- By way of presentation and executive summary
When I decided to start the "preparation" of the "Technical Data Sheets" of the "School of Organic Evolutionary Planning" (EPOE), consider two specific objectives:
- Serve as interactive learning tools to professional, technical and operational personnel, with interrelation with the management, planning and management of natural resources, biodiversity and especially protected areas; Present to managers, planners and managers, technical proposals that allow to improve, enhance and maximize natural resources, biodiversity and especially protected areas. (Data Sheets No. 4, 5 and 6)
Most of the "Technical Data Sheets" produced have been framed within a program previously developed, some such as Technical Data Sheet No. 2 and No. 8, have arisen spontaneously, in the case of this "Technical Data Sheet" (No. 9), originates from the "planned" list of topics to be dealt with in the EPOE Technical Data Sheets, but originally it was planned for inclusion in the series from 15 to 20, due to the framework of analysis and reflection that entails.
Two variables affected me to advance the publication of this first technical sheet, out of a series of three that I plan to publish (in digital form):
First: A recommendation from my dear colleague “Dr. Lothar Mairich ”, who to review one of my technical studies (Environmental Compensation Proposal for the Juan Bautista Pérez Rancier National Park), in his suggestions to readjust the document asks some essential questions : Who is Coase?, What is Coase Theory? Although, in my opinion, for the theoretical-conceptual framework of said document it clearly answers one of the two questions (What is Coase Theory), I evaluated the possibility of anticipating its publication, because it made me reflect on the need to continue based the protests of Payment of Environmental Services (PSA) and Approach of Environmental Compensation (CAM).
Second: This sheet is the product of a series of readjustments, which I have been developing for two months, which has had as a product the development of three different technical sheets, which have emerged spontaneously and achieving an order that will strengthen knowledge about " environmental economics ” and especially possible applications for the Payment of Environmental Services (PSA) and the Approach to Environmental Compensation (CAM) aimed at Protected Areas.
As indicated in the previous paragraph, this Technical Sheet will form part of a series of three sheets, which will appear continuously (No. 9, 10 and 11), in the case of this case, will provide the reader with the theoretical-conceptual framework In order to understand the economic and environmental foundations that can sustain the proposal for the Payment of Environmental Services (PSA) and the Approach to Environmental Compensation (CAM), Technical Sheet No. 10 will present the practical concepts of the economic-environmental implementation of “Use and Overuse of Land Resource ” (as a territorial approach) and Sheet No. 11 “ Payment of Environmental Services and Environmental Compensation Approach ” (based on Coase Theory).
Technical Data Sheet No. 9, is the product of collection, analysis, compilation and drafting of a series of technical documents that have allowed me to substantiate the technical proposals aimed at the implementation of the "Approach to Environmental Compensation" (CAM), begins with the presentation of the thesis of the Biologist "Garret Hardin" on "The Tragedy of the Commons" which was based on the proposal of Dr. Ronald Coase founder of the "New Institutional and Environmental Economy", to value human-society interaction versus natural resources, based on economic externalities that are often not considered when “financially” valuing the goods, services and functions that the natural resources and biodiversity present in ecosystems.
Why? start with "The Tragedy of the Commons" as this is based on the theories of the economist "Ronald Coase", as a specialist in protected areas and lover of biology, you want the reader to have a 100% biological perspective on economic interaction first When evaluating the socio-environmental impacts on natural resources, this is what the Biologist "Garret Hardin" presents to us , to later present more technical aspects (in the economic field), by reviewing the theories, theorems and postulates of Dr. Coase.
I do not intentionally present “deep personal” analyzes (which I do in fact sheet 10 and 11), so that professionals and technicians can form a criterion based on clear parameters, both in the writing, As a compilation try to omit the cumbersome conceptual discussions based on arithmetic functions and equations, trying in many cases to adapt it in a theoretical-conceptual way, you may have made some kind of mistake considering that although I am not a "neophyte" in economic-environmental, I cannot consider myself a specialist either.
But if I consider that any "technician or professional" who works in the management, planning and management of natural resources, biodiversity and protected areas, must have basic notions of the ideological framework (the tragedy of the commons) and theoretical-conceptual (Coase's theorem), which underpin the (new?) trends of social-economic sustainability of what we want to preserve, conserve, manage and administer.
Hoping that this document is to your liking and waiting for your feedback, the email of the "School of Organic Evolutionary Planning" is open at [email protected].
- Objectives of the technical sheet
- To publicize the ideological framework (The Tragedy of the Commons) and the theoretical-conceptual framework (Coase Theorem) that underpin the new paradigms of the “environmental economy” in order to support the proposals for Payment of Environmental Services (PSA) and Approach Environmental Compensation (CAM), aimed primarily at the management, planning, management and administration of National Systems of Protected Areas and individually in Protected Areas;
- Generate a fluid technical exchange that strengthens the technical criteria of the operational, technical, and professional personnel who conserve, manage, and administer the natural resources and biodiversity that protected areas contain;
- Provide personnel who interact with the conservation, management and administration of natural resources information that supports strategies that promote economic sustainability in the medium and long term; and
- Establish the theoretical-conceptual framework for the presentation of Technical Data Sheets No. 10 and 11 of the School of Organic Evolutionary Planning (EPOE), which will promote the involvement of the "environmental economy" in the management, planning, management and administration of Protected areas.
- Conceptual framework of the tragedy of the commons
3.1 General
In 1968, a biologist named "Garret Hardin" published an article in Science magazine called "The Tragedy of the Commons". Items like that are often called "seminal" because they act like a small seed that turns into a lush, multi-branched tree. Today there are thousands of scientific articles and economics books that attempt to analyze "The tragedy of the commons".
We can start by describing the same scenario that Hardin presented: a village in which each family owns their livestock, but they share the pastures in common. All families bring their animals to graze on the common grounds. None is encouraged to take care of the pastures, to ensure that they do not run out or spoil, to control or reduce their livestock's use of these communal assets.
The problem is the same as "public goods" or "common property natural resources" and can formally be described using the "prisoner's dilemma" model. There are two possible strategies, caring for the commons or not caring for them.
The order of preferences for each of the players is:
First: (Most preferred) That others be careful with common properties and I am not;
Second: May we all be careful;
Third: Let us not take care of the common properties; and
Fourth: (Least preferred) That I be careful and others not.
Here again the market fails; Adam Smith's "invisible hand" leads us down the road; The best strategy for each family, whatever the others do, is not to be careful. The result of this will be worse for all of them than if they were all careful. The expression "the tragedy of the commons" refers to the inexorable destiny to which any resource of shared ownership seems to be condemned.
The success of the expression "the tragedy of the commons" may be due to the fact that it proposes very clearly and almost intuitively the two possible solutions to order the access of the cattle to the meadows:
PRIVATE PROPERTY: the meadow is divided into plots. Each family is assigned the RIGHT to the exclusive use of a parcel. Each family will then be encouraged to take care of their plot, to exploit the resources in the most effective way.
PUBLIC PROPERTY: The village authorities establish laws that regulate the use and care of the common plot, organize a surveillance and police system to enforce it and punish infractions.
In any case, the solution to "the tragedy of the commons" seems to be a clear origin of private and public law that we can even date as the moment of the beginning of the Neolithic economy. Certainly the problem was not noticeable in the paleolithic economy system, of the small bands of hunter-gatherers. The problem, and its various solutions, appear only when stable coexistence in the same territory of different family groups begins.
We can date the beginning, but not the end. The current problems of environmental pollution or endangered animal species are modern manifestations of the old tragedy. We can come to think that the development of the economy and society consist precisely in the organization of the exploitation of communal resources. Whatever the solution, private or public law, society is increasingly endowed with more complex rules that allow a more efficient exploitation of resources. The degree of development of a society can be measured by the complexity of its rules and rights or by the efficiency it has achieved in exploiting its resources.
The eternal controversy of economic science, state or market, is here stripped of other connotations to show itself only as alternative solutions for the rational exploitation of resources. And that nudity does not allow any universal response or recipe. The most effective solution will be public property in some cases and private property in others. And with the same type of recourse, it is possible that in one country a solution is more effective and in another country the other is. And it is even possible that the same resource in the same country is exploited more effectively at one point in history in one way and at another time in a different way.
3.2 Garret Hardin's proposal "Tragedy of the Commons"
In our days (although not in previous times) technical solutions are always welcome. Because of the failure of the prophecies, it takes courage to assert that a desired technical solution is not feasible. Wiesner and York had this bravery by publishing it in a scientific journal, insisting that the solution to the problem was not to be found in the natural sciences.
They cautiously qualified their statement with the phrase "According to our considered professional judgment…". Whether they were correct or not is not relevant to this article. Rather, the concern here refers to the important set of human problems that can be called "problems without technical solutions", and more specifically, with the identification and discussion of one of them.
It is easy to demonstrate that the set is not empty. Remember the "cat" game. Consider the problem . How can I win the cat game? It is well known that I cannot if I assume (staying within the conventions of game theory) that my opponent understands the game perfectly. Put another way, there is no "technical solution" to the problem. I can win only by giving a radical meaning to the word "win." I can also hit my opponent in the head or I can falsify the results. Any way in which I "win" involves, in some sense, an abandonment of the game in the way that we also intuitively conceive of it. (I can, of course, openly abandon the game, refuse to play it. That's what most adults do.)
The set of "problems without technical solution" has members. The thesis is that the "population problem" as traditionally conceived is a member of this class. And said traditional conception requires some reflection. It is valid to say that most of the people who are distressed by the demographic problem look for a way to avoid the demons of overpopulation without abandoning any of the privileges that they enjoy today.
They think that sea farming or the development of new varieties of wheat will solve the problem "technologically." I try to show here that the solution they are looking for cannot be found. The population problem cannot be solved in a technical way, in the same way that the cat game cannot be won.
3.2.1 What should we maximize?
The population, as Malthus said, naturally tends to grow "geometrically", or as we say today, exponentially. In a finite world this means that the per capita distribution of the world's goods must decrease. Is ours a finite world? The idea that the world is infinite can be fairly defended; or that we don't know if it is. But in terms of the practical problems that we will have to face in the next generations with predictable technology, it is clear that we will greatly increase human misery if, in the immediate future, we do not assume that the world available to the terrestrial human population is finite. "Space" is not a way out.
A finite world can sustain only a finite population; therefore, population growth must eventually equal zero. (The case of perpetual and wide fluctuations above and below zero is a trivial variant that does not need to be updated.) When this condition is reached, what will be the situation of humanity? Specifically , can Bentham's goal of "the greatest well-being for the greatest number of individuals be achieved?"No, for two reasons, each sufficient by itself. The first is theoretical. It is not mathematically possible to maximize two variables (or more) at the same time. This was clearly possible demonstrated by von Neumann and Morgenstern, but the principle remains implicit in the theory of partial differential equations, being as old at least as D'Alambert (1717-1783).
The following reason arises directly from biological facts. To live, any organism must have an energy source (food, for example). This energy is used for two purposes: conservation and work. A man requires approximately 1600 kilocalories per day ("maintenance calories") to stay alive. Anything you do other than that will be defined as work, and is supported by the "work calories" you eat. These are used not only to carry out work in the sense in which we commonly understand the word; They are also required for all forms of fun, from swimming and car racing, to playing music or writing poetry. If our goal is to maximize population, it is obvious what we should do:bring the "work calories" per person as close to zero as possible.
No gourmet food, no vacation, no sports, no music, no art... I think anyone will agree, without argument or proof, that maximizing population does not maximize assets. Bentham's goal is impossible. To reach this conclusion I have assumed the common assumption that obtaining energy is the problem. The emergence of atomic energy has started questioning this assumption. However, given an infinite source of energy, population growth remains an unavoidable question. The problem of energy acquisition is replaced by that of its dissipation, as J H. Fremlin has acutely demonstrated. The arithmetic signs of the analysis are, as they were, reversed; but Bentham's goal remains unattainable.
The optimal population is therefore less than the maximum. The difficulty in defining the optimal is enormous; As far as I know, no one has seriously addressed this problem. Reaching a stable and acceptable solution will surely require more than a generation of hard analytical work, and a lot of persuasion.
We want the maximum assets per person; But what is a good? For one person it can be nature preserved, for other wholesale ski centers. For one they can be estuaries where ducks are fed for hunting, while for another they can be land for factories. Comparing one good with another is, we usually say, impossible, because these goods are immeasurable, and the immeasurable cannot be compared.
Theoretically this may be true, but in real life the immeasurable are measured. Only a judgment criterion and a measurement system are needed. In nature, that criterion is survival. Is it better for a species to be small and easy to hide, or to be large and powerful? Natural selection measures the immeasurable. The compromise reached will depend on the natural weighing of the values of the variables.
Man must imitate that process. There is no doubt about the fact that it already does, but unconsciously. When the hidden decisions are made explicit, the discussion begins. The problem for years to come is to achieve an acceptable theory of measurement. Synergistic effects, nonlinear variations, and difficulties in taking the future for granted make this intellectual problem difficult, but it does not (in principle) make it insoluble. Has any cultural group solved this practical problem in our time, even on an intuitive level?A simple fact proves that none has succeeded: there is no prosperous population in the world today that has, or has had for some time, a growth rate of zero. Any people who have intuitively identified their sweet spot will soon reach it, after which their growth rate will reach and remain at zero.
Of course, a positive growth rate can be taken as evidence that the population is below its optimum. However, by any reasonable parameter, the fastest growing populations in the world today are (generally) the poorest. This association (which is not necessarily invariable) casts doubt on the optimistic assumption that a positive growth rate indicates that a population is on the way to finding its optimum.
Little progress will be made in the search for optimal population size as long as we do not explicitly exorcise the spirit of Adam Smith in the field of practical demography. In economic affairs The Wealth of Nations (1776) popularized the "invisible hand", the idea of an individual who "seeking only his own benefit", manages "to be carried away by an invisible hand to promote… the public interest". Adam Smith did not claim that this was invariably true, and perhaps none of his followers did. But it contributed to a dominant trend of thought that has since interfered with positive actions based on rational analysis, namely the tendency to assume that individual decisions will, in fact, be the best decisions for society as a whole. If this assumption is correct, it justifies the continuity of our current laissez faire policy on reproductive issues. If it is correct, we can assume that men will control their fertility in such a way that they will achieve an optimal population. If the assumption is wrong, we need to examine individual liberties to see which ones are defensible.
The tragedy of freedom over common resources. The refutation of the invisible hand in population control is found in a scenario initially described in a little-known 1833 pamphlet by an amateur mathematician named William Forster Lloyd (1794-1852). We can call it "the tragedy of the commons," using the word tragedy as the philosopher Whitehead used it: "The essence of tragedy is not sadness. It resides in the merciless solemnity of the development of things ». And he continues saying:"This inevitability of fate can only be illustrated in terms of human life by incidents that, in fact, involve unhappiness, for it is only through them that the futility of flight can be made evident in the drama."
The tragedy of the commons unfolds as follows. Imagine a pasture open to everyone. It is to be expected that each shepherd will try to keep as many head of cattle in common resources as possible. This arrangement can work reasonably well for centuries as tribal wars, poaching, and disease will keep the numbers of both men and animals below the carrying capacity of the land. Finally, however, the day comes to settle accounts, that is, the day when the long-dreamed goal of social stability becomes reality. At this point, the logic inherent in common resources mercilessly breeds tragedy.
As a rational being, each pastor seeks to maximize his profit. Explicitly or implicitly, consciously or unconsciously, you ask yourself, what is the benefit to me of adding one more animal to my flock? This utility has a negative and a positive component.
- The positive component is a function of the increase of one. As the pastor receives all the benefits of the sale, the positive profit is close to +1.
- The negative component is a function of the additional overgrazing generated by one more animal. However, since the effects of overgrazing are shared by all pastors, the negative utility of any particular decision made by a pastor is only a fraction of -1.
By adding all the partial profits, the rational shepherd concludes that the only sensible decision for him is to add another animal to his herd, and another one... But this is the conclusion reached by each and all sensible shepherds who share common resources. And there is the tragedy. Each man is locked in a system that drives him to increase his livestock unlimitedly, in a limited world. Ruin is the destiny to which all men run, each seeking his best advantage in a world that believes in the freedom of common resources. The freedom of common resources is ruin for all.
For some this may be commonplace. I wish and it was! In a sense this was learned thousands of years ago, but natural selection favors the forces of psychological denial. The individual benefits as such from the ability to deny the truth even when the society as a whole, of which he is a part, suffers. Education can counteract the natural tendency to do the wrong thing, but the inexorable succession of generations requires that the foundations of this knowledge be constantly refreshed.
A simple incident that happened years ago in Leominster, Masssachusetts, shows just how perishable this knowledge is. During the Christmas shopping season, the parking meters in the shopping areas were covered with plastic bags with the caption: “Do not open until Christmas. Free parking by the Mayor and the Municipal Council ». In other words, given the prospect of an increase in the demand for space, already scarce in itself, the parents of the city reinstituted the system of common resources. (We cynically suspect that they won more votes than they lost with such a retrograde act.)
Similarly, the logic of common resources has long been understood, perhaps since the invention of agriculture or private property in real estate. But it has been understood mainly in specific cases that are not sufficiently generalizable. Even today, ranchers renting national lands in the West barely demonstrate an ambivalent understanding by constantly pressuring federal authorities to increase the number of authorized heads per area to a point where over-exploitation produces erosion and weed control. Similarly, the world's oceans continue to suffer from the survival of the common resources philosophy. Maritime nations still automatically respond to the password of"The freedom of the seas". By professing the belief in the "inexhaustible resources of the oceans," they place species of fish and whales close to extinction, one after another.
National parks are another instance where the tragedy of the common resources works. At present they are open to all, without limit. The parks themselves are limited in extent - there is only one Yosemite Valley - while the population seems to be growing without limit. The values that visitors seek in parks are continually eroded. It is very simple, we must stop treating parks as common resources… or soon they will have no value for anyone.
What should we do? We have several options. We can sell them as private property. We can keep them as public property, but appropriately assigning who is to enter. This must be based on wealth, through the use of an award system. It could also be done based on merit, defined by agreed standards. Or it could be by lottery. Or be based on the system that the first to arrive enters, administered from the ranks. These, I believe, are all objectionable procedures. But then we must choose, or consent to the destruction of our common resources called national parks.
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