Natural Resource-based Interactions

Organizational InteractionNGOs and IPOs

CDP 532: Unit 1 (e)

NGOs• Emergence after 1945, became prominent on various issues including

environment after 1990s (so is in Nepal)– Environment as a major theme of NGO world (along with human rights)

• Understanding of NGOs and their roles and understanding of environment (very diverse)– NGOs, civil society, not-for profit organization, social movements, non-state

actors• Limitation of state to address env issues (local and global) rise of

ENGOs, – but in Nepal both came at the same time

• Growth of NGOs on Environmental issue: – NGOs as major actor during rise of liberalization as development partner /

service provider– New political contexts: justice, social movement, rights, advocacy, activism,

inclusion, participatory development– Global environmental discourses since Stockholm convention (importantly

after the Rio convention): Agenda 21 accepted and broadened the role– Environment: neutral theme but not always and not for all

NGOs• What do NGOs do?

– NGOs have served as agents of change and forces for the public good for the protection of human and environmental welfare.

– NGOs' activities range from picketing, protests, and demonstrations to education, research, or diplomatic work to achieve their goals.

– NGO collaboration, lobbying, and public awareness-building methods include the effective use of media and scientific research

– NGOs are powerful players in the international policy arena and leverage their access to policy makers to good effect. (act as epistemic communities in the international relation)

– Some NGOs are developing partnerships with governments and corporations / industries (Corporate social responsibilities)

• Critiques– Because of their funding, NGOs are accountable to their funders, not the people

they work with (Trojan horse of western countries, neo-colonialism)– INGOs have gone beyond partnering with local agencies, intervening local

matters– Ignored local contexts, (focused on only one issue as if it occurs in the isolation

e.g. biodiversity conservation)– Not independent and carrying many hidden agenda of their donors (political,

religious, economic etc.)

NGOs in international relations (related to environment)

Epistemic communities• An epistemic community in international relations is a network of professionals

with recognized knowledge and skill in a particular issue-area. Epistemic communities influence policy by providing knowledge to policy makers. The communities influence through communicative action; diffusing ideas nationally, transnationally, and internationally. Epistemic communities usually aid in issues concerning a technical nature. Epistemic communities are also a source of policy innovation.

• Epistemic communities came to be because of the rapid professionalization of government agencies. Another reason why epistemic communities came to be is that decision makers began turning to experts to help them understand issues because there were more issues and all were more complicated.

• There are a myriad of examples of the impact that epistemic communities have had on public policy. Epistemic communities brought attention to chlorofluorocarbons and their polluting consequences. This realization led to the creation of environmental international agencies in a majority of the world’s governments. Epistemic communities also have brought attention to the habitat fragmentation and decline of biodiversity on the planet. This has led to reform throughout the world creating conservation agencies and policies.

For detail: Haas, Peter M. 1992. “Epistemic Communities and International Policy Coordination.” International Organization. 46(1):1-35.

NGOs in natural resource interaction (civil society)

Understanding about civil society (just for simplicity)– Liberal (normative, good society), critical (public sphere) and

analytical (associational life)– Pro-environment and pro-livelihood– Pro-advocacy (activism), pro-service delivery (project

implementation), pro-knowledge generation (research publication)– Membership based and non-membership based: serving own

constituency / members or external constituencies – How they get funds / resources: domestic / member contribution

or foreign aid– Their position over environmental interaction is dependent on how

they have conceptualized development: Development alternatives or alternative to development

– All these categories may not always be distinct and now there are more mixed forms

NGOsENGOs• Source of power, interest and legitimacy of NGOs in environmental

interaction (against State and business groups)– No authority over coercive power like state and no control over capitals

like business group– NGOs: moral authority of organizations / members, claim over

knowledge, capitalizing the new avenues of politics (media), connection / network outside global level (donors) and inside at the grassroots level

• How do they influence:– By influencing environmental policies and practices of states, businesses

and multilateral institutions– Through direct link with grassroots activism and indigenous people– Through well-publicised campaigns (through media), designed to raise

public awareness on environmental issues– Through activities at global environment and development conferences

(global-local network)– Through their unique organizational size, structures, knowledge / skills,

purpose, ideology, cultural origin, legal status

NGOsENGOs and state• Collaboration, oppression and confrontation• “environmental movement” against government / market• Any examples of environmental initiative / movement: indigenous

people’s movement, anti-dam movement, pro-conservation movement, anti-pollution campaigns

• State establishes partnership with NGOs in any environmental and development issues

• Therefore state-NGO relation is mixed– Legitimacy of NGOs through state– Credibility and power of NGOs

• New politics of the environment: various types of NGOs, various levels of state agencies and other indigenous social movement, claiming the natural resources by indigenous groups

NGOs in Nepal• Big database of SWC, more than 30,200 last year, July 2010 (since 1977)• All registered, grouped by sector-wise (almost 10 sectors) and region / district-

wise• Environment and natural resource management is a major sector of NGOs’

concern particularly after 1990

Trend of NGOs and ENGOs in Nepal in the last more than 30 years

Total NGOs (Year-wise)

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Two examples of NGOs in Natural Resource Interaction in Nepal

• Non-membership based, that is serving external constituency (Care Nepal’s SAGUN): Professional service

• Membership-based, that is serving own members (FECOFUN, Federation of Community Forestry Users’ Groups of Nepal): Civic engagement

SAGUN of Care Nepal: “Framework for Poverty Eradication and Social Justice”

• Area of work: 2 eco-regions, hill and plains, including the park area (spread over the country)

• Collaboration with other organizations and government agencies• Funding: Out of USD 9.8 M, 7.8M from USAID, and rest is raised locally• Target: human conditions health, income, nutrition); governance (looking at

the changes in the political, legal, policy, regulatory scenarios, market relations that is upholding inequality and conflict); and social position (targeting discrimination, exclusion, privilege that cause inequality and conflict)

• Components:– From 2002-06: Forestry and buffer zone, irrigation, hydropower and policy

advocacy– From 2006-08: Livelihood improvement, biodiversity conservation and policy

advocacy• Objectives: NRM through democratic means, good governance in local

institutions, equitable distributions of benefits and costs. • Specific objectives: improve internal governance and technical capacity in

CFUGs, promote inclusion and conservation

…contd…

Claimed contributions• Governance gains: Gains in capacity of user groups to do

own governance of their groups and their tecchnical skills to mobilize resources for purpose of NRM and benefitting from these resources

• Institutionalization of participatory well-being ranking• Public hearing and public auditing• Literacy (particularly of dalits)• Conflict mitigation and prevention: by making UGs pro-poor,

by improving relationship between rich and poor and government and citizens, by collaborating with other NGOs and CBOs for peace-building, and by addressing the corruption (misuse of funds)

• Policy advocacy at the macro-level (for policies related to forestry, irrigation, dalit)

FECOFUN• Network of more than 13,000 community based forestry user groups

(CFUGs) or forest management groups of Nepal: One of the largest civil society organizations in Nepal since 1995 to protect user’s right in the forest

• Any CFUGs established under Forest Act 1993 can be an general member and grass-root level user groups based on forestry resources can be elementary member

• Local, District and National level assemblies, councils and committee formed by election, tenure 4 years

• Funding: Member contribution and external (domestic and foreign) support• Work: Organizational development, policy advocacy and conservation and

livelihoods including climate change• Current projects:

– Global alliance of community forestry– Conflict transformation in natural resource– REDD / climate change related activities and users’ right protection– Sustainable forest management with community participation

Civic engagement through FECOFUN

• Emergence in mid-1990s– Growing trend of CF and number of CFUGs– Liberal political environment (flourishing civil society / NGOs)– Participatory development / NRM practices

• Established by donors and government: Network of user groups for sharing of learning about institutional development

• After formally established in 1995, it was transformed into vibrant civil society organization until political change in 2006: activisms and resistance against several government’s decisions (discursive, political protests, networking and advocacy, litigation process)– Attempts for amendment of forestry laws in 1998 and 2000– 40 percent taxing of forest products’ sale by CFUGs in 2003– Collaborative forestry (instead of community forestry) in Tarai region– Declaration of protected areas in 2009-10

• Currently, after 2006: Implementing many donor supported project, busy in discursive / deliberative process: forest management beyond the state-centric method– Membership-based civil society professional NGO ???

Interaction of Indigenous people (IP) and their organizations (IPOs)

IP (outside and inside Nepal)Various names:

– Indigenous people, native people, first people, first nations, autochthonous people, aborigines, tribal people, Janajati (Indigenous nationalities)

• Defining: – Historic continuity– Distinctiveness– Marginalization / non-domination– Self Identity / self-ascription– Self governance

• Rise of international indigenism (through UN, ILO and other human right instruments): resource use / management and knowledge– Response to de-localizing impact of modernity (Appadurai, Giddens)– Development of identity politics

• ‘Indigenous slot’ is highly emphasized globally and in Nepal– But also critiqued!– Whether it would resolve marginalization, inequality, poverty and conflict?

Indigenous people and Natural resource

• Sovereign state: Control of all resources inside the territory since its emergence (e.g. forest nationalization in 1950s)

• State = ruling elite (control over resources), modernization private property regime (end of collective governance)

• Emergence of marginalized groups, having less access and ownership over the resources (forest and land): Mainly ‘indigenous’ people and dalits

• Marginalization of indigenous people and Dalits from natural resources continued with:– Strengthening of state’s control through the various legal mechanisms– Emergence of government bureaucracy and ‘scientific management’– Further marginalization culturally and politically

• Now emergence of identity politics– Main target natural resources (e.g. in state restructuring process)

• Specific examples: recent controversy over Arun III and other hydro-project, controversy of CCA in Sagarmatha region, collection of tax by certain groups in the name of ILO169

Interaction of IPOs• Indigenous organization (IO) and environmental interaction of

indigenous people (IP)• IP more dependent on natural resources, therefore impact of their

enclosure and degradation is massive• IP are not fully incorporated in the current global and national

political and economic system, therefore their livelihoods usually threatened

• Indigenous practices as templates for sustainability (from romanticization to serious consideration)

• Their profound env knowledge: A way to adapt in the local environmental condition…but now threatened

• Resource enclosure and degradation led to loss of their control over resources, ultimately leading to disintegration of indigenous management system, as a result, sometimes they are forced to adopt other livelihood options

Indigenous people’s interaction: Conflict?

• Conflict on sovereignty claims over resources (state or indigenous people)

• Claim of indigenous people over natural resources (ILO 169)

• Increasing significance of indigenous/local people in politico-ecological relations/interaction (e.g. TEK, CBNRM)

• Complex interaction of identity and institutional development at various levels with benefits from / scarcity of natural resources

Example: Tharus excluded from land and their recent uprising

IP’s environmental claims in Nepal

Indigenous organizations on environmental issues in Nepal• What types of environment related issues are raised by IO in Nepal?

– Very recent phenomena and still unclear / unheard– Access to / control over genetic resources and protection of TEK– ILO 169– Climate change and indigenous voices– Control over indigenous land areas and recognition of indigenous

practices– State restructuring and federalis

• Problems with indigenous organizations and their environmental claims– Sovereignty: State or IP?– Who are indigenous people? (in Nepal: Adivasi Janajati, like Tharus)– Changing society in political, cultural and economic fronts– Crisis of global environmental change

A Nepali example of Controversy between government agency and IPO

(Stevens 2009)

• In May 2008, a group of Sherpa people announced a community conserved area in their ‘homeland’ (Khumbu region) as IPCCA inside the Sagarmatha National Park (SNP)

• Soon a controversy arisen as informed in the media: government (DNPWC) can not allow establishment of another PA inside a PA (SNP) which falls in their jurisdiction. The activity was portrayed as illegal / foreign project. Government declined to recognize the KCCA.

• Sherpa communities felt ‘misunderstood, alienated, intimidated and angered’ by DNPWC.

• The case presents an excellent example of conflict between ‘state’ and ‘IP’ with respect to natural resources.

• Do you think, we are yet to see more such controversies and conflicts in the future?

• Another example of controversy / conflict is related to understanding and implementation of ILO169

IP interaction in natural resources ILO 169 • ILO Convention on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples 1989 No 169:

Obligatory legal mechanism to protect rights of indigenous people• Government is responsible for implementing its provisions• Ensures consultation with IP and their participation in making decisions

pertaining to them• Article 1: flexible definition of IP (important to South Asia): Self-

ascription: collective right of any indigenous people or community to decide who is and who is not a member of that group

• Article 1-12: fundamental rights, participation and consultation of IP in all policies and programs affecting them

• Article 13-19 deals with land issue: land inhabiting by both indigenous and non-indigenous people should be treated equally. IP can be separated from their land if there are no any option left to authorities, only as a last resort, but with specific procedure, full consent, access to benefits from project and only by ensuring that they are not marginalized further. (No veto to IP to block removal)

• Articles 20-32: employment, training, social protection, education and cross-border communication between IP

• Article 33: deals with administration

ILO 169 in Nepal: Resolving or initiating conflict?

• Issues related to Nepal (ILO 169 for conflict or for peace?)• Points of dispute

– Who is IP?– Sovereignty claims: state or IP– Indigenous rights vs. fundamental human rights / individual rights

• When, five years ago, I was sent to Fiji as Special Representative of the Director-General of the ILO to help resolve the insurrection and constitutional crisis in that country, I encountered a number of indigenous leaders who had stated publicly that the Convention (which Fiji had ratified) gave ethnic Fijians the right to deny the East Indian population access to land, to public services and to participation in government on the basis of traditional indigenous customs and practices in respect of such matters. I had to explain to these leaders that they were mistaken in their interpretation of the purpose and provisions of the Convention. Article 8(2) of the Convention is quite clear in this regard: “These peoples shall have the right to retain their own customs and institutions, where these are not incompatible with fundamental rights defined by the national legal system and with internationally recognized human rights. (Ian Chambers, Former ILO Director, speaking in a program on “ILO Convention 169 and Peace Building in Nepal”, organized by NEFIN and ILO, December 2005)

– Interpretation of history– ILO 169: political document or development document?– Recent land grab, environmental cost, lack of other options– Address by state restructuring and constitution making: Optimist or pessimist?

Specific examples of resource conflict in Nepal in the name of / related to ILO 69???