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When something seems to go wrong with the environment, people often accept that the
government should take charge to protect it from people without asking is central control
any better?
There was a time when population was low and conservation wasn't really on people's minds.
Like in Nepal. Big mountains, Big cats, and diverse forests that people used for firewood
and animal feed. But as population began to rise, deforestation
started to become bigger problems. So in 1957 the government took control of
the forests to try and stop people from using them so much.
The plan: was to put it all under government ownership, take inventories of all the trees,
find out how much can uses and require people to have a permit to take anything from the forests.
Then they imprisoned or fined those who broke the rules.
Good plan?
No. Bad plan.
Bad government. You see, even though it wasn't in writing
the locals considered the forests their own property and they managed it themselves.
While conservation wasn't a big issue, in some places like the mountainous regions where
growth is slow, they had to work together to closely control how much they took and
how often. Other villages might make sure things were
distributed to people evenly. These institutions most likely weren't adapted
for the new demand on the forests. But after nationalization, most of the communes
that used to operate were basically split up since they didn't feel they owned the forests
anymore. What came after was no longer a matter of
trying to work together, but competing against each other.
You see, to get firewood or animal feed, they needed a permit.
But the permit offices were scattered and could take days to get to.
So most just risked the consequences and took products illegally.
And Nepal is made up of thousands of forests scattered over difficult terrain. Monitoring
of the new rules turned out to be basically impossible.
There fear of enforcement, but most illegal activity went unpunished and people generally
took what they wanted. Most people held some private land of their
own for agriculture and trees. But under the new laws, the government could
take private land if they felt it was necessary. For example: any land left unused for longer
than 2 years could be taken by the government. But just letting the land rest like this was
a common regenerative practice. Why should they lose their land for taking care of it.
So clearly rules like this need to be changed. But to change a rule, they would need to travel
to a forest office, convince them that the rule needs to be changed.
Carry that on to another level of government where a bunch of people in suits can deliberate.
And if that's all successful, then they need to communicate the change to the millions
of people in the secluded places all over the country.
This is way too much work to change 1 rule. But really, it's indicative of the inefficiency
of the whole plan. So it was all ultimately a failure.
After government control, the people didn't work, they couldn't work together because
the forests weren't technically theirs to manage and deforestation actually accelerated.
It wasn't that the government was incompetent, or evil. It's just, to implement the plan,
they needed to decide who could use it, when, how much, monitor everything and make sure
all the information on all these things was accurately.
And each forest and each community would need different considerations.
It's...expensive. And the people won't think it's fair when
an outsider comes in to try and claim the resource, even with good intentions.
And outsiders typically won't understand as much or care as much about a resource as those
who work with and rely on it. They're just too disconnected from the resource.
And the further away you look at someone or something from, the more you'll overlook the
way they really are. You might think one group of people are inherently
sensible and another are inherently incompetent. You'll be forced to work from theory, assumptions
and models like the tragedy of the commons and the prisoners dilemma.
Models like these are nice because they can explain different situations all over the
world. But their just metaphors that can tell you maybe 1 or 2 things.
Take this picture.... that I drew. It represents a person.
You can use it to describe a person in different situations.
But it doesn't really tell you anything about real people.
We would have to accept a lot of assumptions to use it literally, like people are 2 dimensional
faceless anorexics.... with no hands or genitals. We have to make a lot of assumptions to make
these models work too. And when policy makers assume that these assumptions
are true in real situations, they run into problems.
So we need a different approach. Let's check out here. Alanya Turkey. In the
1970s the fishery wasn't doing great. There were too many fishermen chasing fewer
and fewer fish People invested in boats and fishing equipment but there were so many people
fishing that there was no guarantee they would catch enough fish to make their money back.
So people would fight, physically, over the good fishing spots.
So the local fishing cooperative developed a system to make it fair.
The whole area was split up into fishing spots such that fishing in one spot wouldn't block
the migration of fish to the next spot. Every year, a list is produced of all the
licensed fishers and they are randomly assigned to a spot.
Then every day from september to january each fisher moves east to the next location. From
January to May, when the fish migration switches direction, they switch the direction of the
cycle to ensure everyone gets a fair chance. Monitoring people's compliance with the rules
came about naturally from the rotation system. Everybody knows where they're supposed to
be and if someone is in your spot, you'll know right away. Monitoring like this is almost
free. And they carry out the the punishment themselves too. If
they need to they can cut a fishermen's nets or kick them out of the system. But because
most people understand the system is beneficial to everyone, they usually they just need to
give them a warning. And most everyone just follows the rules.
And rules are easier to change because those who make the rules, are those who follow them.
If they meet somewhere in town, everyone gets a chance to bring up issues, and everybody
hears them. Communication this way cheap and quick.
So the people of Alanya were able to create their own institution to use the resource
in a fair way. It's not that the government shouldn't have
any hand in the resource. It's just ultimately, resource management
isn't done in a board room by legislatures. But by foresters and fishermen, those who
work with the resource in the field. So the management needs to be receptive to
them in some way.
That's why these institutions are best adapted
case by case. Sweeping statements about who should do what
or about how the environment can be helped, are not very helpful.
This strategy that failed in Nepal, actually works OK in other places like Canada. But
most Canadians don't heat their homes with wood or use forest products for fodder. So
the permits go out to large companies rather than hundreds of thousands of individuals.
Also the population of Canada, is about the same as Nepal.
In 1978 the Nepal government started working with the communities allowing them to own
and manage the forests. They began growing back and people's livelihood improved.
... Grands banks cod was one of the biggest populations on the planet. So what happened.
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