The 2009 Nobel prize in Economic Sciences was awarded to Elinor Ostrom. Sharing with Oliver Williamson, Ostrom was acknowledged for her analysis of economic governance, especially for common-pool resources.
Those studying community-based natural-resource management would be familiar with Elinor Ostrom. She introduced the concept of "common-pool resource" (CPR), a resource in which the property rights arrangement is in the hands of a group of users and, therefore, the people share rights and obligations associated with the resource.
Economists before Ostrom tended to classify types of goods into two groups: private and public goods. They put CPR, such as forests, grazing areas and water, into the public goods category. As public goods, all members of society have access to the resources, and as a result these resources would be overexploited - as Hardin indicates in The Tragedy of the Common (1968). In facing open or public goods, people consider others as their rivals and will act as free-riders and extract as much resources as possible. This leads to unsustainable resource use: resource degradation and exhaustion of resources.
Ostrom argues that CPR is different from open and public property. Everyone could have access to and gain benefits from open or public property, but not to and from CPR. This type of resource is owned and managed by a group of people with specific regulations designed by the group. As an owner of a CPR, the benefits and costs related to the resource would go to no one but members of the group.
Providing examples of a communal tenure system in high mountain meadows and forests in Torbel (Switzerland), in several Japanese villages, and other places, Ostrom shows how community-based resource management can be sustainable.
Instead of behaving as free riders, people within the group communicate with each other and have the capability to form a self-organized group. Cooperative, collective action and trust among them is possible, when they realize that collaboration will increase the benefits or reduce the costs.
In her study, Ostrom finds similarities in successful CPR institutions. Her book of Governing the Commons (1990) lists principles for long-enduring and successful collective action in managing CPR. These include: clear rules associated with the boundaries of resources being managed, fairness in the distribution of benefits associated with costs, accountable monitoring systems, conflict resolution mechanisms and the recognition of rights by the external entities.
Ostrom was awarded a Nobel prize after an international meeting on Climate Change in Bangkok had just concluded. One of the agendas of the Bangkok Climate Change Talks last month was to discuss the implementation of Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD) scheme.
REDD was introduced in 2007, at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) 13th Conference of the Parties (COP 13), in Bali. One of the main causes of climate change is carbon emissions.
Deforestation is an important source of carbon emissions, particularly in Indonesia. Maintaining forests is therefore a potential way to mitigate global warming. Under REDD, reduced emissions from avoiding deforestation would be quantified and then sold in the carbon market or handed to an international fund arrangement for financial compensation.
In many places of the world, forests are managed as CPR. Communities living adjacent to forests have managed the resources in sustainable ways for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. This community-based forest management can be seen in many places in Indonesia as hutan adat (customary forests), hutan desa (village forests) or other community forestry regimes. Under the REDD program, communities conserving their local forests are eligible to financial compensation, which could in turn be used to improve their livelihoods.
It might be a coincidence that Ostrom received the Nobel prize at about the same time the issue of REDD implementation was discussed at the Bangkok Climate Change Talks. In fact, Ostrom's winning has an important implication for REDD implementation. Ostrom's recognized work is a list of principles for successful collective action in managing CPR.
Therefore, those who are in charge of implementing REDD schemes could use the principles suggested by Ostrom as a starting point to examine whether a group of people managing forests are eligible for REDD facilities or not.
The writer is a lecturer at the School of Economics, Parahyangan Catholic University.
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