Empowerment and disempowerment in community-based natural resource management: Examining CREMA outcomes in Ghana

Samuel M. Mawutor and Reem Hajjar

Land Use Policy, 2024, vol. 138, issue C

Abstract: Community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) schemes are intended to achieve social and environmental outcomes, although many cases around the world show that CBNRM schemes are achieving more on their environmental goals rather than their social ones. In this paper, we examined the outcomes of Community Resource Management Areas (CREMAs) in Ghana using Scheyven’s four-dimension framework of empowerment and disempowerment. Examining three case studies, we found that CREMAs emphasize conservation, which may contribute to social and psychological empowerment. However, there is a political and economic empowerment deficit as CREMAs fail to provide economic returns to rural groups or position them to exercise self-determination over their resources. We suggest that approaches strengthening the resource rights may support CBNRMs to realize community empowerment.

Keywords: Empowerment; Disempowerment; Forest decentralization; Local control; CBNRM; Forest communities; Conservation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264837724000036
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:lauspo:v:138:y:2024:i:c:s0264837724000036

DOI: 10.1016/j.landusepol.2024.107051

Access Statistics for this article

Land Use Policy is currently edited by Jaap Zevenbergen

More articles in Land Use Policy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Joice Jiang ().