The aim of behavior analysis has always been to apply technologies rooted in basic behavioral principles to problems of societal importance (e.g., Skinner, 1948; 1953; 1987). One such problem is the Tragedy of the Commons - a phenomenon arising from systemic failures among a community, leading to the total collapse of a critical resource (Hardin, 1968). Elinor Ostrom's Eight Design Principles were developed to provide a framework for the self-management of common pool resources (CPRs; Ostrom, 1990/2015). When applied as an independently manipulated variable, Ostrom's design principles have shown strong effects in the management of CPRs within the context of a tabletop board game Catan® (Smith & Becker, 2023). This preparation included both rewards (i.e., positive reinforcement) and sanctions (i.e., positive punishment) as a feature of the independent variable. However, it has been well documented that punishing and coercive contingencies can lead to problematic outcomes for individuals and societies (e.g., Sidman, 2001; Skinner, 1976). This study evaluated the effects of utilizing only rewarding consequences in lieu of sanctions in an effort to produce the previously observed control over self-management of a CPR, utilizing the previously adapted rules of the Catan® board game.

The exponential growth of the human population has contributed to the overuse and degradation of common pool resources. Using science as a tool for informed policy-making can improve the management of our common pool resources. Understanding the conditions that influence groups of individuals to make ethical self-controlled choices may help solve problems related to the overuse and degradation of common pool resources. Ethical self-control involves the conflict of choice between one that will benefit the individual versus one that will benefit the group. The cumulative effect of many individuals behaving in an ethically self-controlled manner with common resource use may offset some of the harm posed by overuse of common pool resources. Metacontingency arrangements involving ethical self-control may provide some insight as to if and how groups may cooperate to manage a common pool resource. This manuscript proposes an experimental preparation and methodology to evaluate the effects of competing magnitudes of cultural consequences on culturants and their cumulative effect on common pool resources; and provides an analysis and discussion of five trends that might result from such a line of research.

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<p>This paper deals with relationship between irrigation and agriculture and conflicts within an irrigation system and as well between other stakeholders concerning the water. Irrigated lands are up to 2.5 times more productive compared to rain-fed agriculture. They are important element in the agriculture sector in Sub-Saharan Africa, and have been favoured by governments and donor agencies for their high rate of return. Without proper technical equipments or support negative impacts on the environment are linked to irrigation activities. Furthermore, a case study was made in Tanzania, Kiru Valley, regarding the tension between big scale and small-scale farmers as result from the water decline. The results demonstrate that the institutions do not have the power to solve the conflict. It is difficult to define the different stakeholders and the boundaries of the area that affect the amount of water in the valley.</p>

This research applied the social network approach to unveil the social structure underlying the members of two traditional irrigation systems (TISs) in Sonora. This research used two TIS case studies representing rural communities located in arid and semiarid lands in the Sonoran Desert region, in the northwestern part of Mexico. The irrigators represented a subset of rural villages where everyone knew everyone else. The theoretical framework in this study suggested that social embeddedness of the economic activities of TIS irrigators is an important factor supporting their local institutions. Irrigators who are socially embedded posses more social capital that help them in overcoming social dilemmas. Evidence of social embeddedness is theoretically incomplete when not related to a tangible dimension of the TIS's performance. This research also dealt with the difficulty of assessing the sustainability or successfulness of a TIS. The results showed that the irrigators sharing a rural village are entangled in a mesh of social ties developed in different social settings. The most salient variable was family; cooperative ties within the irrigation system tend to overlap more than the expected by chance with kinship relationships. Likewise, irrigators had a strong preference for peers geographically close or those within the same irrigation subsector. Finally, the qualitative part of the study did not reveal the presence of severe social dilemmas. Irrigators in each community have developed successful forms of local arrangements to overcome the provision and appropriation issues typical of common pool resources. Nevertheless, the qualitative analysis revealed that there are other socioeconomic variables undermining the sustainability of the systems, such as migration, water shortages and social capacity of the systems.

This dissertation explores some of the thousands of smaller Native American archaeological sites with meager architectural elements commonly found along part of the southern edge of the Colorado Plateau in east-central Arizona in an area known as the Mogollon Plateau. Small surface structures of less than five rooms were typically built of a combination of stone masonry and wattle and daub, and they are generally interpreted as evidence of repeated occupations of limited duration, primarily dating between AD 800 and 1300. Accordingly, these small sites have also served a number of roles in ongoing discussions of settlement systems and land use, and they present challenges for cultural resources management. The fundamental characteristics (or lack thereof) typically used to classify small sites have traditionally relegated them to settlement pattern studies rather than extensive excavation, generating a broad range of hypotheses concerning their significance and drawing heavily upon historical ecology. GIS methods are used to explore several ecologically and socially-driven models and examine the roles of small architectural sites in archaeological and systemic landscapes. Common pool resources offer some explanatory power regarding small sites, but some have suggested competition and conflict led to a "tragedy of the commons" and environmental degradation. Two primary site concentrations are identified, and the evidence supports an interpretation of extensive and sustainable use of the area, much of which seems to have been a frontier. Recommendations for research-driven management and preservation of cultural resources are provided.

<p>The need for effective multi-level governance arrangements is becoming increasingly apparent because of the high functional interdependencies between biophysical and socioeconomic factors in the realm of natural resource governance. Such arrangements provide a basis for the exchange, discussion, and deliberation of information, knowledge, and data across diverse user groups and entities. Multi-level governance is operationalized by using a microinstitutional analysis that links decision-making arenas across three distinct levels: operational, collective-choice, and constitutional. Within this context, I argue that the effectiveness and success of actors' participatory processes across these three levels depend on the amount of social capital among actors within the governance system. I assessed the concept of social capital using two different models: (1) a structural approach focused on resources embedded within an individual's network, and (2) a combined structural-cultural approach that incorporates various aspects of group membership with relations of trust, rules, and norms. To explore the effects of social capital on participatory processes related to the implementation and management of natural resources, I analyzed different small-scale fisheries governance regimes from the Gulf of California, Mexico. I collected data using surveys (n=371), interviews (n=82), and participant observation techniques conducted among the residents of four small-scale fishing communities that live adjacent to marine protected areas along the Baja California, Mexico, peninsula. Data analysis included both quantitative (logit regression model), and qualitative (narrative analysis) approaches. Overall, my results suggest that both social capital models reveal the multidimensional nature of social capital where none of its individual types form a consistent and statistically significant relationship with the six outcomes that I measured. However, these types are related in different ways to fishers engagement in participatory processess across the three levels. The extent of fishers' engagement in participatory processess across different levels was not high. Qualitative analysis revealed that participatory processes related to fisheries conservation and management, although present do not reach their full potential and are stymied by a historical context and a lack of general participatory culture.</p> / Dissertation

The economic modernization of the Amazon fostered by the Brazilian military government during the 1960s and 1970s was largely realized without taking into consideration the presence of local households which lived from the extraction of forest products (mainly non-timber). When they began to be expulsed, a political resistance, often guided by the Catholic Church, appeared as well as the creation of unions based on traditional identities, especially that of rubber tappers. During the 1980s, these unions made a strategic alliance with the ecologist movement which started to consider traditional populations, whose lifestyle depended on the forest, as allies for the protection of the Amazon rainforest. The movement gained a decisive momentum at the end of the decade by putting forward new proposals of land tenure for traditional populations, grounded on collective land rights. This strategy has been very efficient during the 1990s and 2000s, during which about 1,300,000 km(2) of rainforest were set apart and reserved for the use of "traditional communities" under a variety of legal status. But it has also led to mix under the same "collective" etiquette and principles a number of different ways of using and managing land and natural resources. This assumption however should be nuanced by a careful analysis of the resource management systems existing in each case, for they are in general complex and mix varying proportions of individual and collective decisions. The aim of this paper is to explore this question using the example of the Chico Mendes agroextractive settlement (PAE-CM), inhabited by about 100 rubber tapper families and symbolic of the political struggle of traditional populations in the Amazon for being the home of the rubber tapper leader Chico Mendes assassinated in 1988. Applying Ostrom "design principles", we try to catch what are the local institutional arrangements and to see if they suggest collective or individual management, and what the boundaries between both categories are. As a conclusion, we find that the PAE-CM's system is much less collective than expected, and also very much controlled by external authorities, in a logic pretty much away from the idea of a CPR system. This finding is useful to understand the shortcomings in the actual management of the PAE but also to foresee difficulties which will probably arise in the management of many of the areas which have gained collective land rights or collective management statutes in the Amazon.

No cenário da pesca artesanal nacional, a garantia de acesso aos territórios pesqueiros e a construção de cadeias produtivas que valorizem ao mesmo tempo o pescado e o pescador são condições que podem ser atingidas através da organização cooperativa da produção e das comunidades. O presente trabalho se pautou nas abordagens teórico-metodológicas da ação coletiva e da gestão compartilhada dos recursos de uso comum para analisar a trajetória de duas cooperativas em comunidades tradicionais pesqueiras no Brasil: a Cooperativa dos Pescadores Artesanais de Carutapera, no litoral das reentrâncias no Maranhão, e a Cooperativa dos Produtores de Ostra de Cananéia, no litoral sul de São Paulo. Foram realizados os seguintes procedimentos metodológicos: revisão bibliográfica, levantamento de dados secundários, observação direta dos fatos e fenômenos, contato com atores chave para fornecer dados e análise contextual dos estudos de caso. Os territórios onde se encontram cada uma das cooperativas foram descritos de acordo com os aspectos demográficos, sociais, econômicos e ambientais, servindo como ponto de partida para a compreensão do estado atual das áreas de estudo. As trajetórias das ações coletivas que levaram à criação das cooperativas foram sistematizadas em uma perspectiva histórica, separadas por fases e elencados os principais acontecimentos que contribuíram para o desenvolvimento do cooperativismo local. A análise desses dados permitiu inferir quais foram as dinâmicas chave na promoção da ação conjunta e coordenada entre os indivíduos. As cadeias produtivas locais foram descritas e as relações sociais de produção que regem os aspectos de mercado nessas cooperativas foram identificadas, assim como as bases de conhecimento tradicionais e ecológicos em que ocorre a produção nos sistemas pesqueiros. Por fim, descreveram-se as áreas de uso comum utilizadas pela pesca e maricultura artesanal e o funcionamento dos regimes de propriedade empregados na gestão desses territórios. A realização dessa pesquisa possibilitou a contraposição entre os dados de ambos estudos de casos em uma perspectiva de identificação de padrões semelhantes e divergentes entre as cooperativas estudadas. As principais contribuições foram no sentido de que é preciso atentar-se ao contexto que impulsiona o empreendimento das ações coletivas que almejam melhores condições de vida para as comunidades, buscando identificar as lideranças em potencial, os motivos que fazem com que as pessoas cooperem entre si e os mecanismos que mantêm a confiança entre os indivíduos, que por sua vez leva à retroalimentação desse ciclo solidário tecido nos atributos socioecológicos e em valores como a reciprocidade. / In the context of the Brazilian artisanal fishery, the assurance of access to fishing territories and the development of value chains that consider both fish and fisherman are conditions that can be achieved through cooperative organization of production and communities. This work is based on the theoretical-methodological approaches of the collective actions and the shared management of common-use resources, especially marine resources. That background was used to analyze the historical trajectory of two cooperatives in traditional fishing communities in Brazil: the Cooperative of Artisanal Fishermen of Carutapera, in the indentation of the coastline in Maranhão State, and the Cooperative of Oyster Producers of Cananeia, in the South coastline of São Paulo State. The following methodological proceedings were carried: literature review, secondary data collection, direct observation of facts and phenomena, contact with stakeholders for the provision of data and analysis of the study cases context. The territories where each cooperative are located were described according to demographical, social, economical and environmental aspects, as a starter for the understanding of the current state of the study areas. The trajectory of the collective action that had led to the creation of the cooperatives were organized in a historical perspective, separated by phases, and it was listed/organized according by the main events that had contributed to the development of local cooperatives. The analysis of the data allowed the inference of what were the facts and key phenomena in promoting of the joint and coordinated action among individuals. The local value chain was described, and the social relations of production that deal with the market aspects in these cooperatives, were also identified as well as the traditional and ecological knowledge in what had occurred the production in the fishery systems. Finally, it was described the common areas used for fishing and artisanal mariculture, and how the property regimes employed works in the management of these territories. The realization of this research allowed the opposition between the data from both case studies in an identification prospect of similar and divergent patterns between the studied cooperatives. The main contributions were to the effect that it is necessary to pay attention to the context that drives the development of collective actions. When aimed to better living conditions for the communities, it needs to identify potential leaders, the reasons that make people cooperate with each other and the mechanisms that maintain trust between individuals, which in turn leads to feedback that solidarity cycle fabric on values such as reciprocity.

<p>The case study was made in the area of Kiru Valley, Tanzania, in order to study the conflicts over the water in the river Dodumera, and also to understand how the villages Mawemairo, Matufa and Mapea have been affected by the construction of the IFAD irrigation scheme. The aim was to connect the conflicts in the area with a general view of how water can create such conflicts. The method used in the case study was semi-structured interviews. The results from the interviews made with farmers and officials in Kiru Valley was analysed through general theories about water conflicts and theories about governing common-pool resources, such as Ostrom’s eight principles and the theory the Tragedy of the Commons. The analysis was also made through the IFAD poverty reduction strategy programme (PRSP). The conclusion made on the basis of this analysis was that the IFAD project, in Kiru Valley, was in correlation with the PRSP and an attempt to reduce poverty in the two villages Mawemairo and Matufa. The project has been very successful and has contributed to an increase of livelihood and development in the villages. However, the scheme has also affected other villages, such as Mapea. The scheme has contributed to a decrease of water availability in the Dodumera River for Mapea. Nowadays they only rely on rain-fed irrigation. The conflicts have been affected by the scheme, not so much in the quantity of the conflicts but more in the target of the conflicts. Before the construction of the scheme the conflicts was directed at the big-scale farmers, now they are directed at the scheme. On the other hand, the scheme has helped reducing the conflicts between the farmers in Mawemairo and Matufa. There are solutions to conflicts and water scarcity, such as more efficient irrigation techniques and Ostrom’s principles on governing the common-pool resources.</p>