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Resource Conflicts (resource + conflict)

Distribution by Scientific Domains
Humanities and Social Sciences57%

Selected Abstracts

Skills needed to help communities manage natural resource conflicts

CONFLICT RESOLUTION QUARTERLY, Issue 3 2008
Loretta Singletary
Competition for natural resources has spawned unprecedented conflict between users, resulting in litigious and legislative actions. Citizens often expect Cooperative Extension professionals to engage communities in collaborative processes to manage these conflicts. This paper examines thirty-five skills Cooperative Extension professionals need if they are to engage communities in collaborative processes. Survey methodology is used to assess the skills extension professionals perceive as most needed, and the ranked means of the perceived skill needs are presented. The results offer information useful to strengthen the capacity of extension professionals to play an important role in helping citizens manage natural resource conflicts. [source]

Environmental Narratives on Protection and Production: Nature-based Conflicts in R7iacute;o San Juan, Nicaragua

DEVELOPMENT AND CHANGE, Issue 4 2000
Anja Nygren
This article focuses on local processes and global forces in the struggle over the fate of forests and over the contested claims of protection and production in a protected area buffer zone of Río San Juan, Nicaragua. The struggle over control of local natural resources is seen as a multifaceted process of development and power involving diverse social actors, from agrarian politicians and development agents to a heterogeneous group of local settlers, absentee cattle raisers, timber dealers, transnational corporations, and non-governmental organizations. The initial interest is in the local resource-related discourses and actions; the analysis then broadens to include the larger political-economic processes and environment-development discourses that affect the local systems of production and systems of signification. The article underlines environmental resource conflicts as one of the major challenges in subjecting structures of social power to critical analysis. [source]

SOCIAL CAPITAL, DEVELOPMENT, AND INDIGENOUS POLITICS IN ECUADORIAN AMAZONIA,

GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW, Issue 3 2003
THOMAS PERREAULT
ABSTRACT. This article examines the formation of social capital,defined as the norms of trust and reciprocity integral to social relations,and the ways in which it may help rural people's organizations gain access to rights and resources. The formation of social capital must be viewed within the context of the symbolic systems, or cultural capital, that imbues social relations with meaning. The concept of social capital provides a valuable conceptual framework for analyzing the multiscale processes of environmental management, rural development, and resource conflicts with which many rural social movements are involved. The role played by social capital is illustrated through a detailed case study of an indigenous political and cultural organization in the Ecuadorian Amazon. The organizational history of a lowland Quichua federation and the successes and problems it has had in managing development projects and achieving political objectives provide insight into the importance of social capital in the development of the region. [source]

Land-use and resource conflicts in the Okavango Delta, Botswana

AFRICAN JOURNAL OF ECOLOGY, Issue 2009
Michael B. K. Darkoh
Abstract This study assesses land-use conflicts in the Okavango wetland ecosystem. A survey of the livelihood activities of a sample of four villages has been carried out and a stakeholder approach used to identify and analyse the key actors involved in resource competition and conflicts in the area. Traditional and emerging stakeholders were identified and found to be in conflict not only with each other but within themselves. Institutional policies on land use in the area are not properly harmonized, and there has been a top-down approach to development planning and implementation of development programmes. As a result, land-use conflicts have escalated in the area. The Okavango Delta Management Plan adopted in 2007 should integrate and harmonize all the land-use policies, and land management in the area. [source]

Understanding ,resource' conflicts in Papua New Guinea

ASIA PACIFIC VIEWPOINT, Issue 1 2008
Glenn Banks
Abstract: Papua New Guinea, with its heavy dependence on natural resources, limited economic development in the past two decades, poor record of governance and high-profile separatist conflicts such as the Bougainville civil war, appears to be an exemplar of the ,Resource Curse' theory , the notion that natural resources actively undermine economic development. Using a number of examples from a range of scales, this paper argues that what appear to be ,resource' conflicts in Papua New Guinea are actually better conceived as conflicts around identity and social relationships. The very different conceptualisation of natural resources in most Melanesian societies , as elements of the social world as much as any external environmental sphere , means that resources become a conduit for local social and political agendas and tensions to be expressed. The nature of traditional conflict in Melanesian societies is discussed as a guide to the better management and resolution of what appear to be ,resource' conflicts in Papua New Guinea. [source]