Pacific Development Sustained: Policy for Pacific Environments

Citation

Meister, A.D. (2000), "Pacific Development Sustained: Policy for Pacific Environments", International Journal of Social Economics, Vol. 27 No. 12, pp. 1270-1282. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijse.2000.27.12.1270.1

In the Pacific region, including 22 island states, most of which are independent, “human development needs to be maintained and improved … against a background of growing populations and, in the case of the Pacific microstates, a lack of development opportunities and declining aid” (p. 19). To achieve this goal of maintaining and improving human development in the Pacific region, the author searches for policies that will fit into the social and cultural environment of the region and that will work. Using the tools and concepts of economics, environmental and resource issues are described and policy tools are evaluated. The search is for “win‐win” policies that make both economic and environmental sense.

The book starts off by setting the context for the discussion and then continues to discuss major resource issues such as forestry, fisheries, mining, and urban environmental management. In many ways the discussions do reflect a somber situation. Although the picture of a paradise of sun, beaches and relaxed lifestyles, is true, the Pacific is also a region of low levels of economic growth, urbanization, degradation of the environment, financial restraints and weak governments. There is a great need to manage and conserve the resources on which these countries are so dependent. In the book the author looks for policies that have worked and new ones that may work in order to achieve this crucial management of the natural environment to the well‐being of the people.

In discussing each of the major natural resource management issues, the author describes and uses economic tools to unravel the issue. For example, in the chapter on forestry the author examines the capturing and distribution of the benefits from log exports. Who benefits? Is it government, landowners, or foreign companies? Different countries use different ways to capture these benefits, such as export taxes, auction systems, royalties and other forms of taxation. Different approaches imply different ways of sharing risks. A similar discussion ensues in chapter 3, on fisheries, where the capture of economic rent is discussed. It deals with royalties, fishing access fees, or access fees under cooperative action. Finally, in the chapter on mining, the same issue arises and the capacity of tax systems to capture benefits (such as the one for PNG) and the failures (Fiji) are highlighted. Also the need to ring‐fence mining companies for tax assessment purposes is noted. A common theme throughout the book is that to the owners of the resources (be they landowners with forestry or government with fisheries and mining) the returns are low relative to what the extractors earn.

Domestic policies are discussed for each of the resources dealt with. With forestry and fisheries the need for policy to achieve a sustainable yield is highlighted. In doing so, the author explains the economic theory underlying sustainable yield, the issue of property rights (in the context of open access situations) and the meaning of sustainability (when faced with the depletion of a non‐renewable resource). All the concepts are clearly introduced and placed in the context of the resource issues facing the various Pacific countries. In discussing domestic policies, the author also looks at the opportunity for greater involvement by the local people in the capture of resource returns. While some of the Pacific countries have been reasonably efficient in doing this, they have been less successful in translating these into public benefits for the people living today and for future generations. Local processing opportunities for further value‐adding are also appraised but they have often not been a success (e.g. forestry and fish further processing) due to the lack of economies of scale, financial constraints and high costs.

The author continues with an evaluation of domestic policies and looks at the strength and weaknesses identified from actual implementations. Property right manipulations, economic instruments, strengthening of customary tenure (both in forestry and fisheries), trusts, covenants, and performance bonds are all discussed. The book presents a rich tapestry of lessons learned from the application of these policy tools in the Pacific island context. It is especially the context that makes the author move away from top‐down regulatory management schemes – which are often costly in terms of monitoring, and less than effective in terms of enforcement – to bottom‐up schemes anchored in the communities and using existing customs, knowledge and institutions. The author highlights the paradoxical situation of the role of customary tenure, which on the one hand afforded protection to land and marine environments, but on the other poses difficulties for securing and financing areas for conservation. Still, customary tenure is seen as a policy tool that needs to be strengthened especially in the management of marine and forestry resources. It offers promise as a management tool for say the conservation of coastal resources while at the same time increasing understanding for successful implementation of other policies.

The last chapter of the book moves away from discussing a specific resource but discusses the implications of urbanization. Small island nations (often sitting on a groundwater lens and with scarce land) struggle with inadequate infrastructure for water, wastes and sewage. They present disasters ready to happen (if in cases it has not already happened). In this situation, customary tenure of land can become a hindrance in solving the infrastructure problems and “will need innovative approaches” (p. 149) to overcome the issues. Policy approaches must include a better signaling of the cost of providing services through user charges and cost recovery, and policy tools to fight externalities (differential taxes on leaded petrol) and resource conservation and waste minimization (deposit refunds and waste charges).

The book is rich in examples and case studies. To me, the greatest value of the book is in the way the tools of environmental and resource economics are introduced and explained within a policy‐making framework. The explanations are clear and help to understand the issues discussed and the opportunities open for various policy approaches. The author is very realistic about the role of economics in policy‐formulation. This is evident in the discussion of the use of financial and economic analysis, the author – while demonstrating the usefulness of having information on the benefits of various environmental values in decisions about, for example, mangrove conversions – also sounds a note of caution against using this approach. It is difficult to justify conservation on economic grounds when the economic benefits are difficult to quantify.

The book is well written and easy to read. The author shows a great knowledge of the issues faced by Pacific nations and provides the reader with clear insights into those issues. All this is done within the socio‐economic and cultural context unique to the region. The policies are realistically described and assessed both in terms of their theoretical underpinning and their strength and weaknesses given the particular situations. The relevance of the discussion and evaluation of policy tools goes well beyond application to the Pacific region.

This book should be a must for all undergraduate and postgraduate studies in resource and environmental economics, for people involved in decision making about resource and environmental issues, and for all those with an interest in the Pacific region.