Can Development Programs Shape Cooperation? : Results from a Framed Field Experiment in Indonesia.

Empirical studies among small-scale societies show that participation in national development programs impact traditional norms of community cooperation. We explore the extent to which varying levels of village and individual involvement in development policies relate to voluntary cooperation within community settings. We used a field experiment conducted in seven villages (208 participants) from an indigenous society in Indonesia known for their strong traditional cooperative norms, the Punan Tubu. We framed the experiment in terms of an ongoing government house-building program. The results indicate that there were synergistic and antagonistic interactions between existing cooperative norms and government development policies. Participants' cooperation in the experimental setting was low, probably because the Punan Tubu are used to cooperating and sharing both under demand and in a context in which uncooperative behavior is largely unpunished. Variation in experimental behavior was related to both village- and individual-level variables, with participants living in resettlement villages and participants living in a house constructed under the government program displaying more cooperative behavior. The cooperation evident in resettled villages may indicate that people in these villages are more comfortable interacting in anonymous settings and less committed to the demand-sharing norms still prevalent in the upstream villages. The more cooperative behavior among villagers who have previously received a house might indicate that they recognize that they are now better off than others and feel more obliged to cooperate. Policies aiming to capitalize on existing cooperative behavior to stimulate community collective action should consider the specific conditions under which cooperation occurs in real settings since traditional norms that regulate cooperative behavior might not translate well to cooperation in government-led programs.

Assessing the value of Earth Observation for managing coral reefs: an example from the Great Barrier Reef.

The Integrated Global Observing Strategy (IGOS, 2003) argues that further investments in Earth Observation information are required to improve coral reef protection worldwide. The IGOS Strategy does not specify what levels of investments are needed nor does it quantify the benefits associated with better-protected reefs. Evaluating costs and benefits is important for determining optimal investment levels and for convincing policy-makers that investments are required indeed. Few studies have quantitatively assessed the economic benefits of Earth Observation information or evaluated the economic value of information for environmental management. This paper uses an expert elicitation approach based on Bayesian Decision Theory to estimate the possible contribution of global Earth Observation to the management of the Great Barrier Reef. The Great Barrier Reef including its lagoon is a World Heritage Area affected by anthropogenic changes in land-use as well as climate change resulting in increased flows of sediments, nutrients and carbon to the GBR lagoon. Since European settlement, nutrient and sediment loads having increased 5-10 times and the change in water quality is causing damages to the reef. Earth Observation information from ocean and coastal color satellite sensors can provide spatially and temporally dense information on sediment flows. We hypothesize that Earth Observation improves decision-making by enabling better-targeted run-off reduction measures and we assess the benefits (cost savings) of this improved targeting by optimizing run-off reductions under different states of the world. The analysis suggests that the benefits of Earth Observation can indeed be substantial, depending on the perceived accuracy of the information and on the prior beliefs of decision-makers. The results indicate that increasing informational accuracy is the most effective way for developers of Earth Observation information to increase the added value of Earth Observation for managing coral reefs.