8 Policies, Processes and Institutions
entirely in the course of applying it in practice, but as it generally lacks a formal
institutionalized process, it is vulnerable to changing relationships between people
and their ecological resource base. In developing countries like India, people have
access to newer resources, but are at the same time losing control over local
resources, with the state and corporate taking over local interests. The programme
of the People’s Biodiversity Registers (PBRs) is an attempt to create a new institu-
tional content for the continued use and development of indigenous knowledge.
The article summarizes the experience of organizing the preparation of 52 PBRs
across the major ecosystems of India. The entire programme engaged 350 researchers
and 200 assistants from village communities. The research found consistent increases
in agricultural, wood, fish and shrimp production, but outside managed agroecosys-
tems, there has been a widespread decline in both productivity and diversity of living
resources. They document the breakdown of localized authority and rules for resource
management, and even the case of a village in Rajasthan that used to be called the
village of the medicine men, Vaidyonki Devli, but had now been renamed Devli
because of the severe depletion of medicinal plant resources in the locality. They also
recorded a decline in ecological knowledge amongst young people, though with
some exceptions, such as where youth are still involved in fishing as a profession. In
only two of the cases had there been spontaneous establishment of new regimes of
regulated use that had led to resource recovery.
Part III: Governance and Education
Cees Leeuwis’ 2004 book Communication for Rural Innovation contains a clear and
insightful update of agricultural extension theory and practice, and this article,
chapter 2 from the book, addresses the shift from extension to communication for
innovation. The challenges for extension are changing rapidly, as recognition of
different conditions and cultures grows. This chapter focuses first on an historical
overview of how extension has been seen in the past – primarily implying that
something is passed from someone or some institution who knows to someone else
who does not know. It seeks to extend, and those who do not adopt the progressive
message or technology are commonly seen as laggards or backward. It is their fault
that they have not changed their practices (even if they themselves have very good
reason for rejection). Leeuwis proposes a novel definition for extension here, even
though some writers have suggested the abandonment of the term altogether
because of its unidirectional connotations. In practice, communication for innova-
tion can take many forms, and these are discussed in detail, together with concepts
of knowledge systems, extension education, extension research and extension sci-
ence. A new definition for extension emerges from these debates.
The second paper by K. L. Heong and colleagues describes a rare discovery – a
simple technology, in this case a practice, that can be spread widely amongst farmers
that brings both economic and environmental benefits. The problem is that many