Success in commercializing an ecosystem good or service creates its own problems. If a poor household or a rural community finds a winning formula for production, marketing, and delivery of a nature-based product, the temptation will be to push the formula to its limits to increase sales and income. This can easily lead to overexploitation of the type that typically degrades ecosystems. Reconciling the desire to maximize income with the need to sustain ecosystems so that they remain productive assets is one of the inherent challenges of using environmental income for poverty reduction (Neumann and Hirsch 2000:102).

Succeeding Too Well

An example of the dangers of succeeding too well with marketing a natural product can be found in Bolivia, where one indigenous community worked hard to commercialize the sale of string bags made of natural sisal fiber they collected and processed from the wild. They developed a low-cost marketing model to get their bags to customers in Europe, who paid a handsome price. As this enterprise began to succeed, local women involved in bag-making saw their purchasing power increase markedly. This, in turn, encouraged them to rely more on making sisal bags for income, abandoning other lower-profit activities such as subsistence agriculture. As economic reliance on sisal bags spiraled upward, pressure on native sisal plants grew, depleting local sisal sources around the community, and eventually forcing locals to lower their harvest to a more sustainable level (Shanley et al. 2002:279).

Many other examples of the potential for unsustainability can be found. African bushmeat hunting, for example, has reduced the population of primates like chimpanzees, whose low reproductive rates make them especially vulnerable to overharvest. The use of cyanide by poor fishers in Indonesia and the Philippines to catch prized fish for sale to high-end restaurants has decimated many coral reefs (Barber and Pratt 1997:10-21). In Southern Africa, the expanding market for handmade baskets has put pressure on some 30 indigenous plant species used for fiber and another 22 used for dyes. In western Zimbabwe, one weaving club that began with 20 members in 1986 had expanded to 500 by 1988. This is all the more remarkable given that handmade basket-making had only begun as a commercial enterprise in the 1970s as an economic development project in Botswana (Neumann and Hirsch 2000:102-103, 107).

In these examples, activities which, when pursued on a limited basis, might not harm the resource are pushed to unsustainability by sheer expansion of the scope of the activity. But there are other contributors to unsustainable commerce too. In some cases poor harvesting techniques or agricultural practices exacerbate the situation. Some harvesters of African mbare palm leaves—one source of basket-making fiber—engage in wholesale cutting of the palms, which kills them. A sustainable alternative is to simply cull individual leaves, which permits the palm to continue growing (Neumann and Hirsch 2000:103-104).

Governance Matters

Governance factors such as tenure—or lack or it—also play a role. Sometimes when a new market appears for a nontraditional product, there may not be a well-defined system of customary practices surrounding ownership and use of the product, and the resource essentially becomes an open-access resource subject to no practical controls on its use. Ecotourism can even fall into this category sometimes. In other instances, there may be welldefined customary or legal property rights over a valuable medicinal, fruit, or other resource, but it may break down as the market for the product—and its value—increases, leading to poaching. This emphasizes the important role of enforcement— through custom or law—in complementing well-defined resource tenure as foundations for viable commerce (Neumann and Hirsch 2000:105-106).

Diversity is Sustainable

Ultimately, the question of sustainability boils down to a question of ecosystem capacities and trade-offs. How much disturbance can an ecosystem tolerate and still remain healthy? What opportunities for environmental income are lost as other opportunities are emphasized? And perhaps most importantly, what is the best strategy to optimize environmental income without compromising ecosystem integrity?

The answer to this last question is not simple, but the idea of diversification of activities and income streams is one approach that many analysts have put forward. A mix of commercial uses of nature, including agriculture, agroforestry, collection of nontimber forest products, and commercial fishing may yield greater ecological resilience, at least at a landscape level. It may also offer greater economic stability for rural economies. From a household perspective, a portfolio of different products and activities will minimize risks for poor families. Neither a monoculture nor a monocommercial approach to environmental income is likely to give the best results (Chater 2003:3-4; May 1992:4; Scherr et al. 2003:22).