Protected areas and traditional commons: values and institutions

Abstract

The modern, largely academic and urban-initiated concern with the environmental protection of landscapes, species, watersheds, biodiversity, ecosystem services, etc. is framed by a language suggesting that the main concern is the protection and preservation of precarious resources of common interest for mankind. Thus the values deserving the attention of environmental protection seem to be very different from the concerns shaping the evolution of traditional commons: the control of, access to and extraction of resources seen as limited but essential for the survival of local communities. This article explores the theoretical differences and similarities of the two types of interests driving the concern for preserving values. It will be suggested that a basic difference lies in the distinction between values where there is rivalry in appropriation and values where there is non-rivalry. Further, it will be argued that in designing new institutions for managing protected areas, an understanding of traditional commons and how the new values to be protected are different from and interact with the old values will be important in order to achieve sustainability of resource use within the protected areas. Instituting regulations of environmental protection can be seen as creating new types of commons.

Keywords:

• commons
• landscape values
• property rights
• protected areas

Acknowledgments

Thanks are due to the Centre for Advanced Study at the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters and to the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim, for funding my participation in the research group on ‘Landscape, Law & Justice’ during the academic year 2002–2003, and to Michael Jones for the invitation to join the group. This made writing this article possible. Some of the arguments were presented at the conferences ‘Landscape, Law and Justice’, Oslo, 15–19 June 2003, ‘Trans-nationalizing the commons and the politics of civil society’, Chiang Mai, Thailand, 11–14 July 2003, and the X World Conference of IASCP, Oaxaca, 9–13 August 2004. I would like to thank two anonymous referees for their constructive suggestions.