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 ANRV390-EG34-03 ARI 9 June 2009 15:39
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Connectivity and theGovernance of MultilevelSocial-Ecological Systems: The Role of Social Capital
Eduardo S. Brondizio,
1
Elinor Ostrom,
2
and Oran R. Young
3
1
Department of Anthropology, Anthropological Center for Training and Research onGlobal Environmental Change (ACT), Center for the Study of Institutions, Population,and Environmental Change (CIPEC), Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana 47405;email: ebrondiz@indiana.edu
2
 Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis, CIPEC, Indiana University,Bloomington, Indiana 47405; email: ostrom@indiana.edu
3
Bren School of Environmental Science and Management, University of California,Santa Barbara, California 93106; email: young@bren.ucsb.edu Annu. Rev. Environ. Resour. 2009.34:3.1–3.26 The
Annual Review of Environment and Resources 
is online at environ.annualreviews.org This article’s doi:10.1146/annurev.environ.020708.100707Copyrightc
2009 by Annual Reviews. All rights reserved1543-5938/09/1121-0001$20.00
Key Words
 Amazon, Brazil, complexity, deforestation, ecosystem services,governance system, institutions
 Abstract 
 We discuss the challenges confronting environmental governancecaused by the increasing connectivity of resource-use systems and thegrowing functional interdependencies of ecological and social systems. We take as a point of departure the case of the Xingu Indigenous Park (PIX) in Brazil and its surrounding agro-industrial region. This caseprovidesabasisforreviewingtheliteratureonresourcegovernance,in-cluding both points of consensus and contentious issues. We argue thatno fixed spatial or temporal level is appropriate for governing ecosys-tems and their services sustainably, effectively, and equitably. We pointto the need to recognize the multilevel nature of such problems and therole of institutions in facilitating cross-level environmental governanceas an important form of social capital that is essential for the long-termprotection of ecosystems and the well-being of different populations.
 3.1
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 ANRV390-EG34-03 ARI 9 June 2009 15:39
Scales:
dimensions(e.g., space, time) usedin ranking variousphenomena. Levels arespecific positions onany given scale
Contents
1. INTRODUCTION................ 3.22. THE XINGU INDIGENOUSPARK............................. 3.42.1. A Key Lesson: The Needfor Multiple Levels of Analysisand Organization ............... 3.63. FORMS OF CAPITAL AND THE MANAGEMENT OFSOCIAL-ECOLOGICALSYSTEMS ........................ 3.73.1. Physical Capital ............... 3.83.2. Human Capital ................ 3.83.3. Social Capital.................. 3.93.4. Differences Between Socialand Other Forms of Capital ..... 3.104. CONNECTIVITY AND THESUPPLY OF GOVERNANCE .... 3.134.1. Functional Interdependencies .. 3.144.2. Implications for Governance ... 3.154.3. Limits to MainstreamResponses ...................... 3.164.4. Alternative Approaches......... 3.175. DETERMINANTS OF SUCCESS AND FUTURE CHALLENGES.. 3.19
1. INTRODUCTION 
 Mostscholarsandpolicyanalystsareawarethattheecosystemsthatmanywanttoprotectinter-act with other systems both at the same level of social organization and across levels at this di-mension. These ecosystems, which are diverseforms of natural capital, exist at multiple lev-els on a spatial scale ranging from very smallto global. Furthermore, flows of positive ser- vices or negative externalities from an ecosys-tem tend to affect other ecosystems at smalleror larger scales. Humans who use or are af-fected by these ecosystems are also organizedthroughdiverseformsofsocialcapitalatmulti-plescales(1).Proposalstoprotecttheseecosys-tems by changing the institutional rules of useand by the way these rules are monitored andenforced, however, frequently focus on a singlelevel. Most often this is at the level of nationalgovernments. A major thesis of this article isthat institutions at (and linking) multiple lev-els are essential for the long-term protection of ecosystems. Focusing only at a local, regional,national, or international level is itself a sourceof inadequate policy design. The growth of interdependency withinresource-use systems resulting from the twinforces of economic globalization and globalenvironmental change amplifies the need tounderstand and address interlinkages that(1) expand global market chains competing forland and water resources; (2) increase overlapsof government jurisdictions, regional and lo-cal forms of use, rights, and ownership (cre-ated through development programs, exportpolicies, and parks and production reserves);(3) increase interregional migratory flows andinterconnections between social groups indifferent regions; (4) create regional tradeblocks, multilateral infrastructure, and inter-national/transboundaryconservationareas;and(5) amplify changes in global climate patternsaffectingthedistributionandfrequencyofrain-fall, drought, and temperature change. The intersection between institutions andeconomic chains operating at different levels,and facilitated by the growing physical con-nectivity of resource-use systems, can producedistinct patterns of cross-level interaction. Asargued elsewhere by one of us (2), such in-terrelated patterns of institutional interactioncan take the form of dominance, separation,merger, negotiation, or system change withdiverse consequences for social-environmentalsystems. The vertical interplay of institutions repre-senting groups competing or cooperating forauthority over resources requires one to look at questions of subtractability (i.e., whether re-source appropriation by one user reduces avail-ability to others) and exclusion (i.e., how costly it is to keep potential beneficiaries out of thebenefit stream) from an ecosystemic and multi-scale perspective (3, 4). Local forms of use andregulation of a resource (e.g., based on cus-tomary rules of use and exclusion), althoughpotentially effective at one level, are affected
 3.2 Brondizio
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Ostrom
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Young 
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 ANRV390-EG34-03 ARI 9 June 2009 15:39
and in some cases overwhelmed by resourceuse in a different part of the larger ecosys-tem, as illustrated in this article by the caseof the Xingu Indigenous Park (PIX) in Brazil. The functional interdependency of resourcesystems poses an important question regard-ing social capital: How do different types of management arrangements help facilitate solu-tions to intricate cross-level problems? As ex-pressed by Cash et al. (5) in the context of co-management structures, the complex nature of cross-level resource-use systems requires insti-tutional arrangements that facilitate the copro-duction, mediation, translation, and negotia-tion of information and knowledge within andacross levels.Institutions facilitating cross-level environ-mental governance become an important formof social capital. A more detailed discussion ispresented below, but we want to start with a working definition of social capital as referringto the value of trust generated by social net- works to facilitate individual and group coop-erationonsharedinterestsandtheorganizationof social institutions at different scales.Considerable agreement exists on the use-fulness of eight institutional design principles
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(6, 7) to explain why some governance arrange-ments for environmental resources at local andsubregional levels are robust (8, 9). Translatingthese principles for application to higher levelsof social organization remains a challenge (10–15) and is the focus of the eighth institutionaldesign principle, “nested enterprises,” whichis the importance of nesting local and largerinstitutionalarrangementstoaccommodatethegoals and interests of groups organized at dif-ferentlevels.Importantchallengesareinvolvedin scaling up institutional design principles andbuildingupsocialcapitalforlinkinggovernancesystems across levels of social organization(5, 6, 16–20). These include the following:
1
1. Clearly defined boundaries; 2. congruence between localconditions,appropriation,andprovisionrules;3.adaptability ofcollectivechoicearrangements;4.appropriatemonitoring;5. graduated and implementable sanctions; 6. mechanismsfor conflict resolution; 7. recognized rights to organize; and,8. nested enterprises.
Comanagement:
amethod for supplyinggovernance thatfeatures cooperativedecision makingamong users andpublic authorities
Governance:
a socialfunction centered onsteering human groupstoward mutually beneficial outcomesand away frommutually harmfuloutcomes
a. Fit: the challenge of linking spatial scaleand units of analysis created by mis-matches between environmental and in-stitutional boundaries;b. Boundaries: the challenge of recognizingcompetingrulesofsubtractabilityandex-clusion operating in different parts of thesame ecosystem;c. Authority: the challenge of recognizingshifts in jurisdiction and authority overresources,including overlaps,atdifferentlevels;d. Sanctions: the challenge of accountingfor[apotentially]invertedcorrelationbe-tween compliance with rules and scale(i.e., level of compliance decreases as youmove from local to international levels);ande. Knowledge and information: the chal-lengeofunderstandingproblemsofcred-ibility, saliency, and legitimacy resultingfrom differences in knowledge systemsandaccesstoinformationatdifferentlev-els and by different groups. We address these concerns in the followingorder. Section 2 provides an example of a suc-cessful local effort to govern PIX, which hasonly one local level of governance associated with it. Initially, the threat of invasion aroundpark borders led indigenous groups to identify mechanisms and forms of internal organizationtoenhanceandenforceexclusionrulesfornon-Indians. Over time, however, the lack of largergovernance units, with appropriate incentivesto buffer the pressure created by internationalcommodity markets (e.g., beef, soybeans, andlumber), has allowed extensive deforestation allaround the protected park. Nested within thelarger Xingu River watershed, the park has be-come the sink and “corridor” for multiple pol-lutants derived from the clearing of vegetationaround headwater springs, overuse of fertilizer,and extensive smoke from forest clearing. NowPIX itself is threatened by externalities fromthe surrounding agricultural areas, given thelack of effective institutions organized at thatlevel and between the park and its surroundingagricultural and urban systems. Perception and
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Social Connectivity and Governance 3.3
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