Capacity-Building for Natural Resource Management: Lessons from the Health Sector

This paper examines capacity-building measures used by the health sector relevant to natural resource management (NRM) using the delivery of two programs in Australia through its recently formalized 56 community-based regional NRM Boards as a reference point. The delivery of NRM outcomes through devolved governance arrangements has been hampered by inadequate capacity in other countries (e.g., New Zealand, Canada). The inherent complexities of NRM, coupled with professional “comfort zones,” often limit actors from looking to other sectors confronting similar issues. This paper summarizes findings from ∼70 sources in health reviewing nine major capacity-building measures. The outcomes of research evaluating the relative benefits and disbenefits of applying these measures are discussed. The paper identifies several opportunities to trial some of these measures in NRM.

Coping with Complexity and Organizational Interests in Natural Resource Management

To cope with the daunting challenges posed by system complexity while maximizing their organizational interests, resource management institutions must implement strategies aimed at reducing some of the particular dimensions of complexity. Virtually all of the recent initiatives to improve resource management—ecosystem management, adaptive management, stakeholder negotiation, disturbance prevention, multiple mandates for resource management agencies, resource homogenization, restoration ecology, the creation of protected areas, the restoration of local-user rights, and algorithmic resource exploitation rules—are vulnerable to inappropriate interest-driven simplifications, many of which result from patterns of perverse learning. A research agenda designed to identify better means of coping with complexity and the effects of organizational interests could help to improve resource and environmental management. Received 4 October 2000; accepted 15 June 2001.     

Natural Resource Management: The Need for Interdisciplinary Collaboration

Human influence is now so pervasive that every ecosystem on Earth is being managed, whether intentionally or inadvertently. It is therefore imperative for scientists and managers to work together so that appropriate management regimes can be put in place wherever possible. However, it is not always clear what is appropriate, and the difficulties that often arise when scientists and managers work together can be even further compounded by the inclusion of lay stakeholders in the decision-making process. The expansion of interdisciplinary undergraduate and graduate programs would help both scientists and managers to deal more effectively with sociological issues and to understand how economic and demographic changes impact on natural resources. In addition, continuing education programs in these areas should be made available to established professionals to help them deal with new challenges. The concept of ecosystem services should be used to communicate the importance of various ecosystem components and processes to a broader audience. Consensus on a management regime can often be achieved through adaptive management. The process by which interdisciplinary collaboration can lead to new insights and research initiatives is exemplified by a resource management study on the island of Kosrae, Federated States of Micronesia. As a paradigm of natural resource management, microcosms like this small island community offer a unique opportunity for training and education. Received 4 October 2000; accepted 20 March 2001.     

Natural Resource Management, Paradigm Shifts, and the Decentralization Reform in Mali

The mainstream view in natural resource management in African drylands has been that local people are responsible for natural resource degradation. Today, alternative views or new paradigms are emerging in several fields. These new paradigms, which support decentralization of natural resource management, are discussed in relation to the ongoing decentralization process in Mali. During the colonial period, heavily centralized governments were installed in all the French colonies. This structure was maintained by Malian governments after independence. However, following the recent transition to democracy, a decentralizing reform is being implemented. It is presently not clear whether these reforms will lead to mere deconcentration, involving the redistribution of administrative responsibilities within the central government, or whether Mali is heading toward real decentralization, devolving decision making powers to local communities. The gestion de terroir approach, which may be a useful tool in achieving decentralization in farming communities, would, in pastoral areas, cause more damage than benefit.     

Adaptive Learning Networks: Developing Resource Management Knowledge through Social Learning Forums

The purpose of this paper is to explore adaptive learning networks as a contemporary means by which new resource management knowledge can develop through social learning forums. The paper draws upon recent discussions within two disparate literatures on indigenous knowledge and network theory and is grounded in fieldwork with two Anishinaabe First Nations in northwestern Ontario. The paper has three objectives. First, problematize the principle of representation as a basic way of including the knowledge of indigenous peoples within natural resource and environmental management. Second, utilize network theory as a way to weave together adaptive learning by individuals into a cross-cultural social learning process. Finally, propose an adaptive natural resources and environmental framework that brings together, through a social learning process, the different ways individuals, indigenous peoples and resource managers, perceive environmental change.     

The Politics of Reintegrating Australian Aboriginal and American Indian Indigenous Knowledge into Resource Management: The Dynamics of Resource Appropriation and Cultural Revival

As the United States and Australia struggle with contemporary crises over competing uses of rapidly depleting natural resources, there are striking parallels between American Indian and Australian Aboriginal communities demanding a place at the management table and offering culturally based understandings of and solutions for the ecosystems at risk. These efforts to integrate indigenous knowledge into mainstream natural resource management are part of larger legal and political debates over land tenure, the locus of control, indigenous self-governance, and holistic ecosystems management.     

Development of a Tool to Facilitate Participation of Maori in the Management of Stream and River Health

A cultural health index (CHI) for streams was developed in a program of collaborative research involving members of Ngai Tahu (an iwi [tribe] within the South Island of New Zealand) and ecologists at Otago University. The aim was to provide a tool for effective participation of Maori in resource management decisions. Five cultural values are of central importance to the nature of the CHI: mauri (spiritual life force), mahinga kai (traditional resource harvesting), kaitiakitanga (guardianship obligation), ki uta ki tai (mountains-to-the-sea holistic philosophy), and wai taonga waters that are treasured). The CHI has three components. Forty-six stream sites in two culturally important river catchments were first classified according to whether there is a traditional association with Maori. The second component assessed the historical and contemporary mahinga kai status of the site, including questions of legal and physical access. The third component was a Cultural Stream Health Measure (CSHM) that encapsulates indicators of catchment, riparian, and instream condition in a manner that is consistent with Maori values. The CSHM was found to be significantly correlated with western measures of stream health commonly used in New Zealand (Macroinvertebrate Community Index, Stream Health Monitoring and Assessment Kit), and performed at least as well in encapsulating the relationship between land development and stream health. We describe a multistep process by which other indigenous people can develop a cultural ecosystem health measure, and then use the tool to ensure a substantial role in decision making with the agency in charge.     

Coppice Harvesting of Fuelwood Species on a South African Common: Utilizing Scientific and Indigenous Knowledge in Community Based Natural Resource Management

The limitations of Community Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) with respect to the difficulties of comparing local versus scientific knowledge categories within a bounded definition of ‘community’ were investigated by means of a study exploring local indigenous knowledge pertaining to harvesting technique, and the impact of soil and species type on the post-harvest coppice response of popular savanna fuelwood species, among rural inhabitants of the Bushbuckridge region of the Limpopo Province, South Africa. Soils and plants were evaluated chiefly in terms of their perceived ability to retain precipitation, making rainfall a driving force in local understanding of environmental productivity. Some indigenous knowledge showed an agreement with biological data, but overall the variability in responses, as well as the diverse scales at which indigenous and scientific knowledge is directed, were too great to allow for simplistic parallels between local ecological indices to be made. Indigenous environmental knowledge was underscored by the perceived symbolic link between environmental and social degradation. It is recommended that environmental managers incorporate indigenous knowledge as a component of a systems-level approach to natural resource management, where biological, cultural, economic, and symbolic aspects of natural resource use are nested within a broader ecosocial system. This approach to indigenous knowledge is offered as an alternative to the simple scientific evaluation that so often characterizes environmental management.     

The Event Book System: A Community-based Natural Resource Monitoring System from Namibia

Namibia's Community Based Natural Resource Management program is a joint venture between government, national non-governmental organisations and rural communities. A component of the program involves communities in monitoring various aspects of their conservancy, ranging from wildlife numbers, through economic returns, to patrolling records and infringements of the rules. A main feature of community monitoring is the Event Book System, which differs from conventional monitoring in that the community dictates what needs to be monitored, and scientists only facilitate the design process and conservancy members undertake all data analysis. The system has been adopted with good results by more than 30 communal conservancies in Namibia, covering almost seven million ha, and is now also being piloted in six national parks. Continued emphasis is needed on enhancing community interpretation and use of data for active adaptive management, particularly where conservancy leaders are transient due to the democratic nature of local organizations. Moreover, because the system is driven by local priorities, it does not cover all aspects of a comprehensive biodiversity monitoring programme. Where society deems other biodiversity values worth monitoring, conservancies must either be willingly persuaded to act on this, or external systems must be established to cater for these needs. If a community already has a monitoring system of its own, a win–win solution might be for the community to be sub-contracted to undertake these ȁ8external modules' on behalf of national agencies.     

Savanna Fires in East-Central Senegal: Distribution Patterns, Resource Management and Perceptions

The temporal and spatial distribution of fires for an area in east-central Senegal was determined on the basis of multi-temporal NOAA AVHRR satellite images. Three years of data (1990–1992) were analyzed defining the boundary between two different fire regimes: very few and scattered fires to the north with the majority of fires south of the boundary. This boundary was stable for the three dry seasons examined and was identical to the northernmost extension of fires as determined by visual inspection of a hard copy Landsat image mosaic. Fire frequencies were analyzed in relation to dominant vegetation types and yearly precipitation, and the findings compared to results of a field survey of the local population's perceptions of the causes and implications of fires. Survey results clearly showed that the use of fire in the study area is closely linked to the utilization of the environment for livestock grazing and crop production. We conclude that the local population has a high degree of awareness about the application of fire, that different fire use practices concerning can be identified respectively in the grasslands of the northern and the savanna of the southern parts of the study area, and that these practices reflect a well adapted production strategy. Finally, we recommend policy decisions be more flexible in the light of local understanding of fire use.     

Introducing Indonesian Medical Students to Rainforest Conservation and Community Health in the Field: A Practicum Experience in East Kalimantan

This article describes a practicum experience developed between a conservation organization (The Nature Conservancy) and a medical school (The Faculty of Medicine at Mulawarman University in East Kalimantan). Through this practicum, groups of medical students from Mulawarman have assisted with baseline and follow-up community evaluations in remote villages along the Kelay River, Berau District. These evaluations were done in conjunction with the Kelay Conservation Health Program, a program designed to improve health and healthcare for local people, mostly former hunter–gatherers, in an area of rainforest that the conservation organization seeks to protect. Besides gaining experience in community health assessment, through this practicum medical students also gained field experience and knowledge in rural and remote area health and healthcare in Indonesia and had an opportunity to explore linkages between conservation and health. At the conclusion of their time with the program, participating students also presented individual problem-based reports on relevant topics to students and faculty at the Medical School and to the District Health Department. This partnership between a conservation agency and a medical school in a developing country is unusual, but has been very well received by all stakeholders involved. Because of this, Mulawarman is now planning to make Kelay into a formal training site for its students. This experience may serve as a model for other groups interested in promoting ecosystem health education to future health professionals in the developing world.     

Continuous Evaluation of Ligand Protein Predictions: A Weekly Community Challenge for Drug Docking

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Psychological Factors Determining Individual Compliance with Rules for Common Pool Resource Management: The Case of a Cuban Community Sharing a Solar Energy System

This study focuses on individuals’ subjective reasons for complying with rules for common pool resource management. We examine the topic of individual rule compliance, which the commons literature has addressed only marginally, and outline recent empirical findings. Hypotheses are derived based on rule compliance theory and explored using data gathered in a Cuban community sharing a solar energy system. The statistical analyses reveal that compliance with rules for energy management is influenced by various factors. Depending on the particular rule, factors such as sanctioning, legitimacy, and compatibility, among others, influence the frequency of individual rule compliant behavior to differing extents.     

Institutional Development in the Face of Complexity: Developing Rules for Managing Forest Resources

The ability to develop institutions is constrained by human capacity to cope with complexity. But complexity is multidimensional and it is not clear which forms of complexity present the greatest challenges for institutional development. In the context of natural resources, the predictability of resource availability affects expectations that an individual or group will be able to capture the benefits of management. In addition, incomplete understanding of cause-and-effect relationships creates uncertainty about the consequences of alternative management options. These features influence calculations about resource management. The importance of resource complexity relative to various social, political, and institutional factors known to influence collective choice remains an open question. We evaluate the relative importance of several forms of resource complexity and characteristics of resource users for the development of rules for management for forest products in Indiana.     

Translating Evidence for Low Back Pain Management into a Consumer-Focussed Resource for Use in Community Pharmacies: A Cluster-Randomised Controlled Trial

Background

This cluster-randomised controlled trial determined the effectiveness of an evidence-based, pamphlet intervention in improving low back pain (LBP)-related beliefs among pharmacy consumers.

Methods

Thirty five community pharmacies were randomised to three groups: pamphlet+education intervention [n = 11]; pamphlet only intervention [n = 11]; control: usual care [n = 13]. Eligibility requirements for clusters included: community-based pharmacies and proprietor participation consent. Pharmacy consumers (N = 317) aged 18–65 years currently experiencing LBP participated. Intervention group allocation depended on the pharmacy attended. Individual-level outcomes were measured at pre-intervention (T0), at two (T1) and eight (T2) weeks post-intervention and included beliefs about LBP [Back Pain Beliefs Questionnaire (BBQ); Fear Avoidance Beliefs Questionnaire (FABQ)]. Secondary outcomes included pain severity, activity impairment and pamphlet perceived usefulness. Blinding to group allocation included primary investigators, outcome assessors and the statistician. Pharmacy staff and consumers were un-blinded.

Results

Of 35 pharmacies recruited (317 consumers), no clusters were lost to follow-up. Follow-up was available for n = 24 at 2 weeks only; n = 38 at 8 weeks only; n = 148 at both time points, with n = 148+24+38 = 210 analysed (107 excluded: no follow up). Adjusting for baseline scores demonstrated no significant differences in beliefs (2 or at 8 weeks) between pamphlet (with or without education) versus control, or between ‘pamphlet with’ versus ‘without’ education. Work-related fear (FABQ) was significantly lower in consumers receiving pamphlet (with or without education) versus control (difference −2.3, 95%CI: −4.4 to −0.2). There was no significant difference between “pamphlet with” versus “pamphlet without” groups. Consumers receiving the “pamphlet with” reported greater perceived usefulness than consumers receiving the “pamphlet without” (difference 0.9 (95%CI: 0.0 to 1.8)).

Conclusion

Community pharmacies provided a feasible primary care portal for implementing evidence-based information. The associated improvement in work-related LBP-beliefs for consumers receiving the pamphlet suggests this simple intervention may be a useful component of care.

Trial Registration

ACTR.org.au ACTRN12611000053921     

Integration of Ecosystem Services into Ecological Risk Assessment for Implementation in Ecosystem-Based River Management: A Case Study of the Yellow River,China

Ecological risk assessment (ERA) is a scientific tool used to support ecosystem-based management (EBM), but most current ERA methods consider only a few indices of particular species or components. Such limitations restrict the scope of results so that they are insufficient to reflect the integrated risk characterization of an ecosystem, thereby inhibiting the application of ERA in EBM. We incorporate the concept of ecosystem services into ERA and develop an improved ERA framework to create a comprehensive risk map of an ecosystem, accounting for multiple human activities and ecosystem services. Using the Yellow River as a case study, we show how this framework enables the implementation of integrated risk characterization and prioritization of the most important ecological risk issues in the ecosystem-based river management of the Yellow River. This framework can help practitioners facilitate better implementation of ERA within EBM in rivers or any target ecosystem.     

Operational Changes in a Shared Resource Laboratory with the Use of a Product Lifecycle Management Approach: A Case Study

Shared Resource Laboratories (SRLs) provide investigators access to necessary scientific and resource expertise to leverage complex technologies fully for advancing high-quality biomedical research in a cost-effective manner. At the University of Nebraska Medical Center, the Flow Cytometry Research Facility (FCRF) offered access to exceptional technology, but the methods of operation were outdated and unsustainable. Whereas technology has advanced and the institute has expanded, the operations at the facility remained unchanged for 35 yr. To rectify this, at the end of 2013, we took a product lifecycle management approach to affect large operational changes and align the services offered with the SRL goal of education, as well as to provide service to researchers. These disruptive operational changes took over 10 mo to complete and allowed for independent end-user acquisition of flow cytometry data. The results have been monitored for the past 12 mo. The operational changes have had a positive impact on the quality of research, increased investigator-facility interaction, reduced stress of facility staff, and increased overall use of the resources. This product lifecycle management approach to facility operations allowed us to conceive of, design, implement, and monitor effectively the changes at the FCRF. This approach should be considered by SRL management when faced with the need for operationally disruptive measures.