Devolution of environment and resources governance: trends and future

TLDR

Adaptive co‑management, involving deliberation, visioning, social capital, trust, institutions, capacity building, and action‑reflection loops, has been documented in forestry, fisheries, wildlife, protected area, and wetland cases worldwide. The study seeks to determine how environmental and resource governance can be devolved while ensuring effective user participation and feedback learning. The authors employ an interdisciplinary literature review and a three‑phase conceptual model—communicative action, self‑organization, and collective action—to identify key processes driving adaptive co‑management. Approaches that combine adaptive management or learning‑by‑doing with co‑management are promising, yet past decentralization reforms have largely failed; effective devolution requires time, a shift to dynamic governance, and learning from experience, with shared responsibilities and adaptive learning emerging as key trends.

Abstract

SUMMARY How can the governance of environment and resources be devolved in a way that incorporates effective user participation and feedback learning? Approaches that use the idea of adaptive management or learning-by-doing, combined with co-management, are particularly promising. Using an interdisciplinary literature covering many types of resources, and a conceptual model with three phases (communicative action, self-organization and collective action), the paper identifies some of the major processes leading to adaptive co-management. These include deliberation, visioning, building social capital, trust and institutions, capacity-building through networks and partnerships, and action-reflection-action loops for social learning. Such adaptive co-management is not simply a theoretical possibility but something that has been documented in a number of forestry, fisheries, wildlife, protected area, and wetland cases from both developed and developing countries. However, the experience with the decentralization reforms of the 1990s is largely negative for a number of reasons. Effective devolution takes time, requiring a shift in focus from a static concept of management to a dynamic concept of governance shaped by interactions, feedback learning and adaptation over time. Sharing of governance responsibilities and an ability to learn from experience are among the emerging trends in environmental management.