title: Conflict in Protected Areas: Who Says Co-Management Does Not Work?
abstract: Natural resource-related conflicts can be extremely destructive and undermine environmental protection. Since the 1990 s co-management schemes, whereby the management of resources is shared by public and/or private sector stakeholders, have been a main strategy for reducing these conflicts worldwide. Despite initial high hopes, in recent years co-management has been perceived as falling short of expectations. However, systematic assessments of its role in conflict prevention or mitigation are non-existent. Interviews with 584 residents from ten protected areas in Colombia revealed that co-management can be successful in reducing conflict at grassroots level, as long as some critical enabling conditions, such as effective participation in the co-management process, are fulfilled not only on paper but also by praxis. We hope these findings will re-incentivize global efforts to make co-management work in protected areas and other common pool resource contexts, such as fisheries, agriculture, forestry and water management.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Tropical and Subtropical Agriculture and Ethnobotany, Ghent University, Gent, Belgium.|Conflict and Development studies, Ghent University, Gent, Belgium.|Instituto de Estudios Ambientales, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogotá D.C., Colombia.
authors.forename: Kobe
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: De Pourcq
authors.affiliation: Bioversity International, regional office for the Americas, Cali, Colombia.
authors.forename: Evert
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Thomas
authors.affiliation: Forest and Nature Conservation Policy Group, Wageningen University, Wageningen, the Netherlands.
authors.forename: Bas
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Arts
authors.affiliation: Conflict and Development studies, Ghent University, Gent, Belgium.
authors.forename: An
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Vranckx
authors.affiliation: Instituto de Estudios Ambientales, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogotá D.C., Colombia.
authors.forename: Tomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Léon-Sicard
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Tropical and Subtropical Agriculture and Ethnobotany, Ghent University, Gent, Belgium.|Faculty of Tropical AgriSciences, Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, Prague, Czech Republic.
authors.forename: Patrick
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Van Damme
mesh_terms: D003105:Colombia; D016265:Conflict of Interest; D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources; D006801:Humans; D011639:Public Opinion