Introduction: Ecosystem governance for conservation and poverty reduction

Abstract

As all of the chapters throughout this volume have discussed, increasing amounts of pressure have been exerted on natural resources by a wide variety of user groups. In the absence of effective governance institutions implemented at the appropriate ecological scale, natural resources and the environment are in peril from these increasing pressures (Dietz et al. 2003). As Ostrom (2009) outlines, resource collapse is more likely in large, highly valuable, open-access systems when the resource harvesters are diverse, do not communicate, and fail to develop rules and norms for managing the resource. Establishing effective institutions and processes for managing multiple resources in such situations is often a highly complex undertaking (Wilkie et al. 2008). For example, many globally valuable natural resources, including a wide variety of flora and fauna species, fisheries, minerals, fossil fuels, timber and water are also connected to ecosystem components or functions that are critical for rural livelihoods. Managing multiple, simultaneous, and often interacting endogenous and exogenous demands on these resources can be especially challenging when tenure or resource rights are non-existent or unclear; governance structures to enforce rights or ensure equity in natural resource decision making are weak or non-existent; and/or when the extent of a resource or system transcends state or national boundaries as is often the case with fisheries or river basins, for example. This section is concerned with how some of these management challenges manifest themselves, the implications for ecosystem integrity and poverty reduction, and some of the solutions that have arisen for managing those challenges.