Nobel Economics Prize & Kauai

SUBHEAD: Two women view the Commons with different eyes - Elinor Ostrom and Linda Lingle. image above: Economist and Nobel Prize winner Elinor Ostrom. Ffrom http://www.pnas.org/content/103/51/19221/F1.expansion.html By Juan Wilson on 26 October 2009 - This year the Nobel Prize for Economics was awarded to a woman for the first time in history - American Elinor Ostrom. The importance of her work is that it indicates that the local management of shared resources may be the best way to preserve them. This has important implications here in Hawaii. Ostrom's work focused on the Tragedy of the Commons. The Tragedy of the Commons This refers to a dilemma that was first described in an influential article by Garrett Hardin and published in the journal Science in 1968. The article describes a dilemma in which a group of people acting independently in their own self-interest will ultimately destroy a shared limited resource even when it is clear that it is not in anyone's long term interest for this to occur. Central to Hardin's article is an example (first sketched in an 1833 pamphlet by William Forster Lloyd), of a hypothetical and simplified situation from medieval land tenure in Europe, of herders sharing a common parcel of land, on which they are each entitled to let their cows graze. In Hardin's example, it is in each herder's interest to put all his cows onto the common land, even if the carrying capacity of the common is exceeded and it is temporarily or permanently damaged as a result. The herder receives all of the benefits for his cows, while the damage to the common is shared by the entire group. If all herders make this individually rational economic decision, the common will be depleted or even destroyed to the detriment of all. As a result Hardin asks for a strict management of common goods via increased topdown government involvement and strict regulations. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_Commons) Elinor Ostrom's Pleasant Discovery Elinor Ostrom is considered one of the leading scholars in the study of common pool resources. In particular, Ostrom's work emphasizes how humans interact with ecosystems to maintain long-term sustainable resource yields. Common pool resources include forests, fisheries, oil fields, grazing lands, and irrigation systems. Ostrom's work has considered how societies have developed diverse institutional arrangements for managing natural resources and avoiding ecosystem collapse in many cases, even though some arrangements have failed to prevent resource exhaustion. Her work emphasized the multifaceted nature of human–ecosystem interaction and argued against any singular "panacea" for individual social-ecological system problems. Ostrom discovered that there is plenty of evidence to demonstrate the Commons does not have to be a tragedy. She identified eight "design principles" of stable local Commons resource management. They are: 1. Clearly defined boundaries and effective exclusion of external unentitled parties. 2. Rules regarding the appropriation and provision of common resources are adapted to local conditions. 3. Collective-choice arrangements allow most resource appropriators to participate in the decision-making process. 4. Effective monitoring by those who are part of (or accountable to) the appropriators. 5. There is a scale of graduated sanctions for resource appropriators who violate community rules. 6. Mechanisms of conflict resolution are cheap and of easy access. 7. The self-determination of the community is recognized by higher-level authorities. 8. In the case of larger common-pool resources there needs to be organization in the form of multiple layers of nested enterprises, with smaller local common-pool resources at the base level. The Nobel organization said Ostrom's research brought this topic from the fringe to the forefront of scientific attention, by showing how common resources - forests, fisheries, oil fields or grazing lands, can be managed successfully by the people who use them. Ostrom's work in this regard challenged conventional wisdom, showing that common resources can be successfully managed without government regulation or privatization. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elinor_Ostrom) Traditional Hawaiian Land Management Before contact with the British and Americans, Hawaii was self-sufficient and self-sustaining. Land and resources were managed for a millennium from the smallest ahupuaa upward (micro-bioregional level roughly translated to watershed). Each ahupuaa was a community unto itself with shared and private resources. Local chiefs (konohiki) and wise elders (kahuna) used kapu (roughly taboos) and other techniques to implement rules that were found to work in preserving the ahupuaa resources of forest, valley, stream and reef. At a higher level, moku (roughly island bioregion climatic divisions) were managed with techniques appropriate to their scale and needs. Historically each Hawaiian island (or group such as Kauai/Niihau) had its own sovereignty and organization. This nested level of resource management fits tightly to Ostrom's eight design principles for the Commons. Let ours in Hawaii not be a tragedy. For those interested in more on this subject visit: www.ahakiole.org, www.kumupono.com/land.htm, and http://hawaii.gov/dbedt/czm/initiative/wec/html/descrip/management.htm image above: Governor Linda Lingle at the 2009 National Governor's Association Convention. From http://www.nga.org 2009 photo gallery. The Lingle Touch There are many examples of how Hawaii, under Governor Linda Lingle, has been moving in the wrong direction concerning the Tragedy of the Commons. I will briefly mention three cases involving Kauai. The Hawaii Superferry The Superferry was a nonviable pipe dream until the U.S. Navy and private military investors took an interest. Under Lingle, with a Bush administration OK, the Hawaii state Department of Transportation partnered up with the U.S. government and committed $40 million to the Superferry. Lingle's DOT skipped doing a state required environmental assessment. They ignored the Maui and Kauai County Council resolutions banning the Superferry without a full Environmental Impact Statement. They challenged Kauai residents who refused to allow the ferry to dock in their harbor and fought a Maui court decision to scuttle the project. They pushed their agenda ahead without regard to the wishes of the outer islands. Lingle's fiasco with the establishment of this military-industrial enterprise was a great cost to all in Hawaii. The Master Plan for Kokee Central planning by Lingle's Department of Land & Natural Resources has ignored the wishes of the residents of Kauai. Their master plan is to privatize and commercialize a state park to maximize the flow of money from the park. They plan to add a gate and charge a fee to enter the public park. The DLNR claims to be saving Kokee's resources from overuse by island residents, and funding repairs and improvements to the park. In fact, the gate fees and other income sources will go to DLNR general funds, and not stay on Kauai. Moreover, much of the the improvement money will be to widen roads and add more parking for additional tourist traffic. Lingle, like many Republicans, do not understand that public parks are part of the commons and not state business enterprises. School Furlough Days Hawaii is the only state in America to have a totally centralized school district management. Under Lingle the Department of Education has dictated all schools be on the same schedule of a year round calendar. This does not work well. For example, in Kekaha the elementary school was on a full time schedule in some of the summer months in non air-conditioned classrooms in sizzling westside temperatures. By state dictate all schools will "save money" by closing schools on seventeen "furlough" Fridays through this school year. Hawaii already has the fewest instructional days per year in the nation and is on the lowest rung of student performance records. Lingle took this course without consideration of the costs to working couples who have no place for their children to go, and without plans to meet the strict educational goals required by state and federal mandates. We could have used that Superferry $40 million for the DOE. Now Lingle is asking to the office of the governor to have even greater control of the centralized education department. Wrong direction Linda! You won't be getting any Nobel Prize. The DOE should break education supervision down to the county (island) level with separate school districts on each island as needed. Then it won't matter if the state goes belly up investing in the wrong future. See also: Ea O Ka Aina: TheTriumph of the Commons 8/26/09