Market-driven resource decline
- Variable relationship:
Integration into regional, national and global markets (Markets; Market Scale) can provide strong incentives (Resource Market Value) for exploiting resources more heavily, and can breakdown or undermine customary or local management institutions. In review of design principles and examination of factors that affect success in community-based natural resource management (Commons Condition Trend), Cox et al. (2010) conclude:
"External socioeconomic factors are particularly emphasized. Tucker (1999) and Tucker et al. (2007) stress that market integration can lead to rising inequality or declining resource (forest) conditions. Bardhan (2000: 861) finds that 'cooperative behavior in an irrigation community is by and large significantly related negatively to... urban or market connections.' Some authors such as Klooster (2000) argue that development and market forces can destabilize CPR arrangements that worked well when the community and resource were isolated. In an analysis of factors affecting overfishing in smallscale coral reef fisheries in Papua New Guinea, Cinner and McClanahan (2006: 78) find suggestive statistical evidence that 'communities in close proximity to markets had likely overfished the higher value and high trophic level species.'
In the context of forests, the role of roads in facilitating market access is often emphasized: as Agrawal and Yadama (1997: 436) state:
"Assessments of the relationship between increasing marketization and environmental degradation are similarly, and usually, negative. If local economies are integrated into larger markets, greater market pressures are presumed to lead to higher rates of deforestation. The role played by roads and better transportation links is viewed as critical in this regard."
Because roads are not essential to this theory, they are not included as a variable.
- Project
- SESMAD
- Sector(s)
- Scientific Field
- Component Type(s)
- Natural Resource Unit
- Status
- Public
Variables
| Variable | Role | Role Explanation | Value |
|---|---|---|---|
| Markets | Proximate independent variable | Well-articulated markets for goods produced by or associated with this resource will normally increase exploitation. | Present |
| Market scale | Moderating independent variable | The larger the scale at which markets for this resource operate, the less connected the market is with local resource use dynamics and the higher the risk is that demand driven resource exploitation reaches usustainable levels. | Large in scale (e.g. international) |
| Transaction costs | Moderating independent variable | Low transaction costs facilitate market-based transactions. | Low |
| Resource market value | Moderating independent variable | The higher the market value (i.e.price) of the resource the higher the incentive to exploit it. | High |
| Commons condition trend | Final outcome | Over-exploitation will lead to a declining trend in resource condition. | Worsened |
Related Theories
| Theory | Relationship | Characterizing Variables |
|---|---|---|
| Marginalization and degradation | related | |
| Bans and perverse incentives | related | |
| Gilded traps | related | |
| Roving banditry | nested |