command and control and the pathology of natural resource.pdfVIP

Essays Attachment 6 Command and Control and the Pathology of Natural Resource Management C. S. HOLLING AND GARY K. MEFFE~ *Department of Zoology, Urtiversit3 of Florida, Gainesvii!e. FL 3261 I, U.S.A. tUnive~iW of Georgia’s Savannah River Ecology Laboratory Drawer E, Aiken. SC 29802, U.S.A. Abstract: As the hutnan population grou’s and natural resources decline, there is pressure to apply increas- Dig levels of top-down, command-and~:ontrol management to natural resources. This is manifested in at- tempts to control ecosystems and in socioeconomic institutions that respond to erratic or surprisDtg ecosystem behavior with more control. Cornmand and control, bou’et’er, usually results in unforeseen conseqttences for both natural ecosystems artd human welfare in the form of collapsing resources, social and economic strife, and losses of biological diversity. We describe the pathology of natural resource management, defined as a loss of system resilience when the range of natural variation in the ~’stern is reduced encapsula2es the uttsttstain- able environmental, social, and economic outcomes of command-and-control resource management. If natu- ral levels of variation in system behavior are reduced through command-and-control, then the system be- comes less resilient to external perturbations, resulting in crises and surprises. We provide several examples of this pathology in management. An ultimate pathology emerges when resource management agencies, through initial success with command and control, lose sight of their original purposes, eliminate research and monitoring, and focus on efficiency of co. ntroL 27~e3, then become isolated from the managed s-ystems and inflexible in structure. SimultaneousI); through overcapitaltzation, society becomes dependent upon com- mand and control, demands it in g