Unequal capabilities and natural resource management: The case of Côte d’Ivoire

•Natural resource degradation is exacerbated by population heterogeneity.•Population heterogeneity is linked to forms of power that accentuate or diminish access to and use of natural resources.•The capability approach is relevant as an analytical framework because it highlights changes in power over time. When applied to the analysis of natural resource management, the theory of access has led to a number of interesting findings, in particular, an insistence on the role of power relations in the conditions that regulate access to resources. By adopting the capability approach for this study, we move beyond the theory of access in a bid to explain the unequal access to/use of natural resources. We focus on three key types of power: strategic, institutional and structural. We then apply our approach to the case of Côte d’Ivoire and demonstrate how changes in power since the 1960s have caused increasing or decreasing opportunities of access to/use of natural resources for certain populations. The mechanisms we describe help elucidate the issue of resource degradation.