Charles Geisler

Biological diversity : balancing interests through adaptive collaborative management

Foreword, Norman Uphoff Introduction: The Challenge of Adaptive Collaborative Management, John Schelhas, Louise E. Buck, and Charles C. Geisler I. Foundations of Adaptive Collaborative Management Kai N. Lee, Appraising Adaptive Management, Jeffrey A. McNeely, Roles for Civil Society in Protected Area Management: A Global Perspective on Current Trends in Collaborative Management Sarah Christiansen and Eric Dinerstein, Ecodevelopment Perspectives in Conservation: Recent Lessons and Future Directions Jeffrey A. Sayer, Learning and Adaptation for Forest Conservation Robert J. Fisher, Experience, Challenges, and Prospects for Collaborative Management of Protected Areas: An International Perspective II. Institutions and Policies Charles G. Geisler , Adapting Land Reform to Protected Area Management in the Dominican Republic Richard Cahoon, Property in Wild Biota and Adaptive Collaborative Management Neils Roling and Janice Jiggins, Agents in Adaptive Collaborative Management: The Logic of Collective Cognition Jon Anderson, On the Edge of Chaos: Crafting Adaptive Collaborative Management for Biological Diversity Conservation in a Pluralistic World Ronald J. Herring, Authority and Scale in Political Ecology: Some Cautions on Localism, Maria Paz (Ipat) G. Luna, Tenure and Community Management of Protected Areas in the Philippines: Policy Change and Implementation Challenges III. Modeling Protected Area-Human Activity Systems Andy White, Hans Gregersen, Allen Lundgren, and Glenn Smucker, Making Public Protected Area Systems Effective: An Operational Framework John Schelhas, Ecoregional Management in Southern Costa Rica: Finding a Role for Adaptive Collaborative Management Jenny Ericson, Eckart Boege, and Mark S. Freudenberger, Population Dynamics, Migration, and the Future of the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve Carol J. Pierce Colfer, Toward Social Criteria and Indicators for Protected Areas: One Cut on Adaptive Co-management Nick Salafsky and Richard Margoluis, Overview of a Systematic Approach to Designing, Managing, and Monitoring Conservation and Development Projects Eva Wollenberg, David Edmunds, and Louise E. Buck, Anticipating Change: Scenarios as a Tool for Increasing Adaptivity in Multi-stakeholder Settings IV. Case Studies: Applications of Adaptive Collaborative Management Approaches Arlyne Johnson, Paul Igag, Robert Bino, and Paul Hakahu, Community-based Conservation Area Management in Papua, New Guinea: Adapting to Changing Policy and Practice Carlos Guindon, Celia Harvey, and Guillermo Vargas, Integrating Biological Research and Land Use Practices in Monteverde, Costa Rica, Richard Ford and William McConnell, Linking GIS and Participation to Manage Natural Resources in Madagascar Paul Cowles, Haingolalao Rasolonirinarimanana, and Vololoniaina Rasoarimanana, Innovative Learning in a Participatory Ecoregion-based Planning Process: The Case of AGERAS in Tulear, Madagascar, Maria Cristina S. Guerrero and Eufemia Felisa Pinto, Reclaiming Ancestral Domains in Palawan, Phillipines: A Context for Adaptive Collaborative Management

Land expropriation and displacement in Bangladesh

This paper examines land grabbing in Bangladesh and views such seizures through the lens of displacement and land encroachment. Two different but potentially interacting displacement processes are examined. The first, the char riverine and coastal sediment regions that are in a constant state of formation and erosion, are contested sites ripe for power plays that uproot small producers on their rich alluvial soils. The second examines new patterns of land capture by elites who engage gangs, corrupted public servants and the military to coerce small producers into relinquishing titles to their ever more valuable lands in and near urban areas. These historically specific and contingent land grabs draw attention to in situ displacement, where people may remain in place or experience a prolonged multi-stage process of removal. This contrasts with ex situ displacement, a decisive expulsion of people from their homes, communities and livelihoods. In both the char and peri-urban case, we signal new forms of collective action in response to involuntary alienation of land resources in a rapidly and violently transforming political economy. We conclude with a caution against naturalizing displacement, casting it as an ‘inevitable’ consequence of changing weather conditions in the former and population dynamics in the latter.

The social consequences of protected areas development for resident populations

Abstract Large‐scale conservation projects are frequently portrayed as alternatives to development rather than as yet another type of development with important social consequences. The present research investigates an initial list of social consequences of protected areas development strategies in Third World countries. Of primary concern is how comanagement of protected areas with resident populations can reduce the social consequences of involuntary relocation, residency without access to resources, and assimilation; each is illustrated with multiple Third World examples. The beneficial social consequences of comanaged ecodevelopment are briefly set forth in three biosphere reserve case studies.

Naturalising transgenics: Official seeds, loose seeds and risk in the decision matrix of Gujarati cotton farmers

Abstract Cotton farmers in Gujarat, western India, faced a novel decision matrix when Delhi gave provisional approval, in March 2002, to Mahyco–Monsanto Biotech Ltd. to release three Bt-cotton varieties. These varieties represented Indias first legally commercialised transgenics: official seeds. Unofficial transgenic seeds were also available to farmers both as unpackaged, unbranded ‘loose seeds’ – mostly F2 progeny of a popular but banned transgenic variety – and as packaged, branded local gray-market Bt cultivars not approved by government. This essay utilises original field research to analyse the reasoning frame of farmers in choosing which seeds to plant. It finds that Bt cotton varieties were valued by farmers for reduction of pest damage, pesticide cost and thus improvement of yields and income. Second, choices among Bt varieties are complex, riding on seed-cost differentials between official and stealth cultivars and variable fit of varieties to local agronomic conditions. Third, some farmers chose non-Bt cultivars, for various reasons, including preference for organic cultivation – though some considered Bt cotton compatible with organic agriculture. Cotton farmers in Gujarat have in effect naturalised transgenic varieties, slotting them into familiar strategies to hedge risks.

Rethinking SIA: Why ex ante research Isn't enough

Abstract Social impact assessment (SIA), an applied form of social research essential to good development planning, has expanded to many Third World settings and is currently being adapted to conservation and protected area initiatives. The ex ante or pre‐project focus of SIA, ordinarily a, virtue, is diminished in value as projects increase in complexity, uncertainty, and duration. Protected area development, by design and definition, embodies each of these characteristics. This paper makes the case for continuous, multi‐stage SIA, drawing on insights from adaptive management as recently applied to environmental impact assessment. Such an adaptation of protected area social impact assessment (PASIA) conforms well to the complete project cycle review approach used by the World Bank, the particular institutional focus of the paper.

The wandering commons: A conservation conundrum in the Dominican Republic

In contrast to the jeopardy caused to commonproperty regimes by conditions of open access, factorssuch as boundary ambiguity, shifts, and maintenancefailures are the causes of a different set of problemsin the Los Haitises National Park, a controversialprotected area in the Dominican Republic. Survey data,historical sources, and digital mapping informationoverlaying past boundary changes show that this areahas undergone two decades of design modifications inits perimeters. Despite a long history of communalownership in that country, there appears to be littlelikelihood of transforming this tradition into amodern common property regime of use to community andenvironment in the park‘s buffer zone. This is due, atleast in part, to its highly porous, constantlychanging boundary, a source of on-going, open-accessproblems among local cultivators peripheral to thepark.

The agricultural ladder: Agrarian ideology and the changing structure of U.S. agriculture

Abstract ‘Land to the tiller’ is woven intimately into the ideological and institutional fabric of the United States. Yet in the late nineteenth century tenancy and landlordism were endemic. Thereafter, the agricultural ladder metaphor was popularized to depict the mobility ‘rungs’ by which tenants could climb to full ownership. Tenancy persisted and even grew, however, until basic structural features of U.S. agriculture changed during and after the 1930s. Though empirical evidence that the ladder functioned as hypothesized is lacking, it appears to have served ideologically to prepare the nation for part-owner-operatorship — the ascendant tenure form in the new structure of agriculture. An analysis of the historical literature and agricultural census data from 1900 to 1978 is presented to support this interpretation.

A view from the top: examining elites in large-scale land deals

Abstract A rise in large-scale land acquisitions has been documented in the popular media and scholarly literature, but with little attention to elite actors and their motivations. In this introduction to the special issue, we expand upon commonly held understandings of the drivers of global land acquisitions to explore the complex, dynamic and sometimes contradictory motivations of elites directly and indirectly involved in land deals. Focusing on the relationships between state actors, private investors, transnational corporations and scientific experts, we outline some principal ways in which elites with diverse interests shape land negotiations. We then introduce the articles in this issue and their contributions to the literature on land deals.

Estates of Mind: Culture's Many Paths to Land

As geographers have noted for years, the cultural landscape defines the physical landscape and must be taken seriously in pursuing sustainable landscape management. After discussing various ways in which culture influences land use, this article discusses two subcultures of property that have developed in the United States, one public and one private, which shape the physical landscape and define appropriate behaviors. It reviews nineteenth-century influences on these property cultures and investigates how they bound the land, its uses, and its values. Property cultures, often viewed as static and slow to change, are highly dynamic and portend momentous changes in the form and substance of landscape-level conservation.

Competitive structure and fiscal policy

Using new measures to compare both the 48 states and 52 upstate New York counties, this research reformulates V. O. Keys hypothesis that noncompetitive systems benefit upper socioeconomic groups while competitive systems favor the lower classes. In designing these tests, we returned to Keys original conceptualization, which, contrary to the subsequent research that claimed to test his hypothesis, did not separate and oppose the political and economic sectors. In line with Keys formulation, we find that competitive political structure goes hand in hand with competitive economic structure and together they determine an array of fiscal policies that are different from those of noncompetitive political-economic systems. This return to the original sense of the hypothesis resolves many of the puzzling findings that have been generated in the last several decades. Democratic party affiliation and urban differentiation also affected revenues and expenditures. These same characteristics were previously shown to affect poverty and social pathology. That they now affect public policy for dealing with these problems means that those caught in the web of poverty are in double jeopardy.