2012: The year of working cooperatively

"Everywhere in the world, people want to make a living without destroying their environment. It's up to science, technology and corporate leadership to find a way to make a living without destroying their environment."

E.O. Wilson

The United Nations declared 2011 as the International Year of the Forest, and it's no coincidence that last fall, 2012 was declared International Year of the Cooperatives - just as global population reached 7 billion people. The U.N. estimates that 50 percent of the world's living standards are influenced by cooperatives, which create sustainable ways to increase the standard of living for entire populations - without over-exploiting natural resources.

Cooperatives exist in almost every country. More than 800 million people belong to cooperatives, and millions more find their quality of life improved from the existence of them. For example, villagers in the upper Amazon band together to reduce poaching of timber, to ensure their economic future through ecotourism instead of logging. In India, snake-catchers work cooperatively throughout regions otherwise plagued by cobras. Financial cooperatives offer loans or small grants to women in African countries to develop small businesses.

Recently, my own research involved several cooperatives, all focused on conserving the last 4 percent of Ethiopia's forests. During the last 100 years, most of Ethiopia's trees were cleared for agriculture. But the last remaining forest patches ("church forests") are guarded cooperatively by Coptic church priests. Amid an otherwise arid landscape, these green patches provide important ecosystem services that enhance the quality of rural life - including fresh water springs, sources of native seeds, medicines, honey, pollinators (for crops), shade, soil conservation, fodder, firewood, and sanctuaries for the country's native biodiversity.

In an additional cooperative effort, the Nature Research Center, National Geographic, and N.C. State scientists are partnering with the church to survey the biodiversity of these forests, document their ecological services provided to local communities, and fund an additional cooperative effort of local stone masons, priests, philanthropists, and conservation biologists to construct walls around the remaining forest patches.

Cooperatives not only alleviate poverty, but lead to conservation of natural resources and improvements in sanitation, education and employment.

As Wall Street has illustrated, many financial strategies seeking short-term economic gains have proven flawed. But the cooperative model seeks economic and social sustainability over a longer timeline.