Proactive conservancy in a contested milieu: from social mobilisation to community-led resource management in the Simeto Valley

Community Biodiversity Inventories as Entry Points for Local Ecosystem Stewardship in a South African Communal Area

“…The process described in the preceding followed the essential elements of participatory action research advocated by Saija (2013) and Cullen-Unsworth et al (2012), among others. Realizing that equal power relations are difficult to achieve in rural settings such as Ncera (cf.…”

“…Participatory action research is widely advocated as a way for science to become more relevant to the needs of society and to mobilize communities for collective governance and co-management (Chambers 1994;Saija 2013). The process involves joint problem definition and identification and is characterized by equality between researchers and local people, constant reflection on the process and outcomes, mutual trust, and accessible and open communication (Cullen-Unsworth et al 2012).…”

Community-Based Processes for Revitalizing Heritage: Questioning Justice in the Experimental Practice of Ecomuseums

“…Finally, the tension toward justice and the practical commitment to its pursuing is testified by a decade-long process. The process started with an environmental justice [37] issue-the fight against the incinerator [68]-and is evolving for facing social-ecological justice concerns [66]. Moreover, the Simeto cultural landscape has been clearly identified thanks to the Community Mapping process.…”

“…In 2002, the Sicilian Region issued a Waste Management Plan which would have required the construction of 4 up to 5 mega-incinerators, one of those to be located inside a beautiful Special Area of Conservation close to the Simeto River. The local community-creating alliances between various municipalities-opposed this plan through a social mobilization inspired by environmental justice principles, and by a concern about suspected mafia infiltration in Sicilian waste business [68,69]. The mobilization was successful, so the plan was withdrawn but the local community decided not to stop after the protests: the associations kept organizing and asked some researchers from the University of Catania to start a partnership aimed at creating forms for local development inspired by an ethos of social-ecological justice, as an alternative to the model of development that the mega-incinerators represented.…”

An Argument for Action Research-Inspired Participatory Mapping

“…The Agreement represents an imperfect but still major governance innovation for the local community and the regional context. It is the first example of shared governance inspired by a proactive approach to conservancy (Saija 2014a). We see this as a formal accomplishment of a broader set of nonformal physical, cultural and economic accomplishments, including: the birth of new organic farms and the growth of existing ones; the establishment of an organic and ethical food value-chain; the revitalization of small but significant elements of the valley’s historic heritage; an increasing sense of belonging to a territorial entity called “Simeto valley”; and institutional as well as community-led actions against the ecological decline of the Simeto River.…”