A new institutional economic approach to the organization of community forestry enterprises

© 2016 Dr. Dora Carias VegaForests play a vital role in the livelihood and socio-cultural systems of hundreds of millions of people around the world. They have been the subject of ever changing managerial approaches derived from distinct conceptions of what role the state, local communities and individuals should play in their use and conservation. Government-led concession schemes that have favored logging companies and their business models have been linked to overexploitation and deterioration of forests due to lack of forest law enforcement. This has driven the emergence of community-led forestry: systems where communities are able to exercise responsibility and authority over forest management. Community-forestry enterprises (CFEs) are the latest development in community forestry. They have risen as an alternative to industrial scale logging and have been proposed as an innovative business model that can democratize forest governance and involve forest-farm producers in decision-making processes about forest resources. The ultimate aim is to develop forest-farm landscapes reflecting multiple stakeholder interests. The purpose of this thesis is to understand the organization and functioning of these unique enterprises through the use of new institutional economic (NIE) theory of the firm. The study answers the call for greater research to understand the real and potential role of communities in producing timber for commercial purposes and how local resource management functions in the economy in general. Concepts of transaction costs, separation of ownership and control, and ownership are used to identify a general set of characteristics of these enterprises and how they operate. The study used a qualitative methodology that involved semi-structured interviews to understand details about institutions and transactions. The research found that lowering information costs between CFEs and their transacting partners can improve trading relationships. Lowering information costs has spillover effects on the costs of bargaining and monitoring of contractual relationships between both parties thus improving the exchange environment. The results also show that CFEs face internal organizational transaction costs in the form of principal-agent problems. Overlaps between CFE membership and a geographical community exacerbate these costs and external managers can have a positive impact on reducing them. Finally, CFEs are vulnerable to a series of organizational weaknesses such as lack of investment, managerial problems and costly collective decision-making processes that can compromise their ability to survive in competitive productive environments. The results of this research have implications for policymakers and practitioners. Reducing information costs between CFEs and their trading partners becomes a key area for policy action to improve the transacting environment for both parties. Training in administrative issues and monitoring mechanisms, as well as additional expertise from outsiders, are essential for reducing principal-agent problems and improving management in CFEs. Institutional changes to motivate owners and outside capital to invest in the enterprises may be necessary, as is streamlining of decision-making processes to balance community and business priorities. However, greater understanding of the non-monetary motivations that differentiate community firms from investor-owned ones is also necessary so that their comparative strengths can be magnified and used to their advantage

Delocalizing Communities:Changing Forms of Community Engagement in Natural Resources Governance

Summary. — Across both the developing and developed worlds, community engagement has become a key strategy for natural resource management. However, a growing number of studies report that community-based approaches are experiencing formidable challenges, with limited outcomes in terms of livelihoods, decentralization and sustainability. Yet, policies continue to focus attention unduly on ‘‘community participation”, ignoring the ways in which the ‘‘community” is itself embedded in a wider social system. Recent studies have shown that local communities are more complex than previously assumed, with local community actions being heavily shaped by wider social and environmental contexts. Yet, scholarly research tends to focus on reporting such cross-scalar dynamics, with little explanation of how and why they occur. This paper advances a framework to understand how local communities interact with the wider world, through what we term ‘‘delocalization of communities” in natural resource management. Using Bourdieu’s theory of social field, we present an approach to analyze various trajectories of delocalization involving the exchange of, and struggle for, a variety of resources valued in specific fields of natural resource governance. We extend the work of several researchers who have been critical of the conventional view of the community, and argue that a new odel of delocalized ‘‘community” needs to be envisaged, one that emphasizes the interactions among actors within and between spatial scales and levels of political organization. While such a cross-scalar view is not novel, we deepen social field approach to assess how cross-scalar processes unfold in the course of ‘‘delocalization” of communities in the context of rapid social and environmental change. We draw on evidence from five different case studies from three continents that demonstrate specific aspects of the delocalization phenomenon. The cases selected are from Australia, Indonesia, Mexico, Nepal, and Papua New Guinea. We demonstrate through these cases that increasingly diverse interests in natural resources such as forests have served to delocalize communities beyond ‘‘local” domains. We conclude that local community is not a localized entity, and there are multiple cross-scale networks which need to be recognized, as these have profound implications in community-based natural resource management. In such situations, open and exploratory approaches - moving away from blueprint interventions - are required to facilitate context-specific fields and spheres of local democracy, nurturing diverse, flexible, and networked models of community participation, along with the recognition of political and economic influence coming from the wider domain. 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Skilling the Bay-Geelong regional labour market profile, final report

<font color="blue"><b>The project and objectives</b></font>\ud \ud - The aim of the project, ‘Skilling the Bay - Geelong Regional Labour Market Profile’ is to better understand the current and future skills needs in the <i>Regional Geelong Area (RGA)</i>.\ud \ud <font color="blue"><b>Project scope</b></font>\ud \ud - The RGA comprises the four Local Government Areas (LGAs) of the City of Greater Geelong, Borough of Queenscliffe, Surf Coast Shire and the Golden Plains Shire.\ud \ud <font color="blue"><b>Objectives</b></font>\ud \ud <i>The objectives are to:</i>\ud \ud - Identify the types of skills and qualifications workers currently possess, and how these may (or may not) meet current or future skills needs of Regional Geelong Area businesses;\ud \ud - Suggest potential future skills demands of employers with a consideration of changes in demand;\ud \ud - Understand the position of displaced and vulnerable workers along with their career aspirations as they confront changes in employment and labour market conditions, and;\ud \ud - Inform development of a long-term vision for jobs and training in the Regional Geelong Area

Skilling the Bay-Geelong regional labour market profile [Final Report]

The project and objectives - The aim of the project, ‘Skilling the Bay - Geelong Regional Labour Market Profile’ is to better understand the current and future skills needs in the Regional Geelong Area (RGA). Project scope - The RGA comprises the four Local Government Areas (LGAs) of the City of Greater Geelong, Borough of Queenscliffe, Surf Coast Shire and the Golden Plains Shire. Objectives The objectives are to: - Identify the types of skills and qualifications workers currently possess, and how these may (or may not) meet current or future skills needs of Regional Geelong Area businesses; - Suggest potential future skills demands of employers with a consideration of changes in demand; - Understand the position of displaced and vulnerable workers along with their career aspirations as they confront changes in employment and labour market conditions, and; - Inform development of a long-term vision for jobs and training in the Regional Geelong Area