Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA): Bridging Scales and Epistemologies: Linking Local Knowledge with Global Science in Multi-Scale Assessments

The paper describes a research-cum-action Initiative in Mauritania, Technology Fosters Tradition (TFT; www.cbnrm.net/webhosting/tft/), a radically new approach aimed at sustainable management of the Sahelian environment through empowering local people to transform the present exploitation of natural resources. The Sahelian region can be characterized as follows: (i) rapid degradation of the flora and fauna, (ii) the public sector is unsympathetic to effective environmental protection, (iii) legal systems are dysfunctional, and (iv) there are increased levels of conflict between ethnic groups and between pastoralists and farmers. The Initiative takes the following as points of departure: (i) the economic and cultural survival of people in the Sahel depends upon protecting the environment, (ii) local people know the traditionally recognized land-use patterns, (iii) some behavior needs to be changed in light of recent environmental degradation, (iv) traditional management has been corrupted by government intervention, and (v) changes in culturally embedded behavior will be achieved only voluntarily. TFT’s approach to addressing and resolving these problems lies in identifying and addressing the needs of the local people. The Initiative starts with assessing local practices, tracing and fixing them on maps, and screening for environmental effects. Required changes in use patterns will be negotiated until a consensus agreeable to all parties is reached. These negotiated behavioral rules will be consolidated in regulations which are: (i) formulated by local people, (ii) written in local dialects, (iii) clear, short and succinct, stating purpose and policy; (iv) simultaneously drafted in the official languages of the country, revised and edited in an itinerant process with the input of experts, and (v) conform to the objectives of international environmental conventions. The texts will be archived in the Official Gazette and on the Internet and also affixed on GIS-centered geographic maps. The process constitutes a legal reform that gives priority to customary law over transplanted law, thus establishing the basis for a convergence between the actual behavior of the population and the laws and regulations intended to govern such behavior. Several partly new approaches and tools will be used. They include: (i) specific biotopes will be governed by specific regulations, (ii) GIS and the Internet will be used to record laws and constitute the foundation for a modern land-registry with traditional use-right descriptions, and (iii) communitydriven and co-management policies at the communal level. Located at the intersection of several legal regimes, including French civil law, Islamic law and traditional customary rules, the Initiative aims to systematize and integrate these legal regimes on the local, national and international levels. This will be facilitated through extensive use of modern 1/ Manager, Supras Consult. P.O. Box 1600, NO-4688 Kristiansand, Norway. Phone: + 47 380 96 487. Fax: + 47 381 08 199. Cell: + 47 908 23 006. Corresponding author email address: lsoeftestad@supras.biz. 2/ Senior Counsel, Africa Practice Group (LEGAF), Legal Department, World Bank. 1818 H. Street N.W. , Washington D.C., 20433 USA. Phone: + 1 202 458 1583. Fax: + 1 202 614 1583. Email address: hwabnitz@worldbank.org.