The Role of Trust in Environmental Management

Whenever environmental advocates get together a common topic of conversation is: “What is the most serious cause of environmental degradation?” Some believe it is ignorance; others argue that it is overpopulation; while still others insist that the real culprit is human greed. Today I am going to suggest that while each of these factors play some role, one of the most serious causes – and usually the one least recognized -is the Lack of Trust among stakeholders. I’m going to start with a few examples of how this lack of trust can be so detrimental; then discuss some of the causes of distrust, and finally explore what we might do to help restore trust to better protect the environment.

Let’s start by looking at the situation of local watermen, whose livelihoods depend on the quality of our waters and the sustainability of the marine life in our waterways. In my experience, these folks know more about Callinectes Sapidus (Beautiful Swimmer, the tasty Chesapeake Blue Crab) than almost anyone else. And yet for many years Maryland watermen over-harvested these crabs, depleting their own resource, because they could not trust the Virginia watermen not to dredge for female crabs during their winter migration through the Virginia portion of the Bay to lay their eggs in the Atlantic Ocean. And, of course, those Virginia watermen were just as quick to justify their reckless practice because they had so little trust in their Maryland counterparts.

Another example involves the current controversy over the Conowingo Dam and the pollution coming down the Susquehanna. Despite the fact that most local residents recognize that protection of the Chesapeake and its tributaries depends on increased control of nitrogen, phosphorous and sediment, many are still reluctant to implement the necessary local controls because they can’t trust the operators of the Conowingo Dam and the states of New York and Pennsylvania to also do their share. Likewise, factory owners are less likely to implement sound pollution control practices on their factories if they doubt that their competitors will be required to do the same.

Although former Speaker of the House, Tip O’Neil, proclaimed (and Eric Cantor proved) “all politics is local,” not all pollution is local. Protection of the Chesapeake Bay requires not only that people in Maryland and Virginia do their part but they must also have confidence that the folks in New York and Pennsylvania will also do theirs. In essence, even states-rights conservative legislators now understand that their constituents, living downstream from the Susquehanna, depend on the actions of the U.S. EPA to assure that the upstream states also control their pollution.

If this lack of Trust adversely impacts our ability to address domestic problems, just imagine what it does to international challenges like International Fisheries, Migratory Birds, or Global Climate Change (aka Global Warming). Whatever else you may think of Al Gore, you have to admit that he was talking about an “inconvenient” problem. This is a problem that not only threatens our livelihoods and those of our children but very inconveniently requires us to put trust in the research and control programs of people we don’t know and probably will never meet. While the human species is pretty good at responding to acute emergencies that it can touch and feel; we are not so good at responding effectively to long term chronic problems that we can scarcely see and for which the most serious impacts will likely fall on our children and grandchildren.

Not only does the lack of trust make us more reluctant to take on these environmental challenges, this same lack of trust makes pollution control far more expensive than need be. For example, World Resources Institute, the Chesapeake Bay Commission and the EPA all recognize that dollars invested in controlling pollution from farm land will typically do far more to protect our waterways than dollars spent on controlling runoff from urban streets and parking lots. These environmental organizations suggest that allowing local governments to put their money where they get the biggest bang for their buck could reduce the cost of restoring the Bay by up to 50%. Despite these findings – and largely because of the lack of trust between environmentalists and farmers – the Maryland Department of Environment severely restricts Nutrient Trading strategies that would promote more cost-effective pollution control.

Ironically, many of those control strategies rejected by Maryland have already been accepted by Pennsylvania and Virginia and approved by the U.S. EPA. Examples of innovative win/win approaches that could potentially benefit many farmers while reducing the costs incurred by local governments include such control measures as: constructed wetlands as proposed by the Nature Conservancy, planting switchgrass in buffer areas previously proposed by the Chester River Association, and the innovative system of stormwater containment basins recently demonstrated by Sam Owings at Hambleton Creek Farm in Queen Anne’s County.

In emphasizing the role of trust, I am not suggesting that we blindly put faith in people we don’t know. If there was one point where liberals and conservatives both agreed with President Reagan, it was on his mantra of “Trust but Verify.” In order for Marylanders to trust people in Virginia, New York and Pennsylvania, it is important not only that those other states do the right thing but to verify that they are doing the right thing. The same is obviously true when we ask Maryland watermen to trust Virginia watermen or Maryland environmentalists to trust Maryland farmers. Fortunately, the tools needed for verification are now available and we need to make better use of them.

Just as verification is important for building trust, increasing transparency on all issues potentially impacting health and environment is critical for restoring trust. For example, a hospital on the Eastern Shore initially sought to privately clean up an accidental oil spill without providing opportunity for public notice and participation, only to find that its efforts to resist public disclosure was becoming a major cause of distrust in the community. Fortunately, that same hospital is now committed to full transparency and is currently working with the local government to provide opportunities for public meetings and full disclosure, thus taking a major step forward in restoring trust.

Once we recognize that creating distrust between different factions and stakeholders imposes needless burdens and runs counter to our common goal of improving the environment, there are numerous steps we can all take to help build trust. One of these is simply to reduce the pointless exaggerations and name calling that both sides give way to in the false hope that it helps them score points and makes them more persuasive. It must now be recognized that those false statements increase the cost and decrease the likelihood of achieving our common environmental goals.

Another basic step is simply the act of “Catching people doing something right.”   Think what it could do for mutual trust if environmental groups could praise farmers for their work on cover crops or watermen praise communities like Chestertown that have installed state of the art municipal waste water treatment or for all of us to recognize the stewardship evidenced by most watermen.

Robert Putnam, an internationally recognized sociologist and author of Bowling Alone, has documented that trust in the U.S. has declined dramatically over recent years. In part this may be attributable to the growing political rancor in Washington but Putnam also attributes it to decreased participation in cross-cutting organizations like garden clubs and bowling leagues. Most of us see diversity as a real strength of our country but ethnic and income diversity, along with our own local custom of dividing people between groups of “Come Heres” and “Born Heres,” also makes it even more challenging to create and maintain trust. While conservatives often oppose government clean-up efforts because they don’t trust government to spend their money wisely; liberals often exacerbate this problem by insisting on rules that make it impossible to get the most bang for our collective bucks.

Interestingly, one group that has the greatest stake in improving trust also has the greatest potential to promote the very cross-cutting relationships that can be so important to restoring trust. During my earlier stint as Riverkeeper on the Chester River I was pleasantly surprised to find such a broad range of conservatives and liberals, artists and businessmen, farmers, teachers and lawyers all working toward a common goal. In fact, it often appeared that the only thing these people had in common was an uncommon love of the River.

Think of the possibilities: What if trust, like the oceans and the atmosphere, were regarded as a common property resource that needs to be nourished and protected? What if cross-cutting organizations seeking to protect the environment could not only help find that elusive common environmental ground but also set an example that might even help restore that long endangered species called bi-partisanship?

~David Foster