Quantifying Sustainable Development. The Future of Tropical Economies

763 Pages·2000·16.182 MB·English

by  Charles A.S. Hall, Carlos Leon Perez and Gregoire Leclerc (Eds.)

CONTRIBUTORS
Numbers in parentheses indicate the pages on xvhich the authors' contributions begin.
SERGIO ABARCA (423), Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock, San Jose,
Costa Rica
BERNARDO AGUILAR (19, 595), Present address: Department of Ecological
Economics and Environmental Law, Prescott College, Prescott, Arizona 86301
ALFREDO ALVARADO (265), Agronomy Investigation Center, University of
Costa Rica, San Jose, Costa Rica
FLORIA BERTSCH (265), Agronomy Investigation Center, University of Costa
Rica, San Jose, Costa Rica
MARK BROWN (695), Department of Environmental Engineering Sciences,
University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida 32611
SANDRA BROWN (503), U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, National
Health and Environmental Effects Research Laboratory, Corvallis, Oregon
97333; Present address: Winrocle International, Arlington, Virginia 22209
MEEGHAN CARROLL (527), Department of Forestry, State University of New
York, Syracuse, New York 13210
JOSEPH D. CORNELL (543), Department of Environmental and Forest Biol
ogy, College of Environmental Science and Forestry, State University of New
York, Syracuse, New York 13210
OSCAR FLORES (423), University of San Carlos, Guatemala
CYNTHIA FRIDGEN (563), Department of Resource Development, College
of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Michigan State University, East Lansing,
Michigan 48824
XVI Contributors
CHARLES A. S. HALL (3, 19, 45, 91, 121, 159, 177, 223, 295, 349, 563, 647,
695, 715), Department of Environmental and Forest Biology and Program of
Environmental Science, College of Environmental Science and Forestr>\ State
University of New York, Syracuse, New York 13078
MYRNA HALL (19, 177), College of Environmental Science and Forestry,
State University of New York, Syracuse, New York 13078
E. H. HELMER (503), Department of Forest Science, Oregon State University,
Corvallis, Oregon 97331; Present address: Institute of Tropical Forestry, South
ern Forest Experiment Station, U. S. Forest Service, Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico
CARLOS HENRIQUEZ (265), Agronomy Investigation Center, University of
Costa Rica, San Jose, Costa Rica
CARLOS HERNANDEZ (563), Central Administration, Earth College, Gua-
piles, Costa Rica
GERRIT HOOGENBOOM (403), Department of Biological and Agricultural
Engineering, University of Georgia, Griffin, Georgia 30223
GLENN HYMAN (205, 449), Centro de Computo, CATIE, Turrialba, Costa
Rica; Present address: CIAT, Cali, Colombia
MUHAMMED IBRAHIM (423), Department of Agroforestry, CATIE, Turri
alba, Costa Rica
JULIE KLOCKER (595), Comparative Extension, University of Minnesota,
Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455
JAE-YOUNG KO (91), College of Environmental Science and Forestr>% State
University of New York, Syracuse, New York 13078; Present address: Center
for Wetlands, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana 70803
TIMM KROEGER (629, 665), Graduate Program in Environmental Science,
College of Environmental Science and Forestry, State University of New York,
Syracuse, New York 13210
LOIS LEVITAN (121), Environmental Risk Analysis Program, Center for the
Environment; Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14850
GREGOIRE LECLERC (159, 223, 295), Laborator\^ of Geographical Analysis,
CATIE, Turrialba 7170, Costa Rica; Present address: CIAT, Cali, Colombia
CARLOS LEON PEREZ (349, 403), Ministry of Agriculture, San Jose, Costa
Rica
PABLO MARTINEZ (527), Departmento Ambiental, Avila Cathohc University,
Los Cantero sin 05005, Avila, Spain
Contributors XVll
RAFAEL MATA (265), Agronomy Investigation Center, University of Costa
Rica, San Jose, Costa Rica
DAWN R. MONTANYE (647, 665), Graduate Program in Environmental
Science, College of Environmental Science and Forestry, State University of
New York, Syracuse, New York 13210; Present address: Friends of the Earth,
Washington, DC 20005
PATRICK G. MOTEL (527), Schenectady, New York 12303
WILL RAVENSCROFT (91, 349), Department of Environmental and Forest
Biology, College of Environmental Science and Forestry, State University of
New York, Syracuse, New York 13210; Present address: Cooperative Fish and
Wildhfe Unit, College of Agriculture and Forestr)^ West Virginia University,
Morgantown, West Virginia 26506
TENG REYES (223), CATIE, Turrialba, Costa Rica
DAVID ROSSITER (403), Department of Agronomy, Cornell University, Ith
aca, New York 14850; Present address: International Institute for Aerospace
Survey and Earth Sciences, Enshede, The Netherlands
BENJAMIN RUBIN (449), Department of Environmental and Forest Biology,
College of Environmental Science and Forestry, State University of New York,
Syracuse, New York 13210
OLEGARIO SAENZ (91), Department of Economics, University of Costa Rica,
San Jose, Costa Rica
G. ARTURO SANCHEZ-AZOFEIFA (473), Department of Civil Engineering,
University of Costa Rica, San Jose, Costa Rica; Present address: Department
of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Albera, Edmonton, Canada
T6G 2E3
TOMAS SCHLICHTER (121), Program on Sustainable Development, CATIE,
Turrialba, Costa Rica; Present address: Instituto Nacional de Techologia Agro-
pecuaria (INTA), EEA Bariloche, CC 277, San Carlos de Bariloche, Argentina
MARSHALL TAYLOR (177), Resources Planning Associates, Ithaca, New
York 14850
PATRICK VAN LAAKE (159, 205, 403), Forest Resources Division, Food and
Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, San Jose, Costa Rica; Present
address: Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Albera,
Edmonton, Canada T6G 2E3
JUAN-RAPHAEL VARGAS (91, 647), Department of Economics, University
of Costa Rica, San Jose, Costa Rica
XVIU Contributors
MATHIS WACKERNAGEL (695), Indicators Program Redefining Progress,
San Francisco, California 94108
HONGQING WANG (349), Department of Environmental and Forest Biology,
College of Environmental Science and Forestry, State University of New York,
Syracuse, New York 13210
SCOTT G. WITTER (563), Department of Resource Development, College of
Agriculture and Natural Resources, Michigan State University, East Lansing,
Michigan 48824
FOREWORD
In the temperate zones north and south of the equator there are, and have
been, wealthy countries. South of the equator AustraUa and New Zealand are
weaUhy. Argentina and Chile were two of the twenty wealthiest countries in
the world in the late 19th century. Since the industrial revolution, no country
within the tropics—with the exception of one very small city state (Singa
pore)—has been anything but poor. Even within the same country this iron
law of experience seems to hold. Those parts of Brazil south of the Tropic of
Capricorn are much richer than those parts of Brazil within the tropics.
Understanding why this should be so is a bit like a murder mystery. There
are lots of suspects (the tropics have more problems with diseases because
cold weather controls many diseases; leached soils from too much rainfall
may present problems more difficult to solve than those of the deserts with
inadequate rainfall found outside the equatorial regions), but no obviously
guilty killer. If anything, the tropics have more than their share of natural
resources. Big oil producers include Indonesia, Nigeria, and Venezuela. Paying
for oil is a big problem for Costa Rica (the country most analyzed in this
book), but lots of tropical countries with lots of oil are much poorer than
Costa Rica.
Tropical population growth rates are certainly a problem. No country has
ever become rich without at least a century or more of population growth
rates of 1% or less. Rates much above this level cause a poor country to devote
too many of its resources to bringing new people up to existing economic
levels, and essentially no resources are left after this is done to devote to raising
the income levels of those people who already exist. But almost universally,
countries within the temperate zones have managed to limit their population
growth rates, while almost none within the tropics have been able to do
so. Why?
XX Foreword
It is easy to attack existing models of economic development (this book
does some of that) since they haven't worked in the tropics. Developmental
economists would probably say that the people who tried to make them work
in the tropics have not been disciplined enough to make them work. Using
standard economic models, China after all has leapt ahead while Africa, not
using those models, has fallen behind—poorer per capita now than it was in
1965. When it comes to the social discipline to get village schools organized,
levels of illiteracy are orders of magnitude higher in the tropics than they are
in the most illiterate countries in the temperate zones. Why? So too within
countries—education levels in northern Brazil are far below those in south
ern Brazil.
There is a fundamental problem for all those, including the authors of this
book, who would produce alternatives. Since the industrial revolution, no
form of economic organization other than competitive markets has managed
to generate high standards of living anywhere in the world. Many alternatives
have been tried—socialism, communism, feudalism, cooperatives—all have
failed. Even with all of the positive ideology that they once had behind them,
the kibbutzes are dying out in Israel. Finding an alternative to the existing
conventional wisdom is not easy—and maybe not even possible. In any case,
it has yet to be discovered, much less tested. The burden of proof is on those
who call for other solutions.
As this book points out, one of the alternatives is to call for sustainable
development. But the definition of sustainability is a slippery concept. If sus-
tainability means a much lower standard of living than that which now exists,
"sustainability" isn't sustainable. If sustainability means the ability to sustain
economic development, the ability differs radically from country to country.
From space, Argentina and the United States look very similar. Both were
given similar natural endowments, and Argentina if anything inherited a more
favorable natural position than the United States. Indeed in the 19th century,
it was one point wealthier per capita than the United States. Yet Argentina's
economic development was not sustainable while America's was.
If one visits agricultural villages in a poor country (I recently did so in
Laos), one finds villages with very different standards of living situated right
next to each other with the same natural endowments. Some are well organized
and some are completely disorganized. Their ability to get organized determines
their ability to generate high or low standards of living for their inhabitants.
Sociology in the end may be more important than biology.
If a detective has an unsolved murder case, he or she interviews all of the
potential witnesses (reliable or unreliable) to see if something somewhere will
yield a clue to who the murderer was. This is the right frame of reference with
which to approach any book on tropical development. Within it are clues to
why tropical economic development is almost an oxymoron.
Foreword XXI
Like you, the reader, I do not claim to know the exact reasons that tropical
countries are universally economic failures. But some of the clues that may
lead you and me to find the murderer are certainly found within the new
perspectives and extensive data analysis contained within this book.
Lester C. Thurow
Sloan School of Management
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
PREFACE
This book is about the myths and reahties of the developing tropics. It is
also about the inadequacy of our dominant intellectual paradigms for under
standing and guiding that development. It considers the continuing failure,
despite large efforts, of programs based on these dominant paradigms to resolve
major economic and environmental problems there. Our book also uses new
tools to develop a more comprehensive and realistic framework for analysis
and decision making. These include biophysical and systems perspectives that
integrate environment and economics, and some cutting-edge technology that
combines GIS, modeling, and extensive geographical and time series databases.
We have two underlying objectives: first, to examine the possibilities and
limitations of "sustainable development" for guiding the future of national
economies, and second, to understand more precisely the relation of the biolog
ical and physical properties of a region to important components of its econ
omy, including its development and conservation possibilities. We offer no
silver bullets to magically resolve difficult problems, but offer instead a suite
of conceptual and computer tools that enable a systems approach and conse
quently, we believe, a more rigorous and detailed analysis than has been
possible in the past.
We focus on these issues for two reasons: One is that I, and most of the
contributors to this book, believe that the conceptual basis for current eco
nomic and development theory is in many respects fatally flawed. If we are to
understand the principles of operation and the potential for development—
sustainable or otherwise—of tropical economies, we must use a different kind
of economics. We can do this by expanding the range of what we do under
its aegis by again focusing on explaining, in accounting terms, what happens
in society and then using the scientific method, rather than ideology, to ask
why. Another way of saying this is that we need to question and test what
XXIV Preface
economics as a discipline has assumed and promoted. We believe this to be
essential if any sort of sustainable approach to economic health and well-being
is ever to be generated in developing countries. We also beheve that most of
the "environmental" or "green" alternatives offered to date, including many
under the rubric of "sustainability," are not particularly useful for solving the
deficiencies in the traditional economic approach because they tend to focus
on issues that are economically trivial. Thus, our second reason for writing
this book is to examine the potential of an alternative to the dominant economic
paradigm, namely, a biophysical perspective. To paraphrase Von Clauswitz,
who said the "war is too important to leave to the generals," we believe that
"economics is too important to leave to the economists."
Our intended audience is anyone interested in a fresh and rigorous approach
to understanding how developing nations operate, or might operate, as systems.
The book is interdisciplinary, analytical, and academic and is appropriate
for graduate courses in the environmental sciences, public administration,
international relations, and economics. We especially hope that it will find
an interested audience in graduate schools in the developing world and in
development and governmental agencies. If we are truly successful it will serve
as a blueprint for how economics "should" be done in developing countries,
and the chapter-by-chapter procedures given here can serve as a basis for many
countries that want to generate a full resource inventory and incorporate it
into economic analysis. But the level of writing and the importance of the
subject material make the book appropriate for any intelligent person interested
in the intertwining of environments and economies in developing countries.
Finally, because the approach is in many respects very different from what
has been written about previously, we hope that anyone who wants a different
perspective on the developing tropics will find the book interesting.
I write as a professional ecologist. This introduces several potential miscon
ceptions because of the use of the term in the popular media. "Ecologist" means
to me a professionally trained person who studies some aspect of ecosystems,
in much the same way as we might use "chemist" or "mathematician." As such
the word "ecology" includes no implied advocacy or pohtical position. I have
no problem with advocates of certain environmental policies calhng themselves
ecologists, but for that usage 1 prefer the term "environmentalist." A second
issue relates to the subject matter pursued by professional ecologists. My own
interest has always been in asking how ecosystems work, especially those
ecosystems dominated by human activities. Curiously, most professional ecolo
gists do not study human-dominated ecosystems, such as cities or agricultural
regions, except as they impinge upon "natural" ecosystems. Instead they seek
out remnant and often remote "natural ecosystems." Thus, the structure and
function of human-dominated systems, the ecosystems that increasingly and
overwhelmingly dominate the surface of this planet, are rarely examined as
Preface XXV
ecosystems using the tools of natural science, but instead are studied mostly
using the approaches of the social sciences. To me this is a serious omission,
as they are just as much "ecosystems" as "social systems," and as such are
characterized and constrained by energetics and material fluxes just as are the
remaining "natural" ecosystems.
On the other hand, the one great disappointment that I have had in writing
this book is that despite my large efforts to include a chapter on the important
issue of natural biodiversity, a subject in which I have little particular strength,
no such chapter was forthcoming. The issue of biodiversity is treated, but not
as completely as I would like, in other chapters.
Our reason for undertaking this analysis is scientific and not to suggest any
particular pohcy. It is our strong belief that the policy by which any nation
should be run is the business of that country alone. Thus, with one exception
(in the last chapter), we make no explicit policy recommendations in this
book, although we were strongly encouraged to write a shorter, policy-oriented
book by one of our reviewers. Ours is a difficult tightwire to tread, for our
analysis includes examination and critiques of past policy and in some cases
possible future pohcies. But we do so only from the perspective of analyzing
consequences and of trying to understand how the system has and might
work. However, if leaders in the developing world find our analyses helpful
in formulating their own policies, we are of course happy about that. We have
undertaken similar analyses previously for the United States (Cleveland et al,
1984; Hall et al, 1986; Ko et al, 1998) and Argentina (Paruelo et al, 1987)
without explicitly recommending any policy.
The first section of the book gives the reader a nonquantitative introduction
to the economic and environmental situation in the developing tropics in
general and in Costa Rica in particular. The second section reviews conditions
of sustainability, considers whether the discipline of economics is the most
appropriate set of tools for examining the issues that surround sustainability,
and puts forth the alternative biophysical approach. The third and fourth
sections are mostly technical and give in-depth treatments of particular tech
niques and resource bases. The final sections use the technical chapters and
historical information to examine the potential for sustainability. As a synthe
sis we include an empirically based computer model that includes its own
decision-making framework, based on real data and a synthetic perspective.
This model and others are contained on the enclosed CD, so that if the reader
is unconvinced by our arguments or assumptions he or she can devise some
other, we hope realistic, scenario and run a new set of assumptions. The CD
also contains all of the databases that we use in the book as well as unique
software to display them. We believe that this tool and the in-depth analyses
that we have done for Costa Rica should be broadly applicable to most other
developing nations.