In this article Li, whose research took place in the mountainous interiors and uplands of Indonesia and the Philippines, explores the relationship between the assumptions of community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) and the underlying processes and reality of its implementation in the region. Li argues that the underlying assumptions and “simplification” of CBNRM have led to legal frameworks and program initiatives which make rights conditional upon specific forms of social organization, livelihoods, and conservation outcomes.

The founding assumption of CBNRM is that upland people “by virtue of being natural resource dependent and/or indigenous, either already have, or could be encouraged to adopt sustainable resource management practices”(pg. 267). Additionally, terms and catch phrases commonly associated with CBNRM convey a constant equation between upland resource users and environmental protection. However, it does so without addressing whether the upland communities already have these characteristics or whether they are instead goals or ideals. According to Li, CBNRM uses an “environmental hook” to tie rights to particular forms of identity, social organization, livelihood and resource management. She points out, in support of this statement, that at least half of upland people in the Philippines are migrants of lowland origin. Upland people are diverse and mobile and the extent, to which they form “communities” which are coherent enough to have or develop systems of natural resource management, let alone sustainable and equitable ones, is varied. The factor that all upland people have in common is that they occupy land defined as public domain and have no legally recognized ownership. As a result, their common problem is a legal one, beyond this commonality, Li states their circumstances, needs and interests in conservation vary greatly, making it difficult in practice to identify communities that fit the simplified model presupposed by CBNRM.

Despite this, CBNRM has been implemented by state and governmental policies resulting in highly variable outcomes. While some people have benefited from CBNRM provisions, others have found themselves re-assigned to a marginal economic niche that corresponds poorly to their desired futures. Additionally, rather than reducing official and state interference in local affairs, the author argues that it is a vehicle for realigning the relationship between the state and upland citizens. And contrary to the goal of CBNRM proponents it has intensified state control over upland resources, lives, and livelihoods. She further states that the CBNRM simplification that assumes an inherent separation between community and state and suggests a community is a natural entity outside and/or opposed to state processes is incongruent with the actual process of the state and community in the uplands of Southeast Asia. As a result, the CBNRM advocated throughout the region, is at best a fractional response to the needs of upland peoples.

While the author acknowledges advocates for CBNRM have never claimed it to be a “fit all” solution, she concludes with the argument that CBNRM as it is currently being promoted in Asia is most compatible with isolated, forest-dependent indigenous communities, which are prevalent in the “imagined country” of the uplands but rare in reality. Li further argues that CBNRM anchors legal rights in specific identities or set of practices and attempt to make these conform to “territorial units” such as communities or “bounded groups, with a clear sense of territorial possession” (pg. 268). In the uplands, doing such runs the risk of replicating old discrimination, but in “new, environmental garb”.

Prepared by Erin Smith