Summary

There are lessons to learn from both successful and failed societies; this suggests that there is more than one approach to environmental problems. Small societies can try a bottoms-up approach in which people recognize their problems and work together to solve them. The top-down approach is more appropriate for large communities where the government or other authority figures work at solving a community’s problems. This is thought to be effective because in a large culture the government has a bird’s eye view of the entire community, can spot where the problem is and has the resources to resolve it. Neither approach may be appropriate for a medium-sized community. The bottoms-up approach worked in the highlands of New Guinea and in Tikopia an isolated tropical island in Southwest Pacific Ocean.

The people of New Guinea faced problems of wood...