Why conservation efforts often fail
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Modern conservation techniques have brought us the resurgence of
American bald eagles, sustainable forest harvests and the rescue of prized lobster fisheries. So how can
modern conservation strategies also have wrought such failures, from the catastrophic loss of Guatemalan
forests to the economy-crippling Klamath River salmon kill in 2006?
In this week's special issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
(online), Indiana University political scientist Elinor Ostrom and colleagues argue that while many basic
conservation strategies are sound, their use is often flawed. The strategies are applied too generally, they
say, as an inflexible, regulatory "blueprint" that foolishly ignores local customs, economics and politics.
Arthur F. Bentley Professor of Political Science Elinor
Ostrom
"We now ridicule the doctors who long ago used to tell us, 'Take two aspirin and call me
in the morning' as a treatment for every single illness," said Ostrom, a member of the National Academy of
Sciences. "Resource management is just as complex as the human body. It needs to be approached differently
in different situations."
In her own contribution, Ostrom proposes a flexible "framework" for determining what factors
will influence resource management, whether that resource is forest, fish... even air. Ostrom edited the
special issue with Arizona State University's Macro Janssen and John Anderies.
"What we are learning is that you shouldn't ignore what's going on at the local level,"
Ostrom said. "It may even be beneficial to work with local people, including the resource exploiters, to
create effective regulation."
Modern conservation theory relies on well established mathematical models that predict what
will happen to a species or habitat over time. One thing these models can't account for are the
unpredictable behavior of human beings whose lives influence and are influenced by conservation efforts.
The framework is divided into tiers that allow conservationists and policymakers to delineate
those factors most likely to affect the protection or management of a given resource.
The first tier imposes four broad variables: the resource system, the resource units, the
governance system and the resource users. The second tier examines each of these variables in greater
detail, such as the government and non-government entities that may already be regulating the resource, the
innate productivity of a resource system, the size and placement of the system, the system's economic value
and what sorts of people use the resource -- from indigenous people to heads of state. The third tier digs
even deeper into each of the basic variables.
"I admit it's ambitious," Ostrom said. "It lays out a research program for the next 15-20
years."
Applying Ostrom's framework, policymakers are encouraged first to examine the behaviors of
resource users, then establish incentives for resource users to aid a conservation strategy or, at least,
not interfere with it.
Ostrom's framework could also serve to normalize the effects of political upheavals that
occur regularly at both national and state/provincial levels. It also accommodates non-political changes
that may come with economic development and environmental change. In short, the framework's flexibility
would allow the resource managers to modify a plan without scrapping the plan entirely.
"Government is short-term," said former Indiana State Forester Burnell Fischer, now a
clinical professor at the IU School of Public and Environmental Affairs. "Governors come and go, appointing
new staff and creating new policies for state resource management. We never had much time to study problems,
so with regard to sorting out problems, we usually go for some kind of short term analysis or just make a
decision based on local experience."
Ostrom is the co-director of the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis at IU
Bloomington. She and special issue co-editors Janssen and Anderies are also affiliated with the Arizona
State University School of Human Evolution and Social Change.
Ostrom's research was supported by grants from the National Science Foundation, the Ford
Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation.
To speak with Ostrom or Fischer, please contact Nicole Todd, Workshop in Political
Theory and Policy Analysis, at 812-855-7704 or stodd@indiana.edu, or David Bricker, IU Media Relations, at 812-856-9035
or brickerd@indiana.edu.
[Indiana University press
release, September 2007]
Emilio F. Moran Awarded Distinguished Professorship
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| Emilio Moran |
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As an anthropologist, Emilio Moran has always been concerned with how people and the environment interact in complex and sometimes
unanticipated ways. His more than 30 years of scholarly study of that interaction have put him at the forefront of a new
interdisciplinary field: environmental anthropology. "When we think of pioneers in ecological/environmental anthropology, Dr. Moran
is certainly one of them," says Robert E. Rhoades, Distinguished Research Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the
University of Georgia. "He is addressing some of the most challenging theoretical issues that anthropology needs to address and is
doing so with great rigor."
Moran's extensive work in the area of global environmental change has brought him international recognition. While studying Amazonian
populations and land use in Brazil, his work with local communities led him to focus on the social causes of tropical deforestation.
His research on the changing ecosystems of Amazonia has become a model for interdisciplinary collaboration, helping bridge the gap
between the social and biophysical sciences. "Indeed, in many ways he has been instrumental in not only defining and expanding our
contemporary understanding of what ecological anthropology is, and should be, but also in setting standards for large-scale,
integrative social science," says Jeanne Sept, vice provost for academic affairs and dean of the faculties at IU Bloomington.
Moran is one of only a few anthropologists worldwide who have addressed the importance of the human dimensions of global
environmental change. His research into the human causes and consequences of environmental change ultimately debunked some
long-standing myths about human interaction with the environment, such as the idea that the soils of the humid tropics are uniformly
poor or that human population growth drives deforestation. He is also widely recognized as one of the first social scientists to
integrate the use of satellite remote sensing and geographic information systems (GIS) into anthropological research. His use of
remote sensing and GIS to help map changes over time in land-use practices added new technologies to traditional research
methodologies, providing new insight into the dynamics of human-environment interaction.
Moran's ability to obtain funding for his work is unmatched among his peers. In the past 15 years at IU, his research has received
more than $18 million in external grant funding-an extraordinary figure for a social scientist. His research has been supported by
most major grant agencies, including the National Institutes of Health, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the
National Science Foundation, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the Social Science Research Council. His
publication record reflects his remarkable productivity, with seven books and monographs, 12 edited and co-edited volumes, and 144
research articles to his credit. He has also served on the editorial boards of 16 national and international journals and presses.
Moran has received numerous awards and honors. In 1985, he was elected as an American Association for the Advancement of Science
Fellow. He received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1989, and in 1999 was elected as a Linnean Society of London Fellow. Most recently, in
2002, he received the prestigious Robert McC. Netting Award from the American Association of Geographers in recognition of his work
to bridge geography and anthropology. He is also a Fellow of the American Anthropological Association and the Society for Applied
Anthropology.
Despite the demands of his intense research agenda, Moran has remained committed to educating the scholars of the future. He has
established two internationally recognized research centers on the IU Bloomington campus, both of which he directs: the
Anthropological Center for Training and Research on Global Environmental Change (ACT) and the Center for the Study of Institutions,
Population, and Environmental Change (CIPEC). The centers, which are funded through external grants, serve as training grounds for
young researchers studying global environmental change.
"Emilio Moran is more than an outstanding scholar. He is an institution builder and educational leader," says Gary D. Libecap, Donald
Bren Distinguished Professor of Corporate Environmental Management at the University of California, Santa Barbara. "In a time of
concern about global environmental change, he is bringing new insights and approaches for our understanding of the processes
involved, the adaptations required, and ways in which societies can mitigate harmful effects." His colleagues who formed the
committee nominating him for distinguished rank summed up his talents: ". . . it is his ability to successfully blend analytical
constructs across spatial science, population studies, ecological and environmental studies, as well as anthropological perspectives
and empiricism that makes his contributions to knowledge so profound and important."
[Indiana University press release, March 2007]
Ostrom and Nagendra Receive Cozzarelli Prize
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| Elinor Ostrom (left) and Harini Nagendra |
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Elinor Ostrom and Harini Nagendra, research associates of the Center for the Study of Institutions, Population, and
Environmental Change (CIPEC) at Indiana University Bloomington, have been awarded the Cozzarelli Prize from the
Editorial Board of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS)
for their December 2006 article "Insights on linking forests, trees, and people from the air, on the ground, and in the
laboratory." The Cozzarelli Prize is an annual award that recognizes recently published PNAS papers of outstanding
scientific excellence and originality. The award is named for PNAS's late Editor-in-Chief Nick Cozzarelli, whose
"motto was 'Blast ahead,' as he encouraged researchers to push the envelope of discovery."
The article provides an overview of findings from a long-term interdisciplinary, multiscale, international research
program that analyzes the institutional factors affecting forests managed under a variety of tenure arrangements.
The program analyzes satellite images, conducts social-ecological measurements on the ground, and tests the impact
of structural variables on human decisions in experimental laboratories. Evidence from all three research methods
challenges the presumption that a single governance arrangement will control overharvesting in all settings.
Dr. Ostrom is co-director of the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis at Indiana University and founding
director of the Center for the Study of Institutional Diversity at Arizona State University.
Dr. Nagendra is the Asia research coordinator for CIPEC and adjunct fellow with Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment
in Bangalore, India. CIPEC staff Joanna Broderick, editor, and Sean Sweeney, remote sensing specialist, aided in the
technical aspects of creating the article. The majority of funding during the many years of research that provided
the data for this article and more recent support for writing the article came from the Ford Foundation, the
MacArthur Foundation, the National Science Foundation, and a Branco Weiss Fellowship.
See
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-02/potn-pa2022007.php
for information about all 2006 Cozzarelli Prizes. Links to articles require subscription to PNAS.
[Indiana University press release, February 2007]
National Science Foundation Awards Grant to CIPEC, January 2007-December 2009
Dynamics of Reforestation in Coupled Social-Ecological Systems: Modeling Land-Use Decision Making and Policy
Impacts
PI: Tom Evans
Co-PIs: Emilio Moran, Catherine Tucker, Kelly Caylor, Burnell Fischer
CIPEC started a new three-year project to examine the process of reforestation in Indiana (USA) and the state of São
Paolo (Brazil) in January 2007. This project, awarded by the NSF Human and Social Dynamics competition, will address
how the interactions between actors at different levels (local, state, federal) contribute to changes in land-use
decision making that result in forest restoration and protection.
The project will examine the following research questions:
- How do biophysical conditions constrain or enable land-use decisions that generate different
reforestation trajectories?
- What roles do historical legacies, path dependence, and initial conditions play in determining
reforestation trajectories?
- What is the relative influence of biophysical vs. social factors in different geographic locations?
- What are the dynamics of physical, economic, and political change that lead to the emergence of effective
institutions and enforcement for forest protection and restoration?
- How do spatial interactions between private landholders and government, land trust, and NGO actors affect
local-level process of reforestation?
Both Indiana and São Paulo share a long history of settlement from the early 19th century that included rapid
deforestation trajectories followed by rural-to-urban migration processes. Forest cover in both states has increased
since the time of peak deforestation, albeit more dramatically in Indiana than São Paulo thus far. Major differences
exist in the rates and timing of deforestation and restoration within and between the two states. These differences
depend on the legal contexts of land tenure and creation of conservation areas and easements, and on the role of
various actors in the process of conservation and restoration.
Research has examined factors contributing to deforestation across a number of ecosystem types. This project will
examine the neglected question of what factors contribute to a decline in the rate of deforestation and what dynamic
feedbacks and forces eventually lead to a process of reforestation. Forest Transition Theory suggests that shifts in
civil society and government regulations make the transition from deforestation to reforestation possible. We will
expand this theory to determine how the dynamics of deforestation and reforestation changes are affected by both
local-level stakeholders and state and federal agents of change. Agent-based models of land-cover change will be
developed that incorporate complex forest dynamics and actors at multiple management levels.
The project will contribute to an understanding of how regions transition from being dominated by deforestation to
reforestation and restoration. It will also contribute to the methodological development of agent-based models of
land-use change coupled with complex models of forest dynamics in two types of ecosystems.
Announcement on NSF website:
http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward.do?AwardNumber=0624178.
Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research (IAI) Awards Collaborative Research Grant to CIPEC
Effective Adaptation Strategies and Risk Reduction towards Economic and Climatic Shocks: Lessons from the
Coffee Crisis in Mesoamerica
PI: Edwin Castellanos
CO-PIs: Rafael Diaz-Porras, Hallie Eakin, Helda Morales, Catherine Tucker
This four-year research project is an expansion of a study undertaken in 2002-2003 with CIPEC and IAI funding. The
new project will compare and evaluate coffee farmers' adaptations to market shocks and climate change processes in
Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and Costa Rica. Part of the research will explore the impacts of local and national
initiatives to improve incomes from coffee, as well as the roles of NGOs. Catherine Tucker of CIPEC will work with
co-investigators Edwin Castellanos (Universidad del Valle de Guatemala), and Hallie Eakin (University of California
at Santa Barbara).
The initial stage of research in Honduras was carried out in 2006 by Catherine Tucker and a multidisciplinary team
of graduate students and Honduran scientists. The Honduran coffee institute (IHCAFE) has provided logistical
support; it appears likely that a collaborative arrangement will be arranged for the next three years of the
project. Given the importance of coffee for the national economy, the project has generated broad interest among
coffee-growing organizations and the media in Honduras. During the fieldwork, Tucker was interviewed for a radio
program that discusses current events and issues. The program was broadcast throughout western Honduras. "La
Prensa," one of Honduras' largest newspapers, then interviewed M. Moreno, a Honduran scientist involved in the
project. She has also been asked to write an article for the paper. Study results are expected to reveal the types
of adaptations and program initiatives that prove most effective for coffee farmers under current volatile market
and climate conditions.
408 North Indiana Avenue, Bloomington, IN 47408-3799
Phone: (812) 855-2230
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Fax: (812) 855-2634
Last Updated: 22 March 2007
Comments: cipec@indiana.edu
Copyright
2007, The Trustees of Indiana
University.
