Adaptive collaborative management of community forests in Asia ...

18 • Ravi Prabhu, Cynthia McDougall and Robert Fisher
process of planning, and together, they then continually seek and negotiate
innovations and improvements in understanding, plans, processes and
implementation. In other words, the essence of an ACM approach is
that management and governance are rooted in a process of conscious
and intentional learning by a group of people dealing with a shared area
of concern, with the intention of innovating for improvement or goal
achievement. To move this definition towards practice, we can understand
an ACM approach as having three anchors:
• communication and creation of a shared vision;
• learning among stakeholders; and
• joint or collective action.
Communication and creation of shared vision
ACM stresses the importance of a vision in forest management. As Holland
(1998) emphasises, innovation is unlikely to result when actors simply
gather more facts and incrementally revise hypotheses. Rather, it usually
requires the selection of a goal—or vision—at the outset. In ACM, the
vision is not a fixed point to be achieved (and its nonattainment to be
deemed failure). Rather, the vision serves as a reference point for forest
actors as they navigate their way through decision making and actions in
management and governance. As such, it relates closely to reflection and
self-monitoring, as described further in the following sections. Furthermore,
the approach assumes that the vision itself is revised and refined along with
learning and the unfolding of opportunities.
That the vision is shared by the forest actors is necessary for the shared
ownership of processes, decisions and outcomes. The concept of a shared
vision draws from experiences in the field of collaborative forest management
and relates to the overlapping interests, rights and responsibilities of forest
actors.
Communication is critical in ACM, not only for enabling the shared
vision to emerge, but also because effective communication is the
foundation for creating a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.
Effective communication enables diverse actors to share—and ultimately
negotiate and create synergies from—their worldviews, goals, values and
knowledge.