Using the Site

About the Documents in the Dynamic Knowledge Base

The Dynamic Knowledge Base is a collection of documents produced by the association AGTER and its members, or by its individual and institutional partners. It is not intended to address general background information related to the governance of land and natural resources.

There documents are organised in two ways:

• Individual articles, indexed for easy access

• Folders, which contain several articles related to a common theme and structured analysis.

The folders are typically developed by teams, often through partnerships between AGTER and other organisations.

The collection is multilingual, with three principal working languages, each with their own interface: French, English and Spanish. Some documents in other languages are also available; Portuguese, Chinese, african languages, for the moment. A search in any one language-interface will return links to related documents available in other languages, even if they are not available in the language of your search. For instance, a search performed while using the French interface may return documents in English or Spanish, because they are relevant to the search terms but not available in French.

A Unique Collection: Explore, Discover, and Learn to Address Challenging Issues in the 21st Century

These days it is easy to find a great deal of information and documents of various kinds. It is, however, much more difficult to quickly access pertinent information that enables the researcher to deepen their knowledge. It was from this observation that AGTER was created in 2005, composed of individual and institutional members of different origins. Its objective is to contribute to the development of new forms of natural resource management adapted to 21st century challenges. This, through a continuous process of collective reflection and learning, is intended to help all concerned–whether from civil society or international and national institutions–to formulate propositions and to put them into practice.

The collection does not necessarily provide completed, conclusive studies. Rather, it offers multiple and different perspectives, with documents organised in such a way that the visitor may form their own opinions.

Information is cataloged according to several major challenges of the 21st century related to natural resource government. Each is broken down into more specific points.

The intention is not to propose solutions to address these challenges, nor to expand upon the challenges. That would be a huge undertaking beyond the means of our association. Much more humbly, we simply identify ties between documents and the different challenges. It is then up to the reader to determine whether the consulted documents help develop appropriate questions, find potential answers, and make propositions that could address these aforementioned challenges.

AGTER invites visitors to explore, whenever possible, by proposing links to other articles that address similar subjects in other countries or continents. It is indeed on the basis of these comparisons, by putting into perspective conclusions from one experience in a particular context to another, that one may develop their own understanding. The map to the right enables visitors, when the information is available, to partake in instrumental virtual journeys. By hovering the mouse over the stars, the visitor can see key information related to a specific theme in different geographic locations that invite them to explore further.

AGTER also invites visitors to explore three dimensions of governance, identified as fundamental through the work of its members:

• The spatial dimention, from local to national to global. What works at one level may not transfer to another, whether technically or politically, considering the different modes of decision-making and responsibilities.

• The temporal dimension, which reflects a historical perspective. What we observe at a given moment is but the frozen expression of a process in constant evolution. Without recognising this evolution, it is common to err seriously in our interpretations.

• The societal dimension. There are many forms of social, economic and political organisation. It isn’t necessarily possible to transpose them from one place to another, nor from one era to another, but it is important to be aware of them.

This specific framework thus presents suggestions, in the form of links, to other articles. This permits the reader to address these questions and issues in a practical and concrete manner, rather than in the theoretical or abstract. It is another way to travel through the website, the goal of which is to enable the reader to continue in their discovery of natural resource government.

The collection is dynamic for two distinct reasons. On one hand, it is designed as a tool that enables the reader to travel through space, time, and forms of social organisation. On the other, it evolves constantly with the incorporation of new articles and folders. Links between documents are regularly updated by AGTER’s team, in keeping with the process of collective reflection.

Search Aids for Pertinent Information

To offer visitors a quick and easy reading of the documents, they are mostly displayed in plain text. They are also printable using the print function of your web browser, and downloadable at the bottom of the page. In some cases, the downloadable documents have been purposefully designed for print or pdf format.

Several menus in the navigation bar at the top of each page enable a precise search at any time:

• By folder

• By resource

• By geographic zone

• By major challenge (which redirects to the home page).

Multiple search functions are also available.

1) Two different search methods are found towards the right of the top navigation bar :

• A search for titles, subtitles and authors, within both AGTER websites: the document collection that you are currently in; and the association’s general website (www.agter.asso.fr), which presents AGTER’s work up to the end of 2013, as well as summaries of the association’s specific activities.

• A general text search amongst all the articles in the document collection, using the search engine Google.

2) At the bottom of each page, clicking the link AGTER is part of the Coredem, you can extend your search within a community of resource sites focused on world democracy. It includes 25 different sites united in their common approach to production of knowledge and reflection, and supported in those efforts by the Charles Léopold Mayer Foundation for the Progress of Humankind.

We hope to serve you well in your research–be you a farmer, politician, activist or researcher–in order to disseminate vital information to the four corners of the earth.

The information available in the collection is intended to be shared and disseminated. For more information about the rights and restrictions of these data, open the Creative Commons license window, located at the bottom of each page.