Marshall, G. (2005). Economics for collaborative environmental management: Renegotiating the commons. London: Earthscan. ISBN 184407-095-6 pp. X + 171 RRP £22.95 paperback.With sustainable development as its underlying theme, this book seeks to outline how economics might help to deliver the participative and collaborative approach to environmental management that such development requires, and which governments increasingly foster. Although the literature on voluntary collective action is extensive, it has generally been broad, and does not explore theory originating in different disciplines. This applies particularly to the economic literature; it rarely links concepts, such as game theory, bounded rationality, trust, complex adaptive systems, and environmental management of the commons, to form the basis of an economic theory that would underpin collective action on environmental management.Marshall establishes that the decentralised approach to environmental management is poorly explained from the perspective of mainstream economics, and that the development of a foundation of economic theory andmethod is needed to contribute to the analysis of policy options to realise the potential of collaborative visions for environmental management.Marshall's argument for the need for the economic theory, the contents of the theory, and case studies illustrating the theory, are logical and organised. in his first two chapters, his brief but concise outline of the development of economic thought, with the focus on game theory, shows what has led to traditional economics being poorly equipped to explain collaboration with regard to management of the commons, and shows why the development of important alternatives has fallen short; partly to blame is the inability of economic theory to expand its views outside its own discipline. Marshall's effortless integration of terms from sociology, psychology and economics makes the early chapters a pleasure to read. Chapter 3 even incorporates the biological basis for cooperation and trust, a central theme in later chapters, particularly Chapter 7, which contains a detailed Australian case study.Central to the first few chapters is the concept of the 'progressive vision1 - as opposed to the 'collaborative vision'. Focusing on voluntary collaboration and the important role of trust to the collaborative vision, Chapter 3 presents a review of the developments in theory that correct the weaknesses of economic theory. Its second part addresses large group cooperation and how this is affected by organisational 'nesting', encouraged by trust and reciprocity. As Marshall mentions in his outline of Chapter 4, 'a key implication is that the capacity of collaborative systems of environmental management to solve complex problems can be expected to grow the more that they are given scope to develop as nested types' (p. 5).The remainder of Chapter 4 develops a cost effectiveness framework to analyse the institutional choices that allows for multi-layered organisational systems. The importance of using principles of adaptive management and inductive analysis to capture complexity quickly emerges. What also emerges is the need to replace the restrictive Paretian approach by the political economy approach, the latter being able to engage credibly with the complexity of institutional choices.In the context of this cost effectiveness framework, some interesting issues are flagged, such as why allocating property rights may not always provide a desired outcome. Marshall draws on Challen (2000) to stress that costs are relatively low to allocate property rights down the institutional hierarchy (to the landowner), but the political costs are high to transfer them back up, leading into the discussion of Institutional 'lock-in costs'. The concept of path dependency reducing institutional adaptability is of crucial Importance. …
Increasing attention is paid to the interdependence between the ecological and human dimensions to improve the management of natural resources. Understanding how artisanal fishers see and use the common-pool resources in a co-management system may hold the clue to establishing effective coastal fisheries policies or strengthening existing ones. A more comprehensive planning of the system will also have a bearing on how to reduce conflicts and strengthen social networks. We surveyed artisanal fishers and decision-makers to determine their perceptions about the Management and Exploitation Areas of Benthic Resources (known as MEABR) in Chile’s Biobio region. We performed a field study from November 2018 to August 2019, applying a set of questionnaires to determine the ecological and human attributes that contribute to MEABR outcomes, and then constructed composite scores for those attributes according to a multidimensional scaling technique (“Rapfish”). We find that fishers have different perspectives: surprisingly, women highlighted that the institutional dimension was the most influential on MEABR performance, whereas men highlighted the ecological and economic outcomes. The decision-makers’ role in the MEABR system was considered adequate, but communication and socialization of regulations were irregular. Results also showed that fishers expressed dissatisfaction with illegal fishing practices (poaching), productivity, profits, and conflicts inside and outside the MEABRs. Our study allowed us to better understand how the MEABR has developed in the region. We recommend strengthening local management strategies with particular attention paid to networking among stakeholders, including gender inclusive relationships.
Van Putten, I. E., É. E. Plagányi, K. Booth, C. Cvitanovic, R. Kelly, A. E. Punt, and S. A. Richards. 2018. A framework for incorporating sense of place into the management of marine systems. Ecology and Society 23(4):4. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-10504-230404
Southern Ocean ecosystem management is characterized by a unique and complex international network of stakeholders and stakeholder relationships (a ‘transactional landscape’) relating to the globally significant services that these ecosystems support. This transactional landscape spans governments, industry (fishing and tourism), scientific research, conservation non-government organizations, civil society, and international decision-making forums. We used a network approach for stakeholder mapping to provide the first description of the transactional landscape for Southern Ocean ecosystem management – both in terms of the connections between stakeholders and ecosystem services, and directly between stakeholder groups. We considered 65 stakeholders and their relationships to 12 provisioning, regulating, supporting and cultural ecosystem services. An analysis of the connections within this network reveals differences in the degree of connectivity between stakeholders and ecosystem services. Notably, ecosystem science facilitates high connectivity between stakeholders and provisioning services, but there is little connectivity between stakeholders and supporting services. We then applied a formal ‘values-rules-knowledge’ framework to a set of case studies to analyze the decision-making process in relation to Southern Ocean ecosystem services, as well as the relative importance of different stakeholder groups which were considered in the network analysis. Our analyses suggest that emphases for decision making have been on knowledge and rules, but that wider consideration of values across the broader stakeholder landscape – together with science (knowledge) and governance (rules) – might better support decision making for Southern Ocean ecosystem conservation and management, and provide a stronger foundation for sustainable provision of ecosystem services into the future.
As anthropogenic pressures on the environment grow, science-policy interaction is increasingly needed to support evidence-informed decision-making. However, there are many barriers to knowledge exchange (KE) at the science-policy interface, including difficulties evaluating its outcomes. The aims of this study are to synthesize the literature to elucidate the a) intended and b) claimed outcomes of KE processes at the interface of environmental science and policy, as well as the c) evidence used to evaluate them and d) methods used for collecting evaluation data. Results from systematically identifying and analyzing 397 articles show that co-production, knowledge brokerage, boundary organizations, and social connections were the most common strategies for KE. KE processes commonly aimed, claimed and referred to evidence regarding the usability of knowledge (e.g. credibility, salience, legitimacy) and social outcomes (e.g. networking, awareness, learning, trust-building). They also aimed for deeper policy/economic/societal impacts and actual use of scientific knowledge within decision-making. These additional goals, however, were seldom claimed to have been achieved, although products (e.g. maps/tools) and process attributes (e.g. equity, power-relations, transparency) were commonly used for evidencing impact. Hence, this study found that success from KE at the interface of environmental science and policy comes in diverse forms and showed a divergence between what studies aim for (ambitious) and what they evidence or claim as an achievement (more modest). This may represent failures of KE processes to reach intended goals, shortcomings in evaluation literature/approaches, or mismatches between timescales of evaluation and impact. Overall, this suggests a need to better align goals with evaluation measures to plan, facilitate, and appreciate the diverse impacts of KE processes.
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