Michael K. McCall

Seeking good governance in participatory-GIS: a review of processes and governance dimensions in applying GIS to participatory spatial planning

Abstract The adoption of participatory spatial planning (PSP) approaches has been partially supported by developments in participatory-GIS (P-GIS), as seen in applications both in local resource management in developing South countries, and in community neighbourhood planning in the urban North. Such applications provide a basis for examining the relationship between the use of geo-information and governance, as many P-GIS initiatives claim to foster accountability, transparency, legitimacy and other dimensions of governance. Examples from recent literature illustrate the strengths and weaknesses of utilising P-GIS, and in particular, the implications for greater participation, empowerment, and ownership of and access to spatial information, and for governance in general. Some new developments in GIS technology, like ‘mobile-GIS’, have the potential to strengthen these impacts. While P-GIS is not an essential component of PSP, if used with an adequate regard and sensitivity for issues of ownership, legitimacy and local knowledge, it can contribute to the empowerment of communities in solving spatial planning problems.

Participatory Spatial Information Management and Communication in Developing Countries

The merging of participatory development methods with geo-spatial technologies has come to be known as Participatory GIS and is now an emergent development practice in its own right. PGIS combines a range of geo-spatial information management tools and methods such as sketch maps, participatory 3D models, community-based air photo and satellite imagery interpretation, GPS transect walks and GIS-based cognitive mapping. Participatory GIS implies making GIT&S available to disadvantaged groups in society in order to enhance their capacity in generating, managing, analysing and communicating spatial information. PGIS practice is geared towards community empowerment through measured, demand-driven, user-friendly and integrated applications of geo-spatial technologies. GIS-based maps and spatial analysis thus become major conduits in the process. A good PGIS practice is embedded into long-lasting and locally driven spatial decision-making processes, is flexible, adapts to different socio-cultural and bio-physical environments, depends on multidisciplinary facilitation and skills and builds essentially on visual language. If appropriately utilized, the practice should exert profound impacts on community empowerment, innovation and social change. More importantly, by placing control of access and use of culturally sensitive spatial information in the hands of those who generated them, PGIS practice can protect traditional knowledge and wisdom from external exploitation. Effective participation is the key to good PGIS practice. Whilst the focus of traditional GIS applications is often on the outcome, PGIS initiatives tend to emphasize the processes by which outcomes are attained. At times the participatory process can obfuscate systematic inequalities through unequal and superficial participation. For example, PGIS applications may be used to legitimise decisions which in fact were taken by outsiders. The process can also easily be hijacked by community elites. For PGIS practices to be successful, they must be placed in a well thought out and demand-driven process based on the proactive collaboration of the custodians of local and traditional knowledge and of facilitators skilled in applying PGIS and transferring technical know-how to local actors. Participation thus cuts across the process from gaining a clear understanding of the existing legal and regulatory frameworks, to jointly setting project objectives, defining strategies and choosing appropriate geo-spatial information management tools. The integrated and multifaceted nature of PGIS provides legitimacy for local knowledge and generates a great sense of confidence and pride which prepares participant communities in dealing with outsiders. The process is intended to build self-esteem, raise awareness about pressing issues in the community and produce concrete and sustainable spatial solutions.

Community Capacity for Implementing Clean Development Mechanism Projects Within Community Forests in Cameroon

There is a growing assumption that payments for environmental services including carbon sequestration and greenhouse gas emission reduction provide an opportunity for poverty reduction and the enhancement of sustainable development within integrated natural resource management approaches. Yet in experiential terms, community-based natural resource management implementation falls short of expectations in many cases. In this paper, we investigate the asymmetry between community capacity and the Land Use Land Use Change Forestry (LULUCF) provisions of the Clean Development Mechanism within community forests in Cameroon. We use relevant aspects of the Clean Development Mechanism criteria and notions of “community capacity” to elucidate determinants of community capacity needed for CDM implementation within community forests. The main requirements are for community capacity to handle issues of additionality, acceptability, externalities, certification, and community organisation. These community capacity requirements are further used to interpret empirically derived insights on two community forestry cases in Cameroon. While local variations were observed for capacity requirements in each case, community capacity was generally found to be insufficient for meaningful uptake and implementation of Clean Development Mechanism projects. Implications for understanding factors that could inhibit or enhance community capacity for project development are discussed. We also include recommendations for the wider Clean Development Mechanism/Kyoto capacity building framework.

Rural People's Knowledge and Perception of Landscape: A Case Study From the Mexican Pacific Coast

Local knowledge and land use practices, along with the multiple visions of landscapes of local actors, can provide information complementary to that of conventional scientific appraisals. The goal of this study is to understand how local people actually recognize and use different landscape units and the environmental goods and services provided by the units. For this purpose we created a Landscape Perception Unit Type Importance Value Index (LPTIVI) that responds to the need to evaluate landscapes from a cultural standpoint. Our contribution provides a methodological approach that indicates that it is possible to analyze and evaluate how local people as experts perceive and use their landscapes. Additionally, we discuss how this information can be the first step in facilitating the incorporation of local concerns into decision making related to landscape planning and management.

A Shared Perspective for PGIS and VGI

This paper reviews persistent principles of participation processes. On the basis of a review of recent interrogations of the (Public) Participatory Geographic Information Systems (P)PGIS and Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) approaches, a summary of five prevailing principles in participatory spatial information handling is presented. We investigate these five principles that are common to (P)PGIS and VGI on the basis of a framework of two dimensions that govern the participatory use of spatial information from the perspective of people and society. This framework is presented as a shared perspective of (P)PGIS and VGI and illustrates that, although both share many of these same principles, the ways in which these principles are approached are highly diverse. The paper ends with a future outlook in which we discuss the inter-connected memes of potential technological futures, the signification of localness in ‘local spatial knowledge’, and the ramifications of ethical tenets by which PGIS and VGI can strengthen each other as two sides of the same coin.

Smallholder Farms as Stepping Stone Corridors for Crop-Raiding Elephant in Northern Tanzania: Integration of Bayesian Expert System and Network Simulator

Crop-raiding elephants affect local livelihoods, undermining conservation efforts. Yet, crop-raiding patterns are poorly understood, making prediction and protection difficult. We hypothesized that raiding elephants use corridors between daytime refuges and farmland. Elephant counts, crop-raiding records, household surveys, Bayesian expert system, and least-cost path simulation were used to predict four alternative categories of daily corridors: (1) footpaths, (2) dry river beds, (3) stepping stones along scattered small farms, and (4) trajectories of shortest distance to refuges. The corridor alignments were compared in terms of their minimum cumulative resistance to elephant movement and related to crop-raiding zones quantified by a kernel density function. The “stepping stone” corridors predicted the crop-raiding patterns. Elephant presence was confirmed along these corridors, demonstrating that small farms located between refuges and contiguous farmland increase habitat connectivity for elephant. Our analysis successfully predicted elephant occurrence in farmland where daytime counts failed to detect nocturnal presence. These results have conservation management implications.

Carbon emissions: dry forests may be easier to manage.

Debate on the carbon-credit system known as REDD (‘reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation’) has focused on technical and methodological obstacles and on sourcing carbon finance. The impact of the system on the world’s 350 million tropical forest dwellers calls for closer scrutiny. Without careful planning, REDD stands to create large numbers of ‘carbon refugees’ as governments curb financially unrewarding deforesting activities such as those of small-scale agriculturalists and fuel-wood harvesters, who mostly pay no taxes on what they produce. Forest dwellers could become excluded from their means of subsistence to preserve carbon. A similar situation has occurred during previous attempts to conserve tropical forests. Last year I worked in Liberia’s forests bordering Ivory Coast, and heard of park guards in the Tai National Forest, a well-protected Ivorian biodiversity conservation area, shooting local hunters dead. I met Ivorian subsistence hunters, excluded from their ancestral lands, relocating to Liberia to maintain their livelihoods. The journal Conservation & Society is investigating the possible displacement of thousands of people in Africa by biodiversity conservation projects. The Centre for International Forestry Research has shown that forest-based sources of income generated by local communities are often rendered illegal by forest law. Crackdowns tend to target the poor, rather than the criminal networks behind the estimated 50% of global tropicaltimber exports that are illegal. A REDD-inspired redoubling of current efforts at law enforcement would further victimize forestdependent peoples. Forest dwellers should be seen as an important part of the solution to deforestation. Evidence from 80 forest commons in 10 countries shows that community ownership, larger forest areas and a high degree of community autonomy in decision-making are all associated with both high carbon storage and livelihood benefits. Conversely, local users with insecure property rights extract resources at unsustainable rates (A. Chhatre and A. Agrawal Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 106, 17667–17670; 2009). Extending legal collective property rights to forest users over large areas, combined with forest-encroachment monitoring by independent scientists and local agencies, could reduce deforestation without human rights violations. This plan may substantially reduce deforestation by cutting off the supply of ‘empty’ land for outsiders to deforest. There is good will on the ground for REDD to work, with safeguards. With transfers of US

Balancing views on community monitoring, the case of REDD+ : a response to "towards a more balanced view on the potentials of locally-based monitoring"

10 billion a year under discussion, the REDD agreement should ensure that at least 50% of carbon payments go directly to forest dwellers, and that their property rights are assured. Otherwise, some of the world’s most marginalized people will end up paying a high price for reducing carbon emissions. Simon L. Lewis Earth and Biosphere Institute, School of Geography, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK e-mail: s.l.lewis@leeds.ac.uk King Canute and the wisdom of forest conservation

Multi-Level Governance Conditions for Implementing Multilateral Environmental Agreements: The Case of CDM Forestry Readiness in Cameroon:

In response to the commentary by Jens Friis Lund we suggest that the problem lies not in community monitoring but in the way the reward systems are designed. For the case of REDD+ we propose that if payments are made for inputs rather than for outputs, the problem can largely be resolved.

Chronic institutional failure and enhanced vulnerability to flash-floods in the Cuenca Altadel Río Lerma, Mexico

Multilateral Environmental Agreements including the Clean Development Mechanism represent complex multi-level governance systems that often face serious implementation challenges especially in developing countries. This paper presents a framework for assessing the capacity or readiness for the implementation of Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs), within the context of CDM forestry of the Kyoto Protocol of the UNFCCC in the first instance, and specifically analyses issues of multi-level governance relevant for successful implementation in Cameroon. The framework highlights a set of key cross-scale enabling conditions for MEA implementation including regulatory compatibility, institutional synergy, complementary and coordinated capacities, information and data availability and the presence of governance mechanisms. The research has identified the need for targeted policy actions for enhancing regulatory compatibility and institutional synergy between levels of the formal system – i.e. global, national, sectoral, sub-national and local levels. However, we have also highlighted the problems of, not just the conflicts between forms and functions of governance between the formal national set ups and community ‘traditional’ institutions, but even the lack of common understanding between them. Overcoming these gaps will require considerably more open-minded and reciprocal communication, and respect for differing perceptions in the implementation of MEAs. The relevance of a framework for assessing multi-level governance in a post 2012 Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation mechanism is also underlined.