ANNUAL CONFERENCE 2005

In association with Development Policy and Practice and the International Development Centre at the Open University

Milton Keynes, UK
7th-9th September 2005

Connecting people and places: challenges and opportunities for development

ENVIRONMENTAL RESOURCES AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT, WITH DEVELOPMENT ETHICS PARALLEL SESSIONS ABSTRACTS

There are two sessions, provisionally scheduled for:

• C: September 8th, 9.00-10.30 (Environmental Resources and Sustainable Development)
• D: September 8th, 13.30-15.00 (This session is jointly organised with the Development Ethics Study Group; the session will also discuss the theme of ‘Peace, sustainability, and ethics’ to brainstorm some of the issues and develop the main strands for exploration in a forthcoming conference to be organised jointly by the two groups.)

Running order to be confirmed.

COMPETING IDEAS INFORMING NATURAL RESOURCE MANAGEMENT IN RURAL TANZANIA: A CRITICAL EXAMINATION
Jules Siedenburg, Queen Elizabeth House, University of Oxford

Based on recently completed doctoral work from the University of Oxford, the paper critically examines local knowledge in a peasant farming community in Tanzania. It focuses on knowledge informing natural resource management by farm households, notably the management of trees. Its key concern is how local knowledge and natural resource management practice adapt to challenges associated with environmental degradation and market liberalisation. Yet it is also concerned with the role of institutions and outside agents in influencing ideas about natural resource management and observed management patterns.

The paper identifies strengths and weaknesses of both local knowledge and institutional knowledge (i.e., ideas advocated by extension agents, projects and schools) given such adaptation challenges. It also distinguishes competing strands within local knowledge vis-a-vis natural resource management. Moreover, the paper sheds light on the production of local knowledge under conditions of rapid change, suggesting that certain influences may be helpful while others are detrimental.

The study findings suggest that some households adapt more effectively to contemporary local-level challenges than others. Moreover, differing management practices among otherwise similar households were strongly associated with knowledge differences vis-a-vis natural resource management, suggesting that knowledge differences may be key causal factors. The paper thus helps explain problems of technology adoption, notably the failure of proven ‘sustainable agriculture’ technologies to disseminate readily beyond an initial group of early innovators.

This work is directly relevant to ongoing policy debates about poverty reduction, agricultural productivity and environmental degradation. Specifically, it sheds light on how development interventions can most usefully negotiate competing ideas about natural resource managment in rural areas facing rapid change. Its main practical implication is to inform capacity building efforts, notably extension service reform. Given the strength of the findings, the potential livelihood gains from addressing such knowledge gaps may be large.

ENVIRONMENTAL CONFLICTS IN THE ECUADORIAN AMAZON; A CASE STUDY OF THE SHUAR COMMUNITIES MOBILISATION AGAINST THE OIL INDUSTRY
Erica Bjureby. PhD Student, Kings College, London University

The last few years have seen the rise of important social movements, especially those that have emerged recently in the tropical rainforests such as in the Ecuadorian Amazon. The region is witnessing the development of indigenous movements that explicitly construct a political strategy to defend territory, cultural identity and natural resources. The political strategies and practice that surrounds the indigenous movements are important contributions to today’s intellectual work on nature-society relations and in current trend in political ecology concerning concepts such as territory, landscape, biodiversity, and ‘nature’ itself. Here, political ecology provides a theoretical basis for examining a series of larger-scale political and social events embedded within indigenous politics and everyday livelihood struggles. Thus, the paper broadly addresses indigenous struggles over meaning and practice concerning environmental conflict using the Ecuadorian Shuar people’s struggles as a case study.

In particular, the paper is concerned with understanding how the Shuar communities have reacted to the oil industry in the Ecuadorian Amazon, and it seeks to relate everyday local level relations to the concept of oil and the reaction against it within a process of discursive interaction. The aim is therefore to explore the political ecology of indigenous political mobilization with an eye to clarifying the social dynamics and political trade-offs that are inevitable involved in such mobilization. Such approach is understood in terms of three potential local opportunities; cultural identity politics, territory and place, and access to and control of resources. Therefore, this study hopes to contribute to the political ecology and cultural political approaches and to provide new insights into the view of indigenous movements and livelihood struggles.

'MUCH TOO LOCAL, NOT ENOUGH GLOBAL?': COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT, NGOS AND SUSTAINABILITY IN THE RURAL WATER SUPPLY IN TANZANIA
Anna Toner, University of Bradford

Community/stakeholder participation, ownership and cost sharing/recovery are key components of Tanzania’s water policy. However these are not easy to achieve and the benefits of them (both in terms of efficiency and equity) may be overstated.

However, the limitations of ‘bottom-up’ and demand led approaches need to be recognised. It is likely that the state cannot simply be a facilitator and still expect to achieve basic human rights such as equitable and universal access to safe water. It may need to play a more active role in setting and enforcing equity criteria and even in delivering schemes itself.

Research from Kilimanjaro region, Tanzania on a GTZ-funded rehabilitation of a piped water supply demonstrates that:

• Community-based management (through water user’s associations-local NGOs) does not necessarily lead to broad community ownership.
• That benefits from local-level management are not shared equitably and many people remain water poor despite significant increases in water supply.
• That the project mechanism is unsustainable and expensive and that communities are being asked to bear the cost of expensive and institutionally inappropriate schemes.

This paper offers an analysis of the limitations and inherent problems of community-based management, from the perspective of local people themselves, and explores mechanisms through which equitable access to water may be better enhanced.

REWARDING UPLAND FARMERS FOR ENVIRONMENTAL SERVICES: THE ROLE OF LANDCARE INSTITUTIONS IN THE PHILIPPINES.'
Rob Cramb, University of Queensland

Upland environments in Asia are the source of an array of valuable but unpriced environmental services. These have been classified as watershed functions, biodiversity functions, carbon stocks, resource productivity, and human health and landscape beauty. The flow of these environmental services is heavily influenced by the land-use activities of upland farm households, many of whom are among the poorest of the poor. Hence there is a growing research effort to find effective mechanisms to ‘reward the upland poor for the environmental services they provide’. The intention is to devise ways to address simultaneously the goals of environmental protection and poverty reduction by linking the ‘consumers’ of environmental services with the ‘providers’, typically through an intermediary institution. In the Philippines it has been suggested that Landcare groups and associations may provide one such institutional vehicle. This paper presents a case study of the Landcare Program in Lantapan Muncipality, Central Mindanao, to assess the potential of the Lantapan Landcare Association (and, by extension, other similar organisations) as a vehicle for channelling payments or rewards from consumers of environmental services to the upland farmers who provide them. The assessment is based on the principle that sustainable institutional arrangements that effectively bring together a wide variety of interests and have a major impact on highly valued environmental services are to be preferred. The Lantapan Landcare Association rates well against this criterion, though further research is needed to test this initial assessment.

ARE RIVER WATER DISPUTES ABOUT IDENTITY? A VIEW THROUGH CAPABILITIES APPROACH AND COLLECTIVE ACTION
P.B. Anand, University of Bradford

At the heart of river water disputes are issues related to justice and fairness. These depend to a significant extent on (a) how citizens perceive their claims over river waters (shaped by cultural and historical factors); (b) the extent to which citizens are able to collectivise their claims through location, economic activity and identity and use their voice to influence the state; (c) the extent to which the state policy and actions reflect the ‘voice’ and collective interests of different groups; and (d) how the various riparian states recognise and deal with each others’ claims. Using the case study of Cauvery river dispute, this paper aims to explore some routes through which identity contributes or becomes instrumental to claims over natural resources such as river water and how a capability approach can contribute to our understanding of such disputes and the development of resolution mechanisms. These are conjectures for further exploration.