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Companion Modelling (Commod) is a participatory approach designed to facilitate integrated renewable resource management (IRRM), coordination and negotiation processes, and collective learning and action among heterogeneous stakeholders facing a common concrete resource management problem (land degradation, water sharing, biodiversity conservation, etc.) at the village community or regional levels. This innovative Commod methodology organizes the co-construction of a shared representation of the problem and the collective exploration of selected scenarios of the future. Commod is combining different research tools such as syntheses on existing knowledge, complementary field surveys, role-playing games and multi-agent simulations.

Commod has been tested and adapted at a dozen of pilot sites in five SE Asian countries over the last five years and more than 40 case studies using this approach are currently being developed globally.

The seminar will present the justification for using this approach for IRRM in complex agroecosystems, as well as its key principles and original characteristics. The talk will be illustrated by the results of a pilot experiment aiming at the mitigation of land degradation and social inequity processes in the highlands of upper northern Thailand. The lessons from recent case studies and the research perspectives to further improve the Commod approach will also be examined