Jennifer Jacquet
Postdoctoral researcher in environmental economics, University of British Columbia
When it comes to common resources, a failure to cooperate is a failure to control consumption. In Garrett Hardin’s classic tragedy, everyone overconsumes and equally contributes to the detriment of the commons. But a relative few can also ruin a resource for the rest of us.
Biologists are familiar with the term “keystone species,” coined in 1969 after Robert Paine’s intertidal exclusion experiments. Paine found that by removing the few five-limbed carnivores—the purple sea star, Pisaster ochraceus—from the seashore, he could cause an overabundance of its prey, mussels, and a sharp decline in diversity. Without sea stars, mussels outcompeted sponges. No sponges, no nudibranchs. Anemones were also starved out, because they eat what the sea stars dislodge. Pisaster was the keystone that kept the intertidal community together. Without it, there were only mussels, mussels, mussels. The term “keystone species,” inspired by the purple sea star, refers to a species that has a disproportionate effect relative to its abundance.
In human ecology, I imagine diseases and parasites play a similar role to Pisaster in Paine’s experiment. Remove disease (and increase food) and Homo sapiens takes over. Humans inevitably restructure their environment. But not all human beings consume equally. While a keystone species refers to a specific species that structures an ecosystem, I consider keystone consumers to be a specific group of humans that structures a market for a particular resource. Intense demand by a few individuals can bring flora and fauna to the brink.
There are keystone consumers in the markets for caviar, slipper orchids, tiger penises, plutonium, pet primates, diamonds, antibiotics, Hummers, and sea horses. Niche markets for frog legs in pockets of the United States, Europe, and Asia are depleting frog populations in Indonesia, Ecuador, and Brazil. Seafood lovers in high-end restaurants are causing stocks of long-lived fish species like orange roughy or toothfish in Antarctica to crash. The desire of wealthy Chinese consumers for shark-fin soup has led to the collapse of several shark species.
One in every four species of mammals (1,141 of the 5,487 mammalian species on Earth) is threatened with extinction. At least seventy-six mammalian species have become extinct since the sixteenth century—many, like the Tasmanian tiger, the great auk, and Steller’s sea cow, because of hunting by a relatively small group. It is possible for a small minority of humans to precipitate the disappearance of an entire species.
The consumption of nonliving resources is also imbalanced. The 15 percent of the world’s population that lives in North America, Western Europe, Japan, and Australia consumes thirty-two times more resources, like fossil fuels and metals, and produces thirty-two times more pollution than the developing world, where the remaining 85 percent of humans live. City dwellers consume more than people living in the countryside. A recent study determined that the ecological footprint for an average resident of Vancouver, British Columbia, was thirteen times higher than that of his suburban/rural counterpart.
Developed nations, urbanites, ivory collectors: The keystone consumer depends on the resource in question. In the case of water, agriculture accounts for 80 percent of use in the United States; large-scale farms are the keystone consumers. So why do many conservation efforts focus on households rather than on water efficiency on farms? The keystone-consumer concept helps focus conservation efforts where returns on investments are highest.
Like keystone species, keystone consumers also have a disproportionate impact relative to their abundance. Biologists identify keystone species as conservation priorities because their disappearance could cause the loss of many other species. In the marketplace, keystone consumers should be priorities because their disappearance could lead to the recovery of the resource. Humans should protect keystone species and curb keystone consumption. The lives of others depend on it.