Building Community Resilience: Inclusive, Sustainable Natural Resource Management

Partner: Live & Learn Environmental Education (LLEE) SI
Country: Solomon Islands

Historically, forest management in the Solomon Islands has been widely contested and controversial. For decades sustainable forest management has been absent from community life. At local level, some Chiefs and elders have used the privilege of negotiating logging licenses directly with international logging companies for their own benefits without consulting the broader community. Timber has been sold well below actual value and in many cases revenue from logging has not been reinvested in community development. Many communities have nothing to show for the sale of this lucrative resource. At national level, Solomon Islands Government faces huge governance and resourcing challenges, particularly in this sector, expressed in, inter alia, limited transparency, accountability and capacity to monitor and enforce good logging practice. Even if government institutions are strengthened and regulatory reach expanded, sustaining the ‘supply’ of improved governance depends on simultaneous investment in community-level ‘demand’ that is inclusive of the interests and needs of the whole community – women, men and young people.

Enabling women’s participation in natural resource management also depend critically on understanding the opportunities in and constraints of the land tenure system and the potential to locate gender equity in natural resource management within customary law. The status of women is also now widely acknowledged as central to sustainable development, and gender equality as integral to the attainment of the MDGs and other agreed development objectives. But this is very far from being recognised in forest and land management in rural Solomon Islands. Women are excluded from decision making process and access to economic opportunity. This marginalisation has devastating impacts on women and children alike, not least because it has resulted in the exploitation of natural resources and the presence of logging camps in rural communities, with a consequent increase in prostitution, rape, unwanted pregnancies, substance abuse, tribal conflict, suicide and community exclusion. The development solutions that could provide alternative pathways for such communities are compromised by poor governance and leadership at community level and alleged corruption at provincial and national level. In this context, there is an overwhelming need for strong, organised, well-supported local women and women’s groups within the community that are able to demand and sustain forms of leadership and community systems that protect the environment and the rights of women and children.

This Program will focus on strengthening livelihoods options and safe guarding remaining land-based natural resources in rural areas that have already experienced the devastating impacts of logging, and give active, structured support to women’s involvement. It will be grounded in the following core principles:

• Build on community strengths, enhance leadership, foster ownership, and utilise local knowledge systems;
• Enhance the participation of women in natural resource management and decision-making processes for more equitable development;
• Use and promote integrated development approaches, incorporating lessons from SINCA I;
• Link with government at each level – from ward to national.
• Include direct and visible results in rural areas, with benefits at both household and village levels;
• Create a simple design, set realistic timeframes, base the Program on evidence / data to ensure predictability;
• Take manageable risks and support innovation
• Promote broad-based partnership with other SINPA participants, mobilise multiple community entry points and delivery options.

Funding Source: AusAid Solomon Islands NGO Partnership Agreement (SINPA)
-last updated 25/02/09