Research On Farmers Cooperating In Community Co-management Of Forest Resources

Since the last century 80s, Forest Protected Areas Authority had explored co-management as a strategic solution approach to the conflict between the protected areas and surrounding community farmers. However, experience has shown that the co-management relies on the social relations embedded in the local and regional level-collective action between farmers. This article attempts to resolve the economic logic of farmers cooperating, to analyze the basis, the nature and the boundaries of farmers cooperation, so as to provide a microscopic explanation for "how is co-management possible" and its many characteristics.My research finds, in a particular social and political conditions, a crowd of interdependent farmers, can cross the plight of collective action, then generate superior performance of community public resource management and self-development, which is an important basis for co-management practice. The model demonstrates reciprocal and strong reciprocity behaviors are the two "invisible hand" which guide the spontaneous cooperation between farmers. Because they may gradually eliminate each individual's behavior tendencies such as free ride taking, avoiding responsibility, or other opportunistic behavior in the sense of evolution. And to a certain extent, the cooperation structure shaped by reciprocal and strong reciprocity behavior will be able to withstand external or external shocks and achieve self-stability, which provide an explanation for the diversity and continuity of co-management practice.However, the friction among community, market and state three-dimensional system is gradually eroding the traditional basis for farmers cooperation. In particular, the Market Economy increased independence and mobility of rural households, which provided an opportunity for the high-level and wide range farmers cooperation. But it profoundly changed the traditional game framework of farmers'behavior interactions which may be our biggest challenge. This article does not want to give all the problems to the government, but it insists that the co-management institutions and administration should accept rather than refuse the complexity of forest resources governing, and thereby make institutional trade-offs more carefully.