At the threshold between governance and management: community-based natural resource management in Southern Africa

In this article, we use the threshold‐based management framework to analyse and make policy recommendations for community‐based natural resource management (CBNRM). We introduce the concept, present two examples from Southern Africa, and lay out the fundamentals of the threshold‐based resource management approach. We then analyse the two cases using the framework to assess whether it can provide solutions to CBNRM implementation problems or whether the conditions characterizing many CBNRM sites would preclude use of the approach. We suspect that John Cohen, in whose memory we are dedicating this article, would have been very pleased with our focus on management and governance, but would have greatly regretted the pretensions of high theory some may read into our framework. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.