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? Proposition Adaptive Co-Management is an
Emergent Strategy
THE INVISIBLE WAND Adaptive Co-Management as an
Emergent Strategy in Complex Bio-Economic Systems
A Paper written by Jack Ruitenbeek and Cynthia
Cartier
Centre for International Forestry Research
(CIFOR) Occasional Paper No. 34, October 2001
Presentation by Rowan B. Martin
illustrated with René Magrittes paintings
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Adaptive Co-Management is an Emergent Strategy
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? Proposition Adaptive Co-Management is an
Emergent Strategy
Complex systems produce surprises
Emergence happens at a system level but not at an
individual level
Emergence might be seen rather as a property of a
complex system, since strategies apply to
individuals
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? Proposition Adaptive Co-Management is an
Emergent Strategy
The question of emergence is critical for a very
simple reason
If ACM is naturally emergent, policy
interventions are likely to do more harm than good
If it is not, then it may be prescribed as a
policy tool and we may design ways to make it work
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? Proposition Adaptive Co-Management is an
Emergent Strategy
There are a number of cases where ACM regimes
have evolved without apparent external
intervention
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? Proposition Adaptive Co-Management is an
Emergent Strategy
Some general findings from these studies
1. Conditions were more stable and sustainable
where the co-management regimes had undergone a
natural evolution
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? Proposition Adaptive Co-Management is an
Emergent Strategy
2. National management rules seen as relevant and
subsequently adopted as local rules appear to
have better compliance than either purely
national or purely local community rules
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? Proposition Adaptive Co-Management is an
Emergent Strategy
3. Where regimes have been imposed by central
governments, none of the models (e.g.
co-management, private ownership, state control)
appear to generate local well-being or resource
protection
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? Proposition Adaptive Co-Management is an
Emergent Strategy
Some conjectures
1. As simple systems evolve through time into
complicated systems and eventually complex
systems,
they will adopt management
strategies which are progressively more adaptive
culminating in some form of ACM
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? Proposition Adaptive Co-Management is an
Emergent Strategy
2. Systems that mismatch the level of complexity
to the management regime
will fail . . .
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? Proposition Adaptive Co-Management is an
Emergent Strategy
. . . whether the management regime was evolving
within the system
or whether it was imposed
BLUEPRINT
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? Proposition Adaptive Co-Management is an
Emergent Strategy
Some conjectures

• Premature introduction of ACM as a policy
  intervention may lead to system failure because
  it disrupts existing
• evolutionary processes