The developing worldOCOs poorest people live in marginal, often harsh rural environments. The natural resource base tends to be fragile and highly vulnerable to over exploitation. Yet these rural people depend directly on access to the food, forage, fuel, fibre, water, medicines, and building materials provided by local ecosystems. What types of natural resource management (NRM) can improve the livelihoods of these poor people while protecting or enhancing the natural resource base they depend on? New approaches to NRM are needed OCo ones that move beyond the earlier narrow focus on productivity (such as crop yields), to include social, institutional, and policy considerations."

Within the field of management of natural resources, this book focuses on the various approaches of policy formulation and implementation. The question central to this book is how to co-operate with people, the various categories of residents as well as non-residents, in the rural areas: in a top-down, a participatory or a contractual (co-management) way. On the basis of a comparative analysis of 12 case studies in the book, these three approaches are thoroughly discussed and their internal and external constraints examined. The book starts with an editorial chapter, discussing the recent administrative and political developments in Africa as well as the new opportunities, which they offer for policies in the field of environment, and development. The question is brought up whether the recent processes of decentralization, democratization, and empowerment of local organizations have indeed created new opportunities or that they have only superficially changed the political culture of the countries concerned. In the concluding chapter of the book, the approaches are contrasted to each other as logical models, each with its own potentiality and limitations. Conclusions are formulated why the top down approach must result in improvization to escape from failure, and why the participatory approach risks to end up into a mixed balance. Special attention is given to the conditions and the prospects for the contractual or co-management approach, which has been introduced into Africa only recently. Under certain conditions, this approach seems rather promising.

- One of the few studies focusing on co-management of natural resources (as opposed to general environmental issues). - This approach to environmental management is rapidly becoming popular in Asia. Co-management, that is the sharing of responsibilities between governmental institutions and groups of resource users, is rapidly becoming popular in Asia. In many countries environmental management is reformulated from exclusive state control to various kinds of joint management in which local communities, indigenous peoples and non-governmental organizations share authority and benefits with governmental institutions. In this book case studies of experiments with co-management in a number of countries are combined with more reflective contributions pointing to underlying assumptions and problems in the actual implementation of co-management.

For two decades the idea of governments and fishers working together to manage fisheries has been advocated, questioned, disparaged and, most importantly, attempted in fisheries from North and South America through Europe, Africa, Asia and Oceania. This book is the first time these experiences have been pulled together in a single volume, summarized and explained. The Fisheries Co-management Experience begins with a review of the intellectual foundations of the co-management idea from several professional perspectives. Next, fisheries researchers from six global regions describe what has been happening on the ground in their area. Finally, the volume offers a set of reflections by some of the best authors in the field. The end result describes both the state-of-the-art and emerging issues for one of the most important trends in natural resources management.

In Canada and around the world, new concerns with adaptive processes, feedback learning, and flexible partnerships are reshaping environmental governance. Meanwhile, ideas about collaboration and learning are converging around the idea of adaptive co-management. This book provides a comprehensive synthesis of the core concepts, strategies, and tools in this emerging field, informed by a diverse group of researchers and practitioners with over two decades of experience. It also offers a diverse set of case studies that reveal the challenges and implications of adaptive co-management thinking.

Co-management is a highly dynamic, evolving, adaptive, and forward looking process. This edited volume covers theoretical background and includes supporting lessons learnt from field experiences. The book has case studies from both North and South America (co-management of fisheries, resilience in near-shore waters of the Great Lakes

This book is the result of more than a decade's preoccupation with the issue of compliance in the Barents Sea fisheries, first as an interpreter in the Norwegian Coast Guard, then as a graduate student at the University of Troms0, and finally, as a PhD student at the University of Oslo and a research fellow at the FridtjofNansen Institute (FNI). Many of those who deserve a "thank you" in this preface have already been properly thanked on other occasions, among them my previous colleagues and superiors in the Norwegian Coast Guard. On the present occasion, I would particularly like to extend my thanks to the FNI leadership during my time here for giving me the trust and freedom to pursue my enthusiasm. Many other colleagues at the institute, from both the research and the administrative staff, have contributed to the present work. For fear of forgetting someone, I prefer not to mention names. There have to be a few exceptions though: From the administration, I would particularly like to thank Kari Lorentzen for her professional help in the library, and Ann Skarstad and Anne-Christine Thestrup for language assistance. Thanks to Claes Lykke Ragner for producing the map on page 7, and to Ivar M. Liseter for help in the preparation of camera-ready copy. Among the research staff, I would mention my long-standing fellow student and colleague both in the Coast Guard and at the FNI, Anne-Kristin J0rgensen.