Incentives for avoiding the Tragedy of the Commons

Abstract

Efforts to protect vulnerable environmental resources have focused largely on legal prohibitions and sanctions or on economic rewards or penalties. The role and importance of social and cultural factors have been much less considered. While theoretical arguments have addressed whether state institutions must be involved in resource protection, or whether private incentives can be manipulated to achieve desired outcomes, this preoccupation with either public sector or private sector solutions to the problems of environmental conservation has caused a neglect of social values and community consensus. The analysis offered here seeks to enlarge the debate from being two-sided to three-cornered.By bringing in a third set of considerations, the socio-cultural, the analysis underscores that individual decisions are embedded in community and local contexts. All three kinds of incentives are considered to be potentially of equal importance for resource-conserving behaviour (RCB) vis-à-vis resource-degrading behaviour (RDB). The analysis is concerned first with the strength of different incentives in favour of RCB compared to RDB, comparing legal and economic with socio-cultural considerations affecting RCB and RDB. Efforts to protect vulnerable resources can seek to alter in an RCB direction the attitudes and incentives of people along any or all of these three dimensions of motivation, or they can seek to make a particular domain of motivation more salient if it is supportive of environmental conservation.This analysis is proposed in part to get the socio-cultural domain taken more seriously alongside the legal and economic domains, as well as to prompt more systematic consideration of different kinds of policies, investments, actions or pronouncements that could shift the net balance of incentives in favour of RCB. While the analysis is admittedly simplified, there is utility in encouraging focused comparisons and evaluations of conservation alternatives. Examples of efforts to promote RCB in Madagascar and Costa Rica are given to illustrate this.

Preserving Biodiversity and Ecosystems: Catalyzing Conservation Contagion

“…An integrated balance of these three factors is needed to induce conservation,. Uphoff and Langholz (1998) make a strong case for the importance of social values leading to stewardship of natural resources, echoing what we have found in our experiences with community-based conservation. Although money was one motivator in our project at the Community Baboon Sanctuary in Belize, community members consistently demonstrated pride in their conservation efforts, especially their flagship "baboons" (the local term for black howler monkeys, Alouatta pigra).…”

“…On the other hand, efforts of ICDPs, offering a wealth of developmental possibilities to these same rural residents, often failed generally because of the limitations discussed below. Uphoff and Langholz (1998) present a model of three basic categories of incentives for people to conserve or exploit protected resources: 1) legal, 2) financial or 3) social/cultural. According to these authors, if initiatives incorporate all of these elements, they have a high probability of being adopted.…”

“…In reality, community or government protected areas in developing countries still need richer nations to infuse conservation efforts with financial and other resources Balmford & Whitten, 2003); alternatively, other creative ideas such as trust funds or direct payments need to be considered (Kiss, 2004). Social sustainability of most Community Conservation, Inc. projects occurred because of sufficient, motivated, and prepared social capital combined with social and other (e.g., modest and targeted economic) incentives (Uphoff & Langholz, 1998;Wilson, 2002). Although the Community Baboon Sanctuary has experienced significant challenges over time, it has persisted for over twenty-six years because community-based conservation became a guiding ethic in the minds and lives of local people.…”

Long-Term Effects of Payments for Environmental Services: Combining Insights from Communication and Economics

“…Uphoff & Langholz [27] observe that worldwide, of three important sources of motivation that guide people in managing natural resources, policies and programs to promote conservation have focused heavily on (1) legal and (2) economic sources of motivation, but they have paid little attention to (3) social and cultural sources of motivation, including social approval and disapproval. Conservation programs may include a component of moral suasion, i.e., an effort to instill the idea that conservation is the right thing to do, but normally with the understanding that moral sentiment alone cannot be expected to result in conservation, particularly if there are economic forces that oppose it [28].…”

“…Conservation programs may include a component of moral suasion, i.e., an effort to instill the idea that conservation is the right thing to do, but normally with the understanding that moral sentiment alone cannot be expected to result in conservation, particularly if there are economic forces that oppose it [28]. Uphoff & Langholz [27] argue that ignoring social and cultural sources of motivation in promoting conservation is perilous because even if it is not the primary source of motivation, it can help tip the balance in cases where different sources of motivation point in different directions or do not lead to conclusive preferences.…”