Browsing by Author "Trosper, Ronald L."

Now showing 1 - 8 of 8

Emergence Unites Ecology and Society
(2005) Trosper, Ronald L.
"The effort to combine analysis of ecosystems and social systems requires a firm theoretical basis. When humans are present in an ecosystem, their actions affect emergent structures; this paper examines forms of emergence that account for the presence of humans. Humans monitor and regulate ecosystems based on their cultural systems. Cultural systems consist of concepts linked in complicated ways that can form consistent world views, can contain inconsistencies, and may or may not accurately model the properties of a social-ecological system. Consequently, human monitoring and regulating processes will differ, depending on cultural systems. Humans, as agents, change or maintain pre-existing material and cultural emergent structures. The presentation is illustrated with a case study of fire-prone forests. The paper shows that explicit attention to emergence serves very well in unifying the following requirements for social-ecological analysis: coherent and observable definitions of sustainability; ways to link ecological and social phenomena; ways to understand cultural reasons for stability and instability in dynamic social-ecological systems; and ways to include human self-evaluation and culture within dynamic models of social-ecological systems. Analysis of cultural emergent structures clarifies many differences in assumptions among the fields of economics, sociology, political science, ecology, and ecological economics. Because it can be readily applied to empirical questions, the framework provides a good way to organize policy analysis that is not dominated by one or another discipline."
How the Potlatch Contributed to Fisheries Management
(1996) Trosper, Ronald L.
"With population levels and technology that could have led them to overfish their salmon resource, most northwest coast tribes succeeded in generating a surplus from their fishery. A 'potlatch' or 'give-away' system creates incentives to manage a common property resource at socially optimum levels of harvest effort. The particular institutions of the Kwakiutl are examined in this paper to explore the possibility that their potlatch tradition helped prevent overharvest of their common pool resources. Kwakiutl world view and their system of winter ceremonials are consistent with this interpretation, as is the growth of the size of individual potlatches in the nineteenth century and the decline of the potlatch as Kwakiutl lost control of their fishery in the twentieth century. Because of the success of northwest coast tribes, an institution which requires users of a common pool resource to divide their surplus among each other should be considered in addressing common pool problems."
Hunter-Gatherers in Late Modernity: Is Survival Becoming Easier?
(1998) Trosper, Ronald L.
"This essay is motivated by a realization about how much has been lost to my generation about our place, why this happened, and how it is being fixed. How do we descendants of the hunter-gathering peoples deal with the characteristics of late modernity which have removed us from our places? My brothers and I identify with our tribe, but we are definitely modern Indians, less connected to the land than our parents and grandparents. I conclude with some examples of how the reconnection is proceeding; the middle part is a theory about why these examples make sense. This disconnection from our places has two parts, the old story and the new story--the impact of early modernity-- fairly well, as I will explain. It may have done less well with the new story, the impact of late modernity; but we are handling that to an extent as well. The old story is that of reservations, allotment, and the BIA, roughly named 'colonialism.' The new story is harder to name: I call it 'late modernity.' Beck (1992) and Giddens (1990) call it 'reflexive modernization' with 'individualization' as a main result. We may succeed in fighting colonialism but succumb to individualization. On the other hand, maybe reflexive modernization provides some opportunities as well. With changes in strategy, our way of life, world view, and the management goals they give us for our land can survive."
Incentive Systems that Support Sustainability: A First Nations Example
(1998) Trosper, Ronald L.
"Prior to contact with European settlers, the incentive and governance systems used by First Nations peoples of the Northwest coast of North America provided more sustainable use of the fisheries and other resources of that region than did subsequent systems. This paper explores the major reason for that success: the requirements of the potlatch system that chiefs share their income with each other. Because chiefs controlled well-defined territories and subjected each other to review, the potlatch governance system embodied the characteristics of negative feedback, coordination, resiliency, and robustness that political scientist John Dryzek identifies as means to support ecological rationality in the management of ecosystems. This ecological rationality occurs because the sharing of income made chiefs aware of the effects that their actions had on the income of other chiefs. In addition, public discussions that occurred at feasts would allow chiefs to coordinate their actions as needed. The paper concludes with proposals for application of the potlatch system to modern circumstances. Such application means changing the rules for the distribution of income from using ecosystem resources so that all entities share their surplus income with each other. The potlatch system can be applied to modern organizations by noting that chief executive officers are like chiefs, that profit is like surplus income, and that corporations can be viewed as similar to the houses of the traditional Northwest systems. One major change is that profit is no longer privately owned, and must be shared with other organizations that use an ecosystem. Although controls on behavior mandated by state power would be reduced, a modernized potlatch system would still need to operate within a context provided by governments and international agreements."
Policy Transformations in the US Forestry Sector, 1970-2000
(2000) Trosper, Ronald L.
"Between 1970 and 1999, two similar scenarios occurred in the management of national forests in the United States. In each scenario, the action began when a local problem of ecosystem imbalance induce litigation that led to a court halting Forest Service timber harvesting. After the first stoppage, Congress passed the National Forest Management Act, but the Forest Service continued high levels of wood fiber production from the national forests. The impact of these cuts on an endangered species led to the second halt. In the second scenario, the President intervened and assisted the Forest Service in creating the Northwest Forest Plan. This action invalidated a whole set of forest plans, in turn creating a need to examine the system that provided the plans. This paper provides an interpretation explaining why the second scenario ended with a proposed major revolution in the approach to forest planning in the United States. "In the first case, no significant change occurred because the dominant elites in the forestry sector were able to continue the cultural relevance of a constraining contradiction, the idea of 'sustained yield,' with the emphasis on 'yield,' rather than 'sustained.' When sustained yield is applied to the timber resource, the maintenance of a high production of timber inevitably raises questions about sustaining that yield and about the condition of the forest in general. If the yield of one resource is driven too high, the yields of other uses fall and the future yield of the dominant resource is also threatened. The 1897 Organic Act of the Forest Service, a 1944 Act, and the 1960 Multiple Use and Sustained Yield Act all provide the contradiction. In the presence of such a contradiction, powerful elites must contain it, which they did in spite of the National Forest Management Act. "While the harvest continued, many interests outside of the forestry sector developed ideas that emphasized the idea of 'sustain,' which became 'ecological sustainability.' A successful challenge to the Forest Services 'yield' policy occurred under the Endangered Species Act, allowing the formerly suppressed idea to rise to the top and displace the previously dominant idea. 'Sustained' became the concept, with great consequent changes in the way of defining and thinking about forests. A Committee of Scientists provided a reinterpretation of the provisions of the NFMA and the other environmental legislation as applied to forest planning, by asserting that protection and promotion of ecosystem integrity is needed for all of the multiple purposes of forests. They proposed redefining the planning units at regional and local levels in ecosystem terms. Their proposal also emphasized communication among parties, which would change the Forest Service from an arbiter among competing interests to a facilitator of local collaborative efforts. Whether these changes create a system of continued conflict or the realization of complementarities in forest management remains undetermined."
Resilience in Pre-Contact Pacific Northwest Social Ecological Systems
(2003) Trosper, Ronald L.
"If, like other ecosystems, the variable and dynamic ecosystems of the Pacific Northwest exhibited cycles and unpredictable behavior, particularly when humans were present, the indigenous societies of that region had to have been resilient in order to persist for such a long time. They persisted for two millennia prior to contact with people from the 'old world.' The Resilience Alliance (2002) proposes that social and ecological resilience requires three abilities: the ability to buffer, the ability to self-organize, and the ability to learn. This paper suggests that the characteristics of the potlatch system among Indians on the Northwest Coast, namely property rights, environmental ethics, rules of earning and holding titles, public accountability, and the reciprocal exchange system, provided all three required abilities. The resulting resilience of these societies confirms the validity of many of the ideas now being discussed as important components in providing successful and sustainable relationships between humans and their ecosystems. That so many separate ideas seem to have been linked together into resilient systems in the Pacific Northwest suggests that social ecological resilience is complicated."
The Use of Joint Ventures to Accomplish Aboriginal Economic Development: Two Examples from British Columbia
(2010) Boyd, Jeremy; Trosper, Ronald L.
"'Aboriginal economic development' differs from other forms of development by emphasizing aboriginal values and community involvement. Joint ventures, while providing business advantages, may not be able to contribute to aboriginal economic development. This paper examines two joint ventures in the interior of British Columbia to examine their ability or inability to contribute the extra dimensions of development desired by aboriginal communities. The AED framework examines business structure; profitability; employment; aboriginal capacity in education, experience, and finance; preservation of traditional values, culture and language; control of forest management over traditional territory; and community support. Established in the context of unresolved land claims, both enterprises partially contribute to aboriginal economic development, but in different ways and with different overall results."
The Use of Joint Ventures to Accomplish Aboriginal Economic Development: Two Examples from British Columbia
(2008) Boyd, Jeremy; Trosper, Ronald L.
"'Aboriginal economic development' differs from other forms of development by emphasizing aboriginal values and community involvement. Joint ventures, while providing business advantages, may not be able to contribute to aboriginal economic development. This paper examines two joint ventures in the interior of British Columbia to examine their ability or inability to contribute the extra dimensions of development desired by aboriginal communities. The AED framework examines business structure; profitability; employment; aboriginal capacity in education, experience, and finance; preservation of traditional values, culture and language; control of forest management over traditional territory; and community support. Established in the context of unresolved land claims, both enterprises partially contribute to aboriginal economic development, but in different ways and with different overall results."