Implications of Conducting Local-level Participatory Ecosystem Assessment and Management in a Nation with Centralized De

1. Implications of conducting local-level, participatory ecosystem assessment and management in a nation with a history of centralized decision-making Cristiana Simão Seixas Brazil

2. Outline • Context and Objective • Method and Case studies • Barriers to participatory research and management • Hindrance to user participation • Government obstructions • Governance issue • Knowledge flow across scales • Mechanisms • Hindrances • Conclusions

3. Resource and ecosystem management • Institutional interaction across scales • Ecological interactions across scales • Need to bridge local ecological knowledge and scientific knowledge across scale • Participatory research • Participatory management

4. Resource management in Brazil • History of top-down, centralized, command-and-control management • New environmental agenda advocacy for user participation in decision-making • 1980s – informal co-mng’t • 1990 – legal mechanism for participation: Extractive Reserve (formal co-mng’t) • 1990s – several co-mng’t initiatives

5. Research objective • Identify some of the driving forces that enable or impede local-level ecosystem assessment and participatory management in a nation with a history of centralized decision-making, such as Brazil

6. Methods • Compare four case studies on participatory fisheries management in different regions • one of them: local-level participatory ecosystem assessment • Data: literature and my own knowledge

7. Case studies • I: Ceará Reservoir Fisheries Project (northeast) • II: Maritime Extractive Reserve of Arraial do Cabo (southeast) • III: Forum Lagoa dos Patos (south) • IV: Lagoa de Ibiraquera Project(south)

8. Case I: Reservoir Project • Informal co-management (since 1989-1990) • Fishers & Federal environmental agency (IBAMA) • Support from int’l development agency (GTZ) • Other stakeholders: many federal, state, municipal gov’t agencies • Source: Christensen et al. (1995), Barbosa and Hartmann (1997), Hartmann and Campelo (1998)

9. Case II: Extractive Reserve • Formal co-management (since 1997) • Fishers & IBAMA • Others stakeholders: tourism sector, university researchers, many federal, state, municipal gov’t agencies • Source: Lobão (2000); Silva (in press)

10. Case III: Forum Lagoa dos Patos • Multistakeholder body informal co-management (since 1996) • 21 organizations: few fisher organizations, religious mov’t, fishing industries, university researchers, many federal, state, municipal gov’t agencies • Source: Reis and D’Incao (2000), D’Incao and Reis (2002), Kalikoski et al. (2002), Kalikoski and Vasconcellos (in press)

11. Case IV: Ibiraquera Project • Local-level participatory ecosystem assessment (2001): University-led initiative (MA) • Forum Lagoa de Ibiraquera (2002) • Multistakeholder body: Local CBOs, NGOs, researchers • Gov’t agencies invited to meetings • Source:NMD-UFSC (2003), Freitas (in press), my own knowledge

12. Case studies background • Case I: top-down management since reservoir was built • Cases II, III, IV: sustainable community-based management until 1960s • 1967: Federal fisheries agency centralizes fisheries management • Most cases: top-down management • Exception: Ibiraquera lagoon – informal (advisory) co-mngt in 1980s, early 1990s

13. Hindrances to user participation

14. Hindrances to user participation

15. Government obstructions to participatory management

16. Government obstructions to participatory management

17. Governance issues

18. Governance issues

19. Governance issues(cont’d)

20. Governance issues(cont’d)

21. Use of local & scientific knowledge

22. Use of local & scientific knowledge

23. Impediments to knowledge flow across scale

24. Impediments to knowledge flow across scale

25. Impediments to (cont’d)knowledge flow across scale

26. Impediments to (cont’d)knowledge flow across scale

27. Conclusions • Acceptance of local knowledge seems to depend more on policy-makers beliefs about CBRM than on his/her organization agenda • Some resource users (used to paternalistic, top-down decision-making) seem not yet prepared to engage in participatory research and management • need capacity building for community organization and empowerment

28. Conclusions (cont’d) • Lack of qualified personnel to mediate conflicts and facilitate the flow of knowledge • capacity-building also needed • Institutional misfit: conflicting agenda and power dispute among many gov’t agencies leading to management constraints • lack of support from government agencies at different political level and economic sectors

29. Conclusions (cont’d) • Integrating local and scientific knowledge: scientific/technical knowledge still plays a major role in decision-making, although first decisions are made locally • Gap between gov’t agenda and praxis: decision-making is still centralized at the federal level and based on conventional scientific approach

30. Conclusions (cont’d) • Lack of clear mechanisms to integrate information systems (local and scientific knowledge) across different scales • Lack of mechanisms for integrating knowledge and management efforts at local level with those at larger scales

31. Challenges • To create more nested institutions to help understand ecosystem dynamics at different scales and how ecosystem management at one level affects management at lower and higher levels • Special attention should be given to fit management institutions with one another and with the scale of management problems they are addressing