A belated input

[Melissa Leach <M.Leach@ids.ac.uk>]

As a (sub) author of the IDS paper, and more centrally responsible for the
'environmental entitlements' work on which it draws, I have very much
enjoyed reading others' comments over the last couple of weeks. Nevertheless
the paper we wrote was intended only to kick off a debate and it is good
that more recent contributions have moved on from critiquing/commenting on
it towards thinking forward into new practical and research agendas. In this
light, a detailed 'defensive' repsonse to the critiques which have been made
would certainly be inappropriate. However I would like to make a few general
points in relation to other's - generally highly insightful - contributions.

A number of contributors suggest that we have 'moved beyond' the 'downward
spiral' orthodoxy position represented by Brundtland et al. and that
pitching our paper, as we did, in terms of alternative perspectives to this
orthodoxy was unnecessary. If this is true, then excellent. However I remain
struck by the extent to which many donor and development agency documents do
reiterate - albeit often implicitly - assumptions about relatively direct
linkages between poverty and environmental change. These emerge as much in
discussions of 'community-based' natural resource management as of the more
macro, top-down initiatives, with a frequent image being of 'past harmony'
with once prevailed between communities and environments, breaking down
under the pressures of modernity, commercialisation, socio-economic change
etc..... hence initiating a downward spiral which 'community-based
initiatives can step in to reverse.  Are the contributors to this discussion
unusually sophisticated? Or should we be 'reading' the continued presence of
these narratives in many settings differently - as strategic positions
advanced to gain publicity for the poverty-enviornment nexus, linked to
funding etc, rather than as images anyone is actually using to guide
operational approaches? 

I am glad that contributors to the list felt that the issues obscured by
such narratives - social differentiation, environmental variability, local
institutional dynamics and their intersection with broader-scale
institutions, and the specific trajectories of change as poor people attempt
to deal with dynamic enviornments in these complex institutional settings
were already familiar. As Camilla Toulmin points out, the key questions
concern how these institutional/ecological/social/political factors interact
in specific circumstances to promote paths of change that are positive or
negative for livelihood sustainability. More case study research here is
certainly needed, in different settings, urban as well as rural. The
environmental entitlements approach simply offers one possible 'route map'
for the questions such research needs to ask. While as Camilla points out
'entitlements' is a normative concept in common English language and this
can lead to confusion, we have always stressed environmental entitlements as
a descriptive approach (as it was in Sen's original work on famine), drawing
attention to the bundles of rights and arrangements by which (poor) people
access, control and shape resources. Many researchers, practitioners and
donors do seem to find it a useful route map, which is why we introduced it
here. But there is no need for people to use the entitlements language if
they find the same points better expressed in other ways. 

Whether in work on environmental entitlements, sustainable livelihoods, or
detailed studies of people-environment interactions over time, the picture
which emerges is generally of a complex, overlapping set of institutional
arrangements shaping people-environment relations. Local institutional
arrangements, too, are frequently flexible and dynamic, responding to the
need to deal with pervasive uncertainties in ecological and economic
systems. These points are now well-recognised. Yet a major challenge remains
in translating this understanding of complexity into policy approaches,
given that the latter are frequently framed in far more linear, certain,
blueprint terms. Legal reforms which attempt to simplify tenure arrangements
and support local institutions, for instance, frequently end up adding
another institutional layer, creating new ambiguities and confusions.
Thinking through the implications of complex, overlapping institutional
arrangements for natural resources management policy may well be an area
where new conceptual work could help to advance the field.

The discussion has picked up rather little on the other line of argument set
out in our paper - namely the pervasiveness of 'received wisdoms' about
environmental change (desertification, deforestation etc.) which may
misrepresent poor people's understandings/experiences of environmental
change. Related to this is the gulf between certain global environmental
priorities (e.g. climate change, global biodiversity loss....) and poor
people's livelihood concerns. However nuanced one's understanding of the
dynamics of 'sustainable livelihoods' on the ground, policies will 'miss
their target' (and may actually do damage) while this gulf remains
unattended to. Both issues highlight the need for environmental
research-policy processes which better allow the knowledge and priorities of
poor people to enter decision-making processes; for more democratic,
'participatory' forms of policy-making where different perspectives
including those of the poor can be raised and negotiated, towards reaching
consensus or clarifying trade-offs between different 'interests'. What might
such learning-institutions or fora look like in practice, and how might they
be encouraged?


Melissa Leach
Environment Group, IDS

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DISCLAIMER: The views expressed in this message are solely those of the author; they do not necessary reflect the views of the United Nations Development
Programme (UNDP) or the European Commission (EC).
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