Long-distance social relationships can both undercut and promote local natural resource management

Abstract

The management of large common-pool resources, like fisheries and forests, is more difficult when more people and more communities can access them—a particular problem given increased population sizes, higher mobility and globalized trade in the Anthropocene. Social relationships spanning communities, such as kin relationships, business or trade relationships and friendships, can make management even more challenging by facilitating and transmitting norms of overharvesting. However, these long-distance relationships can also bolster management by transmitting norms for sustainability, promoting interdependence and laying the groundwork for nested management systems. Here, we review the negative and positive impacts of long-distance relationships on local natural resource management (NRM), providing illustrative examples from our field research on forest and fisheries management in Tanzania. Drawing on the evolutionary literature, the development literature and our field data, we offer suggestions for how development partners can avoid the pitfalls of long-distance relationships and how they can use or even deliberately foster long-distance relationships to promote successful local NRM. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Evolution and sustainability: gathering the strands for an Anthropocene synthesis’.

Characteristic processes of human evolution caused the Anthropocene and may obstruct its global solutions

“…Human sociality is uniquely expansive, and so it may be that the historical upward trajectory in the scale and intensity of cooperation can continue into the Anthropocene, avoiding the worst outcomes we have described. Human groups often cooperate and share cultural elements even in the absence of external pressures (see [29]), creating a fitness interdependence which may mitigate competitive outcomes. Perhaps the expansive quality of human sociality may mitigate this scenario.…”

“…Between-group cooperation can take the form of trade networks, military alliances and treaties, and may often be coupled with cultural transmission including the sharing of language and traditions. These long-distance between-group interactions may play a role in natural resource management and environmental exploitation as well [29]. Human capacity to grow new cooperative and cultural connections between groups may even result in the formation of new social units at a larger scale.…”

Evolution and sustainability: gathering the strands for an Anthropocene synthesis

“…In this issue, multiple contributions start unpacking the evolutionary dynamics of global connectivity. Using empirical case studies from Africa, Pisor et al [125] look at the multiple roles long-distance social relationships can have on local natural resource management and conservation efforts. They conclude that such relationships can either undermine or facilitate sustainable management as they can either transmit norms of overharvesting or sustainability.…”