Investing in Collaboration to Manage Environmental Resource Conflict. Policy Brief.
Publisher: Collaborating for Resilience
Author(s): Blake D. Ratner, Clementine Burnley, Samuel Mugisha, Elias Madzudzo, Il Oeur, Mam Kosal, Lukas Rüttinger, Loziwe Chilufya, and Paola Adriázola
Date: 2014
Topics: Conflict Prevention, Cooperation
Countries: Cambodia, Uganda
Conflict over environmental resources endangers rural people’s livelihoods and can increase the risk of broader social conflict. Yet action to sustain shared resources can also be a potent source of community building. Investing in capacities for conflict management can help launch innovations that build resilient rural livelihoods and strengthen institutions for equitable environmental governance. Governments and development agencies should invest in such capacity and integrate collaborative dialogue about environmental resources into program and policy implementation.
Competition for natural resources has increased due to growing populations, urbanization, economic integration and resource-intensive patterns of consumption. At the same time, climate change is introducing new stresses on agriculture and ecosystems. For the rural poor who depend on common lands, forests, fisheries and water resources, the combination of growing competition and ecosystem change can increase poverty and vulnerability.
Some degree of competition or conflict is intrinsic to natural resource management. Community- based institutions have developed to manage local environmental resource competition; however, these institutions are typically inadequate to address more complex challenges involving diverse actors across multiple sectors and scales. Also, governance systems at subnational, national and international levels often lack appropriate mechanisms to ensure access to justice and public participation in decision-making about environmental resources. In the absence of such mechanisms, resource conflict can aggravate other social or economic divisions, contributing to broader social conflict. It can also undermine and reverse development gains in other areas, such as health, education and nutrition.