A4
Hard-Cover
•
2005
Pages: 495
ISBN: 8171884261
INR 1295
The green movement aims at changing the human nature to preserve the environment. This book builds a terracotta movement that focuses on changing incentives to manage the environment. Terracotta means 'burnt earth,' and refers to earthenware made from this material. It is the creation of human action on a natural resource. Terracotta symbolises the philosophy that values natural resources, not in isolation, but in their relation to human beings. This relationship is not always extractive or consumptive, as the greens claim. It is often aesthetic, contemplative, and spiritual. All the varied relationships are nonetheless between humans and the ecology - and their complex interactions and interdependence. Theirs is a heroic mission to change human nature, ours is a human endeavour to create a better world by restructuring incentives. The green vision versus the terracotta vision !
To provide material comforts we use material resources, leading to environmental problems. The greens' governmental approach of guns and guards has proven to be a dismal failure. Instead of rethinking the approach, they are determined to intensify it : more consciousness raising, stricter rules, harsher penalties. The terracotta approach relies on the incentives that come with resource ownership for prudent, sustainable management. The individual, family, and community owner-ship or stewardship provides right incentives. Government ownership leads to the tragedy of the collective.
Give communities property right to natural resources. It would achieve the dual objective of the protection of resources and their emancipation from poverty. When the resource must remain in collective ownership, design rules such that users pay the price for the use of the resource (market-based instruments). The green vision of wilderness versus the terracotta vision of wise use !
The environmental problems arise not because our nature is to pollute, poach, misuse, overuse, but because the incentives are perverse. Change the incentives by restructuring ownership and pricing and the outcomes will change-towards a greener and humane terracotta world.
Parth J Shah is founder president of Centre for Civil Society, New Delhi, a think tank for public policy solutions within the framework of rule of law, limited government, and competitive markets. The Livelihood Freedom Test, education vouchers, food stamps, community ownership of natural resources, ward-based urban management, Duty to Publish Act are some of the radical ideas he has introduced into public policy debate.
Vidisha Maitra is a Research Associate at the Centre for Civil Society. Her experience at the Centre includes research on community forestry, ecosystem services of forests, decentralised water delivery systems, urban governance issues for the Centre's publication State of Governance: Delhi Citizen Handbook 2003, and co-coordination of the Research Internship Programme 2004. She holds a Masters degree in Economics from the Delhi School of Economics.
John Baden
is the founder and chairman of the Foundation for Research on Economics and the Environment (FREE). Dr. Baden received his Ph.D from Indiana University in 1969 and was awarded a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship in environmental policy.
Robert C. Balling, Jr.
Robert Balling is the director of the U.S Office of Climatology and an associate professor of geography at Arizona State University. He received his Ph.D in geography from the University of Oklahoma in 1979.
Somnath Bandyopadhyay
is Programme Officer for rural development programmes with the Aga Khan Foundation in New Delhi. He has also served as Senior Ecologist with the Gujarat Ecology Commission. He holds a Ph.D in Environmental Sciences from the Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi.
Roger Bate
is a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and adjunct fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. He holds a Ph.D from Cambridge University and is a board member of Africa Fighting Malaria (AFM), a not-for-profit health advocacy group based in South Africa and in the United States.
Jagdish Bhagwati
is University Professor at Columbia University and Senior Fellow in International Economics at the Council on Foreign Relations. He has served as Special Adviser to the UN on Globalisation and External Adviser to the Director General, WTO. Prof Bhagwati's latest book In Defense of Globalisation was published in 2004 to worldwide acclaim.
Gregory Conko
is a policy analyst and Director of Food Safety Policy with the Competitive Enterprise Institute. He is also the Vice President and a member of the Board of Directors of the AgBioWorld Foundation. He graduated from the American University in 1992 with a B.A in Political Science and History.
Michael De Alessi
is Director of Natural Resource Policy for the Reason Public Policy Institute in Los Angeles and the author of Fishing for Solutions. He holds an M.S in Engineering Economic Systems from Stanford University and an M.A in Marine Policy from the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science at the University of Miami.
Hannes H. Gissurarson
is professor of political science at the University of Iceland. He holds a Masters degree in history from the University of Iceland and a Ph.D in political science from Oxford University.
Indur M. Goklany
has worked with the US federal and state governments and the private sector on global warming, biotechnology, biodiversity, and other environmental issues for more than 25 years. He has served as chief of the Technical Assessment Division of the National Commission on Air Quality and a consultant to the Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Policy, Planning, and Evaluation.
Shreekant Gupta
is Associate Professor of environmental and natural resource economics at the Delhi School of Economics. He has over 15 years of experience in applied economic research and policy analysis, mainly on environmental issues such market-based instruments (MBIs), environmental valuation, climate change and poverty and environment linkages. He received his Ph.D in Economics from the University of Maryland.
Deepak Lal
is James S Coleman Professor of International Development Studies, University of California at Los Angeles and Professor Emeritus of Political Economy, University College London. He has served as a consultant to the Indian Planning Commission, ILO, UNCTAD, OECD, UNIDO, the World Bank, and the ministries of planning in Korea and Sri Lanka.
Natasha Landell-Mills
is a Research Associate with the International Institute for Environment and Development, London and is involved in their Instruments for Private Sector Forestry Project.
Vidisha Maitra
is a Research Associate at the Centre for Civil Society, an independent public policy think-tank in Delhi. She holds a Masters degree in Economics from the Delhi School of Economics.
Ambrish Mehta
is a trustee and activist for Action Research in Community Health and Development (ARCH), Mangrol, Gujarat, and the Initiative for Open Society. He has also served in the Gujarat Ecology Commission as Nodal officer for the implementation of NGO Environment Action Fund (NEAF).
Roger E. Meiners
is professor of economics and law at the University of Texas at Arlington, and Senior Associate at the Property and Environment Research Centre (PERC). He received his law degree from the University of Miami in 1978 and his Ph.D in Economics from Virginia Polytechnic Institute in 1977.
Julian Morris
is Director of the International Policy Network and editor of Sustainable Development: Promoting Progress or Perpetuating Poverty? He completed his M.Phil in Land Economics from Cambridge University in 1995 and has served as visiting professor of Economics at Buckingham University.
Kendra Okonski
is Director of Sustainable Development for the International Policy Network, London. She holds a degree in Economics from Hillsdale College, USA.
Elinor Ostrom
is Arthur F. Bentley Professor of Political Science Indiana University, Bloomington and the author of Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action. Professor Ostrom received a Ph.D in political science from UCLA in 1965.
Trupti Parekh
is a trustee and full-time activist for Action Research in Community Health and Development (ARCH), a private non-profit organisation based in Mangrol in eastern Gujarat, and the Initiative for Open Society.
Ian Powell
works for Shell International and has written extensively on markets for ecosystem services, in association with Forest Trends, Washington D.C.
C S Prakash
is a professor of Plant Molecular Genetics and Director of the Center for Plant Biotechnology Research at Tuskegee University, and the founder of the AgBioWorld Foundation. He obtained his Ph.D in forestry and genetics from the Australian National University, Canberra.
Nirmal Sengupta
teaches at the Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research in Mumbai. His research interests include law and economics, and management of water resources. He received his Ph.D in Economics from the Indian Statistical Institute.
Parth J. Shah
is the founder and President of the Centre for Civil Society (CCS), an independent research and educational think-tank based in New Delhi. He received his Ph.D in Economics from Auburn University in the USA, and taught economics at the University of Michigan, Dearborn before starting CCS. In India his research focuses on private initiatives and reforms in the education system, and property rights approach to environmental problems and natural resource management.
James Shikwati
is the founder and Executive Director of the Inter Region Economic Network (IREN Kenya), a non-profit public policy research and educational organisation that promotes market-based responses to contemporary socio-economic and environmental issues. His areas of expertise include Economics and African Development.
Randy T. Simmons
is professor of political science and Chairman of the political science department at Utah State University, Senior Associate at the Property and Environment Research Centre (PERC), and a Senior Scholar with the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI). Simmons received his Ph.D. in political science from the University of Oregon in 1980.
The late Julian Simon
was professor of business administration at the University of Maryland and a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute. He wrote numerous books and articles, and is best known for his work on population, natural resources, and immigration.
Fred L. Smith, Jr.
is the founder and President of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, Washington D.C. He is co-editor (with Michael Greve) of the book Environmental Politics: Public Costs, Private Rewards. Mr. Smith has a degree in mathematics and political science from Tulane University.
Robert J. Smith
is the President of the Center for Private Conservation in Washington, D.C, where he focuses on wildlife, endangered species, property rights and private stewardship. He is the author of Earth Resources: Private Ownership vs. Public Waste.
Andy White
serves as Senior Director of Policy and Market Analysis at Forest Trends, Washington D.C. He holds a B.S in Forest Science from Humboldt State University, an M.A in Anthropology, an M.S in Forestry and a Ph.D in Forest Economics from the University of Minnesota.
Bruce Yandle
is professor of economics emeritus at Clemson University in South Carolina and a faculty member with George Mason University's Capitol Hill Campus. He has also served as executive director of the Federal Trade Commission in Washington D.C.