Table 5. Strengths and limitations of different conflict management mechanisms.   Conflict management systems Strengths Limitations Social capital mechanisms Encourages participation by community members and respect of local values and customs   Provides familiarity of past experience   Can be more accessible because of low cost, use of local language, flexibility in scheduling   Decision-making is often based on collaboration, with consensus emerging from wide-ranging discussions, often fostering local reconciliation   Contributes to a process of community self reliance and empowerment Not all people have equal access to customary conflict management practices owning to gender, class, caste, ethnic or other discrimination   Courts and administrative law have supplanted authorities that lack legal recognition   Communities are becoming more mixed, resulting in weakened authority and social relationships   Often cannot accommodate conflicts among different communities, or between communities and government structures, or external organizations       Legal and administrative systems (Policy) Officially established with supposedly well-defined procedures   Takes national interests, concerns and issues into consideration   Decisions are legally binding. Often inaccessible to the poor, women, marginalized groups and remote communities because of the cost, distance, language barriers, illiteracy and political discrimination   Judicial and technical specialists often lack expertise, skills or interest in participatory natural resource management       Alternative conflict management systems (Synergy approach) Promotes conflict management and resolution by building on shared interests and finding points of agreement   Processes resemble those already existing in many conflict management systems   Low cost and flexible   Fosters a sense of ownership in the solution and its process of implementation   Emphasizes building capacity within communities so local people become more effective facilitators and handlers of conflict. May encounter difficulties in getting all stakeholders to the bargaining table   May not be able to overcome power differences among stakeholders in that some groups remain marginalized   Decisions may not always be legally binding   Some practitioners may try to use methods developed in other countries without adapting them to the local contexts Source: Adapted from Means et al (2003)