Putting the Boot on the Other Foot: When Local Knowledge is Owned by Local People

There has been a long-standing interest in local knowledge in fisheries research and management. Much of this interest has been in terms of how local knowledge can be interpreted scientifically and used by fisheries experts and managers. Local knowledge becomes the property of scientists, wrapped up in a format and language that is inaccessible to local people. There has been less interest in how local people can use and develop their own knowledge as part of their fisheries management practice, or of the implications of such a degree of ownership for the role of fisheries experts and managers. This paper draws on the experience of local people conducting their own fisheries research according to their own agenda in Northeast Cambodia. The paper begins by describing the process and motivations of this villager-led research and how this was perceived by fisheries experts and managers. The discussion then moves to an analysis of how this research process has generated demands on fisheries experts and managers. Rather than experts defining what is learnt and extracting scientifically valid information from local knowledge, this case study illustrates how local people can identify what needs to be learnt and what role science and experts have in answering these questions. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of local people taking ownership of their knowledge, its interpretation and application

Facilitating multi-stakeholder dialogue to manage natural resource competition: A synthesis of lessons from Uganda, Zambia, and Cambodia

Rural development or natural resource management program planning and implementation frequently confront challenges of environmental resource competition and conflict, particularly where common pool resources are a major component of rural livelihoods. This paper reports on an approach to multistakeholder dialogue, supported by participatory action research, to address the roots of such competition and conflict. The approach, called “Collaborating for Resilience,” includes principles and guidance on building a shared understanding of risks and opportunities, weighing alternative actions, developing action plans, and evaluating and learning from the outcomes. Working in partnership with government, community and civil society actors, the approach was developed and refined through applications in large lake systems in Uganda, Zambia, and Cambodia. This paper presents a synthesis of lessons addressing practitioners in government, nongovernmental development organizations, and international development agencies. These lessons include guidance on the context of multistakeholder dialogue processes, addressing gender equity, building stakeholder relationships and accountability across scales, and encouraging learning and innovation over time

Supporting local post-fishery reform innovation : lessons for multi-stakeholder dialogue

There is a need to strike a balance between the different approaches and/or tools used to engage local communities in sustainable fisheries management. Learning from local innovations can provide a starting point for addressing the broader policy and institutional challenges of fisheries management in Cambodia. This brief highlights lessons learned and policy implications from experience in supporting institutional innovations that nurture diverse multi-stakeholder collaborations. The study employed a process called Collaborating for Resilience (CORE)

Governance of aquatic agricultural systems: analyzing representation, power, and accountability

Aquatic agricultural systems in developing countries face increasing competition from multiple stakeholders over rights to access and use natural resources, land, water, wetlands, and fisheries, essential to rural livelihoods. A key implication is the need to strengthen governance to enable equitable decision making amidst competition that spans sectors and scales, building capacities for resilience, and for transformations in institutions that perpetuate poverty. In this paper we provide a simple framework to analyze the governance context for aquatic agricultural system development focused on three dimensions: stakeholder representation, distribution of power, and mechanisms of accountability. Case studies from Cambodia, Bangladesh, Malawi/Mozambique, and Solomon Islands illustrate the application of these concepts to fisheries and aquaculture livelihoods in the broader context of intersectoral and cross-scale governance interactions. Comparing these cases, we demonstrate how assessing governance dimensions yields practical insights into opportunities for transforming the institutions that constrain resilience in local livelihoods