Ecological Literacy - Agri-culture: Reconnecting People, Land and Nature - page 155

can also act as obstacles to emerging sustainability, encouraging conformity,
perpetuating adversity and inequity, and allowing some individuals to get
others to act in ways that suit only themselves. We must always be aware
of the dark side of social relations and connectedness. 17
We need new thinking and practice in order to develop and spread
forms of social organization that are structurally suited to natural resource
management. This means more than just reviving old institutions and
traditions. More often, it requires new forms of association for common
action. It is also important to distinguish between social capital that is
embodied in groups, such as sports clubs, denominational churches and
parent-school associations, and social capital that is found in resource-
oriented groups. It is also important to distinguish between high-density
social capital in contexts with a large number of institutions but little cross-
membership and high exclusion, with social capital in contexts with fewer
institutions but multiple overlapping membership of many individuals. 18
For farmers to invest in collective action and social relations, they must
be convinced that the benefits derived from joint approaches will be greater
that those from 'going it alone'. External agencies, by contrast, must be
convinced that the required investment of resources to help develop social
and human capital, through participatory approaches or adult education,
will produce sufficient benefits that exceed the costs. Elisabeth Ostrom
puts it this way: 'Participating in solving collective-action problems is a costly and time
consuming process. Enhancing the capabilities of local, public entrepreneurs is an investment
activity that needs to be carried out over a long-term period.' For initiatives to persist,
the benefits must exceed these costs and those imposed by any free riders
in collective systems. 19
Participation and Social Learning
The term participation is now part of the normal language of most
development and conservation agencies. It has become so fashionable that
almost everyone says that it is part of their work. This has created many
paradoxes because it is easy to misinterpret the term. In conventional
development, participation has commonly centred upon encouraging local
people to contribute their labour in return for food, cash or materials. But
material incentives distort perceptions, create dependencies and give the
misleading impression that local people are supportive of externally driven
initiatives. When little effort is made to build local interests and capacity,
then people have no stake in maintaining structures or practices once the
flow of incentives stops. If people do not cross a cognitive frontier, then
there will be no ecological literacy. 20