This study is based on fieldwork in South America, predominantly in Paraguay. I worked several years with an Environmental NGO (ENGO) in the Mbaracayu Biosphere Reserve, a UNESCO Man and Biosphere Site, on issues pertaining to environmental conservation and protection, ‘sustainable’ agricultural development, and participatory land use planning.

In the 1990’s ENGOs increasingly subscribed to a commitment to improve participatory governance over natural resources, particularly in areas considered to be ecologically ‘important’ and ‘fragile’. Even the somewhat orthodox literature on environmental management began to acknowledge, at least in theory, that more participation of local people in environmental programs was desirable and necessary. However, Chapin charges that more recently, the discourse of ‘local involvement’ has been displaced by “talk of changed priorities, with a new focus on large-scale conservation strategies and the importance of science, rather than social realities” (Chapin 2004:18). While the literature abounds with examples of how ‘community based’ and ‘grassroots’ initiatives have failed, there remains a need to explore more fundamentally, how an unquestioned reliance on, and largely unquestioned authority of expert knowledge can be indicted in this failure.

This work critically addresses the relationship between expert knowledge and natural resource governance in environmental policy making. I argue that while creation and deployment of expert knowledge can be an important resource to establish credibility and authority for ENGOs locally and internationally, it also has the potential to compromise objectives of expanding governance over natural resources to wider participation, and particularly to resource users.

I have been involved in two environmental planning initiatives: Cumulative Effects software for land use planning and the Roundtable on Responsible Soy initiative. While these initiatives differ in many respects, they have two important commonalities: they each focus on expertise for policy making, and each aims to increase local participation in decision-making. My analysis takes a critical, constructionist approach to the expert knowledge upon which these initiatives rely, showing how its ultimate authority eclipses vital understandings, without which, participatory environmental governance cannot be achieved.

Supervisors

Dr Tim Forsyth and Dr Stuart Corbridge

Research areas

Environmental Policy and Governance, Environment and Development, Expert Knowledge Systems and Science and Technology Studies (STS), Conservation, Land Use Planning and Environmental Non-Governmental Organizations (ENGOs), Latin America

CV/Resume

Read CV (PDF)

Languages

Spanish (3S, 3S)
French (1S, 1W)

1 = basic; 2 = intermediate; 3 = fluent

Fieldwork was supported by grants from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and the Central Research Fund, University of London.

Contact information

Development Studies Institute - DESTIN
London School of Economics
Houghton Street
London, WC 2A 2AE
United Kingdom

Fax: +44 (0)20 7955 6844
Email: l.l.elgert@lse.ac.uk

^ Back to top