126 The Global Food System
Laguna del Tigre National Park and Biotope are managed by two different
conservation agencies and include the largest protected wetland in Central Amer-
ica. The principal threats are human settlement and immigration, encroaching
agriculture and livestock, oil prospecting and drilling, construction of roads and
other infrastructures, and lawlessness (e.g. intentional setting of forest fires and
drug trafficking and plantations). Like Tikal, Laguna del Tigre has been designated
for the highest possible level of government protection. However, land speculation
inside and outside the park and biotope, fuelled by cattle ranchers, corrupt politi-
cians, and other officials, has pushed illegal settlers deeper into the reserve, where
they clear tree cover to establish new agricultural plots and homesteads. Numerous
light gray patches within the park and biotope in Figure 5.3 reveal forest clear-
ing.^137 Oversight in Laguna del Tigre has been weak. The small and underpaid
group of park rangers is unable to enforce the mandates assigned to them to pro-
tect the park from human settlements, illegal harvesting and forest fires, and to
sanction those who do not comply. It has not been unusual for people accused of
violating conservation laws to threaten park officials to the point where the latter
are afraid to enforce the law.
The Guatemalan cases illustrate that legally protecting threatened areas does
not ensure rule compliance, especially when non-compliance is easy or profitable.
Further illustrations of the roles of institutions in forest protection are discussed in
Science supplemental online materials^68 and in a new book.^138
Strategies for Meeting the Requirements of Adaptive
Governance
The general principles for robust governance institutions for localized resources
(Figure 5.4) are well established as a result of multiple empirical studies.13,40,139–148
Many of these also appear to be applicable to regional and global resources,^149
although they are less well tested at those levels. Three of them seem to be particu-
larly relevant for problems at broader scales.
Analytic deliberation
Well-structured dialogue involving scientists, resource users and interested publics,
and informed by analysis of key information about environmental and human–
environment systems, appears critical. Such analytic deliberation76,150–152 provides
improved information and the trust in it that is essential for information to be
used effectively, builds social capital, and can allow for change and deal with inev-
itable conflicts well enough to produce consensus on governance rules. The negoti-
ated 1994 US regulation on disinfectant by-products in water that reached an
interim consensus, including a decision to collect new information and reconsider
the rule on that basis,^76 is an excellent example of this approach.