Expressing agency in antagonistic policy environments

Studies have shown how centralized institutions in resource management lead to adverse impacts on communities. However, important questions remain about the mechanisms through which people thrive under unfavorable policy environments. This paper examines how locals around the Mount Cameroon National Park (MCNP) carve space for articulating their agency despite unsympathetic management initiatives. Using focus group discussions and thematic analysis of data from 17 villages, the results identified arrangements that do not entirely solicit local consent in natural resource management. In this context, locals express their agency holding onto cultural traditions through religious engagement and the use of economic incentives to enhance livelihoods. They do so with the aid of traditional institutions, awareness of system challenges, acting more wisely, and initiating constructive needs in remote areas.