Beyond the tragedy of the commons

In this paper, we intend to demonstrate the feasibility and challenge of moving beyond “The Tragedy of the Commons” that Garrett Hardin presented in 1968. Hardin portrayed a set of pastoralists-who are inexorably led to overuse their common pasture-as an allegory for what he thought was typical for common-pool resources (CPRs) not owned privately or by a government. CPRs are normally used by multiple individuals and generate finite quantities of resource units where one person’s use subtracts from the quantity of resource units available to others (Ostrom and Ostrom 1977). Most CPRs are sufficiently large that multiple actors can simultaneously use the resource system. Efforts to exclude potential beneficiaries are costly. Examples of CPRs include both natural and human-made systems including: Hardin’s grazing lands, groundwater basins, irrigation systems, forests, fisheries, mainframe computers, government and corporate treasuries, and the Internet. Examples of resource units derived from CPRs are fodder, water, timber, computer-processing units, information bits, and budget allocations (Blomquist and Ostrom 1985).

Duke Scholars

Author Xavier Basurto Marine Science and Conservation