1998 Volume 4 Pages 107-124
This article discusses the relationship between resource ownership systems and environmental conservation. I approach this issue from the standpoint of the cultural heritage of value systems, social institutions and ecological systems. I posit an ideal-typical model of “life environmentalism” to contrast Japanese and African lake resource systems.
I base this ideal-type on three main points of the Ikeda/Inoue Debate in Journal of Environmental Sociology, Vol. 2, 1996 and Vol. 3, 1997: perception of material environment, perception of human society, and perception of history. The ideal-typical categories show four types of ownership regimes: life-related private system, cooperative private system, life-related communal system and cooperative public system.
I use this categorization to show how the indigenous development of each community has been determined by the ownership regime of land, water, and forest. For the solid formation of communal systems, not ownership itself, but rather mental, social and environmental process of ownership utilization is more important.
Finally, the case of Lake Malawi, Africa, illustrates how lake-related resource ownership was changed by colonization and basic conflicts between conservation of biodiversity and people’s needs to use the lake resources.
This case shows that communal management should not be implemented from outside without understanding of local people. For better understanding of lake diversity and management by local people, cooperative research among residents, biologists and anthropologists is recommended.
