| Natural resource management research has to evolve from a focus on plans, maps, and regulations to an acknowledgment of the complex, sometimes chaotic, reality in the field, with a large number of actors making their own decisions. As outside actors, we can only try to facilitate and support a process of negotiation among the stakeholders. Such negotiation involves understanding the perspectives of all stakeholders, analyzing complementarities in views, identifying where differences may be settled by “science,” where science and social action can bring innovative alternatives for reconciliation, and where compromises will be necessary to move ahead. We distinguish between natural resource management problems at village level, within... |
