Negotiating the 'paradox of participation' to increase the social equity of participatory ecological monitoring in Nepal

获取和控制自然资源惠益方面的不平等有可能破坏过去30年来在参与性发展方面取得的进展。参与式生态监测被提议作为生态系统服务项目和REDD+等碳交易计划的新付款的支柱，并已通过尼泊尔的社区林业方案成为可持续森林管理的组成部分。尼泊尔政府认为，森林碳交易可能会对尼泊尔未来的发展做出重大贡献，但承认所有林业计划都需要更好地促进国家扶贫目标。该研究金通过让尼泊尔林业从业人员和政策制定者共同创建明确侧重于社会公平目标的参与式生态监测办法来应对这一紧迫挑战。我的博士论文揭示了尼泊尔一个这样的项目的社会结果，发现它无意中强化了基于性别、种姓和识字的现有边缘化进程。它试图理解如何改变这种“参与的专制”，这表明，只有通过与更深层次的文化、政治和制度背景进行有意义的接触才能实现这一点。这项奖学金将以我的论文为基础，向尼泊尔社区林业方案中那些在当地提供参与性监测项目并在其范围内发展政策空间的人提供帮助。它将使他们围绕参与性项目实际上可能丧失权力这一悖论展开对话，并在这种批判性思考的基础上共同设计方法和政策，重视实现社会公平的关键基本因素。该研究金将致力于让尼泊尔及其他地区的从业人员和政策制定者参与旨在促进实地参与性森林监测项目的社会公平的关键对话。通过这些合作，我将寻求在我的博士学位的基础上：建立一个关于参与性生态监测项目目前考虑社会公平和惠益分享的方式的全球概览，以及从事这一领域工作的学者如何对其进行概念化研究将涉及尼泊尔参与性监测方法的项目结合在一起(作为可持续森林管理或与碳有关的评估的一部分)，并为它们提供一个空间；对目前对公平和利益分享的框架和评估进行批判性思考，分享这一领域的经验和专门知识，共同设计程序，促进正在进行和未来的项目的社会公平，以及作为迭代设计进程的一部分，监测执行方面的挑战将尼泊尔的经验带给全球学术和非学术受众，让他们参与可供学习的课程建立学者、从业人员和政策制定者的国际网络，通过这些网络，我可以为这一领域的未来研究创造机会，并确保学术生涯的成功。自完成博士学位以来，我证明了自己有能力写出高质量的论文，成功地扩展到互补的研究领域，并开始与学术界和其他领域的同事合作。奖学金将使我能够巩固我作为一名学者在社区保护领域的专业知识和影响力，建设我与利益攸关方合作共同创造影响的能力，并在未来继续这样做，以应对正在进行的全球挑战。

Inequalities in access to and control over benefits of natural resources threaten to undermine advances made in participatory development over the past 30 years. Participatory ecological monitoring is proposed as a backbone of new payments for ecosystem services projects and carbon trading schemes like REDD+, and is already integral to sustainable forest management through Nepal's community forestry programme. The Nepalese government believe that forest carbon trading could be a significant contributor to development in Nepal in the future, but acknowledges that all forestry schemes need to better promote national goals of poverty alleviation. This Fellowship responds to this urgent challenge by engaging practitioners and policy makers in Nepalese forestry to co-create approaches to participatory ecological monitoring which focus explicitly on the goal of social equity. My PhD thesis exposed the social outcomes of one such project in Nepal, finding that it served - unintentionally - to reinforce existing processes of marginalisation based on gender, caste and literacy. It sought to understand how this 'tyranny of participation' could be transformed, suggesting that this will only occur through meaningful engagement with deeper cultural, political and institutional contexts. This Fellowship will build on my thesis to reach out to those across Nepal's community forestry programme who deliver participatory monitoring projects on the ground, and who develop the policy space within which they take place. It will engage them in a dialogue around the paradox that participatory projects can in fact be disempowering, and build on that critical reflection to co-design approaches and policies which pay attention to the fundamental factors critical to delivering social equity. This Fellowship will be dedicated to engaging practitioners and policy-makers in Nepal, and beyond, in a critical dialogue aimed at promoting the social equity of participatory forest monitoring projects on the ground. Through these collaborations, I would seek to build on my PhD to: Build a global overview of the ways in which social equity and benefit sharing are currently considered in participatory ecological monitoring projects, and how they are conceptualised by academics working in this sphereBring together projects involving participatory approaches to monitoring in Nepal (either as part of sustainable forest management or carbon-related assessment) and provide them with a space for; critical reflection on the current framing and assessment of equity and benefit-sharing, for sharing experiences and expertise in this area, for co-designing procedures to promote the social equity of on-going and future projects, and for monitoring the challenges to implementation as part of an iterative design processTo take the experiences from Nepal to a global academic and non-academic audience and engage them in the lessons to be learntBuild international networks of academics, practitioners and policy-makers, through which I can create opportunities for future research in this area and secure a successful academic careerA GCRF Fellowship would have a vitally important, lasting impact on my academic career. Since completing my PhD I have proven myself able to produce high quality papers, to successfully branch out into complementary fields of study, and to initiate collaborations with colleagues in academia and beyond. A Fellowship would allow me to cement my expertise and influence as an academic in the field of community-based conservation, to build my capacity to collaborate with stakeholders to co-create impacts, and to continue doing so into the future in order to respond to on-going global challenges.