This article examines the processes of change in a large lagoon system, and its implications for how commons can be managed as commons in the long run. We use two related concepts in our analysis of change: commonisation and decommonisation; 'commonisation' is understood as a process through which a resource gets converted into a jointly used resource under commons institutions that deal with excludability and subtractability, and 'decommonisation' refers to a process through which a jointly used resource under commons institutions loses these essential characteristics. We analyse various contributing issues and dynamics associated with the processes of commonisation and decommonisation. We consider evidence collected through household and village level surveys, combined with a host of qualitative and quantitative research methods in the Chilika Lagoon, the largest lagoon in India, and one of the largest lagoons in Asia. We suggest that in order to keep the Chilika commons as commons will require, as a starting point, a policy environment in which legal rights and customary livelihoods are respected. With international prawn markets stabilised and the 'pink gold rush' over, the timing may be good for a policy change in order to create a political space for negotiation and to reverse the processes causing decommonisation. Fishers need to be empowered to re-connect to their environment and re-invent traditions of stewardship, without which there will be no resources left to fight over.

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This study examines the effect of Joint Forest Management (JFM) in a component of the Kilombero Nature Reserve recently gazetted to improve the conservation status of high biodiversity forests in the Udzungwa Mountains of the Eastern Afromontane biodiversity hotspot. The evaluation is based on a temporal comparison spanning seven years of JFM and establishment of a Tanzania National Parks (TANAPA) ranger station, using bushmeat hunting as an indicator. Results reveal that the number of active hunters had declined, primarily due to TANAPA's patrolling. But hunting effort had been displaced from hunting with firearms in the grassland to hunting with traps and dogs in the forests, thus increasing the threat to endemic species. Hunters perceived few benefits from JFM, and the new opportunities were largely unused, inaccessible and communal in nature. Suspicions of embezzlement of JFM funds, and high village development contributions were important drivers of continuing hunting. Dissatisfied with JFM, most inactive hunters actually preferred that TANAPA manage the forest instead. Considerable attention to correcting these problems is required before this model of JFM should be scaled up and implemented in the remaining villages surrounding the Kilombero Nature Reserve.

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This case study contributes to the study of neoliberal conservation and indigenous rights through an interdisciplinary (anthropology and fisheries management) evaluation of the 2004-2009 management plan for Honduras' Cayos Cochinos Marine Protected Area (CCMPA). The CCMPA was established in 1993, in a region that has been inhabited by the afro-indigenous Garifuna for over 213 years. An evaluation of the CCMPA's 2004-2009 management plan's socioeconomic objectives is situated within the historical-cultural context of a long-standing territorial struggle, changes in governance practices, and related shifts in resource access and control. The article highlights the central importance of local social activism and the relative or partial success that such mobilisation can bring about for restructuring resource governance.

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The Agoua Forest in Benin was declared a protected area in 1953 and subsequently managed by means of a coercion system, which, however, did not prevent its deforestation. In 2002, a participatory management process was designed to restore this forest. Although the project managers and local communities agreed to a plan at the beginning of the process, the plan was not implemented because conflict arose in the course of the process. In this paper, an interactional framing approach was used to analyse the emergence of this conflict, which ended in an impasse. This study showed that the conflict was constructed and evolved mainly in stakeholders' discourses, even without changes in actual forest management and use. Moreover, it became clear that stakeholders constructed different frames in different conversation contexts: stakeholders, who share a set of perceptions, norms, and expectations as constructed and expressed in their talks (we-groups), constructed stereotypes and stigmas, blaming the other party and presenting themselves as innocent victims. In conversations involving all stakeholders, people did not reveal their real thoughts, either about each other or about the proposals for conflict resolution. This study shows the relevance and agency of discourse in conflict, and the importance of the interactional framing approach in understanding participatory management, and conflict dynamics. It reveals how by means of discourses, farmers in the Agoua Forest succeeded in handling the conflict, with the effect that little has been done in the project's decision to implement the plan.

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International conservation organisations have invested considerable resources in fostering biodiversity conservation programs in the humid tropics, the most biologically diverse areas on earth. Recent approaches to conservation have centered on integrated conservation and development projects and participatory resource management programs, co-managed between governments and local communities. But these programs have had only mixed success and often suffer from insufficient quantity or quality of participation by local communities. We pose that participatory resource management is more likely to succeed when community members, 1) gain a global perspective on how their social, economic and environmental conditions compare with peer communities in other similar areas of the world, and thus better understand issues of relative scarcity and the benefits of sustainable resource management, and 2) engage as decision-makers at every stage of the conservation process up to reflective program evaluation. This paper examines the role of South-South exchanges as a tool to achieve these intermediate goals that ultimately foster more effective and participatory conservation and support sustainable local livelihoods. The data are extracted from the initiatives of the authors in two different environments- marine and coastal communities in Central America and the Caribbean, and lowland rainforest communities in the western Amazon of South America. We conclude that the exchanges are effective ways to build stakeholder comprehension about, and meaningful engagement in, resource management. South-South exchanges may also help build multi-local coalitions from various remote areas that together support biodiversity conservation at regional and global scales.

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Community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) has been recognised as an effective governance approach for sustainably managing commons or common-pool resources. Yet there is limited empirical research on answering the critical question: What are the principles and key characteristics that are needed to ensure long-term effective and sustainable CBNRM programmes? The research described here helps answer this question. For the first phase of this research, multiple perspectives from research teams were collected and organised into a matrix of 12 organisational principles and 60 key characteristics. These were then vetted using a large published collection of World Bank CBNRM case studies. The second phase of this research included site visits and the use of Q-sort methodology to understand the perspectives of a range of constituency groups associated with three successful forestry CBNRM sites. These sites are located in the Apuseni Mountains, Romania, Randolph, New Hampshire, and Ixtlαn de Juαrez, Oaxaca, Mexico. The findings, based on conducting principle component multi-variable analysis of the sociological and organisational data, point to four unique perspectives of what is essential for effective governance of their common-pool resources. There were also a number of areas of consensus across all four sites. Some of these findings transcend cultural differences, while others are directly associated with specific local conditions and cultural characteristics.

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