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An objection that one
might make to letting the market drive conservation efforts is that
people are simply too selfish to have any reason to conserve nature.
But the exact opposite is true: actors in a market system would
conserve wildlife and land precisely because they are selfish. The
solution to the problem of conservation is to ensure that those in
charge of managing the resources are those who feel the consequences
of their actions. The simplest and most efficient way to set up such a
system is to allow private ownership of natural resources,
including, and especially, endangered species. Ludwig von Mises
tells us that
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"carried through
consistently, the right of property would entitle the proprietor
to claim all the advantages which the good's employment may
generate on the one hand and would burden him with all the
disadvantages resulting from its employment on the other hand.
Then the proprietor alone would be fully responsible for the
outcome" (Mises 1963, p. 655). |
No one debates whether horses or dogs should be private property,
since there is no question of either species becoming extinct. In the
case of an endangered species such as the gray wolf, how much more
could the market system do for its preservation? An endangered species
is a scarce good; the more scarce a good, the higher its price. The
higher the price of a good, the more incentive actors in the market
have to create or discover more of that good. In other words, if
wolves were allowed to be bought and sold on the market system, we
would see an increase in their number simply because they would be a
scarce good in high demand.
Twentieth century
Austrian economist Friedrich Hayek felt that any kind of conservation
was simply another form of investment; that a natural resource such as
wilderness land or a wolf pack should be treated with the same regard
as a man-made resource such as a barn full of steel girders.
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"Perhaps the best way of
concisely stating the chief point is to say that all resource
conservation constitutes investment and should be judged by
precisely the same criteria as all other investment. There is
nothing in the preservation of natural resources as such which
makes it a more desirable object of investment than man-made
equipment or human capacities; and, so long as society anticipates
the exhaustion of particular resources and channels its investment
in such a manner that its aggregate income is made as great as the
funds available for investment can make it, there is no further
economic case for preserving any one kind of resource" (Hayek
1960, p. 374). |
In other words, both conservation and the objects of conservation
(i.e. wilderness land and wild animals) fit the qualifications of an
economic good, and should be treated as such if the most optimal
allocation of the resource in question is to be obtained.
One obvious objection
which the conservationist could make is simply to say, "Who cares
about maximizing profit? The purpose of conservation is to conserve
wilderness. If we allow conservation to be determined by the free
market and it turns out that consumers are willing to pay more for a
shopping mall than for a virgin forest, what then?" The answer lies in
the subtleties of the definition of economic profit. Profit is merely
one way of measuring public opinion – like voting, but more precise,
giving more attention to the individual's or the minority's opinion.
The profit and loss system is what signals the owner of a resource as
to his success or failure managing that resource, in the opinion of
the actors in the market. We can leave conservation to the unwieldy
bureaucracies of government control, where the fate of a virgin forest
or a wolf pack depends on the number of voters who bother to turn up
at the polls, or on whether a particular politician finds nature
conservation to be the thing that will advance his career. Or we can
let conservation be controlled by the market system, where individuals
are rewarded for specializing in the ins and outs of conservation
biology (unlike the politician who votes yay or nay for a particular
bill and then moves on to other issues).
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Does it destroy the wolf to domesticate it? |
An obvious objection to the case of the domesticated animal as an
argument for private property's positive effect on a species' survival
is that most domesticated animals are incapable of surviving in the
wild. The objection, here, is that although man has ensured its
survival, he has "destroyed" the species by taking away its natural
survival skills. Certainly in the case of the wolf, one might argue
that it would not be a good thing for the wolf to become a
domesticated animal. However, I am not arguing that it is necessary
for an animal to become domesticated to ensure its survival. It would
be perfectly possible for a wild animal, such as the wolf, to benefit
from private ownership while continuing to run free and behave much as
it would in the wild, with the simple exception that he wears a
tracking tag and runs free on acreage which is privately owned.
There are many possible
ways for private conservation to be undertaken, but I believe the most
likely one is for private (probably non-profit) organizations to arise
whose focus is conservation, but the likelihood of private ownership
of natural resources is also important. In his 1995 paper "Conserving
Biodiversity," Stephen R. Edwards discusses conservation through
sustainable use as the best method of achieving real effects in
conservation. He writes that
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"sustainable
conservation of biodiversity will be achieved only when the people
who live with it recognize the importance of conserving… Incentive
systems to promote sustainable use of wild resources require that
people be allowed to use them free from excessive government
interference… Rights to use wild resources can be conveyed through
property ownership… To enhance the probability of sustaining the
wild harvest or use, the people living with the resources must
have sufficient incentives to conserve the resources" (Edwards
1995, p. 255 and 248). |
In other words, individuals or firms must be allowed to own natural
resources if those individuals or organizations are to be expected to
conserve the resources in question. If a particular resource has a
single owner (whether that is an individual or a group of
individuals), that owner has incentive not only to curtail his own use
of the resource but to protect it from others' use. More importantly,
if he holds private property rights to the resource, he has the legal
recourse against any other individual who attempts to overuse the
resource.
The free market and private property rights are the best – if not the
only – way to determine the appropriate amount of endangered species
demanded by the American public and the world at large, and to protect
those species which are truly at risk of extinction.
Perhaps in ecology, as in
economics, the scientific observer must come to accept that
disequilibrium is reality; that we can merely observe the fluctuations
of a system which will never perfectly fit our models; and most of
all, that human interference in the system which naturally occurs
(whether ecological or market based) will only drive the natural world
further from the equilibrium towards which it will always strive and
never achieve.
Man's place in the
natural world is neither above it, nor separate from it. Man is not
the master of nature, to do and destroy as he pleases, but neither is
he an "unnatural" and negative force which must at all costs be kept
from affecting the world around him. He is part of nature; he must
learn to interact with it in a manner which is productive, while
maintaining a certain amount of respect for the other denizens of the
world which he inhabits. How can a society encourage this type of
optimal behavior? There exists a naturally occurring system which will
drive man to both preserve nature and use it for his own ends, in
appropriate proportions; a system which, like natural selection,
drives the beings acting within it towards what is optimal for their
species' welfare. This system is the market economy. The free market
is the best, and indeed the only, system which can drive man to act
optimally in an ecological sense, yet at his own volition.
Stephen Kellert and his
colleagues, in their 1996 article in Conservation Biology,
argue that the wolf is important because,
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"throughout North
America's history of intense persecution of wolves, the animal has
been a powerful barometer of changing attitudes toward the natural
world. Many North Americans now view wilderness as the expression
of a delicate and even divine handiwork, and wilderness species,
especially large carnivores, as vital components of a complex,
quasi-living structure. For others the wolf remains a powerful
reminder of the human need to fight and repress nature in a
never-ending struggle to render the land safe and productive. Thus
the wolf will probably remain a powerful indicator of the shifting
attitudes of North Americans toward the natural world." (Kellert
et al. 1996, p. 980-981). |
They are correct; how man reacts to the wolf situation is indeed an
indicator of his attitudes toward the natural world and his relation
to it. This is an invaluable opportunity for humanity to see the
importance of understanding the economic aspects of conservation
activity, and the fact that the only way we can achieve any goals in
this area is to remember that human behavior follows simple economic
laws. In order to achieve the appropriate balance in the conservation
of wildlife, especially wolves whose existence ties in with
that of mankind so closely and in such a complex manner, we must use
these economic laws as our guide; the free market must be allowed to
guide human interaction with wildlife.
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