New blog to check out!

I thought I would take the opportunity to promote a new blog authored by my partner, Elaine Grimm:

http://common-s-knowledge.blogspot.com/

She works with the Foundation for Ecological Security (here in India) and studies common property resources in general, as well. This blog looks at topics in common property resource management and other related topics, like poverty and environment linkages. It is already a great resource for these topics and more.

Definitely check it out.

Plan to attend this fantastic conference!

It has again been too long since my last update. Frequent travel and inconsistent internet access have made it difficult to post as much as I would like. I do have some updates and photos to share of recent travels and experience at home in Madanapalle. These will be up soon!

The Foundation for Ecological Security (FES) and the International Association for the Study of the Commons are hosting the International Conference on Commons in January 2011 in India. Plans are still in the works, but the conference will certainly feature fantastic resources for practitioners and researchers alike in the fields of natural resource management and rural development. The details as of yet are feature below; they are taken from an FES blog that you should also check-out: http://subratasingh-fes.blogspot.com/2009/09/13th-biennial-conference-of.html

13th Biennial Conference of the

International Association for the Study of Commons (IASC)

(www.iasc2011.fes.org.in)

The conference will be hosted by Foundation for Ecological Security (FES), an organization that has been involved in assisting the management and governance of Common Property Land Resources since 1986. By working with 1500 village institutions spread across diverse ecosystems of six provinces in the country over the last 22 years, FES is recognized for its activities around commons. FES has been an institutional member of the International Association for the Study of Common Property (IASC) since 1999 and has been a regular participant in the biennial conferences.

Holding the International Conference on Commons in India in January 2011 would provide a unique opportunity to resurface the discussion and debate on commons, bringing international experience and evidence from across the world to show that the commons are not a relic of the past, but can play a strategic role in maintaining ecological health, reducing poverty, and improving collective action. By placing the conference agenda in the ongoing discussions around conservation, local governance, human rights, agrarian distress and rural livelihoods in general, we encourage several networks of practitioner organizations to leverage this opportunity to both integrate their ongoing activities with other streams as well as mainstream commons into their nature of work. By pitching it at the interface of policy and practice; research and action; conservation and development we aim to bring several players to a common meeting ground which would in turn help in sustaining the process beyond the conference. By strategically leveraging the conference, we aim to influence larger policy and programmatic focus in the 12th five year Plan (2012 –2017). The conference is not intended to be a one-time event, but a key piece in a longer process of raising attention on the commons.

Conference Chair: Nitin Desai

Mr. Nitin Desai has served as a Senior Economic Adviser for the World Commission on Environment and Development. He served as Deputy Secretary-General of the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) and later in 2002 he served as the Secretary General of the World Summit on Sustainable Development (Rio+10). He is also on the Governing Council of the Stockholm Environment Institute and a member of the Commonwealth Secretariat Expert Group on Climate Change. He is involved in the Helsinki process on globalisation and democracy.

Conference Co Chair: Jagdeesh Puppala

Jagdeesh is presently the Chief Executive of the Foundation for Ecological Security (FES).

About FOUNDATION FOR ECOLOGICAL SECURITY

The Foundation for Ecological Security promotes the conservation and sustainable management of natural resources, forests and water in particular, through local self governance institutions. The crux of our efforts lie in locating forests and other natural resources within the prevailing economic, social and ecological demands at the level of villages and village conglomerates and in intertwining principles of conservation and local self governance for the safeguard of the natural surroundings and improvement in the living conditions of the poor. By working on systemic issues that can bring about a multiplier change we try to bring in a gestalt that establishes inter-linkages between ecological, social and economic realities.

Details: www.fes.org.in

Contact: ed@fes.org.in

About IASC

The International Association for the Study of the Commons (IASC) is the leading professional association dedicated to the study of the commons. By bringing researchers from different disciplines together with practitioners and policymakers, the association aims to improve general understanding of shared resources (commons) and provide sustainable solutions for related issues.

IASC’s goals are to

• encourage exchange of knowledge among diverse disciplines, world areas, and resource types

• foster mutual exchange of scholarship and practical experience, and

• promote appropriate institutional design

Details: www.iascp.org

Contact: iasc@iasc-commons.org

A complex of issues in aligning natural resource policy with human development

A recent Economist article highlights some very important policy and philosophical issues in natural resource management: those concerning what is permissible and prudent for a government to do to protect fragile ecosystems.

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.

Update from the Field

After over a month since my last post, we are now back in the field taking more data. The farmers are troubled by severe drought. Most crops are expected to fail, and farming households are depending on federally subsidized wage employment for livelihoods. Greater pressure on forests from households also seems to be resulting from the failing agriculture. Households will collect more fuelwood to sell in local markets to make-up for the lost income from crops.

Over the next week, we'll hold a workshop on modeling human and natural systems in the near-by Horsely Hills field station. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horsley_Hills

FES team members from all around India will attend, as well as a few faculty from Wash-U. Natural and social scientists will work together to understand the intersections of the human and natural systems at work in the area. Understanding these phenomena will help FES intervene in the habitations and ecosystems with even greater success. It is exciting to start this work, and a video of our recent field work is below.

First Field Visit

We recently made our first visit to take initial data in Boyapalle, our study habitation. Villagers in Boyapalle are heavily forest dependent for fuel and for income via the sale of forest products. We'll be exploring their problems around declining forest biomass.

The photos above are of Boyapalle and us meeting with the villagers to begin discussions around problems with the forest.

Forest Fires

People in the rural areas surrounding Madanapalle are dependent upon local forests for their basic daily needs, including fuelwood for cooking and boiling water, grasses for grazing livestock, collection of various small products to sell for income, e.g. fruits, tendu leaves for making local cigarettes, and many others. Integration with forests for livelihoods has led to traditional forest management practices, including setting fires. One reason people set fire to parts of forests is to burn tall grasses so that as the grasses grow back, they are more palatable to livestock in the early stages of growth. In times past, when forest ecosystems were more healthy and vibrant, the impact on forests of setting fire was probably marginal. Now, after forest degradation has occured for a variety of reasons, setting fires can significantly damage fragile forest ecosystems. This is not only bad for the fauna and flora, but also for local farmers and peoples who rely on forests. This is one among many significant challenges faced in natural resource management and rural development in this area. Here are a few photos of a forest fire set on a hill nearby my home.

More Wildlife from the Back Porch

Here are some more photos of wildlife - really just birds - that I took from the back porch. As I get out into the field more, I hope to add more variety in the kinds of wildlife I shoot. Birds are most available from the porch.