Empowerment and disempowerment in community-based natural resource management: Examining CREMA outcomes in Ghana

Community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) schemes are intended to achieve social and environmental outcomes, although many cases around the world show that CBNRM schemes are achieving more on their environmental goals rather than their social ones. In this paper, we examined the outcomes of Community Resource Management Areas (CREMAs) in Ghana using Scheyven's four-dimension framework of empowerment and disempowerment. Examining three case studies, we found that CREMAs emphasize conservation, which may contribute to social and psychological empowerment. However, there is a political and economic empowerment deficit as CREMAs fail to provide economic returns to rural groups or position them to exercise self-determination over their resources. We suggest that approaches strengthening the resource rights may support CBNRMs to realize community empowerment.