ABSTRACT
Mrs Siwela is all smiles. Her brooms, with their elegant handcrafted binding, have won a prize at the Gweru Agricultural Show and are selling well, lifting her and her family out of debt. She is reaping the rewards of a new way to solve problems in which she and her neighbours formulated a plan that helped them to improve their own livelihoods. Not only is she better off, but she has new-found confidence and an enthusiasm to control her own destiny. She achieved this through a process in which she and her neighbours shared their vision for the future, constructed a formal model of their understanding of the resources at their disposal, and then used the model to explore a range of options that might help them to reach their vision. There are many situations, the world over, where people and natural resources interact in this way.
