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Factors driving collaboration in natural resource conflict management: Evidence from Romania.

ABSTRACT: A critical challenge in natural resource management is to bring all stakeholders together to negotiate solutions to critical problems. However, various collaborative approaches to heading off conflicts and resolving natural resource management disputes have been used. What drives these efforts, however, still needs further research. Our study provides a systematic look at the drivers likely to initiate collaborative problem-solving efforts in four cases in Romania. We use Emerson's et al. (2012) framework for collaborative governance and multi-value qualitative comparative analysis (mvQCA) to analyze cases involving endangered species, restrictions on forest harvest, conflicts associated with infrastructure development projects, and disputes over the management of environmentally sensitive areas. Our findings contribute to the already existing collaborative governance literature indicating which of the four factors: uncertainty, interdependence, consequential incentives, and leadership, in which combination, are necessary and sufficient to spur collaborative resource management efforts. Our results showed that in Romania the initiation of collaboration is best explained by positive consequential incentives (i.e., financial opportunities) which has determined leaders to take initiative. This study provides additional information for the complicated process of natural resource management which is often overriding collaboration by investigating what enables and constrains collaborative efforts in a country where natural resources were managed and used according to the principles of central planning.

SUBMITTER: Hossu CA

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6188970 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:Communication between resource users has repeatedly been shown to be of significant importance in environmental management. The proposed causal mechanisms are numerous, ranging from the ability of users to share information to their ability to negotiate solutions to common problems and dilemmas. However, what is less known is under what conditions these potential causal mechanisms are important and if, in cases when different means other than communication were available, whether they would be more effective in accomplishing these objectives. An example of such an alternative could be that instead of (or in addition to) users being reliant on within-group communication to acquire useful information an intermediary-such as a public agency-could provide that for them. Furthermore, the different causal mechanisms making communication beneficial might not be independent, neither in respect to each other, nor in respect to other externally imposed means to facilitate better environmental management, and not in regards to different contextual factors. This study makes use of laboratory experiments in an innovative way to explore these questions and specifically test the relative importance of communication in managing complex social-ecological system characterized by common-pool resource dilemmas, ecological interdependencies, and asymmetric resource access-all characteristics being present simultaneously. We find that when resources users are confronted with such a complex challenge, the ability to communicate significantly increases individual and group performance. What is more surprising is the negative effect on overall outcomes that providing external information has on outcomes, when the users also have the ability to communicate. By analysing the content of the conversations we are able to suggest several possible explanations on how the combination of external information provisioning and user communications act to increase individual cognitive load and drives intra-group competition, leading to a significant reduction of individual and group outcomes.

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Factors driving collaboration in natural resource conflict management: Evidence from Romania.

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