants Programme, 221 Global Environmental Change (GEC) impact on food security, 149–50 Global Environmental Change and Food Systems Project, 154

285

286

Index Global Information and Early Warning System (GIEWS), 156–7 Global Nature Fund, 231 Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network (GOARN), 206 Global Public Health Intelligence Network (GPHIN), 203–4, 206–7 global sustainability, 2 understanding adaptation, 3 governance definition, 39–40, 174–5 of social–ecological systems, 3–4 Green Coast initiative Sri Lanka, 230, 233 Green Revolution, 152 Green State concept, 133 hazard management. SeeÂ€disaster risk management, Cayman Islands Health Canada, 203, 206 high-reliability organisations adaptive governance, 199–202 humanitarian aid TAFREN (Sri Lanka), 219, 229 humanitarian crisis, Niger (2004–5) assessments of the food situation, 156–8 crisis relief institutions, 152–3 development of the food crisis, 158–9 early warning systems, 156–62 institutional failures, 159–66 institutions involved, 157–62 lack of adaptive capacity, 160–6 lack of institutional learning, 162–3 narrow conceptualisation of food security, 160–1 national and international responses, 158–9 need for timely, flexible response, 163–4 responses to food insecurity and famine, 153–4 social capital, 164–6 understanding famine and food insecurity, 151–4 vulnerability to food shortage, 155–6 Hurricane Ivan, 177 hurricane risk management, Cayman Islands approach to hurricane risk management, 177–82 effectiveness of the NHC, 182–4 Emergency Powers Law (1997), 178–80

factors in the success of the NHC, 184–6 hurricane and storm risk, 177 National Hurricane Committee (NHC), 171–86 public–private partnerships (PPPs), 171–86 structure of the NHC, 177–82 IDS adaptation evaluation framework, 242–3 Indian Ocean tsunami (2004), 208, 217–20 influence measures of, 18 influential individuals and resource management, 27–30 identifying, 18 influenza A/H1N1 (swine flu), 207 avian, 202 information technology emerging infectious diseases, 203–6 networks of networks, 205–6 institutional adaptation to climate change, 243–61 barriers and limits to resilience approach, 258–60 buffering, 250–1, 254, 256–7 challenges for public institutions, 240–1 climate change challenge, 240 definition of adaptation, 241–2 Defra evaluation framework, 242–3 DFID case study, 246–52 DPSIR evaluation framework, 242 efficacy evaluation, 259 efficiency evaluation, 259–60 equity evaluation, 260 evaluation strategies, 260–1 existing evaluation frameworks, 241–3 FCO case study, 246, 253–60 features of institutional resilience, 246 feedback, 253, 254–5, 257–8 flexibility evaluation, 259 IDS evaluation framework, 242–3 importance of evaluation, 243–5 Mumbai floods (2005), 243–4 networks, 255–6 resilience and good adaptations, 255–8 resilience perspective on evaluation, 243–5 self-organisation, 249–50, 253–6 sustainability evaluation, 259 TearFund assessment tool, 243

Index Thames Estuary 2100 project, 243 institutional diversity and adaptive governance, 195–6 institutional learning role in adaptive governance, 162–3 institutional redundancy, 138 and adaptive governance, 196–7 institutional responses to shock, 2 institutional robustness, 138 institutions as the ‘rules of the game’, 39 building adaptive capacity, 3 definition, 3, 39–40 International Energy Agency, 253 International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), 225, 230 Internet infectious disease early warning systems, 203–6 irrigation systems management. SeeÂ€farmer-managed irrigation, Nepal Katzenstein, Peter, 130 Kenya sacred kaya forests, 66, SeeÂ€alsoÂ€fishing community, Kenya knowledge distribution social networks, 18–19 Kyoto Protocol, 197 land restoration partnerships urban areas, 115 landslides Nepal, 80–3 leadership and network position, 18 and resource management, 27–30 vs decentralisation, 194 local ecological knowledge distribution, 11–12, 17–19 Local Environment Fund, 221 London Green Belt, 114 Madagascar. SeeÂ€taboo forests, Madagascar MANDRU, 221 Mangrove Action Project (MAP), 231 mangrove damage Sri Lanka, 219, 222 Mangrove Restoration Network, 234 Mangroves for the Future initiative Sri Lanka, 230, 233–4 Manhattan urbanisation, 107 Meadowcroft, James, 132–3

Médecins Sans Frontières, 157–8, 203, 206–9 Metropolitan Gardening Organisation (MGO), 112 migrations Madagascar, 47, 51–6, 63–6 Millennium Development Goals, 149–50 Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 102, 149 monkeypox, 204–5 monsoon seasons East Africa, 12–13 Montreal Protocol, 197 Mumbai floods (2005), 243–4 Nagenahiru Foundation, 231 National Hurricane Committee (NHC), Cayman Islands, 171–86 Natural Resouces and Evironmental Policy (NAREP) Sri Lanka, 220–1 Nepal. SeeÂ€farmer-managed irrigation in Nepal network position analyses, 18 networks and knowledge distribution, 18–19 centralised, 25–6 decentralised, 25–6 in institutions, 255–6 positions and incentives, 27 Social Network Analysis, 15–16 networks of networks, 205–9 Niger. SeeÂ€humanitarian crisis, Niger (2004–05) Nipah virus, 202 non-governmental organisations adaptation to climate change, 251 Cayman Islands Red Cross, 181 coastal conservation initiatives, 220–1, 225, 234 Concerned Citizen’s Commission events, 244 employees, 57 food crisis assessments, 158 forest conservation, 44 forest reserves, 55 funding facilitators, 224–5 humanitarian crisis response, 153, 163–5 hurricane planning, 271 influence of, 135, 194 irrigation programmes, 78, 82, 86, 97 mangrove restoration initiatives, 230–2 relational contracts, 181 response to epidemics, 203 North, Douglass, 130

287

288

Index northeast monsoon East Africa, 12–13 organisation theory applications, 96–7 Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), 141–2 pandemics. SeeÂ€emerging infectious diseases Permanent Interstate Committee for Drought Control (CILSS), 156–7 planet increasing pressures on, 2–3 planetary resilience, 2–3 planetary stewardship, 2 polycentrism and resilience, 138 problem of fit, 3–4, 265–7 Programme Alimentair Mondial (PAM). SeeÂ€World Food Programme ProMED, 203 property rights in urban areas, 106–9 public–private partnerships (PPPs) adaptive co-management, 173 arguments against, 175–6 arguments in favour of, 175 co-management, 173 definitions of governance, 174–5 effectiveness in hazard management, 184–6 effectiveness of the Cayman Islands NHC, 182–4 equality between partners, 176–7 factors in the success of the NHC, 184–6 for environmental governance, 174–7 hierarchical managerial transactions, 172 hybrid forms of governance, 171–4 National Hurricane Committee (NHC), Cayman Islands, 171–86 participatory governance, 176 recurrent contractual transactions, 172 relational contracting transactions, 172 role in disaster risk management, 171–86 social capital, 176–7 trust, 176–7 Type II partnerships, 174, 177–8 types of, 171–4 reconfigurable business organisations, 203 Red Cross, 181, 206–7, 259 resilience

diversity hypothesis, 138 from effective governance, 183 in social–ecological systems, 76, 138, 265–7 mechanisms, 2 response to unpredictable change, 2 sources of, 138, SeeÂ€alsoÂ€institutional adaptation to climate change resource management social network perspective, 15–16 ritual sacrifice taboo forests, 41–2, 47, 50, 55–6, 58–63, 66–8 Royal Parks, London, 172 sacred kaya forests, Kenya, 66 Sahel and West Africa Club (SWAC), 157 SARS, 204, 207–8 self-organising institutions, 249–50, 253–6, 277 Sewalanka Foundation, 231 social and ecological interdependence, 1–2 social blockers, 27 social brokers, 25–7 Social Network Analysis, 15–16 approach to resource management, 15–16 boundaries of the study population, 16 centralised networks, 25–6 decentralised networks, 25–6 Kenyan fishing community, 16–18 key individuals, 27–30 leadership, 27–30 social networks and knowledge distribution, 18–19 role in adaptation, 11–12 spread of local ecological knowledge, 11–12 social science understanding resilience in systems, 2 social taboos role in conservation, 38–9, SeeÂ€alsoÂ€taboo forests, Madagascar social–ecological resilience, 265–7 future prospects, 264–5 insights, 274–7 social–ecological systems, 1–2 adaptive governance, 3–4 diversity hypothesis, 138 institutional redundancy, 138 institutional robustness, 138 Kenyan fishing community, 12–14

Index lock-in, 3 polycentrism and resilience, 138 resilience, 2 shifts and transformations, 3 sources of resilience, 138 states as, 127–30 societies resilience mechanisms, 2 responses to shock, 2 southeast monsoon East Africa, 12–13 Special Area Management plans Sri Lanka, 221 Sri Lanka. SeeÂ€coastal ecosystems, Sri Lanka Sri Lankan Mangrove Restoration Network, 231, 233–4 states adaptive capacity, 130–1 as social–ecological systems, 127–30 emergence of ecostates, 127–8 emergence of welfare states, 131–2 Green State concept, 133 history of environmental policymaking, 143–4 national-level environmental policy-making, 128–30 paradigms in environmental policy-making, 143–4 responses to environmental degradation, 132–3 responses to externalisation of environmental costs, 131–3 role in environmental management, 143–4 transformative capacity, 130 Stern group, 253 stewardship of natural resources, 3–4 sustainability in cities urban commons, 115–16 sustainability of adapting institutions, 259 swine flu (A/H1N1 influenza), 207 taboo forests, Madagascar, 37–71 adaptive capacity for forest governance, 52–6, 70–1 adaptive capacity of local institutions, 40 adaptive mechanisms, 63–70 ancestral beliefs, 41–2, 49–50, 57–63, 66–8 burial forests, 47–8, 50, 54–5, 58–63, 66–8 Christianity and ancestral beliefs, 57–63, 66–8 Christianity and social change, 56–63

conservation programme in Madagascar, 48 conservation reserves and parks, 37 conservation role of local institutions, 37–8 conservation role of taboos, 010738–40, 52–6, 68–70 definition of adaptive capacity, 40 definition of governance, 39–40 definition of institution, 39–40 deforestation in Western Androy, 52–3 drivers of change, 50–63 drought conditions, 46–7, 51–6 ecological context, 44–7 effects of taboo protection, 52–6 establishment and maintenance of taboos, 49–50 features of taboos, 40–1 forest taboo institution, 39 forests in Androy, 42–4 funeral rituals, 47–8, 58–63, 66–8 land ownership, 48–50 landscape of Androy, 42 link between land and people, 63–6 link between people, ancestors, and forest, 66–70 local institutions, 39–40 long-term taboo protection, 55–6 migrations, 47, 51–6, 63–6 regenerating forest areas, 53–4 reinstated and reinforced taboo protection, 55–6 responses to drivers of change, 63 ritual sacrifice, 41–2, 47, 50, 55–6, 58–63, 66–8 social context, 47–8 spread of Christianity in Madagascar, 56–7 stable forest areas, 53–5 taboo forest institutions, 48–51 taboos as local institutions, 40–7 taboos in Madagascar, 41–2 taboos fady or faly (Madagascar), 40–1 features of, 40–1 occurrence around the world, 40–1 origin of the term, 40–1 Task Force for Rebuilding the Nation (TAFREN) Sri Lanka, 219, 229 TearFund assessment tool, 243 Thames Estuary 2100 project, 243 transformative capacity of states, 130 tropical storm risk management. SeeÂ€hurricane risk management, Cayman Islands

289

290

Index Trust for Public Land, 112 tsunami Indian Ocean (2004), 208, 217–20 Turtle Conservation Project Sri Lanka, 221 turtles damage to nesting beaches, 219–20 Type II public–private partnerships, 174, 177–8 ultra-robust networks, 203 United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), 149–50, 153, 156–7, 203 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, 253–4, 259 United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 229 United States Agency for International Development (USAID), 153, 156–7 United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 203 urban commons, 101–21 allotment gardens, 112–14 and sustainability in cities, 115–16 applicability of, 116–20 benefits of active land management, 109–10 biodiversity in allotments, 118 characteristics of urban land, 103–6 club-based organisations, 109 common property rights regimes, 103 community forests, 114–15 community gardens, 110–12 congestion of urban public domains, 108 definition, 103 ecological illiteracy, 102–3, 109–10 ecological value of allotments, 118 ecosystem management options, 120–1 effects of urbanisation, 101–2 emerging urban commons, 114–15 environmental generational amnesia, 101–2

extent of urban green space, 103–4 human disconnection from nature, 101–2 land restoration partnerships, 115 loss of common land, 109 loss of ecosystem services, 102–3, 116 management of urban green spaces, 103–4 property rights and active land management, 115–16 property rights in cities, 106–9 proportion of built-up land, 103–4 rapid spread of urbanisation, 101–2 reconnecting humans with nature, 109–10 residents as stakeholders, 120–1 separation of urban public space attributes, 108 support for urban agriculture, 116–20 urban land ownership patterns, 103–4 ways to promote, 116–20 urban residents stakeholders in ecosystem management, 120–1 urbanisation Bangkok, 107 Manhattan, 107 Weiss, Linda, 130 welfare states emergence of, 131–2 West Nile fever, 202 Wetlands International, 230 World Bank, 229, 251, 259 World Food Conference (1994), 153 World Food Programme, 56, 153, 156 World Food Summit (1996), 149, 152 World Food Summit (2009), 149 World Health Organization (WHO), 203, 207–8 World Organization for Animal Health, 203 World Summit on Sustainable Development (Johannesburg 2002), 174 World Wide Fund for Nature, 230 yellow fever, 208