Conflict management in community-based natural resource projects: experiences from Fiji and Papua New Guinea

This paper discusses the problem of non-violent conflicts and disputes as a constraint to sustainable natural resource management at the community level.The article finds that:third-party mediation should only be tried if viable customary approaches to conflict management have demonstrably failedthird-party mediation should only be tried if it is impracticable to try to strengthen the customary approaches within the required timeframerecent experiences in the Lakeamu Basin seem to run counter both to the popular assertion that building social capital within civil society will be ineffective in the absence of strong macro political structures, and that a necessary prerequisite to effective local dispute management is to resolve the conflict’s structural causesthe advantage of adopting a consensual approach to address disputes in CBNRM is that the process offers medium-term solutions independent of the above constraints