Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Annapurna (nepal)'

The grounded theory of Fusioning was developed during a study of participatory governance in community-based protected area management in Nepal. This study reveals that local communities have successfully conserved biodiversity in the Annapurna Conservation Area in Nepal by embedding and fusing traditional, indigenous and contemporary governance principles and values to achieve internationally recognised conservation goals. This embedding and fusioning was supported by government, national and international non-governmental organisations. Local communities were empowered with regard to livelihood needs, biodiversity conservation and sustainable community development practices and processes. The significant innovation in the theory of fusioning was the indigenising of a number of conservation and development processes to generate community trust and ownership. This achieved what has been called fusion governance. Traditional and indigenous informal institutions and their resource management practices were driving forces in governing the contemporary conservation practices. This research was designed within the interpretive social science paradigm. Consistent with this paradigm, a qualitative research methodology was employed, drawing on the traditions of interpretivism and phenomenology. The study reflected a strong axiological positioning with regard to developing a Nepali methodology. Findings presented in this study are based on five sets of empirical material which are: oral history interviews, semi-structured interviews, participant observation, documentary materials and chalphal, discussion forums which were embedded within indigenous epistemological perspectives and interpreted using grounded theory. Grounded theory was used to interpret the empirical materials and to generate the theory of fusioning. Fusioning explains the social process of local community engagement in conservation and development in the Annapurna Conservation Area, Nepal. Community-based protected area management is significant to local communities, as well as national and international conservation agencies. This research has also applied eastern, specifically Nepali methodological perspectives which serve to complement western-based methodologies and methods. Further, the practice of fusioning has contributed to local sustainability through effective protected area management in a way which could be applied elsewhere in Nepal and worldwide.
Thesis (PhD Doctorate)
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
School of Environment
Science, Environment, Engineering and Technology
Full Text

Nepal has established an extensive network of protected areas to conserve biodiversity. Several problems relating to management of these protected areas have emerged, such as wildlife poaching and park-people conflicts. To address these problems, local communities have been given more responsibilities in protected area management by creating new categories of protected areas. This research investigates the success of such an approach from the perspectives both of biodiversity conservation and the livelihoods of local communities. The perceived success of a community-based protected area management was examined in the Annapurna region, Nepal. An integrated biophysical and social survey was designed and carried out for a stratified sample village communities. A field site sampling strategy was designed to examine the effect of two factors: conservation legislation, referring explicitly to establishment of the protected area, and tourism. To evaluate the impact of legislation, areas both inside and outside the protected area were compared. In addition, areas with and without tourism within the protected area were analysed. A biophysical survey was conducted to assess the present status of wildlife and forest resources, and current pressures on forest resources. This was achieved by assessing the intensity of anthropogenic disturbance in forest stands. A complementary social survey using various tools such as PRA, structured interviews, semi-structured interviews and questionnaire surveys was conducted in 14 village settlements. The social survey measured the economic losses due to crop damage and livestock depredation by wildlife, and gathered information on conservation awareness, local attitudes toward conservation, resource use patterns, effectiveness of the conservation area regulation, relationships between people and the protected area.

This research investigated the conflicts that existed between the theory and policies of tourism as a tool for sustainable development, and the reality of their implementation in the Ghorepani and Tatopani areas of Annapurna, Nepal. It studied the attitudes, values, and practices (with reference to tourism and sustainable development) of the various actors in tourism in the area, and the environmental contexts and processes at work. The current theory and policy underpinning measures to implement tourism and sustainable development in the area was examined. Conclusions were subsequently drawn about the impact of present policies and theory on sustainable development and sustainable tourism on the area. An interpretivist paradigm provided the basis for this study, with elements of a critical social science approach included. An emic approach enabled the researcher to uncover the specific understandings and actualities of stakeholders, along with the underlying environmental structures and conditions of sustainable development through tourism in the area. These factors, along with the interrelationships between them, formed the basis of a fieldwork period whereby data was gained from key stakeholders through the utilisation of a variety of interviewing and observational techniques. This study contributes further to the debate surrounding the use of tourism as a tool for sustainable development. It finds that the traditional but naïve western dualist assumptions of tourism impacts as propounded by research, policy, and management do not account for the processes in which tourism is working on and through actors and their communities in the Tatopani and Ghorepani areas of Nepal (and vice versa). It consequently finds that sustainable development, when interpreted as a western construct, can be seen to be occurring to a limited and beneficial degree in the areas, but also at a cost to the communities involved which is not being recognised.

To explore the institutional resilience of community-based conservation, I undertook empirical research in the Annapurna Conservation Area (ACA), Nepal, a protected area managed by the Annapurna Conservation Area Project (ACAP) and local communities organized into 56 Conservation Area Management Committees (CAMCs). I conducted scripted interviews with 212 members of 30 representative CAMCs, 13 ACAP staff members who closely monitor those CAMCs, and 868 local villagers who are the beneficiaries of the conservation programs. The field research was undertaken during the summer of 2007 and fall of 2008. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected and analyzed. I estimated capital stocks and assessed the organizational resilience of each CAMC during and following the Maoist insurgency. I used confirmatory factor analysis to develop scales for measuring the two theoretical constructs of legitimacy and institutional resilience, the latter of which refers to the overall system of community-based conservation in the area. I used the adaptive cycle framework of growth, maturation, collapse and reorganization to assess changes in structures and processes and to explore the past, present and possible future trends in ACA. Villagers largely considered the CAMCs as legitimate institutions, and their executive members as trustworthy. CAMC members understood the organizational mission and were confident about assuming greater management responsibility of the area in the near future. Human and social capital stocks were positively related to the resilience of the CAMCs. Particularly, themes of intra-committee trust, help networks, and the duration of membersâ tenure on the committees were important. Furthermore, natural capital stocks showed a parabolic relationship with organizational resilience; the most resilient CAMCs had moderate amounts of natural capital under their jurisdictions. The scales used to measure legitimacy and institutional resilience were reliable, and showed a significant positive correlation with each other. Five variables significantly predicted the villagersâ perceptions of legitimacy: performance assessments of CAMCs, social norms as measured by perceptions of peersâ attitudes towards CAMCs, empowerment as measured by villagersâ perceptions of their influence in the CAMCsâ decision making processes, perceived benefits and costs associated with having the CAMC in a village, and reported levels of personal participation in CAMCsâ activities. The conservation institution appeared to have been resilient to the insurgency, as the system maintained its identity throughout, avoided alternative undesirable states, and entered into the reorganization phase following collapse. All forms of capital and institutional performance decreased to some extent during collapse but institutional memory, available capital and some structural changes facilitated reorganization. The institutional system is reorganizing along the original regime, but it has also developed an alternative pathway of a new governance model for the area that will transform the present regime in the near term.
Ph. D.

Participation has been promoted and studied in diverse disciplines including tourism, development, planning, health, politics, and others. In natural resource conservation, the shift from centralized to decentralized decision making which emphasizes community involvement in planning, implementation and monitoring of programs has been broadly encouraged, especially in developing countries. Although considered a more effective alternative to top down decision making, participatory conservation initiatives have been criticized for many reasons, mainly the exclusion of marginalized groups in programs which lead to unequal distribution of socioeconomic benefits. This inequality is conditioned by social, physical and political structures which act as barriers to sustainable development of resources and communities. Using a political ecology approach, this research explored the participation of marginal groups (poor, women, and lower caste) in Nepal's Annapurna Conservation Area. The main objectives of this study are: 1) To examine the perceived benefits of Annapurna Conservation Area Project (ACAP) and how marginal groups fare in the distribution of benefits; 2) To analyze the level of participation of marginal groups in local management institutions; and 3) To identify the barriers to participation as perceived by marginal groups. Field work for this dissertation was conducted during August ? October 2010 using both quantitative and qualitative data, and employing participant observation and semi-structured interviews. Results indicate that benefits of the project were distributed unequally, and targeted towards elite members of the community. Findings also indicated that although marginal groups were involved in local management institutions, their representation was marginal and had not led to empowerment. Lastly, barriers to participation of communities were complex and deeply rooted in traditions and social norms. Overall, the findings indicate that the definition of marginal groups go beyond gender and caste, and are more significantly defined by wealth, poverty, education, and access to information. The study concludes that ACAP needs to re-orient its conservation and development projects by adopting a more inclusive form of participation and that these projects should aim to overcome the barriers identified by the marginalized households.

The global-local sustainable development and climate change adaptation policy, and the emerging political discourse on the value of local Adaptation, have positioned the local institutions and their governance space within the strategic enclaves of multilevel governance system. Such shifts have transformed the context for sustainable Nature Based Tourism (NBT) development and adaptation in Nepal in general, and its protected areas, in particular. The emerging institutional adaptation discourse suggests on the need to link tourism development, adaptation and governance within the sustainability concept, and also to recognize the justice and inclusive dimensions of local adaptation. However, sociological investigation of institutional adaptation, particularly at the interface between sustainability, justice and inclusive local adaptation is an undertheorized research topic. This exploratory study examined the sociological process of the institutional adaptation, especially the social resilience and adaptive governance capacities of the NBT institutions, in 7 Village Development Committees of the Mustang district, a popular destination in the Annapurna Conservation Area, Nepal. Using the sphere (a dynamic social space concept) and quality of governance as the analytical framework, the integrative adaptation as the methodological approach and the case study action research method, the study investigated and generated a holistic picture on the state of the social resilience and adaptive governance capacities of the NBT institutions. The findings show institutional social resilience capacities to be contingent on socio-political construction of adaptation knowledge and power. Factors influencing such constructions among NBT institutions include: the site and institutions specific political, economic and environmental dispositions; the associated socio-political processes of knowledge constructions and volition action; and the social relationships and interaction, operating within the spheres and at multiple governance levels. The adaptive governance capacities hinge on the institutional arrangements, the procedural aspects of adaptation governance and the governmentality. These are reflective of the diverse legal frameworks, the interiority perspective of the decision making and governance practices of the NBT institutions. In conclusion, it is argued that effective local adaptation in the Mustang district is contingent on the adaptation and institutional dynamics of the NBT institutions, consisting of the cognitive, subjective, process and procedural aspects of the adaptation knowledge production and its use
Die Politik im Bereich der nachhaltigen Entwicklung und der Anpassung an den Klimawandel sowie der Diskurs über die diesbezüglichen Adaptionsnotwendigkeiten auf lokaler Maßstabsebene, tangieren die Institutionen vor Ort und deren Position im Rahmen eines multi-skalaren Governance. Durch diese Umgewichtung wurden die Rahmenbedingungen für den Naturtourismus in Nepal verändert, insbesondere in den Schutzgebieten. Der sich daraus ergebende Governance-Diskurs hinsichtlich der institutionellen Anpassung betont die Notwendigkeit, Regionalentwicklung allgemein und speziell die Entwicklung des Naturtourismus im Sinne des Nachhaltigkeitskonzepts ganzheitlich zu betrachten. Sowohl die Dimension der Gerechtigkeit wie auch die Inklusivität lokaler Adaptionsnotwendigkeiten gilt es somit gleichrangig zu würdigen. Die sozialwissenschaftliche Erforschung der institutionellen Anpassung an der Schnittstelle zwischen Nachhaltigkeit, Gerechtigkeit und inklusive der lokalen institutionellen Adaptionsnotwendigkeiten, stellt bisher ein theoretisch unzureichend erfasstes Thema dar. Diese explorative Studie untersucht diesen sozialwissenschaftlichen Prozess der institutionellen Anpassung, insbesondere die soziale Resilienz und die adaptiven Governance-Kapazitäten der Naturtourismus-Institutionen in sieben Dorfentwicklungskomitees des Mustang Distrikts, einer beliebten Destination in der Annapurna Conservation Area, Nepal. Den Analyserahmen stellen der Wirkungsbereich (innerhalb eines dynamischen sozialen Raumes) und die Qualität des multi-skalaren Governance-Regimes dar. Methodologisch auf dem Ansatz der integrativen Anpassung basierend, wird die Forschungsmethode der „case study action research“ gewählt. Die Arbeit analysiert dabei den Status der sozialen Resilienz und adaptiven Goverance-Kapazitäten der örtlichen Naturtourismus-Institutionen, mit dem Ziel, ein ganzheitliches Bild derselben zu präsentieren. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass die Kapazität im Bereich der sozialen Resilienz bedingt wird durch die sozio-politische Konstruktion von Wissen und Macht. Zu den Faktoren, welche diese Konstruktionen bei den Naturtourismus-Institutionen im Annapurna-Gebiet Nepals beeinflussen, zählen unter Anderem: orts- und institutionenspezifische politische, ökonomische und umweltbezogene Bedingungen; die darauf beruhenden sozio-politischen Prozesse der Wissenskonstruktion, sowie soziale Beziehungen und Interaktionen, die innerhalb des dynamischen sozio-politischen Raumes und des Governance auf verschiedenen Maßstabsebenen wirksam sind. Die adaptiven Governance-Kapazitäten hängen u.a. vom institutionellen Aufbau und den verfahrenstechnischen Aspekten der politischen Steuerung der lokalen Institutionen ab. Sie spiegeln unterschiedliche rechtliche Rahmenbedingungen, die Innenperspektive der Entscheidungsfindung und die Governance-Praktiken der Naturtourismus-Institutionen wider. Zusammenfassend wird argumentiert, dass effektive lokale Klimawandel-Adaption im Mustang Distrikt Nepals abhängig ist von den spezifischen institutionellen Dynamiken der Naturtourismus-Institutionen, welche sich aus den kognitiven, subjektiven, prozess- und verfahrensorientierten Aspekten der Generierung von Adaptions-Wissen und seiner konkreten Anwendung zusammensetzt