Forschung

Sustainable resource management: innovation, adaptation, knowledge transfer

concept paper

Innovation and adaptation are key strategies of resource management. Knowledge production and reproduction constitute important components in the related processes of innovation and adaptation. The question „how do resource managers and users respectively manage knowledge?“ guides the discussion and exchange enhanced by the Discussion Forum North-South.

1. The Debate: Knowledge Management  (in the context of rural livelihoods)

Rendering resource management more sustainable implies innovation and adaptation on both (1) the level of the actors (and their behaviour) and (2) on the level of the knowledge about managing resources.

On the level of the (individual) actor, Gessner and Kaufmann-Hayoz introduce basic aspects that constitute individual acting in general and that constitute preconditions for changing behaviour. In addition, such changing behaviour requires adequate conflict management approaches in order to promote decision making among actors with diverging perceptions, interests and strategies (see Flury in prep.).

Knowledge constitutes a key resource in natural resources management. Production and reproduction of knowledge include the generation of new knowledge and adaptation of existing knowledge to new conditions, the diffusion of such new knowledge within the society as well as the transfer to future generations. Scholl discusses mechanisms of such social processes of knowledge production (1992: 37 ff.). „Through the exchange of information and the confrontation of opinions, blanks can be filled, simpler structures differentiated, unwarranted generalisations corrected, biases lessened and new perspectives discovered and elaborated“ (1992: 38).

Rural communities and societies[1] have developed specific institutions promoting the related social processes. Knowledge management is an integral part of achieving sustainable livelihood. The „indigenisation“ of exogenous knowledge[2] (e.g. new crops, new cropping patterns, new cropping techniques) is considered a basic strategy in the development of the knowledge base and the adaptation of resource utilisation and livelihood strategies to new conditions. Adaptability to changing conditions depends on the possibilities of the local systems to control such changes. Following Field-Juma (1996), traditional resource use related decision-making is knowledge-intensive. Resource users and the decision-makers are in very close proximity, if not one and the same. Centralised structures separate the resource users from the decision-makers, revert the flow of knowledge and information and disconnect decisions from relevant knowledge (re-) production. It is, therefore, assumed that local control and related decentralised decision-making about resource management options (close proximity of decision-makers and resource users) constitute a precondition for sustainable use of natural resources.

Adapting resource utilisation patterns and related institutions up and downstreams of the (agricultural as well as pastoral) production requires time. Both factors, the decreasing control of the local social system and the increasing and rapid fluctuations of the economic and political conditions on the macro societal levels, combined with a generally degrading natural resource potential, determine the livelihood of many rural communities in the South as in the North. „While genetic erosion threatens the world’s base of food plants, the erosion of knowledge threatens the human capacity to maintain and further cultivate this diversity“ (de Boef et. al, 1993: 1).

With respect to knowledge, the following aspects seem relevant:

• In general terms, macro-economic policies in many countries have or had the tendency to extract resources from the agricultural sector in order to finance the development of other economic sectors and in order to provide subsidised food to the urban population. The terms of trade for agricultural productions may represent such transfers. Consequently, the innovative capacities of the agricultural sector and of the subsistence[3]
• sector in particular are weakened. The services provided by the state like agricultural credit, research and extension, etc. have a compensatory effect. However, these services tend to concentrate on the market-based, surplus-oriented agricultural sector mainly, excluding the basically subsistence-oriented, broad rural population.
  
  
• The integration into the market economy force the subsistence-oriented producers to shift to marketable crops, often to the detriment of food crop production. Marketing boards, that once have grown out of a co-operative movement, tend to regulate such markets. Innovation tends to be enforced by such bodies that are often deficient in efficiency. In combination with the liberalisation of the (basically unequal) world economy, decisions related to institutional inefficiencies ignore the capacities of resource users to adapt to new situations and to invest accordingly.
  
  
• Local, indigenous knowledge tends to be overruled by knowledge of external origin. In this regard Swift (cit. in Geiser1993: 155) talks about „instrument(s) of power belonging to the technician or expert who controls the knowledge and has a monopoly of it in particular rural settings. The superiority of government agents and outside experts depends on their stock of modern knowledge.“
  
  
• Indigenous institutions for the diffusion and transfer of knowledge loose their relevance given the opening up of local as well as of national societies. Formal institutions of the modern state (basic education, professional training) replace the formerly existing informal communal institutions. Such modern state institutions tend to fail to respond to specific, local requirements. The growing dynamism of modern life with its multi-dimensional migratory movements requires new forms of knowledge transfer.
  
  
• Women are main care takers of natural resources at local level. Their cultural expertise in resource management and their authority is often rooted in traditional gender and age segmented patterns of decision making at household and community level. Modernisation has often led to disempowerment of women with respect to access to resources, including knowledge. Formal and modern state institutions do not, in general, differentiate their „packages“ according to gender what often results in an exclusion of women. (See University of Zurich, 1997)

Over generations, rural societies in many parts of the world have developed livelihood strategies that are based on sustainable resource utilisation. Farmers have been adapting crops to diverse environments and experimenting with and developing new varieties. In the last decades, the natural resource base encounters a substantial degradation, this as a result of the growing needs of the human population and the increasing interlinkages of human activities in the process of general globalisation. The growing number of conflicts between different resource users owing to scarcity as well as the greater potential for conflict due to the increasingly negative environmental impacts of unsustainable resource use strategies may illustrate the present situation.

Traditional resource utilisation strategies (technologies, institutions) and knowledge respectively that have proven appropriate, tend to become inappropriate. Migration, that has once been a successful risk evasion strategy, has lost its scope. In many cases, migratory movements trigger off a spiral of social marginalisation and ecological degradation. Intensification of production, one of the major strategic approaches at present, bears the risk of overexploiting the resource base.

Sustainable resource utilisation implies major adaptations in technical as well as institutional terms. Due to major institutional constraints (see as well Field-Juma, 1996), the official knowledge systems, i.e. scientific research and government extension schemes have not succeeded in rendering the production systems both ecologically sustainable and economically more productive. There is general agreement that this processes of adaptation has to promote knowledge development at the level of the resource users and their (communal) institutions. There is as well agreement that rendering resource use sustainable requires the integration of different perspectives (see Wiesmann 1998). Close collaboration of the formal (scientific, government driven) knowledge system with the local knowledge system constitutes a further precondition for sustainable resource management. It is, however, presumed that the official system will not be and is not in a position to address the broad subsistence-oriented producers cum resource users in a comprehensive way. Even in northern countries, many producers will, therefore, basically have to rely on local knowledge management institutions. Innovative approaches in such local knowledge management deserve utmost attention.

References

De Boef, W. ,Amanor, K, Wellard, K., Bebbington, A., 1993: Cultivating Knowledge. Genetic diversity, farmer experimentatin and crop research. London

Field-Juma, A., 1996: Governance and sustainable development. In: C. Juma and J.B. Ojwang (eds.). In Land We Trust. Environment, Private Property and Constitutional Change. Farican Centre for Technology Studies (ACTS). ACTS Environmental Policy Series. No. 7. Nairobi, London. Pp 9-38

Flury, M., in prep.: Acting in view of sustainable resource management. A conceptual framework Centre for General Ecology, University of Bern. Manuscript.

Geiser, U., 1992: Ökologiche Probleme als Folge von Konflikten zwischen endogenen und exogen geprägten Konzepten der Landressourcen-Bewirtschaftung. Sri Lanka Studies Vol. 5. Diss. Geographisches Institut der Universität Zürich.

Geiser, U., 1997: Ist das „Andere“ wirklich anders? Fragen an die Dichotomisierung von modernem und traditionellem Wissen am Beispiel der Landbewirtschaftung in Sri Lanka. In: D. Steiner (Hrsg.). Mensch und Lebensraum. Fragen zu Identität und Wissen. S. 209-232

Gessner, W., 1996: Der lange Arm des Fortschritts. In: R. Kaufmann-Hayoz/A. Di Giulio (Hrsg.). Umweltproblem Mensch. Humanwissenschaftliche Zugänge zu umweltverantwortlichem Handeln. Bern, Stuttgart, Wien. Haupt. S. 263-299

Gessner, W./Kaufmann-Hayoz, R., 1995: Die Kluft zwischen Wollen und Können. In: U. Fuhrer (Hrsg.). Ökologisches Handeln als sozialer Prozess - Ecological action as a social process. Basel, Boston, Berlin. Birkhäuser. S. 11 - 26

Scholl, W., 1992: The Social Production of Knowledge. In: Social Representations and the Social Bases of Knowledge. Ed. by Cranach, M./Doise, W./Mugny, G. Pp 37-42 Swiss Monographs in Psychology, Vol 1. Ed. by Swiss Psychological Society. Lewiston, Toronto, Bern, Göttingen

Wiesmann, U., 1998: Sustainable Regional Development in Rural Africa: Conceptual Framework and Case Studies from Kenya. African Studies Series A 14. Geographica Bernensia. University of Berne

University of Zurich, 1997: Sustainability for future generations: gender relations in social reproduction and sustainable resource management. Brochure SPPE Research Project No. 5001-44786

2. The Discussion Forum North-South: Innovative Institutional Arrangements

The Discussion Forum enhances the integration of insight gained in view of policy making through (1) providing a place of exchange, (2) promoting a joint learning process and (3) strengthening links to policy development.

The scope of the Discussion Forum is put on linkages between strategies and instruments that aim to reduce constraints on environmentally responsible action at the community level (or the „lowest level possible“), in particular, and various societal levels in general and on corresponding innovative institutional arrangements, both in rural and urban environments.

A number of research groups within SPPE study and promote in an approach of action research new strategies of generating, diffusing and transferring knowledge with respect to agricultural/horticultural or pastoral use of natural resources. A further group of projects studies knowledge management in other contexts of use and consumption of natural resources.

SPPE-Project	Topic of interest
Rural Livelihood Systems and Sustainable Management of Natural Resources in Semi-Arid Areas of India	Inappropriateness of mainstream agricultural technologies for address private farms
Sustainability of Future Generations: Gender Relations in Social Reproduction and Sustainable Resource Management	Exchange between women farmers and women consumers, diffusion of knowledge (organic farming); intercultural knowledge transfer
Ecological evaluation and sustainable management of natural ressources in zones of shifting cultivation in Madagascar	Role of NGO and of locally based agricultural research
Actor’s strategies and preceptions for sustainable resource management and planning	Role of (government) research and extension; innovation and adaptation in a new environment
Environment and agrarian system in a sahelian context: dynamics interactions and capacities of innovation	Adaptation of agricultural and pastoral practices in a degrading environment

Frame of reference

Based on case studies, the Discussion Forum would set off a debate

1. on the approaches the respective resource users follow in managing their knowledge (understanding),
   
   
2. on the interlinkages with „sustainable“ natural resource management and the potential to render resource management more sustainable (assessment)
   
   
3. on the conditions of success for effective knowledge management (identification).
   
   

Through this debate, the Discussion Forum contributes to the dissemination of information about such „non-formal“ knowledge management approaches and to their promotion, both in the North and the South. Throughout the debate, one particular focus is put on the gender differentiated management of knowledge and the approaches differentiated correspondingly.

It is suggested that interested projects and researchers from within SPPE compile their findings in a „Case Study Report“. These descriptions should address similar questions in order to be comparable. The descriptions would generally address the questions outlined below.

In a second step, these individual reports will be compared and compiled in one position paper for the further discussion.

The subsequent questions would provide a frame of reference for both the case studies and the further debate and would assist the exchange:

General Question:

What strategies do resource users apply or develop in order to adapt (in a permanent process) its resource management approaches (technologies, institutions) to changing conditions and, in particular, to enhance the generation, diffusion and transfer of related knowledge, this in view of both more sustainable livelihood and conservation of genetic diversity?

Particular Questions:

1. To understand the approaches of natural resource users in "managing their knowledge"
   • Who generates new knowledge, e.g.
     • by making experiments
     • by promoting related institutional set-ups?
   • How are knowledge and experiences shared and diffused
     • among members of „local communities“
     • to important decision-makers, including consumers of products
     • to the next generation
   • What role do external actors (research institutions, extension services, community development organisations, religious institutions, training institutions, etc.) in the process of knowledge generation, diffusion and transfer?
   • What are gender-specific differentiations in all the above issues?
     
     
2. To assess the interlinkages with sustainable natural resources management:
   • Which knowledge is guiding actual natural resource use?
   • What are the consequences of the applied knowledge regarding sustainability issues?
   • To which knowledge (generated and diffused as identified under topic a) does this actually applied knowledge relate to?
     
     
3. To identify issues and conditions that foster effective knowledge management (issues and conditions that allow the generation and application of knowledge that supports sustainable natural resource management)

• What link exists between
  1. actually applied knowledge having positive sustainability effects,
  2. the generation, diffusion and spreading of this knowledge (i.e. the "knowledge source")
  3. the involved actors in this process
     
     
• What are the conditions and issues that enable or constrain the generation, sharing, diffusion, and application of „effective“ knowledge? (effective in the sense of having positive effects on sustainability)
  
  
• Is it possible to establish similar links for knowledge with negative impact on sustainability; and to identify the issues and conditions that allowed this knowledge to be generated, shared, diffused, and applied?

To start, each case study should give a brief description of the resource management system in place, including an assessment of its sustainability in economic, social and ecological terms.

Manuel Flury, Urs Geiser

27.12.98

[1] This note focuses on the utilisation of natural resource by mostly rural communities in countries of both the South and the North. A comparable focus will be put on the distribution of food products. This will be subject of an additional concept.

[2] The differentiation between local, indigenous knowledge and exogenous knowledge refers to different institutions managing knowledge. In the perception reflected in this paper, there is no dichotomy implied between local and exogenous knowledge. Knowledge management constitutes the compilation of contributions („Wissensbestände“) of different origin. (See Geiser, 1997)

[3] The term „subsistence“ includes complementary market orientation, in the framework of diversified livelihood strategies

Interfakultäre Koordinationsstelle für Allgemeine Ökologie (IKAÖ) der Universität Bern (1988-2013)