Abstract
Madhupur National Park is renowned for severe resource ownership conflicts between ethnic communities and government authorities in Bangladesh. In this study, we applied the Institutional Analysis and Development framework to identify: (i) past and present informal institutional structures within the ethnic Garo community for land resource management; (ii) the origin of the land ownership dispute; (iii) interaction mechanisms between formal and informal institutions; and (iv) change in land management authority and informal governance structures. We identify that the informal institutions of the traditional community have undergone radical change due to government interventions with implications for the regulation of land use, informal institutional functions, and joint-decision-making. Importantly, the government’s persistent denial of the role of existing informal institutions is widening the gap between government and community actors, and driving land ownership conflicts in a cyclic way with associated natural resource degradation.
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Notes
Although the State’s takeover of forest resources began following the Indian Forest Act 1927, this act did not abolish the land resource rights of the Zamindars (traditional landlords), allowing the Garo community’s informal institutional hierarchy to remain intact. The Zamindary system was formally abolished under the Bengal Tenancy and Acquisition Act 1950 and in 1962 strict government control of MNP began.
Symbolic power is the mediation capability which is acknowledged as the legitimate basis of social position. It governs the interindividual social relationship. Symbolic power is not homogenously distributed among community members and this is the prime cause of leadership creation (Ballet et al. 2007).
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Acknowledgments
We are grateful to Professor Audun Sandberg for his constructive comments on an earlier version of the manuscript. We would also like to thank our research participants from the Garo community and government agencies for their consistent help with, and generous contribution to, our study. The valuable comments and suggestions made by the anonymous referees are gratefully acknowledged.
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Rahman, H.M.T., Sarker, S.K., Hickey, G.M. et al. Informal Institutional Responses to Government Interventions: Lessons from Madhupur National Park, Bangladesh. Environmental Management 54, 1175–1189 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-014-0325-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-014-0325-8