The difficulty lies not in new ideas, but in escaping from the old ones -- John Maynard Keynes

That's how this article urging a coordinated environmental policy for the western US ends. The problem noted is that the west is split into two parts, one government owned and managed and the other privately owned and operated. [via Nature Noted]

By any yardstick -- watershed acres, animal species, ecological processes -- conservation success on private land has been small. While many environmentalists correctly note that half of the West is publicly owned and thus held in trust for the public good, they rarely mention the other part of that equation: Half of the West is in private hands.

This is significant because, as many researchers have written, private lands contain the most productive soils, are located at lower elevations and often include key riparian areas. Wildlife biologist Rick Knight, who teaches at Colorado State University, put it this way: "We will not be able to sustain native biodiversity in the Mountain West by relying merely on protected areas. Future conservation efforts to protect this region's natural heritage will require closer attention being paid to the role of private lands."

But how? The tactics of demonization, litigation, regulation and pressure politics may be effective on public lands -- though to a diminishing degree these days -- but they're essentially useless on private land.

They won't work because they're tools of coercion. They're useful to right a wrong or quick-fix a crisis, but ineffective for chronic afflictions, such as the slow decline of biological diversity. Our ecological crisis is really a social crisis, and you don't change human behavior with a hammer.

The west is not split into two parts, that's a faulty abstraction by wonks who see life as a boring board game. "Public" land, ie. state owned, is managed by a variety of state, local and federal entities with differing policies and variable monitoring and enforcement. Private land is, of course, even more variously managed.

The coercive behaviors of enviro-martinets are not effective anywhere. They cause great pain and cost huge amounts but they don't accomplish any useful environmental management. The article has a dim glimmer of comprehension noting that "Our ecological crisis is really a social crisis", but not well understood since the intent is still coercion by other means - "you don't change human behavior with a hammer".

The assumption that humans need to be changed and the hope that humans can be changed if only wonks devise suitably sly methods is barren, devoid of sense. The old idea that needs to be abandoned is that there exists, or can exist, some controlling entity that decides how socio-ecological systems should behave. The previous post, On And From, pointed to the current issue of Ecology and Society which is focused on the reality that all management efforts fail that are not conceived and effected by society, by those who live on and from the lands in question.

A little honesty helps clarify these truths for those who cling to the old ideas of authoritarian control. State lands are not protected, are not prospering. When actual measurement and monitoring is made the empty claims that n acres have been "protected" are revealed for bureaucratic hokum. It is preservation on paper but not in actuality. Our forests are in the worst shape they have been for 100 years. That's probably the most obvious example but an honest accounting of every facet of the environment reveals that everything is deteriorating, not in spite of preservation efforts but because of them.

This isn't a new insight. The battle against the old authoritarian ideas has been raging for a long time. One of the most eloquent voices has been Wendell Berry:

Historically, the commons belonged to the local community, not to "the public." The possibility of a commons, in the true sense, depends on local adaptation, a process in which Americans have, at times and in places, made a few credible beginnings, always frustrated by the still-dominant belief that local adaptation does not matter because localities do not matter. At present it is generally true that we do not know in any useful sense where we are, much less how to act on the basis of such knowledge. If we humans know where we are and how to live well and conservingly there, then we can have and use the place "in common." Otherwise-and it is still far otherwise with us-we must find appropriate ways to parcel out, and so limit, both privilege and responsibility...

you cannot get good care in the use of the land by demanding it from public officials. That you have the legal right to demand it does not at all improve the case. If one out of every two of us should become a public official, we would be no nearer to good land stewardship than we are now. The idea that a displaced people might take appropriate care of places is merely absurd: there is no sense in it and no hope. Our present ideas of conservation and of public stewardship are not enough. Duty is not enough. Sentiment is not enough. No mere law, divine or human, could conceivably be enough to protect the land while we are using it.

If we want the land to be cared for, then we must have people living on and from the land who are able and willing to care for it. If-as the idea of commonwealth clearly implies-landowners and land users are accountable to their fellow citizens for their work, their products, and their stewardship, then these landowners and land users must be granted an equitable membership in the economy.

Effective management of socio-ecological systems can only be accomplished by society, by the people who live there. This isn't just a clash of political ideologies, the desire for liberty and self-rule rising against a remote imperial power, it is sophisticated ecological thinking backed by both theory and experiment and confirmed by eons of human experience.

Revolution isn't the answer. A sudden sweeping away of the idea of public land and the institutions that currently rule such land would not have positive results. It must happen over time as society develops to assume responsibility. It is a goal, a long term objective, that should guide short term policy. Wherever possible the desire to "change people" should be replaced by the need to empower people. No public servant could be near as devoted to caring for land as those who depend on it for their lives and livelihood.

There is a role for technology and information transfer. Enabling communication among the principals, including those who live on the land and scholars who have made long study, increases the possibility of good management. Some funding for the implementation of systems that do not yet have a defined market value and so cannot repay investment can be useful. Continuing joint efforts that couple researchers with local cooperators for long term experiment can be useful. Temporary legal protections from external money can be useful until local society has become robust enough to defend itself. Once the idea of enabling localities to rule themselves as the only workable system of environmental caring is embedded other useful contributions will come to mind that are consistent with long term goals.

Keynes assertion that "The difficulty lies not in new ideas, but in escaping from the old ones" is a blade with more than one cutting edge. Sometimes it is a very good thing that it is difficult for new ideas to escape old ones because the new ideas are ill-conceived. Knowing the difference makes the difference. For socio-ecological systems we would do well to look closely and think clearly about traditional practice, seek to express the features of such systems in current terminology and so be able to communicate the virtues of such practice to those divorced from true experience and tacit knowledge. The sterile abstractions of uneducated policy wonks are merely naive. That these naifs have been given so much power is a dreadful mistake that practitioners have long understood and that scholars are coming to understand at long last. Paleo-environmentalism is dying - good riddance - but a more sophisticated environmentalism with socio-ecological thinking at its core is emerging.

» Dimly Ideological from Crumb Trail
Real environmentalists do math. As it turns out, shifting from a low-mileage to a moderate-mileage vehicle has a greater positive effect than switching from a moderate-mileage to a high-mileage car... The anti-SUV crowd isn't just lacking good economi......[read more]
Tracked: January 22, 2005 03:56 PM