Jesse C. Ribot is an Associate Professor of Geography at the University of Illinois. He currently directs the Social Dimensions of Environmental Policy (SDEP) Initiative of the Department of Geography, School of Earth Society and Environment, and Beckman Institute. While conducting the research in this volume, he was a Senior Associate in the Institutions and Governance Program of the World Resources Institute (WRI). Ribot has conducted research on environmental justice, social vulnerability in the face of climate change, the social structure of resource access, and the effects of rural-urban resource markets on local livelihoods. Ribot has also worked on local environmental governance issues with the World Bank, the United Nations Capital Development Fund, the Dutch Government, and USAID.Anne M Larson is a Senior Associate with the Center for International Forestry Research, Bogor, Indonesia, based in Nicaragua. Her research has focused on decentralization and local governance, community forestry, forest tenure, indigenous rights and conservation and development. She holds a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley and a B.S. from Stanford University.

• 1. Democratic Decentralization through a Natural Resource Lens: Countering central resistance, fostering local demand Jesse C. Ribot and Anne M. Larson 2. Between Micro-Politics and Administrative Imperatives: Decentralization and the watershed mission in Madhya Pradesh, India Amita Baviskar 3. Decentralisation When Land and Resource Rights are Deeply Contested: A case-study of the Mkambati eco-tourism project on the wild coast of South Africa Ben Cousins and Tembele Kepe 4. Formal Decentralization and the Imperative of Decentralization 'From Below': A case-study of natural resource management in Nicaragua Anne M. Larson 5. Democratic Decentralization and Traditional Authority: Dilemmas of land administration in rural South Africa Lungisile Ntsebeza 6. What Lies Behind Decentralization?: Forest, powers and actors in lowland Bolivia Pablo Pacheco 7. Closer to People and Trees: Will decentralization work for the people and the forests of Indonesia? Ida Aju Pradnja Resosudarmo 8. Decentralization, Rural Livelihoods, and Pasture-land Management in Post-Socialist Mongolia Robin Mearns 9. Decentralization and Accountability in Forest Management: Case from Yunnan, southwest China Jianchu Xu and Jesse M. Ribot 10. Social and Organizational Roots of Ecological Uncertainties in Cameroon's Forest Management Decentralization Model Phil René Oyono 11. User Committees: A potentially damaging second wave of decentralization? James Manor 12. Decentralising Water Resource Management in Brazil Christian Brannstrom 13. Decentralizing Natural Resource Management: A recipe for sustainability and equity? Wicky Meynen and Martin Doornbos