Participatory natural resource management in rural China: Making and unmaking environmental narratives

Abstract

Environmental and development discourses in China can be categorised into three narrative motifs framing human-nature relationships: peasant, indigenous, and community. Indigenous and community narratives have been widely adopted by environmental NGOs (eNGOs) in China in promoting communitybased natural resource management projects, but there has been very limited critical research on such phenomena. Analysis of socio-economic change in two ethnic minority communities in Yunnan shows that neither narrative theme is fully internalised by the relevant communities. Instead narratives may be strategically modified or even rejected by local communities. This is due to different agendas being held by local communities and eNGOs, and two factors pertinent to rural China: the incompatibility of concepts of 'community' in Chinese and international contexts results in confusion, and a lack of recent territorial and cultural claims by rural communities since the collectivist era makes it difficult to construct the identity of a community. It remains challenging for eNGOs in China to advocate either community or indigenous narratives in contexts of rapid socio-economic change.

Institutional bricolage in payment for ecosystem services: Insights from the Sloping Land Conversion Programme in upland communities, Southwest China

“…In many cases, as observed by Steenbergen and Warren (2018), interactions between policy implementers such as NGOs and community representatives critically determine how policies operate locally, and whether a common understanding across disciplines, worldviews, cultures and social status distinctions can be achieved. Third-party actors like NGOs serve a pivotal role in achieving this common understanding (Wang et al, 2019). Thus, increasing the involvement of NGOs can help facilitate and smoothen this interaction by functioning as a critical intermediary for facilitating positive institutional change.…”

Farmers’ cooperatives in Southwest China: Beyond the dichotomies of failure/success and (in) authenticity?

“…The focus of the third case study is on a fruit-marketing FC in Hubin village in northwest Yunnan. Founded in 2009, this FC was part of an NGO project promoting agro-forestry activities and this particular project aimed to stabilise the sloping land by replacing shallow-rooted crops with deep-rooted fruit trees (Wang et al, 2019). Within a decade, different varieties of peaches, pears, apples and other fruit started to generate significant incomes.…”

“…However, the establishment of Hubin's FC was not fully spontaneous: it was initiated, organised and promoted by an NGO which shared an ideology with such organisations as the CCFA and the Ford Foundation. While these organisations advocate for a formal, institutionalised mechanism of collective actions, villagers may not fully internalise these ideologies due to their own agendas (see Wang et al, 2019). After all, villagers are more interested in tangible benefits rather than an ideology.…”