NTRES 2201 1st Edition Lecture 20Outline of previous lectureI. RemindersII. CommunityIII. Resource-dependent communitiesA) Poverty in the most of plentyB) EconomicsC) EnvironmentIV. Resource dependence and community well-beingOutline of current lectureI. Resource-dependent communitiesA) Poverty in the midst of plenty; explanationsII. Community-based resource managementCurrent lectureI. Resource-dependent communities*Rhetoric: resources provide employment-Means it is a potential path to prosperity-In reality, these jobs are limited-Resource-dependent communities tend to not be as well-off as other kinds of rural places-In general: higher proportion of employment in resource jobs=lower well-being*Boomtown effect-Rapid growth-Rapid crashA) Poverty in the midst of plenty; explanations1) Human capital-A rational underinvestment in human capital-Communities choose to invest less in education, etc because they can get more out of working right away-This means that communities can be vunerable2) Power and natural resource bureaucracy-There are status groups that influence how natural resources are used-Tend to favor large business interests-Have an interest in keeping the large businesses going-Powerful entities can get stuff from the community #They could potentially move anywhere#The community is willing to make sacrifices in order to get them to stay#Race to the bottom: resource communities compete with each other to attract companies#Companies try to negotiate ways to save (rational)*Pay workers less*Move to places with fewer environmental safe guards*Industry can capture the community3) Industry structure-Core (oligopolies) vs periphery sectors-Resource sectors can become dominant (monopoly)#Monopolies mean a very high buyer to seller ratio#Example: timber companies all competing in the same area*Few buyers, many sellers*This leads to poverty, unemployment, etc#Power can come from*Holding a large proportion of the market share*Selling an uncommon or specialized product-The peripheral sector is doing extraction or specializing#Buyers hold the power in this type of system because there are few of them compared to sellers-A tendency toward skewed buyer to seller ratio#Partially through mechanization*They are there to make money, not to provide jobs-Example: Owls or the jobs of loggers?70’s 90’sNumber of mills 534 453 (-15%)Number of workers 200k 160k (-20%)Total timber extracted 11B 16.5B (+20%)#What happened?*Cutting more does not mean economic prosperity*Mechanization took care of that4) Social Construction  frames-Who is controlling the discourse about the environment?-Which of these stories win?-Example: concern about water quality, fracking, etc have come to dominate discourse#Environment is more critical than rural resource-dependent communities: current trend#Part of the reason we see the current trends in poverty, etcII. Community-based resource management*Giving power back to the community-Community members have a more persona interest in the effects of resource extraction, etc*Devolution (statutory granting of powers from central to local)-Why would the central powers do this?#Offloading responsibility#Genuine interest (local communities have a better capacity)#”Buying friends”#Responding to local pressures#Save money (we see this in NY state, decline of state funding )#Wanting to appear responsive to needs#Weakening centralized control*Potential dangerous to environmental safeguards*Communities choose for themselves if they care about clean air, clean water, if they want to drill/frack or not*Why is devolution often considered better?-Localities have a higher stake in the outcomes/consequences-They may know more#A more intimate knowledge of how the local community works-Resources are more “belonging” to the local community#Who better to decide how to regulate resources than the people who actually “own” said resources *Limits to community-based resource management-Allows central government to opt out-Does it really work in practice?-How will social costs/benefits be distributed?#There are still politics in play at the local level#Interests still vary at the local level-Hard to scale up#Too spatially tight#Example: community downstream from you may care more about water quality than you#Local decision-making of global decisions*We need to be careful about supporting community-based resource management just because it sounds really nice-Credibility: whose interests are being taken into account?-Capacity: long term