Designing legal space: law as an enabling tool in comunity based management

This paper explores the role of state law and legal institutions in creating an enabling environment for community-based natural resource management. Some community-based management systems have operated for many years with no formal legal underpinning, and perhaps even in direct contradiction to what is written on the law books or administered in the courts. These are, however, increasingly rare exceptions. Natural resources are the focus of increasing conflict around the world. Where community-based management efforts are subject to challenge from outside or within, the formal legal environment, for better or worse, becomes increasingly relevant. Nevertheless, in many national legal systems, the status of much community-based management remains uncertain and insecure, and a threat to its sustainability.The author bases this paper on the premise that communities must have legal authority to decide about resource use. Designing such legal regimes requires careful attention to the need for certainty and flexibility. Certainty is required in defining the limits of state power, and the rights, responsibilities and remedies of local groups with respect to the state and ‘outsiders.’ Flexibility, on the other hand, is essential to ensure that community-based efforts reflect local conditions, cultural values and institutional choices.The author states that, while important law-reform efforts are underway in many parts of the world, and some encouraging new laws have appeared in recent years, many of these still fall short both in terms of providing real protection to community-based management, and in terms providing sufficient ‘legal space’ within which local people can make real choices. Based upon an examination of emerging practice around the world, some general design principles are offered with respect to a number of issues, includingland and resource tenuredefining the objectives of management and other planning mattersrecognition of local entities and institutional structuresdefinition of boundaries; the security of rightsenforcement; and the relationship between different government agencies.[Adapted from author]