Hsing-Sheng Tai’s research while affiliated with National Dong Hwa University and other places

In times of increasing pressure on natural resources, resource boundaries have become more ambiguous. Resources are increasingly interlinked, and competing users may define a resource and its boundaries differently. At times, resource units are confined into “resource plots”, while at other times they are “resource stocks”. Nevertheless, according to Elinor Ostrom, “clearly defined boundaries” are an important design principle. Against this background, the aim of this article is to develop, based on the work of Achille Varzi, an analytical framework with the help of which a better understanding can be gained of boundaries and their ambiguities in CPR management. Applied to 33 publications from Elinor Ostrom, the framework shows that focus has been on spatial, social boundaries. Less attention has been paid to natural boundaries, and in particular to natural resource limits. Applied to three empirical cases from East Asia, the framework shows how a more nuanced understanding of boundaries and their ambiguities can inform environmental management on the role of ambiguity. On a theoretical level, the paper finds that we need to move away from understanding a resource as a plain landscape, to a landscape as composed of shifting equilibria of resource flows, the limits of which need to be incorporated in CPR management.

Social networks and related social processes play a critical role in natural resources and environmental governance. In this paper, an environmental governance case is analyzed from a social network perspective. We explore how social networks of proponents for and opponents against environmental regulations are formed and developed and how these social networks facilitate or hinder environmental regulations in different periods. The results reveal that government leaders with political power, the key node of the social network, can connect specific networks with their value orientation and can therefore influence the structure and development of networks, which significantly affect subsequent policy formation and governance results. Social networks affect and are affected by the processes and results of environmental governance. Consequently, actors in key positions and value orientations of the community to which they belong to play a critical role; this finding has rarely been discussed in past analyses of social networks.

While the notion of social-ecological system resilience is widely accepted and applied, the issue of “resilience for whom” is clearly ignored. This phenomenon has also occurred in Taiwan. This article explores the roots of, and a possible solution to, this issue through a case study in the context of Taiwan’s indigenous peoples. The Danungdafu area, the focal social-ecological system, was studied. Qualitative research methods and an action-oriented research approach were employed. For a long period, the central government shaped the political, economic, social, institutional, and ecological contexts; dominated resilience discourses and determined the problem-framing and problem-solving agenda; defined the scale and levels at which social-ecological system governance issues were addressed; and determined the knowledge system used to define and solve problems. After 2011, a new participatory governance regime emerged. Multiple stakeholders, including indigenous communities, began to contribute to resilience discourses and influenced governance and trade-offs among differing governance goals. However, under the established structures dominated by Han people, indigenous views, rights, and well-being continue to be ignored. Affirmative action is required to recognize and safeguard indigenous rights. A practical institutional pathway is available to facilitate the transformation from “resilience for mainstream society” to “resilience for indigenous people” in indigenous territories.