SHARED RESPONSIBILITY, SHARED BENEFITS

The developing world’s poorest people live in marginal, often harsh rural environments. The natural resource base tends to be fragile and highly vulnerable to over exploitation. Yet these rural people depend directly on access to the food, forage, fuel, fibre, water, medicines, and building materials provided by local ecosystems. What types of natural resource management (NRM) can improve the livelihoods of these poor people while protecting or enhancing the natural resource base they depend on? New approaches to NRM are needed – ones that move beyond the earlier narrow focus on productivity (such as crop yields), to include social, institutional, and policy considerations.

The comanagement of natural resources implies that responsibilities and benefits are shared among diverse stakeholders, including governments. Overview (slide show) Part 1 of Comanagement of Natural Resources: Local Learning for Poverty Reduction Resources on the issue

Project stories and research results offer a cross-section of the major issues confronting natural resource management in Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. Overview (slide show) Case studies: Cambodia - Viet Nam - Ecuador - Bhutan - China - Lebanon Resources on NRM research

Many important lessons and recommendations for decision-makers and policy advisors in government, donor organizations, and NGOs have emerged from the pioneering research supported by IDRC. Overview (slide show) Executive Summary of Comanagement of Natural Resources: Local Learning for Poverty Reduction Resources on lessons and recommendations

This in_focus Website assembles a variety of resources on natural resource comanagement. Including slide presentations, short stories, case studies, research reports, books, etc., the site presents an overview of natural resource comanagement, results of IDRC-supported research, and the important lessons that have been learned.