The plan incorporates water issues, educational programs, ranching, farming, recreation, and wildlife concerns for both the Sangres and the San Luis Valley. In order to achieve economic sustainability the citizens of the Valley and the Sangres must accept the fundamental paradigm shift suggested by Theodore Panayotou in his book Green Markets . Panayotou implores his readers to accept the fact that we, as a society, have finite natural resources and economic limits. We must take these limits into account in order to ensure proper management for our future. In order to create proper future management, we must correct market failures and avoid policy failures.
Market failure arises from externalities like ill-defined property, public property, and monopolies.
The San Luis and the Sangres are ripe with examples of externalities. Water and land have ill-defined ownership in the Valley. Water, land, and a great deal of other resources are thought of as public property. These resources must be defined and protected in order to avoid market failure and the creation of monopoly elements. There have been a number of attempts at monopoly takeover of these resources in the Valley and the mountains.