For over ten years, Lijiang Institute of Health and Environment (LIHE) has dedicated itself to supporting self-governance and endogenous development for ethnic minority communities in Mt. Laojunshan area, within the Three Parallel Rivers World Heritage Site of Yunnan (China). \u00a0Their experience demonstrates that a sound vision and work approach can succeed in empowering local communities. It also shows that empowered, self-governing communities can conserve their environment and improve their own livelihoods even in an overall unfavorable context, where top-down decision-making and the power of money appear dominant.<\/p>\n
Within the exceptionally large Mt. Laojunshan area, LIHE is active in about 1000 square kilometers, serving 127 communities that comprise about 5000 people.\u00a0 In the last ten years, it has supported 49 such communities to establish their Community Conserved Areas\u2014 where their village codes and regulations need to be respected in a total of 18,308 hectares. \u00a0LIHE\u2019s approach has been to assist the communities to enhance their self-awareness and capacity for self-governance of communal resources.\u00a0 This has promoted a truly radical change: from a passive approach, relying on top-down administration, to active self-governance. Today, experienced communities sustainably manage the forests in which they live and the non-timber forest resources that they produce.\u00a0 They have also learned to deal with waste management, road construction, water diversions and other tasks crucial for the ecological, economic, cultural, and social aspects of their own \u2018development\u2019.<\/p>\n
The entry point by which LIHE has enhanced community self-awareness, autonomy and development capacity has been the help it has provided to establish Community Mutual Funds, which follow five agreed principles. First, each household has an equal and fully voluntary opportunity to participate in the fund and borrow resources. Second, LIHE can support in co-financing initiatives, but the community\u2019s resources need always to be the larger source of budget, to ensure its decisive voice.\u00a0 Third, only one third of households can get a loan in each lending cycle. Fourth, the community directly manages the loan: the households alternatively survey and manage, or receive, the loans.\u00a0 Fifth, each household who borrows resources must adhere to its obligations or pay a punishing compensation.<\/p>\n
LIHE\u2019s approach focuses on supporting community discussions and developing the regulations through democratic mechanisms. So far, 27 communities have established their Mutual Funds, serving 635 households. This has resulted in economic support for livelihood improvements but has also strengthened the ties among community members. The day of the annual repayment and re-issuing of loans has become a ritual festival for the communities, which effectively facilitates their internal cohesion and vitality, as well as collective learning, wisdom, and solidarity.<\/p>\n
The community Mutual Fund is an excellent entry point. After agreeing together about the rules for the Mutual Fund, the members of the community can build upon their experience to revive their village code and regulation for the conservation of nature. \u00a0The very fact of demonstrating that self-governance in managing financial resources is possible promotes the emergence of hidden capacities for self-governance in all other aspects of communal life\u2026 such as managing the natural commons. It also brings to collective awareness a variety of common concerns and ingenious ways to connect those in the life of the community. For instance, in 2010 the community of Xinfang decided to directly connect its Mutual Fund with the conservation of nature. All households decided to forbid tree cutting in the forest and agreed that any violator will be \u2018taken out\u2019 of the Mutual Fund. This was the first village code that clearly included regulations for nature conservation in Lijiang City, Yunnan!<\/p>\n