Co-Management: Managing Relationships, Not Resources

“Letting the leaders pass”: barriers to using traditional ecological knowledge in comanagement as the basis of formal hunting regulations

“…Understanding the dynamics of the comanagement process for the let the leaders pass regulation suggests the need to consider the costs and benefits of various actors at various scales, from the individual hunter to communities, to First Nations, and territorial and federal governments, as well as the historical context from which the regulation emerged. As noted by several previous studies, comanagement is typically no panacea (Caulfield 1997, Kofinas http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol19/iss2/art7/ 1998, Nadasdy 2003a, Caulfield et al 2004, Natcher et al 2005. Despite early theoretical hopes of a northern wildlife comanagement leading to more effective resource management (e.g., Osherenko 1988, Usher 1986, the political conflicts of comanagement have in some cases led to significant problems (e.g., Nadasdy 2003a).…”

A Mi’kmaw Perspective on Advancing Salmon Governance in Nova Scotia, Canada: Setting the Stage for Collaborative Co-Existence

“…Power sharing is a result rather than the starting point, and a more realistic view of its application as a governance approach is that co-management is the arena for the process (Armitage et al, 2007). While co-management may be seen as a potential process to solve problems, share knowledge, learn and adapt, and as a legal battlefield (Armitage et al, 2007;Berkes, 2010;Emerson & Gerlak, 2014) for the multi-faceted challenges faced in society, distinct cultural backgrounds, colonial histories, conflicting values and lack of shared management perspectives may hinder the co-management process (Natcher, Davis, & Hickey, 2005).…”

Rethinking Devolution: Challenges for Aboriginal Resource Management in the Yukon Territory

“…While true devolution requires a genuine transfer of administrative authority (Colfer and Capistrano 2005), the reliability of financial support is equally critical to the successful transfer of management responsibility (Uphoff 1986). This is proving true in the Yukon, where First Nations find themselves challenged by government's failure to allocate sufficient funds to support the new demands First Nations now face (Natcher et al 2005). Although the Devolution Transfer Agreement has allocated financial support to assist First Nations in comprehensive land use planning, the one-time collective payment of $3 million has proven far from adequate.…”