http://www.economist.com/world/mideast-africa/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14183069
To sum it up (although I recommend reading this article!), an indigenous ethnic group in Botswana - the San Bushmen - had been granted, on paper, prospects of hunting in their traditional lands of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR). Despite this legal success, few, if any, hunters have been granted legal permission to actually hunt in the reserve. Futhermore, several hunters have been recently convicted of illegal hunting in the reserve and prosecuted for this crime, as they were hunting without a permit. This example points to a complex of factors - policy-related and philosophical - that must be taken seriously when deciding how to make natural resource use policy, especially when measures of restriction to lands are on the table.
The philosophical factors of this problem concern whether or not a government has the right to restrict people from use of their traditionally important lands for either of two value-bound reasons: 1) to protect the ecosystems of that land from what damage might obtain from human use; 2) to promote the wellbeing of those who may seek to use said land. Both of these reasons factor into the Botswanan government's arguments for restricting the Kalahari San Bushmen's access to, and use of, the CKGR.
These reasons are duly taken seriously in policy and philosophy circles. Many in the environmental movement would argue that ecosystems are the heritage of all people on earth, not just those living proximate to it. Further, there is the argument that an ecosystem itself may be an object of ethical significance. Both of these arguments have led to the policy goal of protecting (also perhaps restoring or conserving) ecosystems. The second reason is an example of the paternalistic approach to justifying policy. Although harsh sounding in name, paternalism - the view that it is permissible to restrict its citizen's liberty for their own wellbeing - as a policy approach is not at all uncommon. A popular and uncontroversial example in the U.S. includes mandatory seatbelt laws. In this case, the claim is that San Bushman are led into a lifestyle of poverty with scarce feasible livelihood opportunities if given permission to hunt in the CKRG.
The policy concerns around such issues are equally complicated. Will restrictive policies actually keep the San, or anyone else for that matter, out of CKRG? Is there any evidence that such restrictive policies benefit ecosystems including those of the CKRG? Also, is there any evidence that the San might do better if they are restricted from pursuing livelihoods based on hunting in CKRG? Unfortunately, in so many cases the world over there is no evidence that these policy outcomes obtain from restricting people from the lands they are accustomed to living on. So, despite the philosophical problems raised above, empirical evidence must be brought to bear on how likely restrictive policies are to achieve their desired goals, and on the possible unintended consequences of these policies for ecosystems and people.
There is also a flip side to each of the philosophical coins introduced here. On the flip-side of the paternalistic argument to keep the San from hunting in the CKRG, we must also consider whether the San Bushmen, or other groups in similar situations, have the right to determine their own course of action in land-use and provision of livelihood opportunities. On the flip side of protecting ecosystems, there is also the serious view that people who are most proximate to, interact with most, and have the greatest stake in ecosystems should have more of a say in how they are managed, despite their value to others.
As for the view that ecosystems themselves are ethically significant: a colleague of mine tells a story about working on a conservation project in Nepal wherein local peoples said that although they would like to participate in conserving ecosystems, it was difficult to concentrate on this task with empty stomachs. That is, when people's daily needs are not met and quality of life is low, they will certainly use ecosystems to survive over conserving them, no matter how much they also might want to protect the lands they love.
Unfortunately, natural resource policy is not often enough made on the basis of evidence nor on genuine philosophical grounds, but instead for reaching political ends. Ecosystem conservation, while entirely important, is often carried out in developing nations to please international donors or to veil, however thinly, commercial interest in keeping natural resources abundant and healthy, as in the case of forest conservation for timber value in South Asia. In the Botswana case, the Economist speculates that the government's agenda is one of forcible advancement of the San due to embarrassment in the government over their traditional ways, something that is feared might cloud the image of success portrayed by Botswana in other sectors.
Human development and ecosystem conservation are both worthy, nay necessary, policy aims and can be met simultaneously if carried out wisely. The kind of wisdom necessary to meet these aims, however, will come from alignment of natural resource and social welfare policy that is informed by evidence and not politics.
The September issue of National Geographic has an article on Somalia that makes a similar point about resource management. The Somalis who are already suffering from the effects of ecological degradation are making their situation worse by destroying their forests to make char coal to sell to Persian Gulf countries--countries which must import char coal because they have laws protecting their own forests. It isn't that the Somali's don't know that their actions endanger their future well-being, nor that they don't care about ecology. The problem is that, right now, it is the only way to put food on the table. It's hard to worry about tomorrow when you're not sure how you will make it through today.
ReplyDeleteWith regard to other issues your raise, they are certainly complicated and there are no easy answers. But from my own perspective, I think it is perfectly legitimate to for the global community to impose certain general goals or values, like resource preservation, on indigenous peoples. However, my suspicion is that such goals and values generally don't have to be *imposed*, at least not in any menacing way. As you point out, it isn't as if the San Bushmen nor most other indigenous people want to see their local ecology destroyed. If that is the case, then perhaps the best way to handle it is to involve them in policy development, implementation and enforcement. If we can all agree on the goal of resource preservation, then it would seem that the local people can and should be involved in developing plans to preserve and protect those resources. But along with the responsibility for making policy comes the responsibility for the success or failure of those policies. If the resource management policy isn't meeting its intended goals, then it has to be revised.
Putting the two issues together, one cannot draw a distinction between resource preservation and humanitarian assistance. Part of preserving ecology is insuring that the people living in that ecology have adequate resources for survival. You won't successfully save the environment while neglecting the people that live in it. A true environmentalist must also be a true humanitarian.
Tucker -
ReplyDeleteSo right on many accounts. I especially like the language of your last paragraph. It is all too true that exclusionist resource preservation policies won't work without inclusion of people most directly affected by those resources. There is a mountain of evidence for this.
I think an interesting policy question arises here though. What happens if in including local peoples in resource preservation, the outcomes they seek do not align with the resource goals of outside bodies, like international NGOs, governments (local, state, national, and even governments of other nations), etc? For instance, I think many resource-dependent groups of poor people look for assistance in ways to help preserve the resources they depend on for that very reason, their dependence. So, interventions to improve ecologies often work well when the local, resource dependent people are dealing with a scarcity of some kind.
The interventions to alleviate scarcity often abate environmental problems, e.g. tree felling for the purpose of fuelwood. However, they also often do not obtain an environmentally-ideal level of resource preservation. It is often the case that such groups do not feel an incentive or desire to halt environmentally dangerous activities fully, even if doing so is necessary to meet important environmental goals. For example, there is a team of researchers working in China on curbing destruction of giant panda habitat. The prime cause of habitat destruction is tree felling for fuelwood. There have been some measures put in place to help with this, the primary of which is diffusion of electricity so that local households can cook using electric devices instead of depending on their own stoves. People do use the electric stoves, and this helps to reduce the amount of fuelwood consumed. However, people have not stopped using fuelwood altogether, and their use is still at a rate that will damage panda habitat significantly.
Although it hasn't come out in their research yet, I am willing to bet that the people concerned will never stop using fuelwood if given the choice.
Such is the case in my research. We also work on ways to reduce fuelwood dependence, but people tell me all the time that they won't stop using fuelwood no matter what, even if alternatives are there, because they just prefer using the fuelwood. They also use the alternatives, which are very beneficial. Nonetheless, consuming fuelwood is nice for them too for many reasons, more than anything because it is a tried and true means of getting energy for cooking. They have a hard time trusting the alternatives provided, and they are also imbedded in a long, intergenerational trend of using fuelwood. I recently asked a villager when she would stop taking fuelwood from the forest, and she replied that she would stop when the forest was gone!
The interventions good NGOs use involve building norms and ethics around resource preservation, mixed in with presentations of studies showing how finite the resources really are. It has worked to an extent, but people are still fairly committed to using fuelwood in some capacity or another.
Some biomass assessments have advised that certain parts of the forest should be closed to all use for some time in order to allow for regeneration. But anyone here on the ground knows that that it impossible,
So, it is hard to say what to do...