Pact leads efforts to help communities manage natural resources to improve their livelihoods and ensure sustainability and conservation. To achieve this we utilize people-centered, holistic approaches that link livelihoods, institutional strengthening, democracy and governance, knowledge management, conflict resolution, equity, and planning with natural resources management and conservation. Pact has identified three strategic niches and a set of cross-cutting approaches important in the implementation of our NRM programs.  These are areas where our experience and technical abilities make us an attractive choice to lead or partner on NRM programs.

Environmental Governance. Environmental governance is about the various institutional frameworks, laws and policies, and incentive mechanisms of the government, community and private sector that together compose a system of governance, or control and management, over natural resources.  Often the institutions within the system are individually weak, uncoordinated or misaligned, rendering the system ineffective in the sustainable management of resources.  Environmental governance involves bringing all stakeholders to the table, providing access to information, enabling communities with the capacity to plan, setting expectations of responsible leadership, and creating space for participation and collaboration, with the objective of realigning the power structure around NRM issues. This supports the movement towards transparency, accountability, effectiveness, and environmental justice. Examples of environmental governance activities include empowering and  building the capacity of local, regional and national actors to help them gain access to and control over their natural resources; building the advocacy capacity of civil society; enhancing systems for resolving conflicts around natural resources; and supporting government to set appropriate environmentally-friendly laws and policies.

Pact’s work in capacity building and institutional strengthening as well as its extensive expertise in democracy and governance allows it to respond to the needs of NRM, civil society and governments in an integrated manner and at multiple levels of interventions.

Knowledge Sharing and Learning Networks. Pact has extensive experience in promoting information sharing, networking and knowledge management among NRM stakeholders. Pact utilizes knowledge and learning as catalysts for informed decision making and behavioral change and in building social capital.  Knowledge management is also a tool for disseminating best practices, coordination and empowering stakeholders. For Pact, knowledge management is key for informed decision and policy making and for influencing behavioral changes towards more sustainable NRM.  The creation of functional networks linking key NRM actors at all levels helps to ensure access to information at a wider scale thus increasing the effectiveness of the members and sustainability of these networks.

CBNRM leading to alternative, improved livelihoods. Pact attaches high importance to building the knowledge and capacities of communities to become more involved in the planning, conservation and sustainable use of natural resources. Through local partnerships, Pact empowers community groups, mentors them through natural resource planning and visioning processes, promotes and facilitates their involvement in informed decision making, and helps them voice their concerns through advocacy efforts. Pact also helps communities gain practical skills as needed at the local level to manage natural resources, market their nature-based products and connect up and down the value chain. By building on local knowledge and traditional practices, Pact helps communities gain a better understanding of the potential uses of the resources available and appropriate techniques to ensure sustainability.  Pact emphasizes building NRM constituencies and transparent leadership within communities, and recognizes the important role natural resources can play in conflict resolution and peace building. Pact also connects communities, local government, private sector and civil society to improve cooperation in addressing common NRM issues.

Cross cutting approaches

Certain cross cutting approaches have arisen as critical to a Pact approach to NRM. These include:

• Enabling formal and informal institutional frameworks for improved NRM. In order for real change to take hold in the management of natural resources we must begin to impact the ways in which decisions for land use are made from the local to the national and international level.  Equipping people with capacities needed to adapt their formal and informal institutional frameworks surrounding the management of resources is critical for long term sustainability of NRM actions.  Such adaptive skills are essential especially in light of the rapid climatic changes and their impact on natural resources.
• Ensuring equity across gender and vulnerable groups in the management of and benefit from natural resources. The dynamics of NRM often involve very complicated cultural and social traditions and relationships. Ignoring these factors generally leads to failure in NRM programs.  The essence of sustainable NRM is to give all stakeholders a voice in planning and decision making around natural resource use, as well as ensuring the equitable distribution of the benefits, while respecting traditional practices and cultural norms. Pact has the tools for better understanding and mapping the roles and interactions among the various social and economic groups in the NRM systems and then helping actors to use that information to ensure the fair and equitable distribution of benefits from improved NRM.
• Prevention and mitigation of climate change effects. This is an area of growing importance within Pact.  Our goal is to ensure that our development approaches in general and NRM interventions in particular take into account the importance of adapting to climate change.  Pact can achieve this by addressing vulnerabilities among communities to the impacts of climate change, and by enabling local authorities to plan for adapting to climate change in a participatory manner.  This includes but is not limited to supporting improved participatory planning for the more efficient use of natural resources that support sustainable agriculture and diversification of livelihoods.

In line with Pact’s Vision of Success, our approaches will create better synergies between nature and people (communities, private sector and governments) that will leave behind healthy environments and improved livelihoods.

People live in a healthier, more diverse natural environment. Our NRM programs lead to a demonstrable improvement in the quality of the natural environment in which people live.  In some situations this may mean reductions in practices and introducing alternatives to poaching, deforestation or other destructive practices.  In other contexts, results may be evident through the long term conservation of tracts of land or sea, or the improvement of water quality or quantity.

Empowered local communities improve their management of natural resources. Pact’s NRM work provides local communities with the range of tools they need to manage natural resources as well as improve community governance, advocacy, conflict management and institutional frameworks for decision making.  This combination lays the ground work for sustainable community management structures that can adapt to changing conditions.  This focus results in communities that can weather internal and external conflicts, set their own agendas/vision, work with government to ensure natural resource quality, and distribute benefits equitably.

Active and dynamic information and knowledge flow among NRM stakeholders. Not all problems can be dealt with at the local level and communities should not need to reinvent the wheel when dealing with NRM challenges and seeking solutions.  It is critical that NRM stakeholders, including communities, governments, and civil society have a way of communicating and sharing information and knowledge.  Pact’s NRM programs build sustainable networks that ensure the free exchange of information between interested stakeholders including local knowledge and practices.  There is strength in numbers and in sharing information and knowledge by facilitating the creation of human relationships and social capital among diverse stakeholders, which alternatively provides a better chance of dealing with these threats.  Effective networks result in the broader use of NRM best practices, a shared sense of responsibility for dealing with threats to the environment, and more effective advocacy and action for dealing with those threats.

Governments forward equitable and sustainable environmental laws, policies and practices. Government, at local, regional and national levels, is a critical stakeholder in all NRM programs.  Too often government entities, when overlooked or marginalized in NRM programs, can derail or invalidate actions forwarding environmental plans, laws, policies and practices.  Pact is able to involve and engage government actors at all levels to ensure a shared vision of NRM success.  This sets the stage for government to be a constructive partner to local communities and civil society in addressing threats to the environment.  Enhancing government capacities results in better control over destructive practices, support for more diverse NRM based livelihoods options and reduced conflict between resource users.