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Research themes
Thematically some global issues have become more important and are being incorporated into the research of the working programme. More emphasis is given to conflict as a structuring factor in resource management practices and environmental management, both as an exogenous and endogenous factor, i.e. conflict influencing resource management and conflicts centring on resources. It also has become increasingly clear that increased population mobility has an enormous impact on resource management and resource management practices. This means that most of our theoretical and methodological frameworks need revision, since they do not place enough emphasis on the mobility of
resource users and owners. A third major trend, which presents itself most forcefully, is the social and economic consequences of global change. Within the area of global change, particular work is emerging on the institution building for natural resource management based on neo-liberal reform policies. In water and agricultural services participatory processes in negotiating natural resource management are emerging as a focus, both in shaping agricultural research and in multi-stakeholder platforms for resolving emergent resource scarcities and injustices in access. Gender dimensions of human (in)security are an emerging trend in research as well as women’s access to and management of natural resources and their control of technology and habitat. Lastly, the issue of genetic modification, intellectual property rights, biodiversity, and common property rights over crop varieties (and knowledge) is one of the major research areas where new externally funded programmes are started and where continued growth in research and research training is anticipated.

Researchers of this working programme have made a modest start in collaboration with agronomists and economists from outside CERES. However, this has made one thing clear at least, i.e. the tremendous theoretical and methodological challenges that lie ahead of us. Per research theme the following trends have been observed:

Theme 1: Ecology, Culture and Resource Management
The research conducted under this heading, centres on the interplay between physical-biological characteristics of ecosystems, cultural understandings of ecological dynamics, and styles and practices of resource exploitation and management. Within the first cluster entitled “ecological sustainability” the theme suffers from a recent lack of personnel, and output will decrease in the future. Within the second cluster “cultural understandings of ecological dynamics”, research has been dynamic and productive. However, there have also been changes in personnel, though with less severe consequences. Over the past years work has been conducted on the role of ecological dynamics in population mobility, climate variability and climate change in relation to local-level decision-making, natural resource management and conflict and policy issues related to these topics. For the coming years research activities, mainly organised around the African Studies Centre will focus on a comparative study of the ecological dynamics of dryland areas in West Africa in relation to resource management, conflicts and decision-making, climate variability and climate change, risk, decision-making and natural resource management, and a renewed focus on marginality and poverty in relation to resource variability and mobility.

Theme 2: Natural resource law and property rights in the social organisation of resource exploitation
Research is focused mainly on the relations between agro-ecological conditions, resource management and property rights. Work has been conducted at the level of empirical studies of cases of legal pluralism and the dynamics of old and new forms of public and private property rights, but also at the methodological and theoretical level. The research team around the Law and Governance group of Wageningen Agricultural University has taken up this theme quite successfully. However, with the transfer of two leading senior researchers to the Max Planck institute for Ethnology in Halle there is the potential for shifts in emphasis. Research will be continued, but as yet no important new activities have been planned. The future research of this group will be reviewed after new staff appointments are made by the summer of 2003. There are a number of researchers working on other themes whose work crosses over into issues of resources and property rights.

Theme 3: Livelihood, social (in)security and environment
Within this theme the relation between resource management, and socio- economic (in-)security is approached from three different angles by three clusters of researchers: 1) social insecurity, livelihood strategies and social policy; 2) ecology and economy; and 3) ecology, politics and environmental management. The first cluster, also organised around the Law and Governance group in Wageningen has been quite successful in terms of output. Livelihood and the environment will definitely remain a global issue. The ramifications of research on these topics are so far-reaching that important fields of collaboration with other research units (ecological dynamics and law, theme 1 and 2) and working programmes are being intensified. For example the current debates on entitlements to resources in relation to livelihood constitute fertile common ground for linking up economic, legal and political approaches to environmental management, and to attain greater synergy between the different clusters within this theme.

Theme 4: Natural resources, technology, material infrastructure and agro-ecological development
Research centres mainly on the struggle between diverse interests, values and expectations, to optimise the use of natural resources for agricultural production and environmental protection.
Research focuses on the negotiations between different social groups and the strategies they adopt to access resources, and on the struggles to design choices and outcomes in indigenous technologies and new paradigms of modernisation and sustainability. Two socio-technical practices are the object of research, irrigation systems and new technologies for small-scale food producers. Both clusters are quite successful and warrant more attention in the overall development of working programme 1. The work of cluster 1 will continue to centre on three topics: contested water use; water rights and livelihood; agro-ecology and (water) technology. Water will be the scarce commodity of this century, and work on this issue has to be continued. The work of cluster on technology is extremely relevant because especially biotechnology is one of the most contested resources at present. Relations with other themes are being improved, notably with themes 2 (especially on issues of institutional reforms, technology-institutions relationships and water rights), and also with other working programmes (wp2 livelihoods). There is also collaborative research that has been taken up with the new ‘Kenniseenheden’ in Wageningen.

Theme 5: Facilitating knowledge networks and interactive learning
The research projects related to this theme focus on knowledge networks, interactive learning, the social organisation of innovation, platforms for resource use negotiation and knowledge systems in sustainable agriculture. The output of research within this theme has been good over the past years. Within this unit research tends to focus more on knowledge systems and the interface of local and scientific environmental knowledge. With the arrival of some new senior researchers growth is expected in the area of (mass)communication and the environment. Collaboration with theme 4 is increasing, particularly in the area of new knowledge based, or knowledge intensive technologies and environmental education (such as the Integrated Pest Management Farmer Field Schools). Thus, there are possibilities for more extensive collaboration between researchers of both themes.
 
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