Market integration, technological change, transformation of value and belief systems
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Market integration is a catch-all expression which denotes all the processes that have the effect of linking up village economies with the broader world via sale of output, purchase of inputs, labour, financial and other markets. Such processes have been dramatically promoted by the rapid development of communication networks and transportation means, especially during recent decades, as well as by rising urbanization rates and the consequent growth of market demand for agricultural products. For obvious reasons, the rural areas located near urban concentrations have been more deeply affected by these changes than remote areas, particularly so if the latter are not easily accessible.
The role of economic factors
What are the effects of market integration on villagers' collective action capabilities with respect to local-level CPRs? The answer provided by the literature on this question leans on the negative side: market integration erodes the ability of rural communities to manage their CPRs successfully. The following examples illustrate the main trend highlighted in most studies dealing with the dynamics of rural change in regard of CPR management. In the hill districts of Uttar Pradesh, we are told that the panchayat forests, though small in extent as a consequence of government policy, were often well maintained in both the colonial and post-colonial periods. A recent survey even concluded that 'while some of the panchayat forests there [in Tehri Garhwall are in better condition than the reserved forests in the area, they are uniformly better maintained than forests under the jurisdiction of the civil administration' (Guha, 1985: 1947). Yet, in some areas, traditional mechanisms of allocation and control have broken down as 'a consequence of the commercial penetration of hill economy and society that followed in the wake of state forestry'. Thus, in the Kumaon Hills where commercialization had penetrated earlier, the experience of forest panchayats is 'a mixed one' compared to other regions where extraction is still 'carefully regulated, with monetary fines being levied on offenders' end where parts of panchayat lands are closed to grazing by common consent (ibid.).
With respect to the same hilly region (Kumaon), another author has contended that, if employment opportunities did not exist in the plains, human and draught animal populations would not have been allowed to continue to expand since remittances from emigrant family members would not have been available to support these increases. Arguing in a way reminding us of the induced institutional innovation hypothesis, he speculates that, without these opportunities, 'the natural consequences of over-exploitation of the environment would have, in the long run, pinned down population density at a level where the recuperative capacity of the environment balanced the amount of exploitation'. It is therefore because of the possibility of migration and the resulting inflow of cash that 'there are no forces inherent in the situation today to jolt local people into an awareness of what is happening' (Ashish, 1979: 1060). As will be argued in the concluding section of this chapter, however, as a general story the account provided by Ashish is unduly pessimistic: other effects can be at work that mitigate the risk of resource overexploitation.
Local-level management is much more certain to be problematic when, as attested by the Nepalese experience, a market develops for forest products thus giving rise to increased production for sale by insiders as well as by outsiders. It has indeed been observed that proximity to markets for forest fuel products 'tends to undermine forest management: where firewood can be sold nearby at high prices, it is hard to prevent poaching in panchayats near market centers' (Arnold and Campbell, 1986: 438). In the Myagdi district in the Upper Kali Gandaki, for example, as urban growth increases the demand for fuelwood products and building materials, outsiders begin cutting wood in the forests or 'buying it from indiscriminate and uncaring (or unknowing) others, including locals who have abandoned traditional management custom' (Messerschmidt, 1986: 467, emphasis added; see also 458-9). For most of the Nepalese hills, according to one view, the main factor which limited the amount of deforestation till recently was 'the relatively small population and the lack of any commercial exploitation' (Arnold and Campbell, 1986: 438, emphasis added). As for India, Jodha has noted that improved accessibility and market integration of hitherto isolated, fragile areas into the mainstream economy have led to overexploitation of CPRs (Jodha, 1992: 37). In the Sahelian countries, too, forest degradation often follows excessive cutting of live firewood for urban consumption, the articulation with urban markets being made by businessmen residing in the cities (Gannon et al., 1993; Cline-Cole et al., 1990). It is a well-known fact that the best way to destroy forests in these countries is to build up roads linking big cities with villages surrounded by forested areas.
The same holds true for many other countries as well. Thus, if commercial logging is virtually non-existent in upland Nepal, although it is common in the Terai, it is because Nepal's minimal road system provides access to only a small percentage of the nation (Metz, 1991: 809). Finally, it is of interest to note that in the monastic forest of Imperial China, 'neither religious discipline, nor prohibitions imposed by the State, were always adequate to face the pressures of land scarcity and high prices for timber outside the monastery itself. It is quite common to read of monks, or of the abbot himself, working in collusion with timber merchants to sell timber, despite official ban on cutting . . . At times, economic links could outweigh the normative values protecting the monastery's environment' (Menzies, 1994: 68-70).
Another example comes from Japanese fisheries, a sector in which Japan has a long tradition of community-based management of sea resources. What bears emphasis here is that, in areas like the Inland Sea that have undergone massive economic structural change during the last forty years, traditional systems of coastal management and access rights have been gradually perverted. Thus, in this now heavily industrialized area, 'the synergistic impacts of environmental pollution and overfishing have put a premium on the diminishing aquatic resources. This, in turn, has led to the emergence of the illicit transfer of fishing rights' (Ruddle, 1987: 51). Such an outcome has not been observed in regions more protected from the impact of industrialization and the 'vastly enlarged range of employment opportunities' that is brought in its wake.
On the other hand, we have seen above that, in Sri Lanka, traditional systems of rotating access to the sea have gradually disintegrated, first under the continuous pressure of population growth, and later, after the Second World War, under the impact of increased market penetration. As a matter of fact, significant rises in fish prices resulting from growing demand from urban well-to-do households together with the rapid development of transport and communications created new incentives for fishing investment which did not fail to attract equally powerful interests in the sector. Under this new pressure, the customary rotation system, already made fragile by population growth, became completely distorted in favour of an aggressive capitalist elite which succeeded in pre-empting control of an increasing share of traditional access rights. Defensive reactions by impoverished rights-holders could only contribute to make the system still weaker (see above).
The situation in fisheries is indeed highly instructive: species for which traditional systems of resource management are under most severe stress and which are currently overfished are all species (such as prawn, squid, cuttlefish, and lobster) which have high commercial value. By contrast, customary rules of access and traditional management practices are relatively well followed for species that are harvested only or mainly for subsistence purposes (personal communication of Sebastian Mathew). This observation certainly applies to other natural resource sectors as well.
Let us pause for a moment in order to ponder over the meaning of the above observations. As a matter of fact, it may perhaps appear surprising that the increased value of common property assets brought about by market integration does not systematically lead to a more orderly or conservative use of the resources concerned. To address this question in the light of the aforementioned examples, it is necessary to distinguish clearly between the case of Sri Lanka's beachseine fishery on the one hand, and the examples referring to forestry and opensea fisheries, on the other hand. In the former instance, the regulatory system which dealt exclusively with an allocation problem was already under severe stress when the price rise caused by better market integration occurred. In actual fact, this system had almost degenerated into an open-access situation and, in these circumstances, by causing a perceptible increase in the average income earned from participation in the (fixed-space) fishery, the price rise had the effect of attracting new entrants. Under conditions of a more or less perfectly competitive labour market (and more or less open access to the fishery), this process had to continue till individual labour incomes became equalized across the various sectors.
More delicate is the problem raised by the other examples, since they tend to suggest that market integration causes resource depletion. This is a puzzling effect: indeed, we would have expected price rises to induce rural dwellers to better conserve their local natural resources with a view to having a sustainable flow of future CPR products to sell on the market at later dates. A first explanation for this unexpected outcome has been already pointed out in Chapter I (sect. 4). The effect of an increase in output price is ambiguous: on the one hand, as hinted at above, it increases the incentive to conserve the resource by enhancing the future value of production but, on the other hand, it also increases the incentive for use of production inputs and reduces incentives for use of conservation inputs in the current period (to the extent that there is competition between these two uses, such as happens when labour is scarce). A second factor which may account for resource overexploitation when prices rise is the existence of considerable uncertainty about future prices. This uncertainty tends to induce producers to seize upon present opportunities to the largest possible extent without much concern for the future state of the resources.
In addition, it must be emphasized that increased market integration yields other effects than output price increases. Other things do not remain equal and, even when the net effect of a rise of the price of CPR products is to encourage conservation, other forces may work in the opposite direction. Three such forces are worth mentioning. First, increased market integration often means that rural dwellers are exposed to new attractive consumption possibilities. This has the effect of altering their intertemporal preferences in such a way that their future incomes are more heavily discounted than before. Second, by opening up new income-earning opportunities that are more rewarding than those previously available, market integration increases the likelihood that it will not any more be optimal for individual producers to conserve local natural resources (see Chapter 1, sect. 4). They may instead be induced to deplete them to a shut-down point and plough back the profits thereby earned in other, more promising enterprises. Third, market integration may enable villagers to commercialize CPR products that were used essentially for subsistence purposes in the previous situation. In such circumstances, these villagers may suddenly realize that there is a risk for a local resource to be depleted owing to the emergence of new uses for its product(s). They may fear that, if they do not exploit it intensively, other villagers or outsiders will do it and thereby prevent them from benefiting from the new windfall income opportunities.
It deserves to be stressed that it is only in the last case, where an open-access situation must be presumed to exist (either because it originally existed or because collective regulation has collapsed under the impact of market opening), that we can speak of a genuine tragedy of the commons. Indeed, all the other above-described factors will also operate if the villagers have private property rights over the resource. Careful empirical research of a kind that is unfortunately not yet available is required to determine which explanation or combination of explanations is the most plausible to account for the rapid depletion of local resources following market integration, whenever it is observed.
The role of non-economic factors
We have just hinted at the possibility that increased market integration will lead to resource degradation due to the collapse of CPR management schemes. In the following pages, we probe into the non-economic consequences of market integration that may undermine such schemes. As a matter of fact, market integration is an all-encompassing process involving numerous interdependent changes most of which seem to be rather uncongenial to collective resource conservation mechanisms. Among those changes, attention is focused below on the following indirect effects of market integration: erosion of traditional authority patterns, of village solidarity and social cohesion, and of old systems of magical beliefs.
- In smaller and isolated villages, where traditional social sanctions are still respected, the decline of CPR area is less.
- Protection of CPR area is better in the villages relatively further from market centres, where market forces are less effective in eroding traditional values vis-à-vis CPRs.
- The decline in CPR areas is less pronounced in villages with a lower degree of commercialization, because there is less erosion of social sanctions and informal arrangements protecting CPRs.
- Such decline is also less in villages which are relatively independent of state patronage for resource transfers, which implies fewer opportunities for interference in village affairs from above and reduced pressure for privatization of CPRs as part of populist programmes.
One important cause behind the erosion of traditional authority is the well-known fact (which we have partly documented in the first section of this chapter) that the functions of village leadership have been gradually usurped by government administration, thereby creating a situation in which traditional power-holders inexorably lose a good deal of their erstwhile legitimacy. In addition, the spread of 'modern' Western education and the growing exposure to market values, both centred the idea of abstract or a priori equality (all individuals ought to be treated in the same way and, in particular, they all should have a chance to accede to political power) increasingly lead the new generations to question old forms of authority and power. The tension of change is particularly high when the older generations continue to strictly adhere to the erstwhile principle of age-based division of work and prerogatives, all the more so because the younger generations are increasingly (formally) educated and therefore more competent to assume responsibilities in the newly emerging world.
In many cases, the two above-described effects are at work, yet in parts of Sub-Saharan Africa, it seems that the first effect is predominant, especially in countries (like Muslim countries) where the impact of 'modern' Western education is still limited. For example, in the region of Kordofan (Sudan) traditional systems of forest management have failed during recent decades and desertification resulted from indiscriminate fuelwood cutting. One important cause behind this resource depletion process is apparently that the powers of the village sheikhs to control tree-cutting went into decline following the 1970 legislation which claimed title to most rural land for the government (Bruce and Fortmann, 1989: 14). The replacement of traditional 'native authorities' with less effective 'people's councils' by the post-independence governments (a process similar to that observed in India with the introduction of the new panchayat system) was another reason accounting for the breakdown of social control in all land matters. Existing control mechanisms thus became unable to withstand the pressure of a growing market for charcoal (replacing the declining market for gum arable) and vast areas of gum trees were cut for fuelwood. Furthermore, 'even where Acacia Senegal survived, population pressure forced the telescoping of the traditional cultivation cycle from 17 to 9 years, resulting in declining fertility and increasing wind erosion' (ibid. 15).
Rising individualism can undermine the strength of informal village organizations in two ways depending on which generation actuates it. For one thing, the older generation can contribute to the weakening of these organizations if its members give in to the temptation of using their position of political and social pre-eminence to gain illicit personal material advantages. This is what has apparently happened in the laguna of Aby (Ivory Coast) where the traditional regulation system for access to and use of the waters has gradually dissolved due to the 'corruption' of the elders responsible for the good functioning of the system. Increasingly lured by the new consumption possibilities opened by the market, local elders have indeed chosen to make more money on the basis of their erstwhile social prerogatives.
For example, they have been more and more liberal in allowing outsiders to lay their nets (beachseines) in their locality because they can thereby collect substantial underhand dues on their own account. This has had the effect of infuriating the younger generations whose fishing incomes have been consequently reduced (Verdeaux, 1990: 203; see also Hviding and Baines, 1994: 27, 29-30, for similar observations regarding Solomon Islands). In the Niger River delta (Mali) the expression 'profiteer water master' has recently gained currency in certain areas where there are mounting tensions about access rights and management practices (Fay, 1990b: 232-3). It is true, as Fay has remarked, that accusations of profiteering may not necessarily be well grounded, yet their growing incidence attests that the adjustment of customary resource regulation systems to rapidly evolving realities gives rise to serious tensions and suspicions which are liable to thwart their effectiveness and vitality. In Marovo (Solomon Islands) some young people are dissatisfied with the way elders handle matters of resource management, arguing that they 'too readily succumb to the blandishments of the proponents of large scale commercial activities which involve deforestation and soil erosion'. Furthermore, there is widespread resentment at the commercial activities of commercial catcher-boats during most of the year in the lagoon and frequent complaints about inequities in the distribution of cash 'royalties' within the corporate kin group. These grievances and misgivings are a constant source of dispute in the area (Hviding and Baines, 1994: 27, 29-30). In Sarawak (Malaysia), to take a last example of a rapidly spreading phenomenon, the indigenous elite very often sides with loggers against the local people (Colchester, 1994: 87).
For another thing, younger generations tend to be less and less interested in village affairs in general, and in the regulation of local CPRs in particular, when they have alternative income sources in the village (e.g. by growing cash crops in individual fields) or, above all, when they have got an employment in a distant place. For example, in the Eastern Central district of Botswana, Zufferey tells us that 'traditionally, the village kgotla was the only representative institution at village level ruled by the unquestioned final decision of the chief'. Nowadays, the kgotla is still recognized as the official focus of rural communities and as the main village body dealing with customary law and general community issues: 'It is the acknowledged public place where information is disseminated and violators disciplined' (Zufferey, 1986: 13). Nevertheless, in spite of the high legitimacy it has been able to maintain (kgotla decisions or resolutions 'represent' the community), the kgotla is gradually losing part of its vitality because many villagers, primarily young men and women often with higher formal education, were forced to seek employment in South Africa or towns and major villages in Botswana. As a consequence, 'a good proportion of the most able-bodied segment of the population lives outside the villages and at any time is not represented at the village kgotla' (ibid.). True, these migrant workers periodically return to their extended family and still belong to their village. Unfortunately, upon their return they do not show much interest in participating in discussions of local problems. Because they spend a large proportion of their time at beer parties, 'the village kgotla has become the preserve of older residents' and 'no means has yet been found for incorporating the migrant labor force into the community consultation and decision processes' (ibid.).
There are several reasons why young people may shun involving themselves in village affairs. Two are worth mentioning here. First, they may not wish to submit themselves any more to an authority structure which they have come to dislike (see above). Second, they may not feel motivated to participate in collective discussions or activities in which their personal interest is no more evident. In this connection, it must be borne in mind that an essential role of kinship is customarily to ensure the continuity of traditional activities and to organize the succession of traditional rights of access to local CPRs (Ruddle, 1987: 51). When children take up new occupations—an inevitable outcome of job diversification accompanying the development of the market especially so when they work outside the native place, kinship ties become less necessary than hitherto and therefore tend to be less attended to by the new generations. Now, to the extent that kinship is a critical component of the village social structure and a crucial determinant of the underlying social discipline, the erosion of kinship ties translates itself into a weakening of such discipline.
The problem here is that the erosion of magical beliefs in the existence of supernatural powers and in a sort of fusion between Man and Nature—'man, culture and society are commonly seen as integral parts of nature, and vice versa' (Ruddle, 1988: 76)—has the effect of removing an inbuilt check on the overexploitation of village-level CPRs. This effect has been noted on several occasions. For instance, Jessup and Peluso have observed that in East Kalimantan (Indonesia) raiding caves to steal birds' nests has become more common not only because the number of outsiders (loggers, immigrants, and itinerant traders) has increased in recent years but also because 'the threat of magical protection has become less of a deterrent to thieves' (Jessup and Peluso, 1986: 522-3). On the other hand, in West African inland fisheries where fishermen traditionally believe that waters are an extended reality peopled by local (water) spirits—'entering the water is equivalent to entering the abode of the spirits and these creatures are dangerous but also potentially helpful once they have been properly coaxed' (Fay, 1990b: 223, our translation)—things are changing to such an extent that in the laguna of Aby, for example, fishermen now say that 'today it is Abidjan and no more the spirit which gives orders' (Verdeaux, 1990: 208). In an aforementioned study examining the case histories of 176 CPR units in the dry tropical parts of India, Jodha has come to the conclusion that adherence to certain rituals and religious sanctions helps in a significant number of cases to sustain CPR management schemes at village level (Jodha, 1992: 51-3; see also Lansing, 1987 regarding irrigation management in Bali).
The role of technological change
That market development brings technological change in its wake hardly needs emphasis. The impact of such change that is most relevant to our topic has already been pointed out in Chapter 10 (sect. 2): to the extent that technical progress allows much more intensive exploitation of CPRs, the risk of resource degradation is considerably greater than it ever was before. Nowhere is this more evident than in the fishing sector where the development of seaworthy boats, powerful harvesting techniques (such as bottom-trawling and purse-seining), and sophisticated navigational (satellite) and fish-finding (echo sounders) equipment empowers man virtually to catch all fish living in the sea with amazing precision and effectiveness. This is contrary to traditional (artisanal) techniques which were characterized by minimum wastage of by-catches due to the selectivity of fishing gears (an important aspect in tropical fisheries where there are large numbers of species occurring in relatively small quantities); the seasonally diverse range of fishing activities which allowed for stocks and habitats to recover during closed seasons; and relatively low harvesting capacities owing to the passive nature of fishing methods (which implied low-energy requirements) (O'Riordan, 1994: 10).
Attention needs also to be drawn to more indirect possible effects of technological change while continuing to refer to the case of fisheries. First, technical progress often results in a significant enlargement of available techniques which may all possibly be technically efficient. For example, different groups of fishermen confronting varying sets of relative factor availabilities and prices may choose to operate distinct harvesting techniques. In the presence of severe market imperfections, some groups may even retain techniques that have been rendered technically obsolete by recent technological advances. The problem is then that the sector is characterized by growing heterogeneity down to the village level, as a consequence of which opportunities for conflict increase and collective action is made more difficult, especially so if pressure on the resource has become high (see below, Chapter 12, sect. 3).
Second, technical change is liable to affect the users' ability to self-monitor their CPRs. In theory, this impact is ambiguous since there are several effects which do not work in the same direction. In practice, however, the net impact tends to be negative. The first thing to note is that technical change has often meant that equipment is introduced which can be handled by individuals or by small groups of people and can therefore more easily escape traditional surveillance and control. This is so because monitoring costs increase significantly (possibly even more than proportionately) when the number of harvesting units rises. Verdeaux has thus laid considerable stress on the fact that the above kind of technical innovation—the gradual displacement of collectively operated large nets by individual gears such as small gillnets—has been a major factor behind the growing failure of traditional management systems in West African lake fisheries (Verdeaux, 1990: 126, 203-4).
The difficulty of monitoring is further considerably increased when the new equipment is much more mobile than that traditionally employed. This is particularly so in the case of maritime fisheries where most small-scale fishermen now use motorized fishing crafts (usually equipped with outboard engines) which move quickly and can consequently reach distant fishing grounds, thus extending the zone of operations to a dramatic extent (see, e.g. Christy, 1983: 7). The difference with the previous situation is all the more striking as, in the past, most fishing activities were based on the use of easy-to-monitor stationary gear (such as stake-nets, set-nets, bottom-fixed nets, weirs, fish-traps, etc.) or on large-size enclosing nets (such as the beachseines) handled from the beach by large teams of operators. To these considerations, one must oppose the fact that improvements in the technology of surveillance itself could allow rural communities to better monitor the use of their natural resources. Unfortunately, these new technologies of surveillance (such as helicopters or quickly moving coastguard vessels) are very expensive and obviously beyond the reach of many such communities. On the whole, at least as far as fishing is concerned, there is no doubt that recent technical changes have contributed to render monitoring of resource use much more costly than ever before. In other words, whereas detection of rule violations was comparatively easy in the past, it now requires costly equipment and complex operations.