7 results
Search Results
Now showing 1 - 7 of 7
Journal Article Be Diverse(2009) Ostrom, Elinor; Nagendra, Harini"The loss of biodiversity has alarming implications for the persistence of humankind, indeed for the survival of life on Earth. Protected areas are the cornerstone of most policy proposals to maintain biodiversity, yet their effectiveness is intensely debated. Furthermore, when the variety of biological life is so rich, interconnected, and diverse, it seems peculiarly shortsighted and inflexible to adopt one single approach to conservation."Journal Article Robustness of Social-Ecological Systems to Spatial and Temporal Variability(2007) Janssen, Marco A.; Anderies, John M.; Ostrom, Elinor"Some social-ecological systems (SESs) have persisted for hundreds of years, remaining in particular configurations that have withstood a variety of natural and social disturbances. Many of these long-lived SESs have adapted their institutions to the particular pattern of variability they have experienced over time as well as to the broader economic, political, and social system in which they are located. Such adaptations alter resource use patterns in time and/or space to maintain the configuration of the SESs. Even well-adapted SESs, however, can become vulnerable to new types of disturbances. Through the analysis of a series of case studies, we begin to characterize different types of adaptations to particular types of variability and explore vulnerabilities that may emerge as a result of this adaptive process. Understanding such vulnerabilities may be critical if our interest is to contribute to the future adaptations of SESs as the more rapid processes of globalization unfold."Journal Article Political Science and Conservation Biology: A Dialog of the Deaf(2006) Agrawal, Arun; Ostrom, Elinor"The reasons political scientists neglect conservation biology and biodiversity may lie even deeper than incentives related to publication and hiring. They may have more to do with what political scientists view as the most important issues and the appropriate scale at which to study them. Electoral systems and practices, democracy, political institutions, international regimes, public opinion, state-society relations, conflict, war, violence, race and ethnicity, policy making, strategic behavior, and policy outcomes are properly the province of their discipline according to most political scientists. Few see biodiversity as central to the concerns of political science. Furthermore, political scientists tend to value research at the nation-state level far more than that conducted on subnational units of analysis. Much of the research in conservation biology, in contrast, takes place at far finer scales than those denoted by national boundaries. Vigorous cross-disciplinary conversations may also be missing because of important differences in corresponding world views. For most political scientists, strategic behavior is central to human interactions. For most conservation biologists, one might argue, the imperative to protect the environment, specifically biodiversity, is beyond strategic calculation."Journal Article The Core Challenges of Moving Beyond Garrett Hardin(2009) Basurto, Xavier; Ostrom, Elinor"Hardins theory depicting a set of pastoralists inexorably trapped in the overuse of their common pasturewas thought for many years to be typical for common-pool resources (CPRs) not owned privately or by a government. Since Hardin thought the users would be trapped in their tragic overuse of a resource, he advocated two solutions to prevent future tragedies: state control or individual ownership. We need to move beyond this simplistic approach, but face challenges in doing so."Journal Article Guest Introduction(2011) Ostrom, Elinor"The current issue of Grassroots Economic Organizing contains a very interesting discussion among researchers and practitioners of diverse types of collective action. What is reassuring is that some common agreement does exist among researchers and practitioners. The group, who has written this special issue, understands human behavior as being complex and based on a variety of values and goals, rather than simple and based on only on the maximization of individual wellbeing. When one models collective action using a narrow set of assumptions that individuals always seek their own private good ahead of all other goals, the prediction about collective action is very clear. One simply predicts that individuals will not engage in collective action unless they are paid in some concrete fashion or are required to do so by well-enforced rules and laws."Journal Article Inaugural Speech(2011) Ostrom, Elinor"Its a great honour to be here. And I want to thank Shri Nitin Desai, and President Ruth Meinzen Dick, and Shri Jairam Ramesh, and Shri Jagdeesh Rao for organising something that is very exciting and very important for me. And it is a joy to see many colleagues that I have known through the years again, and to learn from them, and I am looking forward to questions. I will not be here for the whole meeting, but I will be here for the next two days and know that I will learn a lot. I am going to be focusing largely on collective action theory, which I see as an underlying part of our work, so that there is a foundation to our research."Journal Article Institutions for Managing Ecosystem Services(2011) Allen, Jennifer; DuVander, Jenny; Kubiszewski, Ida; Ostrom, Elinor"Two decades of research into the management of what economists call common-pool resources suggests that, under the right conditions, local communities can manage shared resources sustainably and successfully. These revolutionary findings challenge the long-held belief in the 'tragedy of the commons.' Instead, we have found that tragedy is not inevitable when a shared resource is at stake, provided that people communicate. In many places--from Swiss pastures to Japanese forests--communities have come together for the sake of the environment and their own long-term well-being."