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Project approach
The project works in six different sites to test this process of
environmental mediation.
These sites are:
Project general approach
All six sites have identified forest or land management issues which require
some form of collective action.
Fig LPF general improved approach
We learnt during the course of the project that four categories of results
are required to get a living agreement: (1) Good initialization, (2)
Empowerment, (3) Environmental mediation (4) Re-enforcement of the agreement
through markets and external actors. These four categories organize the
structure of the project results as in logical framework.
The goal of the initialization phase is to ensure that the project team will
be able to play the role of mediator. The team has identified the stakeholders,
the scale and the limits of the resources, the kind of issues and the team
estimates it can handle this mediation. We learnt from the LPF experience in
Matang that if resources area or number of stakeholders is too large it is
advisable to downscale in order to make the project intervention more feasible.
More importantly, during this phase the demand of stakeholders for project
mediation and intervention should be identified. In the case of Java, it took
time to get approval for intervention from different levels. This initialization
scale also requires a minimum of surveys to be used as baseline and also to help
the project team to understand the issues at play.
The empowerment phase aims to level ‘the playing field’. The project works in
contexts where communities are involved in a negotiation with more powerful
third parties such as large companies or agencies. Within the communities, some
individuals may try to capture project activities to develop their own power. In
such contexts without project intervention fair negotiation has little chance to
take place. Through capacity building, information sharing and development of
collective micro-livelihood-projects, the project will develop the capacity of
the community to act collectively, to cooperate with more powerful parties and
express collective demands regarding the use and management of forest and
natural resources. This will create the pre-requisite conditions that enable the
negotiation phase to take place.
The goal of the negotiation phase is to reach an agreement between the
community and external parties regarding the use and management of forest
resources. The institutionalization of places for negotiation and discussions
about trends helps stakeholders to progressively share views on forest issues.
Discussions about trends can be facilitated by the use of role playing games as
we did in the case of Palawan, models or maps as in the case of Jepara. The key
outputs of this negotiation phase are:
- a common, long-term objective regarding forest resources; and
- an associated plan build collectively along with the organizational
structure to implement it.
The goal of the reinforcement phase is to ensure that local community and
other stakeholders have the long-term commitment and capacity to implement the
agreement. We developed, in the case of Java, the capacity of the community to
monitor the implementation of the agreement that was signed with the State
Company. The community learnt to monitor the forest growth to control their
share of the wood and to look after the forest by organizing patrols to avoid
illegal logging. Even if the negotiation phase is completed successfully, new
powerful stakeholders can come in and impose different development goals. To
prevent such a situation from occurring, the development of networks to support
the agreements of local communities could be useful for instance by publicizing
the value of the agreement in a newspaper or by involving new powerful
stakeholders. In one village in Java, the project helped the community and the
State Company to develop a plantation agreement with the Accor Hotel group, that
reinforced the relationships between the State Company and the community as both
parties were proud of it. In the case of Matang, the village management plan has
been integrated into the district master plan, this is another form of
reinforcement. A significant problem, as expressed by the indigenous people in
Palawan, was that they said that they understood to the value of the LPF goal to
avoid irreversible deforestation, however, they did not see the immediate
rewards, but, on the contrary, they observed that their rice production
decreased. A potential solution to this problem could be found in bringing new
form of rewards for sustainable management of forest resources which could
contribute to the reinforcement of community commitments regarding their
stewardship forest resources. This method was not employed during the LPF
project
Table 1: The four categories of results for
environmental mediation in the Tropics
Categories of Results
|
Results as in logframe |
Key activities done by the project |
1 Initialization |
Key actors’ demand for external intervention identified |
Consultations and workshops conducted to figure out mediation demands from key actors |
Identification of issues |
Baseline |
2 Empowerment of local stakeholders
|
Community acts less as individuals and forms and selects representatives through a democratic process |
Facilitated development of information system for transparency within community |
Community acts on their list of priorities and learns from experiences |
Facilitated development of micro-projects, which provide to the community members collective action experiences. |
Community representatives act transparently with regard to their environment and livelihoods |
Built capacity for transparently managing local organizations |
3 Environmental negotiation
|
Key actors’ demand for external intervention identified |
Conducted consultations and workshops to figure out mediation demands from key actors |
Places of negotiation set up |
Established forum for multi-stakeholder dialogues and negotiation at community level and at least at one level up (district). |
Key actors including community representatives negotiate and agree upon long-term objective |
Facilitated negotiation between local community and external actors |
Action plan with role of actors, rights to resources, management structures, system of control designed by actors |
Project helps upon request, external expertise can be called on upon actors’ request |
Agreement elaborated |
|
4 Reinforcement and networking
|
New actors recognize agreement and contribute to plan |
Helped local actors to widen their network (i.e. contacts with microcredit institutions, NGOs, governmental agencies). |
Role of natural resources in relation to people’s livelihood is understood by local actors, including external parties and researchers |
Facilitated research, workshops, individual interviews, awareness |
A current or potential partner indicates forward contract for new environmental product |
Created links between external actors and communities, which may improve local community livelihood and/or create sustainable financial agreements |
Our main hypothesis is that if all these results are achieved we should have
a successful mediation process with improved forest management and the
livelihoods of stakeholders.
Observed indicators
We used the following indicators to assess whether the results have been
achieved.
P.1. Empowerment
|
C.1.1. Community members committed to collective decision |
C.1.2. Community representatives make more proposals about environmental livelihoods, act on list of environmental priorities and learn from experience |
I.1.1.1. Community members select representatives through democratic process
|
I.1.2.1. Community representatives learnt from their experiences |
I.1.1.2. Transparency in decision making process
|
I.1.2.2 Community acts on a list of environmental priorities |
I.1.1.3. Benefit and cost of collective decision is shared
|
I.1.2.3. Community produce proposals in participatory way and send to the funder/partner |
P.2. Environmental mediation |
C.2.1. Role of natural resources in relation to peoples livelihood understood and acted upon by researchers and key actors |
C.2.2. Key actors demand for intervention identified |
C.2.3. Key actors, incl. community representatives negotiate and agree on a common long-term objective |
C.2.4. Place of negotiation is institutionalized |
I.2.1.1. New knowledge about interaction between natural resources and local people is shared |
I.2.2.1. Key actors express the demand for intervention, e.g. written/reported statement, MoU |
I.2.3.1. Statement of agreed common vision exists |
I.2.4.1. A place/forum for negotiation is established for key actors to meet |
I.2.1.2. Key actors agree and act on trends regarding the natural resources & livelihood
|
I.2.2.2. Key actors involved in LPF activity |
I.2.3.2. Common vision
publicly known (at least up to district level) |
I.2.4.2. Common issues discuss by key actors |
I.2.1.3. Some community members get new incomes from forest agreements or process related micro project
|
I.2.3.3 People commitment (people act according to the common vision) |
I.1.2.2 Community acts on a list of environmental priorities |
I.2.4.3. Decision taken by key actors in this place/forum |
P.3. Re-enforcement |
C.3.1. Third parties, in
relation to key actors, indicate forward contract for new environmental
revenues or rewards |
C.3.2. Scientists able to
communicate and influence development actors by using simple simulation
approaches |
C.3.3.
Institutions publish or communicate more on environmental stewardship approaches
and methods |
I.3.1.1. New environmental
revenues or rewards are implemented (e.g. new partnership/ agreement) |
I.3.2.1. Simulation tools (model, game, facilitation game) exist and presented |
I.3.3.1. Scientific
publications (journal papers) written from LPF case studies and concepts |
I.3.1.2. Key actors involved
in developing a new environmental product and service
|
I.3.2.2. Key actors
understand and recognize the usefulness of the simulation tools |
I.3.3.2. Papers presented at International/National Conference |
I.3.1.3. Expression of
interest by external party in the environmental product |
I.3.2.3. Key actors’
perceptions are influenced by tools |
I.3.3.3. Book,
guidelines and tools |
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I.3.3.4. LPF approaches and cases used in academic lecturing |
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I.3.3.5. Media outreach (incl. website, leaflet, newsletter, newspaper) |
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I.3.3.6. Policy briefs |
From purpose to overall objectives
One of the overall project objectives is to refine the mediation process we
proposed at the beginning of the project. Initially, there were three categories
of results; during the course of the project we refined these results and we
discovered a fourth category was required for the successful implementation of
decisions taken during negotiation. This category is the reinforcement of
agreements through networks with external actors.
The project does not give financial resources to local actors to develop
their projects. Local actors themselves, or some external actors, can fund their
projects. The sites were chosen because of their proximity to renewable
resources such as natural forest, planted forests, marine resources, which can
provide incomes if managed wisely under some form of collective action. The
resources needed by local communities to implement their plans can come also
through partnerships with external actors.
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