Electrified fence surrounding Mahananda Wildlife Sanctuary:
keeping people out and wildlife in. Photo credit: Sajid Pareeth. From Ostrom and Nagendra 2006 ©National Academy of Sciences, USA
For more than a century, the world's forests have been under siege—by the timber industry, by the wild mushroom and maple syrup industries, by agricultural development, and even by millions of indigenous people living at the forests' borders. Disappearing forests mean disappearing habitats for thousands of species.
Ecologists say the loss is especially tragic in the face of our planet's recent warming. Trees act as natural air conditioners: Warm tree leaves release water, the water evaporates, and the atmosphere cools. What's more, today's tropical forests store half a century of global carbon emissions in their trunks.
Advertisement
"Forests have a tremendous amount of biodiversity, both biologically and culturally," said tropical forest ecologist Daniel Nepstad of The Woods Hole Research Center in Massachusetts. "The health of the planet depends on these ecosystems. So the question of how you keep them standing is quite critical."
The question was famously addressed in 1968, when ecologist Garrett Hardin published an essay in Science titled "The Tragedy of the Commons." Hardin's basic premise was that when individuals equally share a natural resource—"the commons"—the benefit one person gains from exploiting the resource far outweighs his share of the cost of his exploitation. Therefore, nobody has an incentive to limit his or her use of the commons, and this freedom "brings ruin to all."
And Hardin's solution—to impose strict government or private ownership on natural resources—has greatly influenced world conservation policy ever since.
"[That essay] started this huge presumption that we've got to nationalize all of the natural resources in many parts of the world," said Indiana University political economist Elinor Ostrom. "And unfortunately, many politicians and policy makers love the idea that they're saviors."
But new research using remote satellite images and computer behavioral simulations is challenging Hardin's assumptions. Ostrom and others are now calling not for strict ownership with inflexible rules, but instead for "sustainable harvesting" of forests that allows local communities to be a meaningful part of the rule-making process.
"I like to hope that people will get rid of the idea that there's a simple, single solution," Ostrom said. "Some people say private ownership is the solution; others say it's government ownership," she said. "But every forest is unique. So you can't have a one-size-fits-all solution."
Today, about 10 percent of the world's forests have been corralled into "protected" areas, which are mostly controlled by the government and are partially funded by large, international nonprofits. Some scientists are skeptical of these donor-driven groups, because they say the groups have similar "people-free park" strategies for all protected areas, regardless of local ecology or politics.
"When you're dependent on donors and memberships, you have to always show how much better you are than other groups," Nepstad said, referring to conservation nonprofits. "It fosters what is sometimes an unwholesome control over the conservation process itself."
Some government-controlled, "protected" parks are great success stories. Tikal National Park in Guatemala, for instance, contains archaeological ruins from the Mayan Civilization that make it a popular tourist attraction, which means lots of tourist dollars.
"Given enough money and fences and guns and tanks and all the rest, you can protect a lot," Ostrom said, "but it's very expensive."
This funding is rare, she said, especially in developing countries, and too often "protected" parks are actually "paper parks," protected in name only.
Women harvest thatch grass from within the Tadoba-Andhari Tiger
Reserve, while the forest ranger accompanying Ostrom's research team looks on
helplessly. Photo credit: Harini Nagendra. From Ostrom and Nagendra 2006 ©National Academy of Sciences, USA
In the photo above, for example, two indigenous women carry thatch grass illegally out of central India's Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve while two men look on.