Contributions to the study of global environmental problems
Current awareness of global environmental problems is drawing ecological anthropology into multidisciplinary debates over ‘sustainable *development’. The rapid destruction of tropical forests, grazing lands, coastal fisheries, etc., has stimulated interest in the ‘tragedy of the commons’, a model asserting that resources held in common ownership are inevitably overused and degraded by people pursuing their individual interests. However, ethnographic examples of sustainable common resource management in many regions of the world challenge this model. For example, Swiss alpine villagers have for centuries successfully managed and conserved meadows, forest and irrigation as common resources.
As regards long-term sustainability, small-scale cultivators in many parts of the world have created efficient, flexible and sustainable farming systems. Within a single ethnic group, they may establish different patterns of *household composition and *community organization, depending on their local niches. Contrary to many theories predicting the rapid demise of the world’s peasants, smallholders not only endure but may have much to teach concerning flexible and sustainable uses of the land (Netting 1993b). Small farmers are neither simply producers nor victims of environmental crises, for some of them are able to protect both family and community lands.
However, state policies compelling the division of common resources can lead to the ‘tragedy of enclosure’. Privatization of grazing lands deprives herds of flexible access to seasonal pastures in climatically variable settings, undermining pastoral adaptations. Forests turned over to commercial loggers leave local farmers deprived of fuel, fodder and other resources, sometimes triggering *resistance movements (Guha 1989).
Irrigated farming entails the dangers of overuse, conflict and depletion of water supplies. Some systems of irrigation management, such as Balinese water temples, have endured for centuries. In the absence of a hydraulic bureaucracy, these temples coordinate entire watersheds; yet they were invisible to *colonial and †postcolonial rulers because they were categorized as ‘religious’ institutions (Lansing 1991). In South India, farmers organized water-user associations to counter the problems and uncertainties resulting from bureaucratic canal management. In both cases, local systems of knowledge and practice countered the arrogance and ignorance of the technocrats.
Large hydroelectric dams, such as those in northern Canada, central India, and the Amazon Basin, threaten natural environments and human populations alike, provoking resistance. Outsiders seeking to protect natural ecosystems often attempt to do so by excluding indigenous inhabitants. This approach derives partly from ignorance concerning indigenous systems of ecological knowledge and practice. It thus falls to ecological anthropologists to interpret the ‘insider’s ecology’ to outsiders.
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