Governance and Resource Management

This study brings unique findings by presenting a careful and details analysis of the local governance institutional arrangements in the context of coastal tin extraction on Bangka Island. It specifically compares the governance mechanism issues across two distinct coastal tin producing settings and two different community contexts. Using multiple case study design, this study successfully depicts that for the most part, the decision-making mechanism deployed in the issuance of mining social permits did little to address the primary concerns of all related actors fairly and frequently, privileging the interest of mining companies while marginalizing the alternative values and the concerns of affected locals. Public involvement failed to accommodate all stakeholders’ views, but the local level cannot accommodate their interests because some local political situation and elites’ domination effect have control over the decision-making process for mining permits. Both economic and local socio-political factors influenced the local community’s acceptance of suction dredging. The compensation offered provided a compelling reason for agreeing to permit the mining licence. Resource depletion and deterioration, a reduction in the quantity and price of fish, and difficulties associated with finding alternative livelihoods were key reasons for opposing suction dredging. Immature democratic processes occur when decisions are made without fully consulting all stakeholders, or fully considering the whole village’s views, leading to the spawn of grey participation and consequently bringing an imbalance in terms of benefits and impacts among affected locals. The result is unsuccessful democratization that will possibly lead to a rebellion by unsatisfied stakeholders.

The Middle Paunglaung hydropower project (hereafter, the project) is situated in the east of Naypyidaw, Myanmar. Its installed capacity is 150 MW and its implementation period is from 2017 to 2025. There are some environmental challenges associated with the project: deforestation, decreasing biodiversity richness, and habitat degradation. This study is intended to make comparisons of the impacts regarding good governance before and after the project’s implementation. Water quality was analyzed for its physicochemical indicators, heavy metals, and Biochemical Oxygen Demand (B.O.D). In this study, the impacts are more or less heading towards the socioeconomic challenges of local indigenous communities, including diminishing natural resources, especially fisheries resources (about 32 fish species were collected). On the other hand, it is also important to cover the electricity shortage in order to balance demand with supply. There is a need to meet higher socioeconomic levels by monitoring natural resources with stakeholder mapping in order to avoid an environmental crises and to sustain natural resources. There are small-scale threats and large-scale threats; it is of vital importance to have good governance with stakeholder mapping to conserve fisheries and biodiversity richness. Four objectives are to observe/mitigate the environmental challenges, to sustain natural resources, to develop the socioeconomic situations of the local communities, and to inform stakeholders by enhancing public awareness that enables a knowledge-based evaluation. Therefore, it is important to mitigate the environmental stress with stakeholder mapping for the sake of the communities with effective convergence multidisciplinary approaches regarding the Sustainable Development Goals.

This paper will develop a conceptual framework to understand how animals are embedded in capitalist social relations and how they are “valued” in Thailand’s market for wildlife tourism. In Thailand, the elephant trekking industry has become the subject of contentious debates concerning animal welfare, ethical approaches to tourism, competing economic interests, and the conservation of a national icon. Initially proposed as a transition for unemployed mahouts and their elephants following Thailand’s 1989 logging ban, investigations into elephant tourism have exposed distressing conditions for elephants, connections to illegal wildlife trading, and poor work conditions.

My paper will analyze the relationship between labour justice and animal welfare. To do this, I will draw from political-ecological readings of Gramsci’s theory of hegemony and the concept of “lively capital” to examine the ethical and political dimensions of “value,” and how this can deepen understandings of animals as labourers and commodities in tourism. My paper will put Gramsci’s theory into conversation with feminist and decolonial scholars to examine the gendered and racialized dimensions of labour organization. Next, I will link these perspectives to ecological readings of Marx’s theories of value and labour to understand the circumstances of animals in tourism. The objectives of this paper are to understand the gendered and racialized dimensions of selling encounters with animals, the relationships between human and non-human workers, and to analyze how regimes of labour are organized to extract value from encounters with animals.