Baja California is actually part of Mexico (no jokes about it being ahead of the curve). Concrete buildings are sprouting like weeds lately, and the region has been enjoying a boom of the same kind that made Cancun what it is today. Plus a couple of would-be mining operations. This is doubly unfortunate, as this area is also critical to the Grey Whale population.
Here at Winds, we've talked about the inseparability of ecology and conservation from economics, and specifically the economics (and culture) of the local population. Whether it's the Bengal Tigers of India, Haiti's self-inflicted Apocalypso, concepts like valuing eco-services, or other kinds of Granola Conservative concerns, the common theme is clear: local incentives matter - and so does governance.
Which is why this attempt is pleasing, though also anxiety-provoking:
Much of the land around Baja is owned by cooperatives. The New York Times reports that environmental groups have reached an unusual agreement with a cooperative that will help protect a key lagoon, the last undisturbed gray whale nursery, from industrial development or land speculation:
"Under the accord, the cooperative, the Ejido Luis Echeverría, has agreed to protect 120,000 acres around the lagoon from development, in return for a $675,000 trust fund put together by several groups, among them the Natural Resources Defense Council and Wildcoast.
Trust earnings go to the cooperative to be invested in projects to create permanent jobs and give its 43 members a stake in protecting the whales and their habitat.
"This is a long term project, a project for perpetuity," said the president of the cooperative, Raúl López. "We have to be an example for the other cooperatives."
Still, the Echeverria cooperative is only one of six that own land around the lagoon, and the environmentalists have their work cut out for them persuading the rest...
That's the anxious part.
Ultimately, it all comes down to two duelling imperatives: immediacy, and sustainability. The path of legislation, regulation, police offers an answer to immediacy, if the lobbying is powerful enough. The ultimate danger, however, is seeing that rule-amaking as the goal of activism, and stopping there.
In order for environmental measures to be sustainable, the incentives for the local communities must be aligned, and their interests served. This is especially true in third world countries like Mexico, where corruption is often endemic.
The Natural Resources Defense Council deserve kudos for working to put that into place. There may come a time for a more traditional lobbying and activism campaign. But if efforts like NRDC's aren't active on the ground, even a lobbying victory will ultimately be a pyrrhic one. For environmentalists, and especially for the whales.
It seems to be a tragedy of the commons problem. Six property owners, maximizing their own profit incentives, are unlikely to protect the public resource since their own individual efforts can easily be made meaningless if the other property owners might damage the public resource anyway.
Outside money seems like a good way to clear the log jam, but I think they should have focussed on obtaining an agreement from all six property owners at the same time. If you try to knock them off one by one, the remaining owners may find the value of their unrestricted property increasing. (They get both the benefit of an improved public resource, plus the lack of restrictions)
All in all, environmental groups need to be spending more time identifying and purchasing critical habitat before development makes the cost too high.
Hi Joe:
Great comments on our Laguna San Ignacio Conservation Alliance and effort to preserve the lagoon. Unfortunately the Times piece did not have some of the background on our work with NRDC (edited out) on the ground in Laguna San Ignacio in support of local conservation efforts. Besides Wildcoast our partners include NRDC, Pronatura, and the International Community Foundation.
Some of the things we accomplished on the activist and on the ground front with a coalition of local and national Mexican NGOS over the past six years.
--Helped build a school and connect it to the internet via a solar powered sattelite link.
--Funded construction of a community center.
--Supported creation of local outfitters association.
--Helped stop sea turtle poaching in the lagoon.
--Through the Eco-Logic Enterprise Venture Fund, Wildcoast worked with NRDC and Earth Island to implement an eco-loan program for whalewatching guides to obtain 4 stroke outboard engine. These replaced more polluting and loud 2-stroke engines. This program was the first of its kind in Baja.
--And most importantly supported the proposal by the Ejido Luis Echeverria to carry out the conservation easement. This is definitely a bottom-up project and we are essentially teambuilders and executive producers (finding funds). But as I speak, NRDC staff have spent the last two weeks in the field there and our own staff has also.
--This project is being replicated in other areas in Baja and in Mexico. And we are currently starting to expand it around the lagoon.
-To help this project please check out www.savethegraywhale.com
Cheers,
Serge Dedina, Ph.D.
Executive Director
WiLDCOAST
Author of Saving the Gray Whale
Just saw the comment by PD Shaw.
This is a complicated project. The six "landowners" are actually ejidos or collective agrarian cooperatives. These ejidos are essentially entire communitites that essentially own close to one million acres of the lagoon and its watershed. The average size of each ejido is around 160,000 acres.
This is not a tragedy of the commons. This is actually the reverse: we are empowering locals to protect their commons and restrict their destructive activities. The threat is that speculators or multinationals will purchase their commons for next to nothing and destroy them.
Shaw is thinking of an open access area in which there are no locally defined areas of control. By working with all six ejidos we will actually be empowering over 1,000 local residents who live in poverty to manage their property responsibly. The alternative for these cash strapped individuals is for their to actually sell their land or engage in resource piracy (e.g. killing sea turtles).
In whalewatching in the lagoon, locals have established a commons and restrict outside access because they are given exclusive access to whalewatching permits. These permits are granted by the Mexican government based on their management of whalewatching and adherence to established rules.
On the other hand in fishing the lagoon is an "open access area" in which poachers descend on the lagoon because locals have not control over their fishing grounds.
In a community just to the north, Punta Abreojos, the fishing cooperative has exclusive access to a fishing "commons" and has managed lobster and abalone harvest sustainably for 50 years.
For more information on this process please consult my book, Saving the Gray Whale. In the end this project is based in the principles of social and economic justice. There are also a few academic publications by Emily H. Young on this issue in Laguna San Ignacio and the Vizcaino Biosphere Reserve.
Is there an alternative to this type of program: Yes, the type of game reserves or national parks that exist in the developed world in which locals are exclused from the park. Do those programs work in the developing world: no--these people have to go somewhere. In the case of Mexico are choice is clear: help locals manage their lands against the predations of corporations, land speculators and resource pirates or have them sell out and jump the fence to the U.S. and look for work.
Please email me directly with comments or questions at sdedina at wildcoast dot net
Sincerely,
Serge Dedina
Executive Director
WiLDCOAST
Author Saving the Gray Whale
www.wildcoast.net
This is not a tragedy of the commons. . . . Shaw is thinking of an open access area in which there are no locally defined areas of control.
I understand that Hardin's Tragedy of the Commons essay dealt specifically with the issue of grazing on public lands, but the issue is beyond private versus shared land. A property owner has exclusive ownership and control of the property, but also has the right to use the water on or below the ground, breath the air above, enjoy the aesthetic scenery and the plant and wildlife. The property owner owns the land, but enjoys features shared in common with neighboring property owners. This is what creates the disconnect between personal and common interests.
Now imagine a forest owned by six individuals (like a Trivial Pursuit wedge). The scenery and proximity to nature attract residential development. Each property owner starts selling lots on the outskirts before one of them is convinced of the long-term foolishness of slowly destroying the woodland habitat that encouraged development in the first place. They impose a conservation easement that halts development at 50% of their property, hoping to encourage others by example. Now that property owner has just incurred an economic loss, the property is no longer worth as much (which the U.S. tax code compensates), but on the other hand, the neighboring property owners just obtained a gain. They can enjoy the scenery and proximity to woodlands without restricting their own use. Private loss and common benefit.
I've been involved with creating conservation easements. I know they enhance the value of nearby property and encourage development. Its probably those granola conservatives building solar-powered McMansions next door. My only point here is that the article is exactly right: "the environmentalists have their work cut out for them persuading the rest..."
I should add that I disagree with this:
This is actually the reverse: we are empowering locals to protect their commons and restrict their destructive activities. The threat is that speculators or multinationals will purchase their commons for next to nothing and destroy them.
Locals that sell their property are seeking a financial return no different than the developer that buys the land. If they are willing to sell the property for next to nothing, environmentalists should be there to buy it.
This quote and others like it seem to rely a whole lot on educating the locals about what's good for them. Environmental missionaries? I suspect that someday, there will be a downturn in the economy or a child will contract a deadly disease, and all the highlighted copies of Walden will not be enough to stop the sale. Its not sustainable over generations.