Question

Yellowstone National Park is in bear country. The National Park Service, at its Yellowstone Web site, states the following about camping and hiking in bear country: Do not leave packs containing food unattended, even for a few minutes. Allowing a bear to obtain human food even once often results in the bear becoming aggressive about obtaining such food in the future. Aggressive bears present a threat to human safety and eventually must be destroyed or removed from the park. Please obey the law and do not allow bears or other wildlife to obtain human food. What negative externality does obtaining human food pose for bears? What negative externality do bears obtaining human food pose for future campers and hikers?

Short answer

Obtaining human food poses a negative externality for bears as it changes their behavior and makes them aggressive, thus increasing the risk to their lives as they may be removed or destroyed. For future campers and hikers, the negative externality of bears obtaining human food is the increased risk to their safety due to potential attacks by aggressive bears.

Step-by-step solution

Defining externality

An externality refers to the cost or benefit that affects a party who didn't choose to incur that cost or benefit. It can have either positive or negative impact. In this context, we are discussing negative externalities.

Identifying Negative Externality for Bears

When bears obtain human food, it may initially seem beneficial for them as they get an easy meal. However, this experience can make the bear aggressive about obtaining such food in the future. This change in behavior can become a threat to their lives because aggressive bears are often seen as a threat to human safety and therefore may have to be removed or destroyed. So the negative externality for bears is the risk to their lives posed by the change in behaviour caused by obtaining human food.

Identifying Negative Externality for Future Campers and Hikers

As for the future campers and hikers, when bears obtain human food and become aggressive, this creates a safety threat for these individuals. They could be attacked by these bears while camping or hiking. So the negative externality for future campers and hikers is the increased risk to their safety.

Key concepts

Externality

In environmental economics, the concept of an externality is crucial to understanding how individual actions can have unintended consequences on others. An externality occurs when a third party is affected by an economic activity but doesn't have a choice about being involved. It's like being in a room where someone decides to play loud music; if you enjoy it, it's a positive externality, but if it gives you a headache, that's a negative externality.

Negative externalities can pose a significant challenge in public policy because correcting them often requires incentives or regulations to align private incentives with social well-being. The Yellowstone National Park scenario is an example of a negative externality. Bears obtaining human food might benefit from the easy meal initially, but once they're associated with aggressive behavior in their quest for more, they face the dire consequences - including potential harm or removal from their habitat. Here we see a ripple effect; the bears' altered behavior poses a new set of risks for future campers and hikers who might face dangerous encounters. These inadvertent interactions showcase how negative externalities can have broader implications on both the wildlife and human communities.

Environmental Economics

The field of environmental economics deals with the economic effects of the environment and how economic processes affect that environment. This discipline merges ecological concerns with economic analysis to understand the cause and effect relationship of human activity on our surroundings. It's particularly interested in how economic incentives can create environmental problems and what regulatory or market-based tools can address them.

Environmental economists study issues like pollution, resource degradation, and loss of biodiversity, often through the lens of externalities. In the Yellowstone example, the environmental economists would look at the broader impact of food-conditioned bears on the ecosystem and the park's economy. They would weigh the cost of managing and educating campers against the ecological and social consequences of displaced or destroyed wildlife. This balancing act is at the core of sustainable environmental management and helps inform better public policy decisions.

Public Policy

When it comes to public policy, it's about government actions designed to address public issues and guide actions towards desired outcomes. Negative externalities like bears becoming accustomed to human food pose complex challenges for policymakers at Yellowstone National Park. They are compelled to develop strategies that protect both the bears' natural behavior and park visitors. This might involve creating laws against feeding wildlife, implementing stringent food storage regulations, and developing educational programs for visitors.

Effective public policy hinges on the understanding that interventional strategies must consider long-term sustainability and the well-being of all stakeholders. In this case, policies that encourage responsible human behavior can significantly reduce the risk of negative externalities, such as human-bear conflicts. Occasionally, policies also require enforcement mechanisms, such as fines or legal action, to ensure compliance and protect the park's ecological integrity for years to come.