| Abstract |
This technical note gives a brief introduction to community-based natural resource management and how this concept may be used as a development strategy. CBNRM has the triple objective of poverty reduction, natural resource conservation and good governance.
A successful implementation of CBNRM often requires changes at three different levels of society: 1) the national level, 2) the local level and the link between these, and 3) the intermediate level. At the national level, policies and the legislative framework normally needs adjustment and revision to establish an enabling environment that makes CBNRM attractive to local communities. At the intermediate level, it is important to promote the model of decentralised natural resource management most likely to work under the given political circumstances. In particular, this involves a choice between: (i) devolution of natural resource management authority to elected local governments, and (ii) deconcentration of line agencies, authorising district-level officers to delegate management authority to local communities. At the local level, it is crucial that significant economic incentives for managing and conserving the resource are established, closely related to clearly defined and officially supported tenure systems, as well as to revenue-sharing mechanisms.
CBNRM, if successfully implemented, results in a coordinated resource use by numerous individuals, thus establishing an ‘optimal’ rate of production and consumption at the local level as well as for society at large. As CBNRM is a development process and constant power struggle, an informed public debate based on the results of sound monitoring will be in all likelihood, the key to long-term success.
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