Replicable NRM Practices - The Northern Pakistan Experiences

Executive Summary 

During second half of the last century growing concerns of environmental degradation prompted donors to launch massive rehabilitation projects. Initially the focus of these projects was confined to the development of technical solutions and increasing outputs only, as such despite concerted efforts and such activities were not fully owned by the communities. This brought home the learning that unless not only communities are appropriately involved at all levels (from planning to implementation) of execution of the activity, but also environmental concerns are associated with appropriate economic incentives for the communities, none of the activity gets sustained, no matter, how beneficial it may be for the amelioration of disturbed environment. 

Consequently, globally a major paradigm shift was witnessed. In consonance with this change in the vision and work paradigm, the issue of environmental degradation was also tackled in Pakistan through the two-pronged approach. At macro level, the national, regional and district strategies are being developed to provide strategic frameworks to create enabling environment, while at the micro-level, number of innovative projects are striving to develop implementation approaches and tools to effectuate sustainable and holistic management of natural resources. However, both these efforts were undertaken in isolation and in parallel to each other. Although, considerable number of tools and practices were identified and pilot tested by these projects but due to lack of proper institutional mechanism most of these learnings could not be suitably extended and got buried in piles of files locally. 

The IUCNP under, PSNP, endeavoured to identify, document and validate all such mature initiatives to create synergy between the strategic frameworks and these initiatives as well to guide future pursuits. In this quest, to sustain such activities and to set up self-sustaining rehabilitation systems, a lot of studies have been conducted worldwide. The initiatives, which a are self-sustaining, gradually get embedded in the local culture and play an outstanding role for the amelioration of living environment, so are commonly regarded Best NRM Practices. The best NRM Practices are decidedly the ones that are ecologically suitable, economically feasible, socially acceptable and technologically adaptable to local circumstances, result in lasting positive changes and can be successfully replicated in other areas. 

Thus, the best practice being economically attractive, after initial introduction, gets accepted, replicated without external support, imbedded in the local culture and ultimately becomes part of local norms. Thus an alien intervention, over the time, starts converting into traditional activity. As such, the best determinant to identify best practice is its sustainability at a given point in time under a given setup of conditions at a particular locality. In order to facilitate assessment and analysis of perpetuity and replication potential of an activity, the following definition of sustainability has been adoAny activity, system, process or condition carried out for amelioration of the ambient environment, which could sustain and replicate itself under the given socio-economic, political, institutional and technological setup, none or minimal external support, over a comparatively longer period of time, can be termed sustainable at that point in time. 

• The experience has revealed that an activity can only be sustained if it: 
• Is demand driven
• Ensures security of tenure 
• Have a sound support mechanism and local institutional set up for its initiation and subsequent promotion. 
• Have a well-developed indigenous local management system to nurture it. 
• Provides access to capital. 
• Is affordable 
• Have opportunities of recyclable investment. 
• Is risk free. 

Under the study, nine (9) projects identified in the ToR were surveyed. During the study, besides review of relevant literature and personal observations, detailed discussions were held with the prominent resource persons and the village communities. All the NRM activities executed by the projects were studied

1. Social Organization: RSP Model and NRM Model 
2. Capacity Building: Technical skills, managerial skills, marketing skills Financial, management, facilitation and social skills.
3. Forestry: Nursery, farm forestry, utilization of forests and other initiatives such as controlled grass cutting, seed collection and terracing 
4. Agriculture: Fruit nurseries, offseason vegetables, orchards and farming system.
5. Livestock: Livestock extension and preventive measures. 
6. Entrepreneur Development: 
   1. Rice husking, fruit nurseries, fruit processing, off-season vegetables, bee keeping, seed multiplication, mazri products, market based professional skills, Saving & credit, Livestock Ext. workers, agri. ext. worker and collective marketing. 
   2. Women income generation activities Vegetable nurseries, kitchen gardening, embroidery, handicraft and sewing
7. PVIs: Drinking water, irrigation, hydel projects, land development etc.

Download Full Document (PDF 356 KB)

Brochures of Replicable NRM Practices

The following NRM brochures were developed:

• Capacity Building (PDF 1.06 MB)

• Entrepreneur Development (PDF 1.01 MB)

• Farm Forestry (PDF 200 KB)

• Fruit Nursery Raising (PDF 4.35 MB)

• Fruit Orchards (PDF 3.60 MB)

• Growing Off-Seasons Vegetables (PDF 5.50 MB)

• Harvesting Green Investment (PDF 1.05 MB)

• Investing in local infrastructure (PDF 2.45 MB)

• Private Forest Nurseries (PDF 456 KB)

• Social Organisation (PDF 213 KB)

• Training of Livestock (PDF 354 KB)