scholarly journals The community resource management area mechanism: a strategy to manage African forest resources for REDD+

2013 ◽  
Vol 368 (1625) ◽  
pp. 20120311 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca A. Asare ◽  
Andrew Kyei ◽  
John J. Mason
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Resource Management ◽  
Natural Resource ◽  
Smallholder Farmers ◽  
Forest Resources ◽  
Community Resource ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Resource Governance ◽  
Management Area ◽  
Community Resource Management

Climate change poses a significant threat to Africa, and deforestation rates have increased in recent years. Mitigation initiatives such as REDD+ are widely considered as potentially efficient ways to generate emission reductions (or removals), conserve or sustainably manage forests, and bring benefits to communities, but effective implementation models are lacking. This paper presents the case of Ghana's Community Resource Management Area (CREMA) mechanism, an innovative natural resource governance and landscape-level planning tool that authorizes communities to manage their natural resources for economic and livelihood benefits. This paper argues that while the CREMA was originally developed to facilitate community-based wildlife management and habitat protection, it offers a promising community-based structure and process for managing African forest resources for REDD+. At a theoretical level, it conforms to the ecological, socio-cultural and economic factors that drive resource-users’ decision process and practices. And from a practical mitigation standpoint, the CREMA has the potential to help solve many of the key challenges for REDD+ in Africa, including definition of boundaries, smallholder aggregation, free prior and informed consent, ensuring permanence, preventing leakage, clarifying land tenure and carbon rights, as well as enabling equitable benefit-sharing arrangements. Ultimately, CREMA's potential as a forest management and climate change mitigation strategy that generates livelihood benefits for smallholder farmers and forest users will depend upon the willingness of African governments to support the mechanism and give it full legislative backing, and the motivation of communities to adopt the CREMA and integrate democratic decision-making and planning with their traditional values and natural resource management systems.

scholarly journals Strengthening Gender Responsiveness of the Green Climate Fund Ecosystem-Based Adaptation Programme in Namibia

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (18) ◽  
pp. 10162
Author(s):  
Margaret Ndapewa Angula ◽  
Immaculate Mogotsi ◽  
Selma Lendelvo ◽  
Karl Mutani Aribeb ◽  
Aina-Maria Iteta ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Resource Management ◽  
Climate Change Adaptation ◽  
Natural Resource Management ◽  
Natural Resource ◽  
Gender Gap ◽  
Local Community ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Green Climate Fund

Scholars of gender and climate change argue that gender-blind climate change actions could exacerbate existing inequalities and undermine sustained climate change adaptation actions. For this reason, since 2017, the Green Climate Fund placed gender among its key programming prerequisites, making it the first multilateral climate fund to do so worldwide. However, to date, no lessons to inform planned gender-responsive ecosystem-based interventions in Namibia have been drawn from community-based natural resource management. Thus, this paper aims to share key lessons regarding the way in which gender assessment is useful in enhancing equity in an ecosystem-based adaptation programme for the Green Climate Fund. To this end, we conducted in-depth interviews and group discussions in the 14 rural regions of Namibia with 151 participants from 107 community-based natural resource management organisations (73.5:26.5; male:female ratio). The results identified gender imbalances in leadership and decision-making due to intersecting historic inequalities, ethnicity and geography, as well as other socio-cultural factors in local community-based natural resource management institutions. We also identified income disparities and unequal opportunities to diversify livelihoods, gendered differentiated impacts of climate change and meaningful participation in public forums. Overall, the assessment indicates that considering gender analysis at the initiation of a community-based climate change adaptation project is crucial for achieving resilience to climate change, closing the gender gap, building capacity to increase equity and empowering women in resource-dependent environments in Namibia and Sub-Saharan Africa more broadly.

The conceptual evolution and practice of community-based natural resource management in southern Africa: past, present and future

2010 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 283-295 ◽  
Author(s):  
BRIAN CHILD ◽  
GRENVILLE BARNES
Keyword(s):  
Resource Management ◽  
Property Rights ◽  
Natural Resource Management ◽  
Natural Resource ◽  
Southern Africa ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Political Organization ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Resource Governance

SUMMARYThis paper reviews the concept and practice of community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) as it has evolved in southern Africa, with a particular focus on Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia and, to a lesser extent, Zambia. It recognizes that, like democracy, CBNRM is both an imperfect process and a conceptual goal. The governance of economic processes, property rights and local political organization lie at the heart of CBNRM. The first challenge is to replace fiscal centralization, fees and bureaucracy (and the subsidization of alternative land uses) that have historically undervalued wild resources, so that CBNRM's comparative economic advantage is reflected in landholder and community incentives. Second, devolving property rights to communities shifts resource governance, responsibility and benefit appropriately to the local level. This necessitates accountable, transparent and equitable micro-governance, which in turn is linked to effective meso-level support and monitoring and cross-scale linkages between central government and local communities. This paper outlines the evolution of current models of CBNRM in the region and suggests core strategies for the next generation of CBNRM.

scholarly journals Cooperation in the commons: Community-based rangeland management in Namibia

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dean Karlan ◽  
David Coppock ◽  
Lucas Crowley ◽  
Susan Durham ◽  
Dylan Groves ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Resource Management ◽  
Program Implementation ◽  
Rangeland Management ◽  
Community Resource ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Causal Pathway ◽  
Cattle Management ◽  
Community Resource Management ◽  
The Commons ◽  
Management Approaches

Abstract Classic theories suggest that common pool resources are subject to overexploitation. Community-based resource management approaches may ameliorate “tragedy of the commons” effects. Using a randomized evaluation in Namibia’s communal rangelands, we find that a comprehensive four-year program to support community-based rangeland and cattle management led to persistent and large improvements for eight of thirteen indices of social and behavioral outcomes. But effects on rangeland outcomes, cattle productivity and household economics were either negative or nil. Positive impacts on community resource management may have been offset by communities’ inability to control grazing by non-participating herds and inertia in the rangeland sub-system. This juxtaposition, in which measurable improvements in community resource management did not translate into better outcomes for households or ecosystem health, demonstrates the fragility of the causal pathway from program implementation to intended socioeconomic and environmental outcomes. It also points to challenges for improving climate change adaptation strategies.

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