An overview of traps from the literature

Traps have been discussed widely in the literature, and have been used as a concept to explain social and ecological processes that produce environmental degradation and livelihood impoverishment (Boonstra and de Boer 2014). The Tragedy of the Commons (Hardin 1968) is a classical metaphor used to capture the type of social dynamics leading to environmental degradation. However, case studies have shown that there can be different outcomes in common-pool resource management: in some situations tragedies are unavoidable, but in others people find ways (intentionally or

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the Commons metaphor and its underlying assumptions have been heavily criticized for its disregard of context (Ostrom 1990; Boonstra and de Boer 2014). Contemporary studies try to identify the conditions that hamper or enable effective common property management (Agrawal 2003), and a leading metaphor in these studies is the idea of “social–ecological traps”.

Traps are broadly used in both social and ecological realms to refer to a situation where individuals or communities start in a direction or relationship that later proves to be undesirable or lethal, and from which there is no easy escape (Platt 1973; Costanza 1987; Hoff and Sen 2005). Social-ecological traps are defined as ‘situations when feedbacks between social and ecological systems lead toward an undesirable state that may be difficult or impossible to reverse’ (Cinner 2011). The critical distinction between social-ecological traps and other types of traps discussed in the literature is the reinforcing nature of feedbacks between social processes and ecological dynamics, which may amplify the initial conditions causing the problems (Kittinger et al. 2013). These factors may then interact and reduce the resilience of the social-ecological system. Resilience is the capacity of the social-ecological system to absorb recurrent stochastic events (e.g. natural disasters, economic or political turbulence) and to continue to function without changing fundamentally (e.g. Walker & Meyers 2004). Changes within the system are often gradual (e.g. habitat loss, accumulation of pollutants, emergent markets, changes in values; Folke et al. 2004; Biggs et al. 2009) and tend to go unnoticed until a threshold is reached, upon which there is a shift in the dominant feedbacks that leads to sudden and long lasting changes in the system structure and function, termed a regime shift (Folke et al. 2004). Once a regime shift occurs it may be difficult or impossible to reverse (Scheffer 2009). Avoiding a regime shift and ensuring the continued provision of ecosystem services requires promoting

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resilience of the ecological system in the face of change (Gunderson and Holling 2001).

Biodiversity is assumed to underpin ecological resilience in the face of change

(Peterson et al. 1998), with increased resilience in more diverse biological communities (Cardinale et al. 2003). Functional diversity is thought to determine ecosystem

functioning through the diversity and values of traits of species present, with species loss often linked to declines in ecosystem services (Hooper et al. 2005; Cadotte et al. 2011; Hooper et al. 2012). Certain species may have irreplaceable roles in ecosystems (Wenny and Levey 1998; Cordeiro and Howe 2003; Şekercioğlu et al. 2004) and consequently, changes in their numbers and distributions may lead to disruption of vital ecosystem processes and delivery of services (Redford 1992). These changes may push ecosystems close to thresholds or into alternate states with lower capacity to generate ecosystem services for society, which may lead to a social-ecological trap.

The resilience of the ecological system is also influenced by human activity, with people adapting their behaviour in response to ecological change (Folke et al. 2010). Thus, social and ecological resilience are linked, particularly for social groups or communities that are directly dependent on ecological resources for their livelihoods (Adger 2000). There is considerable heterogeneity within the social system, with different social groups who have varying environmental priorities, natural resources claims and power relations (Leach et al. 1999). This leads to differences in how people are able to respond to changes within the social-ecological system, with certain social groups better able to adapt and generate benefits from changes than others (Coulthard 2008). This may lead to increasing inequalities, and the perpetuation of a social-

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There are various factors within the social system that can impact its resilience or stability, and thus lead to a social-ecological trap, including: 1) inequalities: a certain threshold of resource endowment may be required for households to adapt to change, generate benefits, or even escape poverty (Kelly and Adger 2000; Barrett and Swallow 2006); 2) livelihoods dependent on a narrow range of resources: this increases the variance of income and decreases the stability of the social system through

susceptibility to fluctuations in markets and/or the occurrence of extremes events such as droughts, flood or pests and diseases (Adger 2000); 3) Formal and informal

institutions (defined broadly as socialised behaviour, as well as formal structures of governance and law): are closely linked to a stable social system when they are inclusive with a high degree of trust (Harriss and De Renzio 1997) and have been shown to be critical for effective natural resource governance (Berkes 1989; Ostrom 1990; Agrawal and Gibson 1999). However, institutions are subject to external pressures and shocks associated with both political and economic change (Adger 2000). For example, the introduction of high financial returns from resources can cause changes in the social organisation for managing the resources that can increase

inequalities and social conflict, further undermining support for collective management (Kelly 1996; Adger 2000).

Emerging research on social-ecological traps suggests there are several key

feedbacks between social and ecological domains that drive the system toward a trap, including interactions between poverty and resource use, missing or weak institutions, and overharvesting of natural resources, often associated with the use of specific technologies (Cinner 2011; Lindenmayer et al. 2011; Steneck et al. 2011).

Interactions between poverty and resource use can lead to a social-ecological trap through a reinforcing feedback between increasing resource degradation and

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inequalities. For example, in Kenya, poor fishers with fewer livelihood options were the least likely to be able to exit the fishery when resources decline severely (Cinner et al. 2009a). This is consistent with a broad body of literature on poverty traps, which demonstrate a series of constraints on the poor, such as limited assets, lack of access to cash or credit, which prevents them from accessing alternative, higher risk and higher income livelihood strategies (Adato et al. 2006; Carter and Barrett 2006; Cinner 2011). As a result they choose livelihood strategies with low or short-term returns, and become trapped in a stable or increasing poverty (Barrett et al. 2006).

Missing, weak or ineffective institutions can also contribute to a social-ecological trap. Across many Least Developed Countries there is a widespread presence of customary practices and taboos that regulate the use, access and transfer of resources (Cinner and Aswani 2007). Such informal, customary institutions have been shown to be effective at improving or maintaining ecological conditions, either through controls of specific technologies or closures of certain areas to harvesting (Cinner and Aswani 2007). However, these customary systems appear to break down as societies experience certain types of social and economic change (Ruddle 1993), including increasing population (Agrawal and Goyal 2001), and improved market access (Cinner et al. 2007).

Such missing, weak or ineffective institutions can often lead to unsustainable harvesting of natural resources (Bennett et al. 2007). Overharvesting threatens the sustainability of the resource base, and in certain areas has led to severe species loss (Fa et al. 2002) and exacerbation of poverty (Davies 2002). People tend to try to maintain yields as the resource base is depleted, which often leads to the use of technologies that are more damaging to the environment, such as the use of smaller

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sized nets in fisheries (Cinner 2009). This leads to a cycle of ecological destruction and increasing poverty (Walker et al. 2009), perpetuating a social-ecological trap (Fig. 7.1).

Figure 7.1: Model of a social-ecological trap. Weak, missing or ineffective institutions within a system can drive destructive resource use, which leads to

environmental degradation. This reinforces ecological feedbacks that drive the system towards a less desirable state with reduced ecosystem functioning and decreased wellbeing of those who depend on ecosystem services, which then leads to further destructive resource use as people try to maintain yields to support their livelihoods. The cycle continues, with increasing inequalities, with those who do not depend on natural resources for their livelihoods able to sustain their income and consumption regardless of increasing environmental degradation.

In conclusion, common features of a social-ecological trap are: (1) decreased ecological resilience, (2) decreased social stability, (3) interactions between poverty and resource use, and (4) overharvesting of natural resources, often associated with the use of specific technologies. In the following sections I will use these four features, which have already been covered in detail in the preceding chapters, to assess and discuss the extent to which a social-ecological trap is occurring in Kahua.