Contributed by: JOEL TECUICO

CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

Central to development efforts is the idea that organizations are rational instruments for achieving goals.  Social organizations are needed to effectively promote development.  In fact development can be looked at as the way in which resources, ideas and organizations are combined to bring about something that will count as improvement.  Broadly, the self-strengthening or self-reinforcing character of stable social systems comes about when resources, ideas and organizations are combined in such a way that the resources are renewed or increased, the ideas are re-enforced and if necessary, corrected or adjusted in use, and the organizations formed are preserved and/or improved.

Community-Based Resource Management (CBRM) is defined as a process by which the people themselves are given the opportunity and/or responsibility to manage available resources, define their needs, goals and aspirations and make decisions affecting their well being. CBRM implies both the mobilization and use of available resources by the community to achieve their avowed purposes and the community’s ability to manage existing natural resources in their locality by employing “other resources or inputs available to them”.

Whether in natural resources management or in social development, CBRM operates on the premise that resources are managed best when the people affected by decisions participate in the design and implementation of these decisions.  CBRM seeks to improve these decision-making capacities by broadening options and by utilizing collective and democratic process.

Organizing for a community-based resource management largely differs from the traditional viewpoint of community organizing.  CBRM requires a more comprehensive approach because it entails the need to recognize and consequently unify interest and sectoral groupings towards a common purpose - that of managing natural resources within the community.  It does not only focus on the traditional issues of livelihood enterprise and community projects but it extends people’s attention towards resource conservation and sustainable development.

The objective of community organizing for CBRM does not end in the formation of groups alone.  In the end it becomes a venue where conflicts on resource utilization are resolved.  Competing interests and uses ultimately becomes the focal points.  Thus, its goal is/the formation of an organization which duly represents sectional interests, and whose activities impinge on the deterioration or enhancement and sustainability of a certain community resource.

Premise of the CBRM Approach

The destruction of aquatic resources particularly the exploitation of coastal habitats has reached an alarming level, resource depletion can be traced to illegal fishing and destructive fishing methods such as the use of sodium cyanide, blast fishing, fine meshed nets, overfishing and poor enforcement of law against such practices.

In addressing the foregoing problems, community involvement and participation play a key role in institutionalizing change.  The people needs to be convinced and accept that their economic base, the fishery resource in particular, is being depleted and in critical condition; thus, needs to be replenished and its aesthetic value and abundance restored back to its former condition.

The CBRM operates on the premise that the community perceive the need to protect the resources and that they are interested to work together towards sustaining the resource base to further improve their economic, socio- cultural, political and ecological well-being. Ultimately, the local community is seen as the effective managers who can best protect and develop the natural resources.

mail us at cb_crm@yahoo.com