Resource Geography Carl Anderson Nate Shaub Nathan Eidem Debbie Reusser Garrett Hardin

Resource Geography Carl Anderson Nate Shaub Nathan Eidem Debbie Reusser

Garrett Hardin (April 21, 1915 – September 14, 2003)

• Ecologist and Microbiologist

• Authored

• 27 books
• Over 350 articles

• Said true but unpopular things

• Tragedy of the Commons, 1968

• “Ruin is the destination toward which all men rush, each

• pursuing his own best interest in a society that believes in the

• freedom of the commons. Freedom in a commons brings ruin

• to all.”

Revisiting the Commons: Local Lessons, Global Challenges

• Elinor Ostrom, et al.

• Science Vol. 284, 1999

Where did Hardin Go Wrong?

• Users trapped & can’t better situation

• Solutions must come from external authorities

• Socialism
• Privatization

China, Mongolia, Russia

• China

• State-owned ag collectives with permanent settlements & privatization (1/3 degraded)

• Mongolia

• Local pastoralist institutions; herd rotation between seasonal pastures (1/10 degraded)

• Russia

• State-owned ag collectives with permanent settlements (3/4 degraded)

• Socialism & Privatization have resulted in greater grassland degradation

Local Lessons

• Groups who know each other more likely cooperate

• Technology allows for better communication and coordination of activities

• Rules are essential; Must be monitored and enforced

• Knowledge of resource boundaries & availability
• Limited access & governed inclusion
• Increased complexity → Difficult to develop rules

• Higher levels of government can hinder or help the effectiveness of local institutions

Global Challenges

• Resource issues more complex

• More players, more interaction, diverse cultures
• North-South differences
• Accelerating rates of change
• Smaller room for error

Looking to the Future

• Nested levels of governance

• Technological improvements

• Education and Communication

Questions

• Almost forty years later . . . Do we have better answers now?

• Are our resources an inheritance from the past that we should feel obligated to pass on to our descendants?

Biscuit Fire

• Biscuit Fire

• Two Views:

• Sessions, et al (2004)–

• Salvage logging and replanting fits best with habitat requirements of Northwest Forest Plan

• Donato, et al

• Salvage logging is detrimental to long-term forest health

Biscuit Fire

• Biscuit Fire

• Results:

• Sessions, et al

• 210 plots analyzed using Landsat data and Grass software

• Donato, et al

• 9 burn-only sites compared to 9 burn-logged sites

• Question: What methodology seems to be most useful to managers?

Conclusions

• Sessions

• “If the goal is to hasten restoration of complex mature conifer-dominated forests on the Biscuit Fire landscape, careful timber salvage can be useful.”

• Donato

• “Postfire logging, by removing naturally seeded conifers and increasing surface fuel loads, can be counterproductive to the goals of forest regeneration and fuel reduction.

Questions

• What should be the interaction between government and science, and what would the implications be for government resource managers?

• In the case of managing timber resources on public lands, what are the possibilities for “institutional diversity”?

• Would the whole controversy have been avoided if the government had firm guidelines implemented for salvage logging in the first place?