The sustainable livelihoods approach is characterised by both a specific methodology and the concerns that shape its "content." In terms of methodology, context-specific, participatory initiatives take the place of the blueprint programmes of the past, and Participatory Action Research (PAR) and "Learning by Doing" substitute the top-down research approaches that used to see communities as the "objects" or "beneficiaries" but never as the sentient subjects of their own research and empowerment.
In terms of "content," sustainable livelihoods is concerned with both environmental influences on human life and human influences on the environment. On the one hand, the surroundings of a community should not harm its members and should provide for all their necessities of life. On the other, local communities and its people should be caretakers and not destroyers or pathogenic parasites of the planet and its ecosystems.
Sustainable livelihoods depend more on the quality of the relationship between human communities and ecosystems (the nature and "environment friendliness" of technology, the degree of use of traditional, indigenous and local resource management systems.) than on mere "numbers of people consuming resources." While sustainable livelihoods involve matters of international and national relevance, they also depend-in a fundamental way-on issues of local importance, in particular on finding local solutions to local environmental and survival problems.
In a strict sense, local environmental problems can be described as instances of environmental degradation limited to specific geographical and cultural contexts and negatively affecting local communities. Examples include lack of access to safe water for a particular village, deforestation and degradation of topsoil in a particular watershed, inappropriate disposal of waste in a particular human settlement or loss of biodiversity in an ecosystem. These problems have direct impacts on human well being and are, in themselves, a cause of poverty. They are also strictly dependent on who-locally and externally-has the power and capacity to take what action. At the roots of these problems may lie the lack of secure tenure to housing, inequitable distribution of land or access to other natural resources, use of inefficient technologies, destruction of indigenous, traditional and local natural resource management systems, poor knowledge of available resources or lack of basic services.
The example of recent changes in rangeland management systems is illustrative. National governments (whether state-socialist or market-oriented), international agencies and national and international experts alike, influenced by "scientific" assumptions, joined forces for decades to denigrate traditional rangeland management systems by nomadic pastoralists. The latter were described as backward, ineffective and destructive of rangelands. More recently, however, in the light of the past quarter of a century of technical experience in semi-arid lands, the local indigenous and traditional systems of rangeland management, including sophisticated arrangements such as community-based exclosures for rangeland regeneration (hema) have been re-legitimised. With time and experience, scientists learned that the pastoral nomads knew more about ecologically sound rangeland management-including more precise concepts of carrying capacity than most if not all scientists and decision makers who control policy. Unfortunately, much of the traditional and indigenous knowledge base, locked up in the age-old experience of councils of community elders, runs the risk of disappearing forever.
The equivalent of this trend has been happening in most major biomes and cultural groupings of the world, including in the humid tropics, mountain environments, marine and coastal zones, and in most agro-ecosystems, making imperative the thorough understanding of many endangered traditional livelihoods practices.
The merging of traditional and modern practices is also an important field of analysis for sustainable livelihoods. Innovative experiences can be identified in the use of renewable energies, in agro-forestry, in ecologically based agricultural production (for instance for Integrated Participatory Production and Pest Management systems-IPPPM), in community based ecotourism, in the devising of ways to use sustainably and adding value to biodiversity, in running community protected areas for habitat and wildlife management, in restoring traditional rangeland management systems, in managing and protecting watersheds, and others.
The TSL pursues community-based experiences hand in hand with the analysis of traditional as well as merged traditional/ modern practices for sustainable livelihoods. The work requires ecological analysis in addition to an understanding of political, economic and socio-cultural conditions.
Ultimately, the sustainable livelihoods approach is about millions of local communities living in prosperity and peace within their diverse ecosystems. It is an approach for the poor as well as the rich, for the South as well as the North, which becomes alive through the initiatives of the civil society-local communities, community-based organisations and non-governmental organisations contributing innovations and experiences in their own ways. The local focus, however, does not mean that governments do not have a role to play. On the contrary, governments can and should play an essential enabling role with supportive policies and conditions, while refraining from applying a heavy and arrogant hand. In addition, all communities can benefit immensely-and often cannot do without-a flow of information and know-how, and the political, legal, technical, cultural and financial support of other actors in society. In the best of cases, this support could be provided as part of clear collaboration agreements (for instance collaborative management initiatives for natural resources), and would directly relate to thorough analyses of traditional and modern livelihood approaches in specific ecosystems.
