Cultivating Peace: Conflict and Collaboration in Natural Resource Management

Conflict over natural resources — such as land, water, and forests — has for ages been widespread. Whether it be a local dispute between farmers and ranchers or an international clash over shared resources, people everywhere compete for the natural resources they need to ensure or enhance their quality of life. The conflict may unfold as a simple war of words, or it may escalate to armed confrontation with massive loss of life.

While the dimensions, levels, and intensity of conflict can vary greatly, so too can the opportunities for conflict resolution. Cultivating Peace presents original case studies from Africa, Asia, and Latin America, interspersed with essays on the cultural dimensions of conflict, the meaning of stakeholder analysis, the impact of development interventions on peace and conflict, and the policy dimensions of conflict management. The case studies present important developing-world experience on moving from conflict to collaborative modes of management. The accompanying essays draw on the case studies, grounding theory in hard-won experience. This cross-fertilization of practical experience with conceptual insight creates a unique dialogue on lessons learned and identifies strategic gaps in our understanding of this complex and important issue.

Cultivating Peace will appeal to researchers, scholars,and students in political science, natural resource management, anthropology, development studies, and conflict resolution; donors, development organizations, and development practitioners working in the areas of natural resource management or conflict resolution; and citizens concerned with development issues, especially as they apply to the preservation of our natural resources and the increasing incidence of international conflict over access to natural resources.

The editor

Daniel Buckles is Senior Program Officer at the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) in Ottawa, Canada. He holds a PhD in rural sociology from Carleton University and has worked for The Rockefeller Foundation as a post-doctoral fellow and, later, for the InternationalMaize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), in Mexico, as a senior scientist. Dr Buckles' project-development work in Latin America and South Asia with IDRC emphasizes institutional and technological innovations in the managementof biodiversity, soils, and other natural resources and new approaches to managing and communicating research at the grassroots level. His previous publications include Cover Crops in Hillside Agriculture: Farmer Innovation with Mucuna (IDRC 1998, with B. Triomphe and G. Sain) and A Land Without Gods: Process Theory, Maldevelopment, and the Mexican Nahua (Zed 1995, with J. Chevalier).