Human Dimensions of Natural Resource Management

11:374:314, sec. 01
Fall 1997
Tuesday/Friday 2nd period (9:50-11:10)
Thompson 206 (& Blake 131 as announced)

Professor Bonnie J. McCay
Department of Human Ecology & Ecopolicy Center
Cook College. 932-9168 (Human Ecology) 932-9583, ext. 13 (Ecopolicy)
Office Hours: Tuesdays after class, at Douglass Cafe (11:30-12:30) and then the Ecopolicy Center (Continuing Education Annex, Clifton Road), 12:30-1:30; otherwise by appointment.

Required Textbooks (Cook-Douglass Coop Bookstore):

Cone, Joseph. 1996. A Common Fate; Endangered Salmon and the People of the Pacific Northwest. Corvallis, OR: Oregon State University Press. ("Cone")

Cultural Survival Quarterly, special issue. "Voices from the Commons; Evolving Relations of Property and Management." Vol. 20 (1), Spring 1996 ("Voices")

Hanna, Susan S., Carl Folke and Karl-Goran Maler, eds. 1996. Rights to Nature; Ecological, Economic, Cultural, and Political Principles of Institutions for the Environment. Washington, D.C.: Island Press. ("Hanna et al.")

Knight, Richard L. and Sarah F. Bates, eds. 1995. A New Century for Natural Resources Management. Washington, D.C.: Island Press. ("Knight and Bates")

McCay, B.J. and J. A. Acheson, eds. 1987. The Question of the Commons. Tucson: University of Arizona Press. ("McCay and Acheson")

This is an upper-division course, one of the core courses in the new (since 1994) Cook College major in Environmental Policy, Institutions, and Behavior. Students are expected to maintain notebooks-cum-journals on the course lectures, discussions, and readings. These may be requested from time to time for review. There will also be a small handful of "pop quizzes" to reinforce the importance of keeping up with readings and attending class sessions. Bi-weekly short essays or discussion papers are also required. The books were selected because of their importance and relevance to the course; not all chapters in them are listed below as required, but those not required are certainly worth reading and can be used to contribute to your accomplishments in the course, both written and oral. Each student is expected to develop and carry out an independent research paper, due by the last day of the class (Dec. 9th); each will also be asked to make a brief (10 min.) presentation to the rest of the class on this research (Dec. 5, 9, 19).

Like it or not, we are also computerized. One or more CD-ROMs are also part of the required "reading," (arrangements to be made later), and all students must subscribe to the class's "listserv," which is called "HUMDIM" (of course). From your mail system, send a message to "mailserv@aesop.rutgers.edu" which simply says "subscribe humdim" (leave off the quotation marks). HUMDIM will be an important mode of communication between me and you and amongst yourselves. If you don't have a computer account or know how to use a mail system, learn NOW.

Grading will be based, roughly equally, on (a) performance in maintaining a journal, on pop quizzes, and in class simulations and discussion papers, and participation in "listserv" discussions; and (b) performance on an original research paper and its presentation to the class. Apart from pop quizzes, no exams are scheduled.

I reserve the right to alter the syllabus as needed, giving at least one week's notice to students in the class. The changed version of the syllabus will be made available on HUMDIM. Students, in turn, are responsible for keeping up with possible alterations in course schedules. Participation is important and thus attendance is crucial.

Outline of topics, assignments, readings

1. Tuesday, Sept. 2nd; Introduction: Conservation and Natural Resource Management in Socio-Cultural Context

Knight & Bates, Introd. to Part I, "The beginnings of natural resources management"

Knight & Bates, Ch. 1, "The oldest task in human history" (Meine); beginnings of the "conservation movement" to the 1940s; Muir & Pinchot; rise of utilitarian resource conservation, institutionalized in laws, policies, and bureaucracies; importance of Hetch Hetchy dam in CA.; forestry, the lead conservation profession; agriculture & soil conservation, the Dust Bowl; crowded frontiers and range mgmt; the Taylor Grazing Act; wildlife mgt., role of states, rise of game and "nongame" management, Fish & Wildlife Service; fisheries mgmt., states, fish hatcheries vs. habitat mgmt.; recreation & conservation, coalition and competition; wildnerness idea; science of ecology and a new world view, Leopold's land ethic; "resources"; effects of World War II & postwar boom, narrowing forestry, with effects on subculture of the profession; similar for other professions; but also forces for a new environmentalism and conservation; disintegrated vs. synthetic conservation; need for words "biodiversity" and "sustainability" to communicate new dilemmas; concepts of ecological health and ecosystem management; re-introduction of social sciences & humanities--ecological economics, envir., history, envir. philosophy, ecological anthropology & sociology; conservation as entailing moral choices and resonsibilities; conservation as radical, from the roots of experience....)

2. Friday, Sept. 5th. Property Rights, Land Use, and the Environment: Current Issues.
guest: Ms. Barbara Jones -- discussion of property rights in relation to agricultural, natural resources, and environmental policy; focus on situation of New Jersey cranberry growers.

Handout: "Takings & givings: toward common ground on property rights," Edward Thompson, Jr., Journal of Soil and Water Conservation, Sept.-Oct. 1992: 376-377.

Hanna et al., Ch.1, "Property Rights and the Natural Environment" (Hanna, Folke, Mäler).

3. Tuesday, Sept. 9th. Property Rights and the Prisoners Dilemma

A very simple two-party game is used to show the "prisoner's dilemma" version of a social dilemma that strongly affects the ways we use and manage natural resources and other parts of our environments. The game also highlights the roles of factors such as communication, social relationships, and trust in the outcomes of "commons" dilemmas. Other influential models and metaphors will be briefly introduced, to be followed up later
(i.e., the "tragedy of the commons" and the "logic of collective action"). In class we will also discuss the nature of property rights; a copy of the lecture notes will be posted on HUMDIM, a practice I will follow when feasible.

McCay and Acheson, Ch. 1 "Human ecology of the commons" pp.1-10.

Hanna et al., Ch.6, "Common and private concerns" (McCay), pp.111-120.

4. Friday, Sept. 12th. Institutions for Common Pool Resource Management: informal, indigenous, and indirect modes of governance

We often think of resource management as the business of specialized government agencies, and that is true enough and something to which we will turn later in the course. However, governance takes place in many other ways and social locations. Two case studies are assigned that highlight the importance of tradition, informal sanctions, taboo, etc. in resource management.

McCay and Acheson, Ch.2, "The lobster fiefs revisited" (Acheson) benefits of territoriality; reasons for resisting privatization; a system of "informal" management

McCay and Acheson, Ch.5, "Resource management in an Amazon Varzea lake ecosystem (Stocks) wide variety of ways human ecological relationships are governed.

5. Tuesday, Sept. 16th: Institutions for Common Pool Resource Management: culture, ethics, and world views

"Institutions" are more than organizations; they include laws, moral structures, ethical systems, culture and world views. This class period is devoted to discussing readings about cultural diversity and change in the "ethics" of natural resource management.

Knight & Bates, Ch. 6, "The traditional ethics of natural resources management" (Katz) Traditions in the reflective examination of our relationships with the natural world; anthropocentric attitudes in Western tradition; John Locke and nature as property, a radically anthropocentric view. Appropriation: human labor and the commons. Modernism. Locke's philosophy of use-value came to be "utilitarianism." Ideas of Gifford Pinchot, John Muir, and Aldo Leopold

McCay & Acheson, Ch. 6, "Conservation and resource depletion: the case of the boreal forest Algonquians" (Brightman) question about whether aboriginal groups were 'conservationists' or working on other cultural principles; tragedies of the commons as tragedies of invasions; distinctions between "interest" and "sense" in the significance of animals.

McCay & Acheson, Ch. 7, "Marine tenure and conservation in Papua New Guinea: problems in interpretation" (Carrier) Residents of Ponam, a small tropical island, view nature and organize their use of the marine world in ways that contrast with those of Westerner and science-trained outsiders.

6. Friday, Sept. 19th: Institutions for Common Pool Resource Management in the US: federal land & resource management agencies, professions, & paradigms.

Knight & Bates, Ch. 2, "The federal land management agencies" (Nelson), History and responsibilities of US Forest Service, National Park Service, Fish and Wildlife Service, and Bureau of Land Management, in relation to federal lands.

Knight & Bates, Ch. 3, "Traditional approaches and tools..." (Anderson) renewable vs. nonrenewable resources; sustained yield the dominant paradigm; methods used to manage forests, grasslands, and wildlife, involving manipulation to supply products or commodities on a sustained basis; single-species management.

7. Tuesday, Sept. 23rd: NGOs and Change in Natural Resource Management

Cone, A Common Fate; Endangered Salmon and the People of the Pacific Northwest
Knight and Bates, Ch. 11, "Old players with new power: the nongovernmental organizations" (Cutler)

8. Friday, Sept. 26th: Litigation and Change in Natural Resource Management

Knight and Bates, Ch. 12, "Natural resources management by litigation" (Parker)

9. Tuesday, Sept. 30th: Crisis and Responses: Changes in the US Forest Service: the US Forest Service

Knight and Bates, Ch. 8, "Redefining multiple use': agency responses to changing social values" (Brunson and Kennedy)
Knight and Bates, Ch. 9, "Natural resource agencies: questioning the paradigm" (DeBonis)

10. Friday, Oct. 3rd: Wildlife Management Simulation: "Oh My Deer" [Blake 131]

11. Tuesday, Oct. 7th: Discussion of "Oh My Deer" and multiple and conflicting values in wildlife management. Guest: Dr. Roger Locandro, former head of New Jersey's Fish and Game Commission

12. *Friday, Oct. 10th: Discussion of climate change, property rights; assigned readings; assignment on "Bonavista North" CD-ROM

Ecosystem Management and the "New Ecology"
Knight and Bates, Ch. 10, "Natural resource agencies: transforming from within" (Kessler and Salwasser)
Knight and Bates, Ch. 15, "The shifting paradigm in ecology" (Pickett and Ostfeld)
Knight and Bates, Ch. 16, "New Approaches, new tools: conservation biology" (Knight and George)

13. Tuesday, Oct. 14th: Video: The Return of the Salmon; Restoring the Fish to Rivers and Watersheds. Discussion, reference to Joe Cone's book which you have been reading on the side.

14. Friday, Oct. 17th [Soc.Hum.Ecol]No class: CD-ROM assignment, on Bonavista, Newfoundland; other materials on reserve.

15. Tuesday, Oct. 21st: Discussion of Society for Human Ecology conference.
Case study in crisis and response: the collapse of Newfoundland's cod fishery.

Hanna et al, Ch. 4, "Dynamics of (dis)harmony in ecological and social systems" (Holling and Sanderson). adaptive management ethic; discrepancies between ecological principles and human management schemes; idea of succession, expanded beyond "exploitation" and "conservation" to include "release" and "reorganization"; relations to theories of social change; problem of rigidity or inflexibility in human institutions.
Reserve (Chang Library): Finlayson and McCay (in press).

16. *Friday, Oct. 24th: Place & Community in Natural Resource Management

Knight and Bates, Ch. 7, "A world that takes its environment seriously" (Orr)
Knight and Bates, Ch. 18, "Managing natural resources as social value" (Kennedy and Thomas)

Cultural Survival Quarterly, "Voices from the Commons": article by Barbara Neis and Susan Williams, "Women and Children First: Fishery Collapse and Women in Newfoundland and Labrador"

Class Debate: the Member from Bonavista North at the Canadian Parliament in Ottawa, arguing for or against the following thesis:

that the current problems of Newfoundland's fishing communities are outcomes of "tragedies of the commons," and that the best solution is to sharply restrict access to the fishery.

17. Tuesday, Oct. 28th: Community & the Commons

Read, in Hanna et al., chapter by Ostrom and Schlager, or by Berkes, or by McCay; plus in McCay and Acheson, any one of the following chapters: 8, 9, 10, 11, 14.
Bring to class your ideas about why it is important to study community-based systems involving the use and management of common resources, including your thoughts on the question of whether or not --and if so, how--we should take into account "social" factors when trying to protect biodiversity, restore wounded ecosystems, and conserve natural resources.
Groups will be formed in class with assignments to develop written outlines on the topic using chapters in "McCay and Acheson," "Hanna et al." and "Cultural Survival Quarterly." These joint venture outlines are due Tuesday Nov. 4th.

18. Friday, Oct. 31st: Half-hour class: Guest, Eastern Service Workers Association; volunteer Trick-or-Treating --Thompson 206. Otherwise, this time should be spent working up group outlines on "community and the commons."

19. Tuesday, Nov. 4th: Discussion of "local stocks" conference, University of Maine: locality, co-management, and fisheries; Presentation by Christopher Kolon, on Native Rights and Fisheries Management in Michigan; Outlines due.

20. Friday, Nov. 7th: The challenges of multiple stakeholder natural resource management: Lake Wasota Fishing Rights game, I. [Blake 131]

21. Tuesday, Nov. 11th: Lake Wasota Fishing Rights Game, II. [Blake 131]; assignment.

22. Friday, Nov. 14th: Communities claiming the commons [Guest lecturer: Dhon Sewatarmra, speaking about a Thailand case of community-based management] Thompson 206

Cultural Survival Quarterly "Voices from the Commons": article by Susan Stonich, "Reclaiming the Commons: Grassroots resistance and retaliation in Honduras"other readings from CSQ

23. Tuesday, Nov. 18th: guest speakers: Rick Brown and/or Bruce Freeman, NJ Department of Environmental Protection.... [Lake Wasota Fishing Rights game assignment due] Thompson 206

24. Friday, Nov. 21st [] Co-management and participation in environmental decision-making [Guest lecturer, Dr. D. Wilson, speaking about the general ideas of co-management and the nature and meaning of participation in Mid-Atlantic fisheries management] Thompson 206

McCay and Acheson, Ch. 17, "Intercepting the state: dramatic processes in the assertion of local comanagement rights" (Pinkerton); Ch. 18, "The grass roots and the state; resource management in Icelandic fishing" (Durrenberger and Palsson).

25. Wednesday, Nov. 26th ("Friday" class; no Tuesday [it becomes "Thursday")
tba

26. Tuesday, Dec. 2nd
tba

27. Friday, Dec. 5th: student presentations

28. Tuesday, Dec. 9th (Last class) ---Student Presentations [final papers due]

Final Examination: Friday, Dec. 19th, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. ---Student Presentations. Bring bag lunches.