Matthew Parris, a political commentator, has written an amusing article in The Spectator (requires registration) this week, arguing that goats have caused a far more devastating environmental tragedy in Africa than has any business. "It is time to make goats extinct," he says:

The common goat is more destructive of the ecological balance of our planet than any other single cause — and I do include global warming.

The argument is partially true; goats forage and erode the hillsides of many an African nation, including those visited by Parris. But Parris has it backwards when he claims that

Goats being blind to land-tenure, their owners must be so too; all land becomes common land. Goat-tenure replaces land-tenure and you are judged by your herd, not your acreage.

Sudan, for instance (which Parris observes from an airplane), is a country plagued by many problems. If land tenure did exist in Sudan and other African nations, if it was transferable and enforceable by a legitimate, non-corrupt and independent judiciary, then people might make arrangements to ensure that their goats were not damaging their own property, or someone else's. If damage occurred, they would have legal recourse.

As it currently stands, this system and its ensuing incentives are absent from most African nations. Devastation caused by goats is simply a symptom of that bigger problem.

[for the benefit of American readers, 'hoover' is a euphemism for a vacuum]