ABSTRACT
Sustainable governance of landscapes requires the integration of differing interests of multiple stakeholders at various levels of policy formulation and implementation (see Chapters 1 and 11). Decentralization of natural resource governance is often seen as a useful tool in achieving this. In many countries, decentralization has given rural communities the chance to make decisions about the management of natural resources in their domain and to formalize customary management rules and practices. Some suggest that customary management systems that have evolved over long periods in response to location-specific conditions make communities better resource managers than centralized agencies (Deininger, 2003), whereas others stress the flexibility and responsiveness of local management systems (Hartanto, 2009; Marfo et al, 2010), which can be indispensable characteristics in rapidly changing tropical landscapes. It has also been suggested that democratic decentralization, through greater participation, helps to better match public decisions to local needs and aspirations, and to increase equity in the use of public resources (cf Ribot, 2003). In other words, decentralization is heavily laden with expectations of improved effectiveness and equity in local resource management, in turn enhancing the governance of whole regions and landscapes.
