Happy New Year, everyone.  Sorry for the lag in posts, but there wasn’t a lot happening in the news or journals over the past week.

A few years ago, I saw a talk by Thomas Schelling (Nobel laureate in economics) who argued that we need to accelerate the economic development of poor countries so that they are able to cope with climate change.  This analysis is interesting, if not fraught with additional challenges, such as development in a carbon-based energy world hastening the very problem to which these nations are attempting to adapt.

In an article¹ in the Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (open access), Anthony Patt and colleagues argued that the need for assistance by Least Developed Countries (LDCs) is dependent on vulnerability, which, in turn, depends on both exposure to climate change and how socioeconomic factors affect the sensitivity of LDCs to climate change.

To assess this hypothesis, they first examined how deaths caused by disasters (floods, droughts, and storms) varied across the level of development in several LDCs.  They used the UN Human Development Index—HDI, a composite metric of income, education, and life expectancy—as a proxy for development.

Here’s what they found…

As you might expect, they found that deaths declined with increased HDI, but interestingly, the relationship had a peak in the middle, suggesting that as the least-developed countries become more developed, they may actually exacerbate vulnerability to climate change at mid levels of HDI before eventually reducing vulnerability at high levels of HDI.

Next, they focused on Mozambique as a case study.  Using the model of deaths vs. HDI they developed for other countries, they projected how Mozambique’s HDI might change over the next 50 years.  To do this, they linked the HDI to different development scenarios outlined by the IPCC’s Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES):

The A2 storyline describes high population and economic growth but low globalization, whereas the B1 storyline describes greater globalization
tied to improvements in environmental quality and sustainability, as well as lower population growth.

Under both scenarios, carbon increases in the atmosphere, but at different rates and to different degrees.  The authors assumed a linear increase in storms/disasters with rising temperatures, indicating that greater warming in the A2 scenario will lead to more disasters and more potential death than the B1 scenario where warming is not as great.

Following the B1 scenario caused the HDI to rise more quickly than the A1 scenario.  Simply put, society on a more-sustainable path (B1) leads to higher social welfare than under a more fossil-fuel intensive path with higher levels of human population (A2).

Similar to what they found by examining many countries, Mozambique will become more vulnerable to increased deaths as HDI rises over coming decades (by 2030-2040).  However, after 2050, vulnerability declined significantly in the B1 scenario, less so in the A2 scenario.

A few excerpts of their conclusions:

The results suggest that vulnerability may rise faster in the next two decades than in the three decades thereafter. Importantly, the overall need for adaptation measures will continue to rise… However,
assuming that their development paths fall somewhere close to the range bounded by the A2 and B1 scenarios, by the second quarter of the century LDCs will likely engage in a greater share of this adaptation autonomously, thereby reducing both their losses, and their need for financial assistance. This is especially the case if socio-economic conditions change in a manner close to that described in the B1 scenario.

….Looking beyond 2060 and the crossing of temperature thresholds such as 2 °C, it may well be that steadily rising climate impacts—such as sea level rise or the effects of cumulative changes on ecosystems—create problems that go well beyond the ability of any country, rich or poor, to adapt. Until that point, a primary argument for ramping up assistance slowly—namely, that adaptation needs can only increase as climate change continues—is incomplete, because it ignores the role that socio-economic development and the concurrent changes in adaptive capacity will have to play. Although there are important caveats to our results, they provide a first estimate of how vulnerability will unfold over the next 50 years, if one assumes, as do all of the SRES scenarios, that
incomes will continue to rise. They suggest that the urgency of efforts to reduce vulnerability, including the provision of international financial assistance, is high.

One thing the authors acknowledge is that nobody really has a good explanation for the humped relationship of HDI vs. deaths from disasters.  That’s an important part of their results, which suggests that the very poorest nations may experience more suffering in the initial steps of development.  Understanding this would make a great PhD in development economics.

¹Patt, A. et al. (in press) Estimating least-developed countries’ vulnerability to climate-related extreme events over the next 50 years. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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Photo credit:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/breadfortheworld/ / CC BY-NC 2.0

Human actions are having large and accelerating effects on the climate, environment and ecosystems of the Earth, thereby degrading many ecosystem services. This unsustainable trajectory demands a dramatic change in human relationships with the environment and life-support system of the planet. Here, we address recent developments in thinking about the sustainable use of ecosystems and resources by society in the context of rapid and frequently abrupt change.

To deal with these challenges, they advocate “ecosystem stewardship,” which has three core principles.  Here are excerpts of these principles (slightly condensed/adapted by me); please check out the paper for details:

(Principle 1) Reduce vulnerability to known stresses

(A) Reduce exposure to hazards and stresses
• Minimize known stresses and avoid or minimize novel hazards and stresses
• Develop new institutions that minimize global-scale stresses
• Manage in the context of projected changes rather than in the historical range of variability

(B) Reduce social–ecological sensitivities and adapt to adverse impacts
• Sustain the capacity of ecosystems to provide multiple ecosystem services
• Sustain and enhance crucial components of well-being, particularly of vulnerable segments of society
• Plan sustainable development to address the tradeoffs among costs and benefits for ecosystems, multiple segments of today’s society and future generations

(Principle 2) Develop stewardship strategies to prepare for, and shape, uncertain change

(A) Maintain a diversity of options
• Subsidize innovations that foster socio-economic novelty and diversity
• Renew the functional diversity of degraded systems
• Prioritize conservation of biodiversity hotspots and pathways that enable species to adjust to rapid environmental change
• Sustain a diversity of cultures, languages and knowledge systems that provide multiple approaches to meeting societal goals.

(B) Enhance social learning to facilitate adaptation
• Broaden the problem definition and knowledge co-production by engaging multiple disciplinary perspectives and knowledge systems
• Use scenarios and simulations to explore consequences of alternative policy options
• Develop transparent information systems and mapping tools that contribute to developing trust among decision-makers and stakeholders, and build support for action
• Test understanding through comparative analysis, experimentation and adaptive management
• Exercise extreme caution in experiments that perturb a system larger than the jurisdiction of management

(C) Adapt governance to implement potential solutions
• Provide an environment for leadership and respect to develop
• Foster social networking that builds trust and bridges communication and accountability among existing organizations
• Enable sufficient overlap in responsibility among organizations to allow redundancy in policy implementation

(Principle 3) Transform from traps to potentially more favorable trajectories

(A) Preparing for transformation
• Engage stakeholders to identify dysfunctional states and raise awareness of problems
• Identify thresholds, plausible alternative states, pathways and triggers
• Identify the barriers to change, potential change agents and strategies to overcome barriers

(B) Navigating the transition
• Identify potential crises and use them as opportunities to initiate change
• Maintain flexible strategies and transparency
• Foster institutions that facilitate cross-scale and cross-organizational interactions and stakeholder participation

(C) Building resilience of the new regime
• Create incentives and foster values for stewardship in the new context
• Initiate and mobilize social networks of key individuals for problem solving
• Foster interactions and support of decision makers at other levels

Bottom line:  This paper provides a useful framework for the continuing conversation on sustainability.  Some of the ideas are not new, but it’s a good synthesis, and it makes progress towards the difficult task of integrating natural and social systems. I would like to see a comprehensive list of examples compiled for all of these strategies as a clearinghouse for ideas, including ideas that do (did) not work.

We are going to see a lot more on these ideas over the next decade:

• interdependence of natural and social systems
• reducing vulnerabilities (a key component of adaptation)
• fostering innovation in all sectors of society
• maintain diversity in ecological and social systems as a form of resilience (another key component of adaptation)
• being proactive to shape the trajectory of change

¹Chapin F.S. et al (in press) Ecosystem stewardship: sustainability strategies for a rapidly changing planet. Trends in Ecology and Evolution

²Bowdoin people can access the article here.

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We don’t ordinarily think about climate change and land use change as being a synergistic threat to society.  However, the combination of impervious surfaces that increase runoff, declining wetlands, levees, and more severe storms pack a quadruple whammy that could lead to some major flooding in the future.  From the cool adaptation work done in Keene, NH, we know that much of our infrastructure (roads, bridges, culverts) can’t handle the added stress of streams and rivers with higher discharge.  We’re looking at a potential nightmare of increased costs associated with infrastructure damage.

In this week’s issue of Science, Jeffrey Opperman and colleagues argue¹ that our historical paradigm of flood control with levees needs to fundamentally change to  achieve a more sustainable socioecological system.

Their solution?  Tear down some of the levees to allow some floodplains to flood.  This can accomplish several goals:

(1) Flood risk reduction

• Move to flood-tolerant activities in floodplains so that we don’t have to spend so much on disaster relief.
• Storing water in floodplains takes the strain off downstream regions because floodwaters can naturally spill to where they are supposed to rather than swelling channelized rivers.  Small amounts of land can accomplish this—they cite a study of the Illinois River showing that a floodplain of 8,000 hectares would drop the likelihood of flooding 26,000 hectares of cropland by 50%.

(2) Increased floodplain goods and services

• Several economic activities are conducive to periodic flooding:  pasture, timber, and flood-tolerant biofuel crops, such as willow.
• Periodically flooded soils can also assist with reducing erosion and storing nutrients that would otherwise reach and pollute coastal oceans.

(3) Building resiliency to climate change

• They argue that reconnecting rivers to floodplains can help us adapt to climate change in ways that are socioeconomically beneficial.  For instance, we presently have to keep some reservoirs partially empty to accommodate periodic flood waters.  But partially filled reservoirs can’t generate as much hydropower or provide as much drinking water.  If we used floodplains as a natural pressure relief valve, we can operate reservoirs closer to capacity and benefit economically.

Opperman and colleagues acknowledge that there are political hurdles, such as convincing some private landowners that flooding their land can be useful.

But there are creative solutions that have already been deployed.  They cite Sacramento as an example:  Some farmers allow their crops to flood, serving as a pressure-relief valve when rivers swell, thereby preventing more expensive damage.  In return, the farmers are compensated for their crop loss.  It’s a win-win situation that presumably costs less than dealing with infrastructure damage or having to build new infrastructure that handles greater flooding.

Another idea is to allow some of these areas to become wetlands and compensate people as part of a wetlands banking system to mitigate the loss of wetlands elsewhere.   This would most likely have several ecological benefits, including increasing habitat for wetland-dependent species such as waterfowl and other migrating birds.  It would also likely increase vegetation productivity and carbon storage.

It’s interesting to note that they don’t call for an end to economic activity or human use in floodplains.  Sure, we probably want to stop building McMansions in flood-prone regions.  However, there are several ways we can use floodplains for ecological and economic benefit.  These will likely require compensation, but in the long run, it’s cheaper than having to re-tool major infrastructure to handle greater discharge with climate warming.

¹Opperman, J.J. et al (2009) Sustainable floodplains through large-scale reconnections to rivers. Science 326:1487-1488.

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Photo credit:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/doblonaut/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Most of the focus these days is on how we can mitigate climate warming by achieving specific reductions targets like 20% by 2020 and 80% by 2050.  Economists from McGill University, Isabel Galiana and Christopher Greene, are going to stir up debate in their latest paper¹ in Nature by arguing that the current way of thinking about mitigating warming needs to be turned on its head.

Focusing on rapid emissions reductions, they say, may not be the best way to rapidly stabilize climate as cheaply as possible.  They even go as far as to say that climate can be stabilized at a 2 degree C warming even if most of the carbon reductions don’t happen until after 2050.

What’s the basis for their argument?  Technology-led approaches.  Let’s see what this means…

In the recent 2009 Copenhagen Consensus on Climate (an annual meeting of economists to discuss ways to solve the world’s pressing problems), they were part of a panel of economists that ranked 15 proposals to mitigate warming.  Their key findings included

• For $US 100 billion per year invested in global energy R&D for the rest of the century, we can stabilize emissions and minimize warming.
• A technology focus should replace the current focus on emissions reductions.
• This can happen with a low “fee” (tax) of $5/ton carbon, which would raise $150 billion annually.
• The carbon fee would be allowed to double every decade, sending a price forward signal that carbon is getting increasingly expensive and that the benefit of developing and deploying low-C technologies as soon as possible is a good idea.  By 2050, carbon would cost $40/ton.
• Isolate this revenue as much as possible from politicians, by, say, putting it in a trust fund managed by public and private sectors much in the way the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation operates.
• Open competitions for these funds by companies, nations, and individuals to accelerate new technology development.  Others not in this competition can apply to use the funds to implement the successful technology developed from them.
• This approach facilitates development of breakthrough technology, allows technology to be scaled up, encourages demonstration projects, and helps diffuse technology spread.

Conventional emissions reduction approaches, they argue, have many pitfalls:

• They risk reducing emissions before the new technologies are fully developed and available, which could impact global GDP more than it should if we worried less about emissions reductions up front and did everything we could to push out new technology.
• They risk causing C prices to rise too rapidly, which could impact politically sensitive industries employing a lot of people, such as cement, steel, aluminum, and glass.
• Policies favoring high C prices (through cap and trade or high C taxes) don’t necessarily lead to new investment, especially if the revenue generated from these systems is used for anything other than energy R&D.

So back to the question in the title: What do radar, nuclear power, the Internet, and DNA have in common with technology to help us mitigate warming? Galiana, and Green argue

• they require(d) significant public investment to develop;
• the scientific knowledge needed to develop them is (was) not easy to patent, which challenged private investment;
• potential pay-offs are (were) decades away, which dissuades corporate boards focused mainly on short-term profit and stock prices.

¹Galiana, I. and C. Green (2009) Let the Technology Race Begin. Nature 462:570-571.

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Photo credit:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/vattenfall/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

There’s a new website/journal called Solutions, edited by Bob Costanza, David Orr, Paul Hawken, and John Todd that’s worth looking taking a look at.

Let’s take a look at five innovative and exciting ideas from Stanford University, City College of New York,  Western Michigan University, UC-Davis, and the University of Arizona…

(1) Stanford moves aggressively to cut energy use, reduce carbon impact

For those of us who have worked through campus climate action plans, one of the hardest things to deal with is emissions from steam plants.  Stanford is trying to tackle this by starting with energy recapture and conservation.  Their plan is significant because it’s potentially transferable to other schools, especially in warmer climates that use heating and cooling at the same time.  And it focuses on conservation first—usually a smart and cost-effective approach.

Excerpts:

• In an effort to tackle the threat of global climate change head on, Stanford University has developed an ambitious, long-range, $250 million initiative to sharply reduce the university’s energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions.
• Changes outlined in the Energy and Climate Plan could reduce the campus carbon impact by as much as 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2020, far exceeding the aggressive goals of California’s landmark AB 32 Global Warming Solutions Act.
• Unexpectedly, they discovered that over half the university’s heating demands could be met with heat that is already being removed from buildings by the campus cooling system. Such a reuse of energy would cut the amount of natural gas burned for heating purposes dramatically, reducing energy costs as well as emissions of greenhouse gases.
• Reconfiguring the university’s heating and cooling scheme, despite the $250 million price tag, would save money over the next four decades. Energy, water, and other operating cost savings are expected to be about $639 million from 2010 to 2050, after repayment of the initial capital investment.
• The energy-reduction plan revolves around this fact: Campus cooling systems do their job by using chilled water to remove unwanted heat from buildings. For years, that unwanted heat has been piped away from the buildings in the form of warm water, only to be discharged into the air through evaporative cooling towers at the central plant.
• That’s enough spare heat to take care of half of the campus heating needs. The result is that much less natural gas would be burned to warm offices, classrooms, dormitories and laboratories.

(2) City College of New York to offer master program in sustainability in the urban environment

Another example of an institution breaking down traditional divides—in this case architecture, engineering, and science—in the name of curricular initiatives that provide meaningful sustainability training.  Their goals are important, but if there’s anything missing, it’s contributions from sociology and psychology.  These other frames will be key for linking people and the built environment.  Otherwise, there’s a risk that these programs will deliver myopic, techno-driven conceptions of sustainability that are blind to cultural disparities and needs.

Excerpts:

• The program’s core curriculum lays a foundation in sustainability values, strategies and metrics through coursework in urban and natural systems, environmental economics and industrial ecology.  It draws upon approaches such as ‘whole systems thinking’ and life cycle analysis to understand and evaluate complex urban eco-systems.
• An interdisciplinary capstone project, which requires teamwork and interchange among groups of architects, engineers and scientists, will develop experience with the processes and dynamics of integrated design.  Additionally, students will take electives in relevant advanced courses within architecture, engineering and science.
• Graduates will ultimately develop leadership and teamwork skills that will give them an advantage in diverse professional settings where interaction and collaboration among teams of scientists, engineers, architects and others are commonplace.

(3) Western Michigan University getting $1 million for green manufacturing

University-business relationships like this are terrific for showing how university leverage and resources can help the broader economy transition to a more-sustainable world.

Excerpts:

• WMU’s Green Manufacturing project draws upon existing research and development centers at the University. Faculty researchers and students will collaborate with area manufacturers, especially smaller businesses, to help them build greater energy efficiency into manufacturing processes and promote recycling of materials to further reduce costs. About 25 companies in Battle Creek, Kalamazoo, Benton Harbor-St. Joseph, Grand Rapids and Muskegon have already expressed interest in participating, according to Patten.
• “I am especially proud with this project,” said Dunn, “because it highlights one of the longtime strengths of Western Michigan University, which is applying the latest knowledge and technology to create practical solutions of immediate and long-term benefit.”
• “Companies realize that being green is good for their bottom line to ensure their longevity,” said Patten, who added that project will help preserve existing jobs and foster creation of new ones.

(4/5) UC-Davis and U. Arizona have incentivized alternative transportation by using rewards to entice more walking and biking.

This is a great idea, and a no-brainer for schools with climates like Davis and Tucson.  Look at how Davis’ effort to attract people goes beyond traditional appeals for carpooling.  It’s a lesson to other schools:  If you really want people to change commuting behavior, sweeten the deal.

An excerpt from UC-Davis:

• Rewards for green commuting include complimentary parking permits, discounted bus and train passes, discounts on bicycle storage lockers, shower and locker facilities for walkers and bicyclists, and options to get you home in an emergency.
• On top of all that, goClub members are eligible for prize drawings every other month. A sampling of the prizes: bus and train passes, bicycles and assorted bicycle gear, a train-and-bus trip for two to Yosemite, a one-month membership to the Activities and Recreation Center, two tickets to an athletics event of your choice, lunch coupons and UC Davis apparel.
• The old alternative transportation program listed some 1,734 participants: carpoolers and vanpoolers, and bus riders and train riders. All of these people have been automatically enrolled in the goClub.
• With the addition of walkers and bicyclists, goClub membership could grow by thousands—especially considering that bicycling accounts for more than 40 percent of campus-related transportation.

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For more information:

• AASHE bulletin 11/9/09

In another Nature article (subscription required), Anjali Nayar highlights the R.E.D.D. strategy of wealthy countries buying carbon offsets in developing countries by paying to prevent deforestation.

One of the big challenges is the issue of permanence–making sure the forests remain intact so that they serve as an effective carbon sink.  Doing so in Madagascar will take more than money; it will require dealing with poverty and political instability.

An excerpt:

Non-governmental organizations such as the WCS and Conservation International are working through the turmoil. But even they are worried. “We could have a very difficult time selling carbon if this political situation becomes the norm,” says Lisa Gaylord, head of the WCS in Antananarivo, the country’s capital. “Why would an investor want to come here?”

The potential:

• 30-yr R.E.D.D. projects will prevent the release of 9 million tons of CO₂e, similar to the emissions of 2 million cars in the US.
• Money from R.E.D.D. projects could total $5 million/yr, funding  health and development projects to reduce poverty.

The  challenges:

• 85% of the population lives below $2/day
• Slash and burn agriculture is common to cultivate rice, but rapid productivity declines means that farmers must carve deeper into the forests every few years.
• Forests had declined form 90% to 15% of Madagascar’s land area by 2005.
• The recent military-backed coup led to an increase in illegal logging and wildlife harvests. Government police are doing little to stop what’s being called a logging free-for-all.
• R.E.D.D. is at risk of losing funding because international donors are not convinced illegal harvests can be controlled.  Loss of funding further impedes the ability to patrol against illegal harvests.
• Without R.E.D.D. funding, more people are returning to slash and burn agriculture.

Photo credit:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/wggyfrog/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

In this week’s Nature (subscription required), Jeff Tollefson describes how Brazil is talking big greenhouse gas reductions—possibly as much as 40% by 2020:

• 2/3 coming from reducing deforestation by 80%.
• 1/3 coming from the energy, agriculture, and reforestation.
• Brazil is also warming up to the idea that foreign countries can offset their greenhouse gas emissions by investing in forest conservation.

One outstanding question is how forest conservation projects and carbon markets like R.E.D.D (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation in Developing countries) might affect indigenous land rights.

Photo credit:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/visionshare/ / CC BY-NC 2.0

In the latest issue of Ecology and Society (open access), Colin Beier and colleagues provide an interesting case study of the Tongass National Forest (Alaska), examining the social-ecological dynamics of resource systems and why they often fail–in the long term–to deliver either improvements in public welfare or ecological sustainability. It’s important to note that they’re talking about a paradigm typical of 19-20th Century USA (i.e., post-colonial people of European descent in North America).

What I like about this case study is its generality to several kinds of natural resources and the lessons it offers when considering development in the modern world.

You’ll see at the end that they describe a solution similar to the growing Indigenous and Community Conserved Areas (ICCA) movement promoted by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).  And you’ll see an example of the changing focus of The Nature Conservancy as they work to promote sustainable development alongside conservation.

An excerpt:

Government efforts to stimulate the development of natural resources for public benefit often seek to implement a vision at grand scales that, over time, creates a cycle of dependency that undermines the original social purpose as well as the resource base that was intended to be sustained. In the United States, this has occurred with respect to agriculture, forestry, fisheries, water, and many other types of resource systems.  Similar cycles of dependency have emerged through international aid programs to developing nations that were intended to create self-sufficiency through resource development. Although the goals of these programs are often socially admirable and provide an economic stimulus to initiate changes that would otherwise lack the resources to emerge —i.e., to escape from poverty traps —they often result in challenging social traps that can constrain options for future generations. Why have these governance efforts failed so consistently, and what lessons can be learned that would enlighten efforts to address new frontiers of resource governance and public welfare in a rapidly changing world?

What did they find?

First, a little history.  They broke down the story of the Tongass National Forest into four periods:

(1) Organization

• Federal managers developed broad visions of a self-sufficient economy based on timber.
• Primary forests were to be converted to secondary forests used for lumber and pulp.
• Timber demand by WWII war effort provided catalyst for large-scale clearcutting.
• An alliance was forged among Tongass managers, national policymakers, and the timber industry.  A common vision of industrial forestry was established. This was deemed to be the best path for economic development and ecological management of forests.  These stakeholders would become the “policy monopoly.”

(2) Growth

• Passage of the Tongass Timber Act (TTA, 1947) triggered full-scale infrastructure development.  Timber harvest rose to 20 times the level during the organization phase.
• The TTA solidified the policy monopoly of the above stakeholders.
• Land leases were heavily subsidized and distributed noncompetitively to the forest industry.
• The policy monopoly was eventually challenged by passage of environmental protection laws in the 1960s and 70s, including the Multiple Use Sustained Yield (MUSY) Act, which opened new avenues for rule making and policy debate.

(3) Conservation

• First ruling against clearcutting were passed in 1975 in the Tongass NF.
• National Forest Management Act affirmed MUSY policy, but left implementation objectives open to debate.  This had the effect of transferring the venue of debate to federal courts, where a strategy of legal obstructionism began paralyzing national forest management.
• Preservation of 1/3 of Tongass lands under the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA, 1981) drew opposition from the traditional policy monopoly, which won a concession stipulating 4.5 billion board feet of timber harvests per decade (450 million per year)–irrespective of external market forces.
• Increased global competition started to cause declines in demand for Tongass timber.
• Despite these challenges, the policy monopoly was able to maintain control in the face of growing conservation demands and increased global competition because of the large concessions they gained through ANILCA.

(4) Collapse

• The non-competitive basis of lease allocation eventually drew criticism, and the passage of the Tongass Timber Reform Act (TTRA, 1990) dismantled the policy monopoly.
• This resulted in (1) the 450 million board feet harvest per year concession being replaced by a policy to supply timber at a rate in accordance with market demand and (2) increased competition within the regional timber industry.
• In response, investors and the industry viewed the Tongass as no longer being profitable and predictable.  This occurred because of the loss of the concession mandating 4.5 billion board feet per decade, increased age and lower efficiency of Alaskan mills, a decline of timber exports in the world market, and high operating costs in southeast Alaska. Closure of paper and pulp mills became widespread.
• The Tongass Land Management Plan (TLMP, 1997) brought about ecosystem management, species conservation, and wilderness preservation.

Some concluding excerpts from the authors:

Policy mobilized much of the initial growth, provided much of the stability during the conservation phase, and served to destabilize—at first incrementally and then rather suddenly—the industrial forestry regime of the Tongass. The changing economic context dictated the timing of policy implementation (growth phase) and eroded the resilience of the Tongass system during its collapse. We found that, in both the initiation and collapse of the Tongass system, transformative change occurred only when the adaptive cycles of two or more subsystems were in coherence—in other words, when some synergy existed in economic, political, and institutional components.

….As the glue that held the entire governance system together—i.e., coupling the institutional, economic, and policy subsytems of the Tongass into a rigid configuration—the dissolution of lease contracts had catastrophic consequences. Rigidity in the system, created initially to promote growth but increased over time as a mechanism to resist external changes, precluded any efforts to adapt or transform. Since collapse, Tongass governance has been largely incapable of reorganization.

….During the first severe price depression faced by the Tongass-based
industry, although the long-term leases and subsidies were considered safe, market volatility resulted in similar fluctuations in harvest output. When market prices recovered and stabilized, harvests rebounded to previous levels. In other words, when the policy subsystem was resilient, it afforded resilience to the economic subsystem by assuring investor confidence in the long-term leases and future profit potential. In contrast, when a second, but less severe, market downturn occurred in the early 1990s, the entire system collapsed, triggered by closure of the regional pulp mills and the subsequent termination of both lease contracts.

The Tongass adaptive cycle illustrates how “command-and-control” management–the attempt to control system variability, and the assumption that outcomes would be static and predictable—may emerge in the organizing principles of a resource system, be successful for a period of time, but eventually yield to catastrophic failure.

Overall, this approach created intrinsic vulnerabilities that were largely masked during the boom years of Tongass timber, but have left a multifaceted legacy that includes the current political stalemate, a less competitive regional industry, and concerns about capacity of managed forest watersheds to sustain local production of resources—including timber—essential for subsistence and commercial economies. Each of these outcomes points to the existence of “rigidity traps” preventing reorganization of the Tongass system to address new challenges and opportunities.

A more-sustainable future?

Recent developments suggest a potential pathway out of these rigidity traps and reorganization toward more sustainable governance of the Tongass. In 2000, with the cooperation of a regional environmental advocacy coalition, forest managers began a “microsale” program that offers very small quantities of very high-grade timber, relative to historical sales. These offers involve up to 50 000 board feet per sale, which may equate to as few as 10 individual trees; in contrast, standard clearcut harvest units typically range into several millions of board feet across hundreds of acres. With microsales, trees are harvested using selection logging and aerial yarding methods that have minimal ecological impact compared with the large clearcut harvests of the past five decades. Tongass microsales also meet local demand and provide opportunities for value-added manufacturing, and perhaps most importantly, all sales have involved competitive bidding and none have been challenged in court. Further advancements in cooperation and building trust among stakeholders are also evident. In 2006, the Tongass entered into its first-ever institutional partnership with an environmental organization—The Nature Conservancy of Alaska —to support community-based management of second-growth forests for improving wildlife habitat, future timber values, and several other ecosystem services. Both programs suggest an institutional change that may allow adaptation to new conditions. while allowing forest managers to continue to produce economic benefits for local communities, in part through timber production. At the same time, globalization and changes in national and global values have altered the economic context (e.g., through expanded ecotourism) and provided new ways in which the Tongass can provide valuable ecosystem services to society.

Photo credit:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/swanksalot/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

Excerpts:

In dangerous, clangorous times, the idea of America rings like a bell (see King, M. L., Jr., and Dylan, Bob). It hits a high note and sustains it without wearing on your nerves. (If only we all could.) This was the melody line of the Marshall Plan and it’s resonating again. Why? Because the world sees that America might just hold the keys to solving the three greatest threats we face on this planet: extreme poverty, extreme ideology and extreme climate change. The world senses that America, with renewed global support, might be better placed to defeat this axis of extremism with a new model of foreign policy…

Americans are like singers — we just a little bit, kind of like to be loved. The British want to be admired; the Russians, feared; the French, envied. (The Irish, we just want to be listened to.) But the idea of America, from the very start, was supposed to be contagious enough to sweep up and enthrall the world.

And it is. The world wants to believe in America again because the world needs to believe in America again. We need your ideas — your idea — at a time when the rest of the world is running out of them.

photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/u2005/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0