Re. the Sockeye salmon, I'm under the
impression that science is v. uncertain about the 'is.' This
complicates the 'ought' alot. Yet, even if we knew the set of
processes that would assure the sockeye salmon's survival, it is still a political
question in my view as to whether we should pay the price.
One of the things I hear Neil saying is that the institutional
arrangements we have in place to save the sockeye salmon are not
working v. well. Peoples legitamate interests are being ignored. What
I hear Diane saying is that some people who interests are hurt by the
recovery process are attempting to stop it. (And needs time as it science struggles to
figure out what recovery entails).
There are a set of institutional arrangements that appear to work
well in situations such as this. The Snake-Columbia river basin
represent a huge common pool resource of water for irrigation,
hydropower, shipping, and fish breeding. The salmon recovery
represents a major change in the rules of the game in how this
resource is managed. (A common pool resource is one associated with
incompatible use-high exclusion cost goods. This class of good is in
between market goods and government provided services. An ocean
fishery is an example of common pool resource, as is an underground
aquafer.)
Elinor Ostrom has studied the instutitional arrangements governing
common pool resources around the US and the world (Governing the
Commons, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1990). She has observed a pattern of
eight insitutional arrangements associated w/ successfully managed
CPR's. These eight institutional arrangements are as follows.
1) Clearly defined boundaries.
Individuals or households who have rights to withdraw resources
units from CPR must be clearly defined, as must the boundaries of the
CPR itself.
2) Congruence between appropriation and provision rules and local
condititons.
Appropriation rules restricting time, place, technology, and/or
quantity of resource units are related to local conditions and to
privision rules requiring labor, material, and/or money [that
maintain the resource].
3) Collective-choice arrangements.
Most individuals affected by the operational rules can participate in
modifying the operational rules.
4) Monitoring.
Monitors, who actively audit CPR conditions and appropriators
behavior, are accountable to the appropirators or are the
appropriators.
5) Graduated Sanctions.
Appropriators who violate operational rules are likely to be assessed
graduated sanctions (depending on teh seriousness and the context of
the offense) by other appropriators, by officials accountable to
these appropirators, or by both.
6) Conflict-resolution mechanisms.
Appropriators and their officials have rapid access to low-cost local
areanas to resolve conflicts among appropriators of between
appropriators and officials.
7) Minimal recognition of rights to organize.
The rights of appropriators to devise their own insitiutions are not
chanllenged by external governmental authorties.
8) Nested enterprises.
Appropriation, provision, monitoring, enforcement, conflict
resolution, and governance activities are organized in multiple
layers of nested enterprises. (These are needed for CPRs that are
part of big systems,[ i.e., the Columbia-Snake river system in my
view]. p. 90.
Chris Hill, a graduate student of mine, wrote her M.S. theses to
determine whether Ostrom's necessary institutional arrangements
existed for resolving the dispute between sockeye salmon and
hydropower. She found that six of eight were present; clearly defined
boundaries and graduated sanctions were missing. (Public Choice for
Economic Development and Environmental Quality in the Columbia
River Basin: Hydropower and Anadromous Fish, 1992). Chris's thesis
and Ostrom's theory supports Neil's contention that the current set of institutional
arrangements are not sufficiently complete to assure successful
management of the Columbia-Snake river basin to protect the sockeyes.
Work remains to be done on the institutional arrangements.
My guess is that if the institutional arrangements were in place, we
could buy time to better figure out the science of sockeye salmon
recovery. As it stands now, we are asking biologial science to
provide answers it does not yet have. Perhaps social science can
help in the mean time.