Community-led initiatives and transition towards sustainable governance of natural resources in the Colombian Andes

Objective

Over the past few decades, communities worldwide have initiated transitions toward sustainability in response to socio-environmental crises. While the role of community-led initiatives (CLIs) in governing sustainable transitions has primarily been studied in the energy sector, significant gaps remain in research on this topic within the natural resources sector (e.g., water, forests, and land). This gap is critical, as many Sustainable Development Goals (e.g., no poverty, climate action) are closely linked to natural resource management. To address this gap, CITCA proposes to combine socio-technical transition and community-based natural resource management approaches to explore and enhance the role of CLIs in governing sustainable natural resource transitions. The proposed research will be conducted in the rural Andes of Colombia, where several CLIs focused on water, land, and forest management have recently emerged to tackle sustainability challenges such as climate change and biodiversity degradation. Objectives and methods of the project include: 1) a qualitative comparative case study of three CLIs to identify their emergence and development processes toward a transition to sustainable governance of natural resources; 2) a quantitative study to identify the sociocultural, biophysical, and institutional factors critical to the success of these CLIs for sustainable transitions; 3) a scenario planning approach to co-create socio-ecological innovation pathways to meet the challenges of natural resource sustainability. CITCA will be carried out within two leading multidisciplinary research groups: Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals at the Universitat Autònoma Barcelona and the Instituto de Investigación de Recursos Biológicos Alexander von Humboldt (Colombia, secondment). The proposed work will enable me to broaden my experience, enhance my research skills, and expand my professional networks, furthering my career as an independent researcher.