Allen, W. 2001. Working together for environmental management: the role of information sharing and collaborative learning. PhD Dissertation, Development Studies, Massey University, New Zealand.

Beaulieu, N. J. Jaramillo, A. Fajardo, and N.Peñuela 2001. The use of Remote Sensing Imagery in support to Participatory Natural Resources Management. Progress in a case study in the indigenous reserve of Humapo and La Victoria. CIAT internal report

Cárdenas, J.C. 2003. Rethinking Local Commons Dilemmas: Lessons from Experimental Economics in the Field. A shorter version of this paper was published in Isham, J., T. Kelly and S. Ramaswamy (Eds). Social Capital, Economic Development and the Environment, Edward Elgar Publishing. 2002. Northampton. Related papers in English and SpanishA rather recent development in economics is the formal study of how human groups device ways of governing the coordination of actions that produce externalities without the need of a Leviathan with perfect information and costless ways of enforcing rules, or without the need to individualize the property rights over the resource to allow the invisible hand to coordinate choices and results. Social Capital is one of the terms proposed by leading authors like Putnam (1993) to explain those mechanisms (e.g. norms or rules) that groups use to govern themselves. Self-Governance Institutions has been an alternative notion proposed by others like Ostrom (1990). Or a synonymous, Community Governance (Bowles, 1999) which also conveys the same notion. In general, economic analysis is now recognizing that individuals may put in place selfgoverned material and non-material incentives, which induce changes in behavior from self-oriented actions to group-oriented ones, which may produce social outcomes that are superior than those resulting from the purely selfish and short-sighted behavior of individuals. Usually these institutional arrangements achieve the result of correcting the failures of externalities without the intervention of an external agent or the rearrangement of property rights. In particular, the academic debate over the best prediction about the behavior of people that use a Common-Pool Resource (CPR), and the recommended policy approaches to the CPR dilemma have undergone a very interesting evolution throughout the last 3 decades of the past century, since the emergence of at least two seminal contributions; Garret Hardin’s “Tragedy of the Commons” (1968) and his reflections on the lack of individual property rights over resources under joint access; and Mancur Olson’s Logic of Collective Action (1965) on the difficulties for large and homogenous groups to achieve the voluntary provision of a public good. The empirical evidence on groups using common-pool resources, dating back for centuries, and still today remaining inconclusive, supports in many cases and rejects in many others the different hypotheses available today. Why in some cases groups succeed collectively in managing a resource for which they have joint access, while in similar situations other groups drive the resource closer to exhaustion and socially undesirable results? Why some individuals do act in these situations according to the theoretical prediction of the homo-economicus while others do not? Further, why do the same individuals do confirm the self-regarding maximizing behavior in competitive market institutions while showing other-regarding preferences under situations that generate outcomes that affect negatively others? The fact that these questions remain unsolved should challenge the way the problem of commons dilemmas is taught and studied in the economics profession, and in how it transpires to policy making debates. However, much of the teaching of this particular problem is done without much of the new theoretical, empirical and experimental contributions that have emerged since Hardin’s tragedy prediction. Today the problem of the commons is still presented to students as a free-rider problem where the individual rationality of those extracting the resource and the lack of private or state ownership of the resource would drive the common-pool to yields that are socially sub-optimal, and eventually to exhaustion. At best, some authors seem to acknowledge the difference in rights and rules between open access and common property. Nevertheless, the introductory level teaching ignores in most cases the possibility of groups devising endogenously institutions for self-management and control, or the possibility of human preferences that involve the welfare or actions of others inducing people to act more cooperative. Further, much of the policy textbook recipes still remain within the two orthodox approaches of assigning individual property rights to the resource (market approach), or transferring all property and control to the government for (state approach) a socially efficient management to emerge. However, a long and rich path has been covered by many social and natural scientists that explore the factors that drive human behavior when facing a CPR dilemma. This paper wants to respond to this concern in two ways. One, by providing in sections 2 and 3 elements from recent advances in the analysis of CPRs that could be easily introduced into the teaching and policy design regarding the social dilemmas arising from the use of commons. In particular, it will highlight the lack of importance given to community governance solutions and the focusing on the state and the market solutions, at least in the teaching and policy design arenas. The second contribution to the concerns mentioned is a set of results (Section 4) from field economic experiments conducted in actual CPR settings in rural locations; the results provide empirical evidence of some of the new developments in the literature, questioning much of the conventional views about these dilemmas and human behavior. Further, the methodological approach of applying experimental economics in the field and in the classroom might bring to the economics profession some lessons and challenges about participatory research and teaching techniques where the participants (villagers or students) become active part of the analysis and not mere subjects that produce data, as usually seen in the conventional literature, teaching and research.

Allen, W. NRM-Changelinks.Net. Links for developing Change in Natural Resource Management: an on-line resource guide for those seeking to improve the use of collaborative and learning-based approaches. Manaaki Whenua - Landcare Research, New Zealand and Natural Resource Management Programme, Massey University, New Zealand.

Defoer, T. and A. Budelman (Eds) 2000. Managing Soil Fertility in The Tropics: A Resource Guide for Participatory Learning and Action Research.. Royal Tropical Institute (KIT) Institute in collaboration with IIED, IER, FAO and CTA.

Pound, B., S. Snapp, C. McDougall and A. Braun (Eds). 2003. Managing Natural Resources for Sustainable Livelihoods: Uniting Science and Participation. Earthscan/IDRC.Management of local resources has a greater chance of a sustainable outcome when there is partnership between local people and external agencies, and agendas relevant to their aspirations and circumstances. Managing Natural Resources for Sustainable Livelihoods analyses and extends this premise to show unequivocally that the process of research for improving natural resource management must incorporate participatory and user-focused approaches, leading to development based on the needs and knowledge of local resource users.Drawing on extensive and highly relevant case studies, this book presents innovative approaches for establishing and sustaining participation and collective decision-making, good practice for research, and challenges for future developments. It covers a wide range of natural resources – including forests and soils, and water and management units such as watersheds and common property areas and provides practical lessons from analysis and meta-analysis of cases from Asia, Africa and Latin America. It offers insights on how to make research participatory while maintaining rigour and high-quality biological science, different forms of participation, and ways to scale up and extend participatory approaches and successful initiatives.This book will be invaluable for those professionally involved in natural resource management for sustainable development, and an essential resource for teachers and students of both the biophysical and social science aspects of natural resource management.

Ashby, J.A.; Braun, A.R.; Gracia T.; Guerrero, M.P.; Hernandez, L.A.; Quiros, C.A.; Roa, J.A. 2001. La comunidad se organiza para hacer investigación: CIAL en America Latina. CIAT. Cali, Colombia.Este libro trata acerca de una nueva clase de institución: aquella en la que los agricultores de escasos recursos se encargan de un proceso de investigación agrícola que los beneficia a ellos y a su comunidad". El Comité de Investigación Agrícola Local (CIAL) pretende, con la ayuda de personas capacitadas provenientes de otros lugares, animar a los agricultores para que realicen su propia investigación agrícola y para que involucren en esa tarea a su comunidad. Este enfoque participativo es efectivo mientras el CIAL dé resultados útiles a su comunidad. La metodología está diseñada para que garantice una capacitación eficaz tanto para los agricultores como para las personas ajenas a esa comunidad pero que estén interesadas, y para que sea relevante a diferentes ámbitos institucionales y culturales. La Fundación W.K. Kellogg patrocinó el proyecto que desarrolló originalmente la metodología. Se presentan resúmenes en inglés, español y francés. Disponible también en ingles.

CIAT (Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical) JIRCAS (Japanese Internacional Research Center for Agricultural Science); PRGA Program. 2002. Proc. Workshop on “How participatory research can complement conventional research approaches”, held in Tsukuba, Japan, 4-8 march 2002. (CD-Rom).

Matsaert, H., Z. Ahmed, N.Islam and F.Hussain. 2004. Actor oriented tools for analysis of innovation systems: Some guidelines from experience of analysing natural resource based innovation systems in Bangladesh. DRAFT.These guidelines are based on our experiences of using actor oriented tools to analyse chilli and livestock innovations systems and identify pro poor interventions in the char lands of Bangladesh, and in sharing and discussing these tools with other development partners. These tools are drawn from a wide range of sources. These include social anthropological and social network research techniques (see Long and Long 1992, Lewis 1998), stakeholder analysis (see Grimble and Wellard 1997), agricultural information knowledge systems (see Roling and Jiggins 1997) and process monitoring and documentation (see Mosse et al 1998). However, the tools are not commonly found in the analysis and planning of interventions in natural resource based innovation systems. Actor oriented tools complement other planning, monitoring and evaluation tools by focusing on the structure of social relationships between the key actors involved in a development scenario. We have found them useful for:- Analysis of a given institution (e.g organisation or enterprise, project or sector) in terms of strong and weak linkages between its actors; planning: visual presentation of critical links which should be supported or developed to meet the overall development goals e.g poverty reduction, inclusion of marginal groups and in monitoring and evaluation for visualising how interventions have impacted on critical linkages over time.

Beaulieu, N., G. Leclerc, M. Alvarez, G. De Wispeleare, J. Jaramillo, Y. Rubiano, A. Fajardo, O. Muñoz, N. Peñuela. 2001. A Proposed Framework for Using Remote Sensing Imagery to monitor environmental dynamics in support to local planning efforts. Presented at the Workshop on Integrated Natural Resources Management (INRM), 28-31 August, 2001, CIAT, Cali, Colombia.

Carberry, P.S., Z. Hochman, R.L. McCown et al. 2002. The FARMSCAPE approach to decision support: farmers', advisers', researchers' monitoring, simulation, communication and performance evaluation. Agricultural Systems, 74:141-177.FARMSCAPE (Farmers', Advisers', Researchers', Monitoring, Simulation, Communication And Performance Evaluation) is a program of participatory research with the farming community of northeast Australia. It initially involved research to explore whether farmers and their advisers could gain benefit from tools such as soil characterisation and sampling, climate forecasts and, in particular, simulation modelling. Its current focus is facilitating the implementation of commercial delivery systems for these same tools in order to meet industry demand for their access. This paper presents the story of what was done over the past decade, it provides performance indicators of impact, it reflects on what was learnt over this period and it outlines where this research is likely to head in the future.Over the past 10 years, the FARMSCAPE team employed a Participatory Action Research approach to explore whether farmers could value simulation as a decision support tool for managing their farming system and if so, could it be delivered cost-effectively. Through farmer group engagement, on-farm trials, soil characterisation, monitoring of crops, soils and climate, and sessions to apply the APSIM systems simulator, FARMSCAPE represented a research program on decision support intervention. Initial scepticism by farmers and commercial consultants about the value of APSIM was addressed by testing its performance both against measured data from on-farm trials and against farmers' experiences with past commercial crops. Once this credibility check was passed, simulation sessions usually evolved into participants interactively inquiring of the model the consequence of alternative management options. These `What if' questions using APSIM were contextualised using local climate and soil data and the farmer's actual or proposed management rules.The active participation of farmers and their advisers, and working in the context of their own farming operations, were the key ingredients in the design, implementation and interpretation of the FARMSCAPE approach to decision support. The attraction of the APSIM systems simulator to farmers contemplating change was that it allowed them to explore their own system in a manner equivalent to learning from experience. To achieve this, APSIM had to be credible and flexible. While direct engagement of farmers initially enabled only a limited number of beneficiaries, this approach generated a commercial market for timely and high quality interactions based on soil monitoring and simulation amongst a significant sector of the farming community. Current efforts are therefore focused on the training, support and accreditation of commercial agronomists in the application of the FARMSCAPE approach and tools.

Aarnink, W., S. Bunning, L. Collette, P.Mulvany. 1998. Sustaining Agricultural Biodiversity and Agro-ecosystem functions: Opportunities, incentives and approaches for the conservation and sustainable use of agricultural biodiversity in agro-ecosystems and production systems . Report of International Technical Workshop organized by FAO and the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity, with the support of the Government of the Netherlands. 2 - 4 December 1998, FAO, Rome, Italy.

Barton, T., G. Borrini-Feyerabend, A. De Sherbinin and P. Warren 1997. Our People, Our Resources: supporting rural communities in participatory action research on population dynamics and the local environment. IUCN, Gland, Switzerland. Available also in French and Spanish) This handbook illustrates concepts, methods and tools for primary environmental care, an approach that seeks to empower communities to meet basic needs while protecting the environment. In particular, it focuses on how population size, structure, growth (or decline) and movements relate to the quality of the environment and the qulaity of life. Emphasis is placed on a community-led process of participatory action research in which local knowledge and skills and fully utilized. The main purpose is to promote the effective, integrated management of environment and population dynamics for the benefit of local people in rural communities.

Barrios, E., M. Bekunda, R. Delve, A. Esilaba and J. Mowo. 2000. Methodologies for Decision Making in Natural Resource Management: Identifying and Classifying Local Indicators of Soil Quality. Eastern Africa Version. CIAT, SWNM, TSBF, AHI. ISBN: 958-694-013-6.The increasing interest in local soil knowledge is largely due to the realization that farmer communities that have been interacting with their soils for a long time can provide many insights into the sustainable management of tropical soils. A participatory approach, in the form of a methodological guide, has been developed and used in Latin America and Africa to identify and classify local indicators of soil quality related to permanent and modifiable soil properties. This methodological tool aims to empower local communities to better manage their soil resources through improved decision making and monitoring of their environment. It is also designed to steer soil management towards developing practical solutions to identified soil constraints and monitoring the impact of the management strategies implemented to address such constraints. The methodological approach presented here constitutes one tool to capture local demands and perceptions of soil constraints as an essential guide to relevant research and development activities. A significant component of this approach is the collaboration between technical officers and farmers to build an effective communication channel with each other. The participatory process also places considerable emphasis on consensus building among farmers to determine those soil-related constraints that should be tackled first. Such consensus is an important step toward collective action by farming communities if improved soil management strategies are to be adopted at a landscape scale.

Oberthür, T., E. Barrios, S. Cook, H. Usma, H. and G. Escobar. 2004. Increasing the relevance of scientific information in hillside environments through understanding of local soil management in a small watershed of the Colombian Andes. Soil Use and Management. 20:23-31.This article explores the question of how scientific information can improve local agronomic management using concepts of uncertainty classification and uncertainty management. Information and data on local management of soil fertility based on a local classification system of soil quality were collected from a small watershed in Cauca (Colombia). The analyses suggest that farmers hold local knowledge about soils at two levels. The first is based on empirical observations and refers to local knowledge about soils and landscape, which shows that the classes identified in the local soil quality classification are consistent with results obtained using measured soil parameters. At the second level, farmers have some awareness of ecological processes and the appropriate use of relationships between key soil characteristics and management options. It is argued that local knowledge is not sufficient to cope with uncertainty introduced by a rapidly changing agriculture, including, for example, increasing land pressure, unpredictable market forces and climate change. We have suggested how scientific knowledge can contribute to the solution, based on an analysis that relates Cohen's (Heuristic reasoning about uncertainty: an artificial intelligence approach. Pitman London, 1985) and Rowe's (Risk Analysis 14, 743-750, 1994) uncertainty concepts to local knowledge.

Barrios, E, and M.T. Trejo 2003. Implications of local soil knowledge for integrated soil management in Latin America. Geoderma 111 (2003) 217–231.The increasing attention paid to local soil knowledge in recent years is the result of a greater recognition that the knowledge of people who have been interacting with their soils for long time can offer many insights about the sustainable management of tropical soils. This paper describes two approaches in the process of eliciting local information. Case studies show that there is a consistent rational basis to the use of local indicators of soil quality and their relation to improved soil management. The participatory process used is shown to have considerable potential in facilitating farmer consensus about which soil-related constraints should be tackled first. Consensus building is presented as an important step prior to collective action by farming communities in integrated soil management at the landscape scale. Taking advantage of the complementary nature of local and scientific knowledge is highlighted as an overall strategy for sustainable soil management.

Hambly Odame, H., N. Hafkin, G. Wesseler, and I. Boto. 2002. Gender and Agriculture in the Information Society. ISSN 1021-2310. 8 pp. ISNAR Briefing Paper.While in most developing countries women constitute the majority of the population working in agriculture, they are still being marginalized with respect to access to information and communication technologies (ICTs) for economic and social empowerment. ISNAR and the Technical Centre for Agriculture and Rural Cooperation (CTA) have formed a partnership to study the theme of gender and ICTs in agriculture and rural development and to increase the awareness of policymakers, donors, researchers, nongovernmental organizations, and farmers’ organizations, of the need for dialogue and action on issues of ICT and gender in the context of food security, poverty reduction, and sustainable development. This Briefing Paper is one of the collaborative activities through which ISNAR and CTA endeavor to prepare inputs to future international deliberations.

Baltissen,G., E. Wabwile, M. Kooijman and T. Defoer. 2000. IIED Series on Managing Africa's Soils. No. 20. Facilitating Learning Processes in Agricultural Extension: lessons from Western Kenya.

Harrington, L. J. White, P. Grace, D. Hodson, A.D. Hartkamp, C. Vaughan and C. Meisner. 2002. Delivering the Goods: Scaling out Results of Natural Resource Management Research. Special Feature on Integrated Natural Resource Management (INRM). Conservation Ecology 5(2).To help integrated natural resource management (INRM) research "deliver the goods" for many of the world's poor over a large area and in a timely manner, the authors suggest a problem-solving approach that facilitates the scaling out of relevant agricultural practices. They propose seven ways to foster scaling out: (1) develop more attractive practices and technologies through participatory research (2) balance supply-driven approaches with resource user demands, (3) use feedback to redefine the research agenda, (4) encourage support groups and networks for information sharing, (5) facilitate negotiation among stakeholders, (6) inform policy change and institutional development, and (7) make sensible use of information management tools, including models and geographic information systems (GIS). They also draw on experiences in Mesoamerica, South Asia, and southern Africa to describe useful information management tools, including site similarity analyses, the linking of simulation models with GIS, and the use of farmer and land type categories.

Guijt, I., Berdegue, J.A. and Loevinsohn, M. 2000. Deepening the Basis of Rural Resource Management. Proceedings of a workshop, February 16-18 2000, The Hague. ISNAR and RIMISP (Red Internacional de Metodologia de Investigaciones de Sistemas de Produccion,. 222pp. Also published in 2002 as a  Special Issue of Agricultural Systems:The workshop brought together researchers working in diverse situations and with resources of different types -- natural, human, and economic -- who are developing innovative methods aimed at enabling farming communities to adjust their decision making in the face of rapid and significant change. The workshop sought to throw light on four main questions:1. What are the features of methods that are effective in supporting farmers’ decision making where resource systems are undergoing such change?2. How do the features of effective methods vary in different types of resource management situations?3. What approaches are available to assess the impact of these methods?4. What institutional factors have favored or hindered the development of effective decision support methods and their use over wider areas?The articles in this Special Issue include a critical review of the key issues emerging from the workshop, five diverse case studies and one of two theme presentations, on the state of the art in decision support in rural resource management. The other theme paper, on learning theory and its relevance for rural resource management, can be found in the workshop’s proceedings, as can the other nine case studies.

Ashby, J, J. Beltran, T. Gracia, M. Guerrero, C. Quiros, J. Roa, C. Trujillo and F. Escobar. 1993. Cartillas para Comites de Investigacion Agricola Local 1-13/. Primers for Local Agricultural Research Committees 1-13 (translated by A. Braun). CIAT, Cali, Colombia.

Long, S.A., Murphy, C. and Vaughan, K. 2001. An Overview of Project Approach, Concepts and Methods. Windhoek, Namibia. WILD Working Paper 1.This document provides an overview of the Wildlife Integration for Livelihood Diversification (WILD) project in terms of aims and objectives; key concepts, framework and questions for the research and analysis; Methods; and outputs. It is aimed at a wide audience, from regional Ministry of Environment and Tourism (MET) and Non Government Organisations (NGO) staff in the field to members of the Project Steering Committee and other stakeholders based in Windhoek. It is organised around a simple overview of the project in terms of both concept and practice.The WILD Project operates as an applied, participatory research project that is development oriented. It addresses the following key questions:1. What are the implications for livelihoods of changing NRM activities and options within conservancies?2. Which critical factors affect these and how?3. Who within communities is affected and in what ways?Central to the research will be an analysis of livelihoods (current practice in the context of changing approaches to natural resource use and management). A comprehensive livelihoods analysis will include consideration of a range of critical factors including local institutional and political contexts, the interventions of service providers, policy and legislation, prices and markets etc. While many factors have shaped the livelihoods of communal area residents in different ways, perhaps the single most important change with respect to the natural resource use and management practices has come about through the implementation of a national programme of support to Community Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM). This programme concentrates on the development of conservancies as a means to achieving strong institutions for natural resource management and developing opportunities for communities to benefit from (among other things) tourism (consumptive and non-consumptive).

Carberry, P. and A. Whitbread. are members of the APSRU team that developed the Agricultural Production Systems Simulator (APSIM) model and FARMSCAPE an action research project that set out to understand and change the use of Decision Support Systems in farmers’ management practice in Australia.