Control
is a deeply entrenched aspect of contemporary human societies: we
control human behavior through laws, incentives, threats, contracts, and
agreements; we control the effects of environmental variation by con-
structing safe dwellings; we control variation in our food resources by
growing and storing agricultural products; we control human parasites
and pathogens through good hygiene and medical technologies. All
contribute to stable societies and human health and happiness, and
within certain arenas this desire to control is undeniably to our
individual and collective benefit. This approach to solving problems may
be collectively referred to as “command and control” in which a
problem is percived and a solution for its control is developed and
implemented. The expectation is that the solution is direct,
appropriate, feasible, and effective over most relevant spatial and
temporal scales. Most of all, command and control is expected to solve
the problem either through control of the processes that lead to the
problem (e.g., good hygiene to prevent disease, or laws that direct
human behavior) or through amelioration of the problem after it occurs
(e.g., pharmaceuticals to kill disease organisms, or prisons or other
punishment of lawbreakers). The command-and-control approach implicitly
assumes that the problem is well-bounded, clearly defined, relatively
simple, and generally linear with respect to cause and effect. But when
these same methods of control are applied to a complex, nonlinear, and
poorly understood natural world, and when the same predictable outcomes
are expected but rarely obtained, severe ecological, social, and
economic repercussions result.
Holling, C. S., and G. K. Meffe. 1996. Command and Control and the Pathology of Natural Resource Management. Conservation Biology 10, no. 2: 328-37.
