Knowledge of how to avoid the  seven deadly sins  of  ignorance, control, fear of failure, 

comparison, attachment, neutrality, and rights/equality" (Donaldson 1994).  

Multiple stakeholder processes require that the process be locally empowered. That is, the 

process must have the power to access information and resources to make decisions that will 

be enacted and respected by all stakeholders, including the bureaucracies at all levels.  Most 

importantly, if multi stakeholder processes are to positively contribute to improved outcomes, a 

change to underlying power relationships is required.  The nature of this change is fundamental 

to decentralization, which requires power sharing among different levels of government 

agencies and between these agencies and non government stakeholders, including the local 

communities of villagers who are most affected.  

In this sense, multiple stakeholder processes are implicit within decentralization initiatives, 

which aim to place decision making at the level where information is available and stakeholders 

have a direct interest in outcomes.  These processes require "a willingness of the decision 

makers to change their existing actions and ways of thinking.  Decentralization does not only 

press for its own implementation, but also represents a requirement for de bureaucratization 

and deregulation"  (Amal and Nasikun 1989).  The concept of power sharing provides the 

necessary rights to proceed with the process, but also carries with it the requirement of 

accepting responsibility for decisions. 

1.2.5  Community based Management  

Within nearly all resources management projects there has been a heavy emphasis on 

community based management, where behavior change tools are applied through a 

community's existing social and organizational structures.  Terms such as "traditional 

management", "community stewardship", and "community based sustainability" prevail in 

project designs.  The frequency with which these terms are used has resulted in the commonly 

held perception that this approach is a necessary condition for successful implementation of 

project initiatives.  Yet, any review of projects turns up more failures than successes in 

community based responses.  This is partly due to i) inadequate integration of behavior change 

techniques to the situations encountered, and ii) a poor understanding of where and why 

community management responses would actually provide additional benefits. 

Who is the community or group of stakeholders to which these participation processes refer?  

The definition of community is widely open to interpretation.  The common use of the term refers 

to an administrative region or a geographic zone within which people co ordinate their public 

administration.  Communities may also be viewed as organizational arrangements that enable 

effective cooperation.  While an administratively zoned system provides for interdependence on 

issues of governance, it does not represent the cooperative inter relations that underpin most 

community activities (e.g., farming, fishing, hunting, religion, family structure).  

Communities are the response to human survival through cooperation.  Ultimately, communities 

are defined by the context of the discussion.  One member of society will belong to many 

different but overlapping communities, but rarely, if ever, will these communities be equivalent to 

local administrative regions established for governance purposes.  Communities are systems of 

reciprocity, such that "societies have progressed in so far as they themselves, their subgroups, 

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