Working Title

In thinking through a culled down topic for the semester project, the working title I'd like to start with is: "Adaptive Governance in Social-Ecological Systems: Biodiversity Conservation and Property Rights"

The Commons, Sans Tragedy -- (Dietz 2003)

What if Garrett Hardin was wrong?  What if the “Tragedy of the Commons” (1968) was an oversimplified analogy unreflective of the true system complexity? 

If Dietz et al (2003) is to be believed, Hardin’s oversimplification was twofold.  First, Hardin makes the assumption that centralized government and private property were the only two institutions which could sustain commons over the long run.  Two, he presumed that resource users were trapped in a commons dilemma unable to take collective action. 

But this does not reflect general reality.  Traditional societies have sustainably managed their common-pool resources for centuries through the development and maintenance of self-governing institutions.  In a word, they self-organize.

 

This self-organization, despite a lack of central command-and-control or the western notion of private property, has contributed to social learning, adaptation and a capacity to deal with uncertainty.  More succinctly put, Hardin’s metaphorical herders, rather than spiraling toward tragedy, were actually engaged in a sophisticated form of resource management now known as adaptive governance. 

Dietz, T., E. Ostrom, and P.C. Stern. 2003. "The struggle to govern the commons." Science no. 302 (5652):1907.

Hardin, Garrett. 1968. "The Tragedy of the Commons." Science:pp 1243-1248.

Rural Development from Above, Almost – (Honadle 2011)

This article is an apt follow-up to the previous post. 

Boiled down, the argument Honadle makes is that the Rural Collaborative Investment Program (RCIP) of 2008, although comprehensive and intended to give local communities and regions the “capacity” to “tailor” rural development programming, failed because it was never appropriated any funds. 

  

This piece not only brings up the question of top-down development and the method by which it failed, it also highlights the concept of bureaucratic  hierarchy and how policy affects distribution of resources (or in this case, the lack thereof). 

One further note of interest is the logical framework identified and used:

Input à output àpurpose à goal

“the purposeful application of inputs, certain activities will take place that convert those inputs or resources into outputs (goods, services, programs) and that—by doing this—an identifiable goal (s) will be achieved.”

Honadle, Beth Walter. 2011. "Rural development policy in the United States: a critical analysis and lessons from the “still birth” of the rural collaborative investment program." Community Development no. 42 (1):56-69. doi: 10.1080/15575330.2010.500393.

Is Top-Down or Bottom-up Context Dependent? -- (Black 1999)

In chapter two and three of her book, Jan Knippers Black both lays out a definition of development and briefly lists several recent, competing theoretical frameworks used in the creation of applied development models.  Both chapters are extremely useful to someone new to policy theory, such as myself.  However, with this writing I’d like to quickly examine a single subchapter, ‘Empowerment and Sustainability: An Alternate Vision.’  

The essence of this subchapter is to question the mainstream path of top-down development in favor of a bottom-up approach in the name of local empowerment.   The foundation of the idea being that a top-down approach measures value in “monetary terms” whereas the alternative approach “refused to see socioeconomic change as development unless it proves to be nurturing, liberating, even energizing to the unaffluent and unpowerful.” 

I personally tend to agree with this assertion.  However, I must confess that through my proposed research I intend to examine the efficacy of a top-down approach.  Not that that is now invalid, especially within US where my study is to be set.  Rather, this subchapter brings up questions that my project would benefit to address:  i) if the "unaffluent" and "unpowerful" have no voice (native flora and fauna), can a bottom-up approach be an effective medium for change?  And ii) how can this group become empowered and more importantly, valued appropriately?

One other point is worth noting as well.  According to Black, “The only reliable guardians of any ecological system are the people who know it, depend on it, and do not have the option of leaving.”  Again that may appropriate in the developing world, but does that same point translate to the US?  Particularly, what if many owners are absentee landholders who are neither local, have knowledge of the native ecosystem nor any cultural ties to the land?  Could a bottom-up approach achieve its goals in this context?

 

Black, Jan Knippers. 1999. Development in theory and practice : paradigms and paradoxes. 2nd ed. Boulder, Colo: Westview Press.

Nature and Post-Place Community -- (Bradshaw 2008)

Bradshaw’s definition of a post-place community, although poignant and accurate in regards to modern techno-societies, conspicuously fails to address the role of nature within said community.  Perhaps it is true that “community without propinquity” is entirely plausible for people, but ecosystems without propinquity are not.  This suggests that nature is not part of the post-place community. 

The big question then becomes, if social communities can be created and tightly bonded regardless of place, who then is responsible for protection of the commons?  Chasing the tail further, what then is the commons? 

Ontologically, this is a problem.  Communities cannot simultaneously be free from place and include nature as well. 

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Bradshaw, T.K. 2008. "The post-place community: Contributions to the debate about the definition of community." Community Development no. 39 (1):5-16.

Social Ecology -- Capra 1994

To Capra, the definition of life is to be self-organizing.  How self-organization is achieved is through networks (Capra 1994).  This is as true at the cellular level as it is at the level of an entire regional ecosystem. 

If Capra is to be believed, it is also true at the community level, or put another way, at the social level.  Often, those studying the network interconnections at this level refer to it as social ecology.  This is not to say that social ecology deals only with personal networks.  It does, but only as a small piece of a much more complex puzzle.  More to the point, community culture, interactions and decisions are grounded within the functionality of the ecosystem as a whole.

 

Two recently read “social ecology” articles offer Capra’s concepts some empirical support. 

The first is a case study of the small, rural, Mediterranean village of Ain, Spain by UT’s resident geoarcheologist Dr. Karl Butzer.  Through combined archeological and sociological methods, Dr. Butzer was able to show how the community itself was able to self-organize, make critical decisions in times of change and adapt to their surroundings whatever  the disturbance ie. Spanish civil war, prolonged drought, vineyard phlloxera, or most recently, the loss of its younger generation to larger cities.   Each disturbance and each reaction were, in essence, cycles of feedback loops (Butzer 2005).

The second study is set within a rural catchment basin in England and focuses on local governance and public participation in ecologically significant community decisions.  Above all else, what this study demonstrates is Capra’s notion of sustainability through interdependence.  Community decisions were both effected by and had an effect on the regional watershed ecosystem (Southern et al 2011). 

In sum, societal networks are inextricably tied to the ecological systems they inhabit.  One cannot be studied without the other.   

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Butzer, K.W. 2005. "Environmental history in the Mediterranean world: cross-disciplinary investigation of cause-and-effect for degradation and soil erosion." Journal of Archaeological Science no. 32 (12):1773-1800.

Capra, F. 1994. "Ecology and community." Retrieved June no. 15:2004.

Southern, Adrian, Andrew Lovett, Tim O'Riordan, and Andrew Watkinson. "Sustainable landscape governance: Lessons from a catchment based study in whole landscape design." Landscape and Urban Planning no. In Press, Corrected Proof. doi: 10.1016/j.landurbplan.2011.02.010.

"Importing Sustainability" -- Roseland 2000

By all current standards City Center Las Vegas is considered sustainable development.  Encompassing almost 17,000 mixed use sq ft and located in an urban core, it boasts 6 LEED Gold accredited buildings. Yet, when reading Roseland's article this is the project that sprung to mind as an exemplar of "importing sustainability (Roseland 2000 pg. 93)."

On its surface, sure, City Center is sustainable--at least our best accreditation agency to date says it is--and provides the local community with numerous jobs, both construction and long-term.  In our current state of large-scale unemployment, it is hard to argue against such 'green' projects.  But, dig only slightly deeper--just past the LEED horizon--and some basic questions remain unanswered.

For example, where will the water come from?  Will it continue to be "imported" to meet the demands of larger urban populations?  And at the expense of farmers or the native flora and fauna?  Subsequently, where will the food come from?  Will it too have to be "imported?"  In asking only these simple logistical questions it quickly becomes apparent that City Center is only as sustainable as its supply of affordable water and transportation.

Put simply, City Center was developed under the economic growth model, ie economic growth is always good, but it fails to account for system components as basic as local food and water.  As Roseland points out "Economic growth with an ecological deficit is anti-economic and makes us poorer rather than richer in the long-term (Roseland 2000 pg. 98; cited from Daly and Cobb, 1989)."

This is what I take away as the essence of Roseland's article, that we need a new model of development based not solely on the economics, but rather holistic in its view of interconnected linkages of society and nature.  In short, a development that makes much more wise use of our "natural" and "social capital."