Elinor Ostrom on the seven generation rule

'Our problem is how to craft rules at multiple levels that enable humans to adapt, learn, and change over time so that we are sustaining the very valuable natural resources that we inherited so that we may be able to pass them on. I am deeply indebted to the indigenous peoples in the U.S. who had an image of seven generations being the appropriate time to think about the future. I think we should all reinstate in our mind the seven-generation rule. When we make really major decisions, we should ask not only what will it do for me today, but what will it do for my children, my children’s children, and their children’s children into the future.'

Well I am still on an Elinor Ostrom induced high,

It would be great it greens looked at her work, being for ecology is not enough, appropriate policies and structures are needed. I am not sure that people are actually campaigning for stuff that works. Elinor is very impressive in using practical research to explore the creation of property rights that create prosperity (and prosperity has to be ecological or it like the bank fortunes will disappear in the blink of an eye).

The above is from a speech in 2008, I have only just tracked it down.

More here.