Advantages And Disadvantages Of Community Based Natural Resource Management

Community based natural resource management can be defined as a policy goal of rural development especially in continents such as Africa. CBNRM is also defined by the territorial boundary that has suitable conditions for the CBNRM practice to take place in. Community based natural resource management has had its origins in formally in the 1980’s, it was also during this time that for the first time community development and natural resource management joined together. Before the 1980’s the term CBNRM was not very common. Over the past 15 years the idea of community based natural resource management has changed and evolved and has become unique to certain countries. CB natural resource management originated to help local communities manage their

We then can assume on this basis that community based initiatives have more weaknesses than strengths. One of the weaknesses or downsides of community based natural resource management is that it has a lack of alternative income methods; this means that natural resource management has been many of the local people’s income and if it had to fail or be shut down altogether many of them would not receive a stable income thereafter. Weak leadership also falls under the category of failures along with poor or uneven participation from the local people. Uneven or poor participation hinders the process of natural resource conservation, because it is a community effort and requires the local people to take charge of their resources this has resulted in problematic lack of official recognition. The role as mentioned earlier that a community plays in the community based natural resource management is a big one this has placed a critique on CBNRM, that there is no existence of an actual community. Over the past few decades intrusive resource management strategies and planned development have forced policy makers and scholars to reconsider the role of a community in resource use and conservation because these intrusive policies have taken away the sense or feeling of a community away

A better theory will also appeal to policy makers who change and adapt the policy in directions the policy suggests. For successful CBNRM’s to take place there should be according to Agrawal (2001) well defined boundaries, small group sizes, shared norms, and homogeneity of identities and interests. This efforts may be helpful to find likely communities for the successful implementation of CBNRM’s, besides the above characteristics listed the community has to have a natural resource level which meets the criteria of these CBNRM institutions. A decent and reasonable definition of a community needs to be made so that the local people can agree, a clear statement of just what exactly the benefits of CBNRM when this is done CBNRM’s becomes a community initiative and the responsibility is not just placed on particular individual. Many communities feel like there is an unequal amount of benefits in their community, but if proper and informed approaches are devised then the situation will be dealt with. Bonding and bridging of social capital will improve community