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Abstract
Over a period of some 20 years, different aspects of co-management (the sharing of
power and responsibility between the government and local resource users) have come
to the forefront. The paper focuses on a selection of these: knowledge generation,
bridging organizations, social learning, and the emergence of adaptive co-management.
Co-management can be considered a knowledge partnership. Different levels of organization,
from local to international, have comparative advantages in the generation and mobilization
of knowledge acquired at different scales. Bridging organizations provide a forum
for the interaction of these different kinds of knowledge, and the coordination of
other tasks that enable co-operation: accessing resources, bringing together different
actors, building trust, resolving conflict, and networking. Social learning is one
of these tasks, essential both for the co-operation of partners and an outcome of
the co-operation of partners. It occurs most efficiently through joint problem solving
and reflection within learning networks. Through successive rounds of learning and
problem solving, learning networks can incorporate new knowledge to deal with problems
at increasingly larger scales, with the result that maturing co-management arrangements
become adaptive co-management in time.