The Myth of the Tragedy of the Commons

international | environment | other press Sunday October 11, 2009 19:16 by Plebian

Recent research published in this week's New Scientist and The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, show that 'commons' communities would do a better job of managing forests than state control. Government control generally leads to enclosure (privatisation) and licensing rights for logging, or an expectation that the forest will not last leading to unsustainable exploitation.

Carbon storage potential is especially improved when community organisations and their institutions "incorporate local knowledge and decentralized decision making" to "restrict their consumption of forest products".

The study (the first study of its kind) tracked the fate of 80 forests worldwide in 10 countries across Asia, Africa, and Latin America, over 15 years and under differing models of ownership and management. Furthermore, the authors of the study, (published in, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Chhatre and Arun Agrawal of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor ) suggest that locals would also make a better job of managing common pastures, coastal fisheries and water supplies.

This is in direct contradiction of the “tragedy of the commons” Agrawal says, “communities are perfectly capable of managing their resources sustainably”.

See links and quotes below,

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17937-give-forest....html

"....In the first study of its kind, Chhatre and Arun Agrawal of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor compared forest ownership with data on carbon sequestration, which is estimated from the size and number of trees in a forest. Hectare-for-hectare, they found that tropical forest under local management stored more carbon than government-owned forests. There are exceptions, says Chhatre, "but our findings show that we can increase carbon sequestration simply by transferring ownership of forests from governments to communities".

One reason may be that locals protect forests best if they own them, because they have a long-term interest in ensuring the forests' survival. While governments, whatever their intentions, usually license destructive logging, or preside over a free-for-all in which everyone grabs what they can because nobody believes the forest will last.

The authors suggest that locals would also make a better job of managing common pastures, coastal fisheries and water supplies.

They argue that their findings contradict a long-standing environmental idea, called the "tragedy of the commons", which says that natural resources left to communal control get trashed. In fact, says Agrawal, "communities are perfectly capable of managing their resources sustainably"....."



http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2009/10/05/0905308106

"Trade-offs and synergies between carbon storage and livelihood benefits from forest commons Abstract Forests provide multiple benefits at local to global scales. These include the global public good of carbon sequestration and local and national level contributions to livelihoods for more than half a billion users. Forest commons are a particularly important class of forests generating these multiple benefits. Institutional arrangements to govern forest commons are believed to substantially influence carbon storage and livelihood contributions, especially when they incorporate local knowledge and decentralized decision making.

However, hypothesized relationships between institutional factors and multiple benefits have never been tested on data from multiple countries. By using original data on 80 forest commons in 10 countries across Asia, Africa, and Latin America, we show that larger forest size and greater rule-making autonomy at the local level are associated with high carbon storage and livelihood benefits; differences in ownership of forest commons are associated with trade-offs between livelihood benefits and carbon storage.

We argue that local communities restrict their consumption of forest products when they own forest commons, thereby increasing carbon storage. In showing rule-making autonomy and ownership as distinct and important institutional influences on forest outcomes, our results are directly relevant to international climate change mitigation initiatives such as Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) and avoided deforestation. Transfer of ownership over larger forest commons patches to local communities, coupled with payments for improved carbon storage can contribute to climate change mitigation without adversely affecting local livelihoods...."

However, none of this should be surprising given the multifarious faults* with Hardin's original article.

*
The Myth of the Tragedy of the Commons
http://climateandcapitalism.com/?p=513

Once Again: `The Myth of the Tragedy of the Commons`
http://climateandcapitalism.com/?p=576