Abstract

Human institutions—ways of organizing activities—affect the resilience of the environ-ment. Locally evolved institutional arrangements governed by stable communities and buffered from outside forces have sustained resources successfully for centuries, al-though they often fail when rapid change occurs. Ideal conditions for governance are increasingly rare. Critical problems, such as transboundary pollution, tropical deforesta-tion, and climate change, are at larger scales and involve nonlocal influences. Promising strategies for addressing these problems include dialogue among interested parties, officials, and scientists; complex, redundant, and layered institutions; a mix of institu-tional types; and designs that facilitate experimentation, learning, and change. In 1968, Hardin (1) drew attention to two human factors that drive environmental change. The first factor is the increasing de-mand for natural resources and environmen-tal services, stemming from growth in human population and per capita resource consump-