ABSTRACT

Many studies have emphasized the importance of community-based natural resource management institutions in adapting to climate change and responding to the global shift towards individualized land tenure regimes. However, few have reported on the innovative institutions developed by some rural communities to rebuild community cooperation and rural adaptive capacity. This paper draws on four comparative cases from the Tibetan Plateau to assess how locally developed community cooperative institutions mediate herders’ access to markets and resources to foster adaptive capacity and adaptation in response to snow-related catastrophes. Results demonstrate that community cooperative institutions are more effective in improving adaptive capacity than the market-based adaptation strategies that are the predetermined outcome of individualized tenure regimes. When such cooperative institutions exist, community members are able to apply both household and community collective adaptation strategies, resulting in better livelihood outcomes. Community cooperative institutions effectively address individual needs and priorities by clarifying entitlements and market-based networks. They rebuild community collective action and cooperative business entities that improve herders’ ability to access resources and markets more equally by distributing benefits to all community members. This study concludes that following the establishment of individualized land tenure regimes, rebuilding community cooperation necessitates hybridization of property rights arrangements, reformed institutions, and social networks operating across levels of governance to facilitate interdependent interactions between collective and individual adaptation strategies. Such community cooperation offers new opportunities for improving adaptive capacity in pastoral regions and elsewhere.

Key policy insights

• Market-based institutions and adaptation strategies are significant components of climate adaptation policies in pastoral and agricultural regions, though they face equity and collective action-building challenges.

• Adaptative capacity should be understood as a function of cross-level interactions among individuals, community organizations, and external stakeholders.

• These cases of community cooperative institutions offer new insights into coordinating the interactions between individual-level and community-level adaptation practices.

• Community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) institutions can restore collective management of natural resources and stimulate formal economic cooperation to build bridging networks with other stakeholders; this generates opportunities for all community members to more broadly access resources and markets to improve adaptive capacity.

摘要

许多研究强调了以社区为基础的自然资源管理机构在适应气候变化和应对全球向个性化土地保有权制度转变方面的重要性。然而，很少有关于一些农村社区为重建社区合作和农村适应能力而开发的创新机构的报道。本文利用青藏高原的四个比较案例来评估当地发展的社区合作机构如何调解牧民进入市场和资源以培养适应能力和适应与雪相关的灾难。结果表明，社区合作机构在提高适应能力方面比基于市场的适应策略更有效，后者是个性化保有权制度的预定结果。当存在此类合作机构时，社区成员能够应用家庭和社区集体适应策略，从而带来更好的生计结果。社区合作机构通过明确权利和基于市场的网络有效地解决个人需求和优先事项。他们重建社区集体行动和合作企业实体，通过向所有社区成员分配利益来提高牧民更平等地获取资源和市场的能力。本研究的结论是，在建立个性化土地保有权制度之后，重建社区合作需要产权安排、改革机构、和跨治理级别运作的社交网络，以促进集体和个人适应战略之间相互依存的互动。这种社区合作为提高牧区和其他地方的适应能力提供了新的机会。

关键政策见解

• 基于市场的机构和适应战略是牧区和农业地区气候适应政策的重要组成部分，尽管它们面临公平和集体行动建设的挑战。

• 适应能力应理解为个人、社区组织和外部利益相关者之间跨层次互动的功能。

• 这些社区合作机构案例为协调个人层面和社区层面适应实践之间的相互作用提供了新的见解。

• 基于社区的自然资源管理 (CBNRM) 机构可以恢复对自然资源的集体管理，并刺激正式的经济合作，以建立与其他利益相关者的桥梁网络；这为所有社区成员创造了更广泛地获取资源和市场以提高适应能力的机会。