Assistant Professor Cornell University, United States
Globally, rangelands face interacting pressures from climate, land-use, socio-economic and political changes. These challenges are all compromising rangeland resilience, and intergovernmental bodies such as the UNCCD are calling for countries to take immediate action to protect herder livelihoods and grassland health. However, it is not clear how such policies should be designed in order to support sustainable land use and livelihoods in the future. In this session I will explore how this uncertainty in policy direction stems from two major interacting social phenomena: first, the legacy of colonial misperceptions of rangeland production systems and the enduring influence of Hardin’s ‘tragedy’ trope; and second, the lack of consensus among contemporary theories around the successful governance of pastoral resource commons. I will highlight recent empirical work with collaborators that tests competing governance theories using a unique social-ecological dataset from Mongolia, where there is ongoing debate over proposed rangeland policies. I assess which theories best match the complex realities on the ground, in order to derive implications for future policy.
