Governmental efforts

One of the key bodies to remove tragedy of the commons is the government. Ewers (2006) stated that the two key aspects that contributes to a country’s ability in eliminating deforestation is the quality of government and the organisations that support the cause, as well as, the capital a country can devote to establishing forests. Yet, corruption in government can undermine these two aspects to make eliminating deforestation harder to control. This is seen in countries like Philippines and Thailand, where corruption is constantly being an element to why deforestation is hard to stop (Kummer 1992, Porter and Ganapin 1988).

Good governance in a country would work on conservation policies to target enterprise head in their decision-making, using prohibitory laws to control deforestation activities. In Philippines, policies included keeping most parts of the country under logging ban, limiting the number of licenses and denying access to old-growth plantations (Waggener, 2001). Stricter polices are also adopted, such as the use of license revoking. An example is seen in Indonesia where the license of  Asia Pacific Resources International Holding Limited (APRIL) was put on a hold for its deforestation acts (Butler, 2009). With the use of tax, taking resources out of the forests will be more costly and hence, may deter people from deforestation. Afforestation and forest management policies are also adopted. In Thailand, corporations are supported to grow plantations through the Forest Plantation Act (Waggener, 2001).

Governments should also work with indigenous people to work in forests. Indigenous people had been living in forests and the knowledge accumulated over the generations can be very useful. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC) is a reference for governments in policy making in combating environmental problems. The issue released in 2007 had advocated on the importance and relevance of the indigenous people’s  knowledge in long-term forest management (Raygorodetsky, 2012). Their knowledge may also be useful for research purposes, such as identifying plant and animal species.

As decades past, societies in Southeast Asia may improve in economic activities. Dauvergne (1994) argued that while economic policy plans may bring about devastating impacts in the short run, the same policies may ripe economic benefits that can save the forest in future. With the beneficial economic policy, comes the affluence. With affluence, people can start to afford to focus beyond their basic needs. Inglehart (1995) also argued that only when a country has achieved a level of economic affluence, then can they put priority in caring for the environment. This can be supported by the fact that in recent decades, more attention is placed on caring for the environment.