Akamani Kofi, Hall Troy Elizabeth
Department of Forestry, Southern Illinois University, 1205 Lincoln Drive, Mail Code 4411, Carbondale, IL 62901, USA.
Forest Ecosystems and Society, College of Forestry, Oregon State University, 321 Richardson Hall, Corvallis, OR 97331, USA.
Heliyon. 2019 Jan 7;5(1):e01125. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2019.e01125. eCollection 2019 Jan.
Co-management - institutional arrangements that involve the sharing of power, rights and responsibilities between states and resource users - provides a framework for managing common pool resources across multiple scales. However, the scale concept has not received widespread recognition in the assessment of co-management outcomes. This study employed a mixed methods research approach to assess the impacts of collaborative forest management (CFM) on social-ecological resilience at the community and household levels in two forest-dependent communities in the Ashanti region of Ghana. Analysis of qualitative data at the community level indicated that although specific impacts of the CFM program varied within and across the various types of capital assets that shape community resilience, the overall impact of the program on both communities has been positive. At the household level, a statistical comparison of past and current household capital assets showed varying levels of decline in household conditions across the two communities during the implementation of the CFM program. It appears the modest gains from the CFM program at the community level may not have been equitably distributed at the household level. These results suggest that the impact of co-management and other conservation policies may be sensitive to the level at which observation is done. Greater recognition of the importance of scale and cross-scale interactions is needed to inform the formulation of forest policies that contribute to building social-ecological resilience across scales.
共同管理——涉及国家与资源使用者之间权力、权利和责任共享的制度安排——为跨多个尺度管理公共池塘资源提供了一个框架。然而，尺度概念在共同管理成果评估中尚未得到广泛认可。本研究采用混合方法研究途径，评估了加纳阿散蒂地区两个依赖森林的社区中，社区森林管理（CFM）对社区和家庭层面社会生态恢复力的影响。对社区层面定性数据的分析表明，尽管CFM项目的具体影响在塑造社区恢复力的各类资本资产内部和之间存在差异，但该项目对两个社区的总体影响是积极的。在家庭层面，对过去和当前家庭资本资产的统计比较显示，在CFM项目实施期间，两个社区的家庭状况都出现了不同程度的下降。看来CFM项目在社区层面取得的适度收益在家庭层面可能没有得到公平分配。这些结果表明，共同管理及其他保护政策的影响可能对观察层面很敏感。需要更广泛地认识尺度及跨尺度相互作用的重要性，以为制定有助于跨尺度构建社会生态恢复力的森林政策提供信息。
