Briefing: “Participative approaches to characterize socio-ecological systems and analyze governance of natural resources”

Abstract

Generating collective action to manage natural resources has been, in recent years, a concern and a challenge for academia, international cooperation, the state, non-government organizations, and the communities. Many development and research projects seek to establish strategies from the characterization of the socio-ecosystems for the conservation and adequate use of resources. However, no methodological processes are available from external entities that enable implementing participative approaches that generate real appropriation by the communities, making joint decisions regarding the different conservation strategies. The projects continue being imposed and with partial participation of the communities and players. In the Colombian case of the COMET-LA Project, we have developed a methodological strategy from the participative approaches, adding the experience the team of researchers from the Faculty of Environmental and Rural Studies, Department of Rural and Regional Development at Pontificia Universidad Javeriana has had in participative research processes and in the use of participative tools to analyze collective action in the management of natural resources (Maya et al., 2001; 2002; 2003a; 2003b 2006; 2008; Maya, 2007; Maya and Ramos, 2010).