ABSTRACT
The last decade of the 20th century saw a proliferation of interest in social capital as a way of understanding aspects of either the healthiness, dynamics
or characteristics of society in general. Through themes such as civic participation, community development, state-society relations and social change, key researchers have applied and developed the concept in a wide variety of social, economic, political and geographic contexts, and at equally varied scales of social research, from individuals to organizations and nationstates (Woolcock, 1998, p155; Krishna, 2001; Rydin and Holman, 2004). The concept of social capital refers to the networks, values and trust that enable communities to act together effectively to pursue shared objectives for environmental management. It has emerged as a popular and useful idea for approaching some of the complex issues that affect all of society. The complexity that arises when multiple actors with different interests interact typifies many of the problems that confront environmental managers, and so the approach is particularly useful in this context.
