Tragedy of the Commons Archives

Markets and tigers

Posted by Kendra Okonski · 21 August 2006 · Extinction ~International ~Private Conservation ~Sustainable Development ~Tragedy of the Commons ~Wildlife

Barun Mitra, director of the Liberty Institute in New Delhi, India, recently visited China to find out about the country's efforts to save the tiger. He wrote about how China is "applying free-market principles to wildlife preservation and, in the process, improving the survival chances of a long-endangered species while giving its economy a boost" in the New York Times on August 15.

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Caspian Corruption Strains Sturgeon

Posted by Jonathan H. Adler  ·  28 November 2005  ·  Tragedy of the Commons

This New York Times story details how rampant poaching in the former Soviet Union is threatening sturgeon populations in the Caspian Sea. Despite extensive conservation regulations, overfishing continues, fueled by corruption.
These fishermen are poachers, chasing one of the world's most threatened and coveted fish, although judging by the indifferent police officers stationed a few hundred yards away, even highly organized poaching here carries few risks.

No resource, not even the oil that has shaped this region's politics and economies, is more richly associated with the Caspian basin than the sturgeon, a group of primeval fish bound to human history along the shores of the world's largest landlocked body of water. Once fare for pashas and czars, its briny eggs are among the most valuable wildlife commodities on earth.
Now, scientists say, the Caspian's sturgeon risk entering a final downward spiral.

The fish have faced compounding problems for decades. Dams have walled off their spawning grounds. Pollution has silted and choked waterways. But the sturgeon's latest enemy may be its most lethal: corruption.

Since the Soviet Union's collapse, unchecked fishing and struggling hatcheries have led to catches of less than 10 percent of historic highs. As much as 80 percent of the remaining fish are male, scientists say, the lopsided result of years of harvesting females for eggs.
This is tragic, but eminently predictable. The Caspian is a regulated commons that produces a valuable resource in an relatively poor region of the world -- and such regulated commons are almost always overused. If proscriptive regulations do a poor job of conserving fish stocks or other living resources in developed nations with highly professional and independent regulatory bureaucracies, they are a disaster everywhere else.

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As I discuss at some length here, regulatory approaches to conserving wildlife resources tend to fail. As we've learned in this context, as well as with fisheries, creating some form of property rights is far more effective. Not only do such rules create incentives for conservation, they create incentives to maintain and enforce theunderlying legal rules. Thus, the legal regime reinforces the economic interests of local populations, whereas proscriptive regulations seek to suppress such incentives.

The Times writer doesn't get it, however, and assumes that only observance of government rules can save the sturgeon
With such prices, the short-term market logic militates against conservation. As sturgeon become more scarce, they become more coveted, pushing prices higher and creating greater incentive to fish. The dynamic is perfectly counterproductive: the best money is in the eggs, the part of the fish needed to replenish stocks.

The circumstance with sturgeon is similar to resource scarcities in many developing countries. Rules are on the books. The tension lies in waiting to see how long it takes countries like Azerbaijan, which rigged much of its parliamentary elections in November, to accept the notion of rule of law.
The rule of law would be nice, but without property rights of some sort, sturgeon populations will continue to decline.
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Further musings on Jared Diamond's Collapse

Posted by Kendra Okonski  ·   8 November 2005  ·  Environmental Alarmism ~Property Rights ~Sustainable Development ~Tragedy of the Commons

Julian Morris and I recently co-edited an edition of the interdisciplinary journal Energy and Environment, in which we commissioned a series of reviews of Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond. Several of these reviews have now been posted on the contributors' websites, see my extended entry for links to these papers.

One broad problem with the book is that Diamond distinctly fails to discuss how institutions such as property rights have enabled (and continue to enable) individuals to address the 'tragedy of the commons'. Another problem is that the facts simply do not support many of his claims.

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Julian Morris wrote an introduction to the series of papers - "Confuse: How Jared Diamond Fails to Convince" -- which highlights some of the specific problems with Diamond's analysis.

The institutional economist Wolfgang Kasper contributed a review which focused specifically on Diamond's lack of attention to how institutions (or their absence) underpin human decision-making - what Kasper calls the "software of economic development". Overview available here, PDF version available here

Social anthropologist Benny Peiser analysed Diamond's portrayal of Easter Island (PDF available here).

Australian biologist Jennifer Marohasy analysed Diamond's portrayal of modern Australia and found that his facts were generally lacking.

Jane Shaw writes about why Diamond has made such pessimistic claims about the future.

My own article analyzes Diamond's chapter about modern Montana. There were several blatant errors in this chapter - such as a claim that Montana has 20,000 abandoned mineral mines, which Diamond believes are contaminating Montana's water supply. By all accounts, this figure is a huge exaggeration. My article is available at the SSRN.
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more trivial comments about goats

Posted by Kendra Okonski  ·  28 April 2005  ·  Tragedy of the Commons

Voracious animals that they are, goats are a good illustration of why it is imperative to 'fence' the commons.

This morning, Radio 4's Today programme announced that a group of environmental campaigners - called "Friends of the Goats" - are outraged that a flock of goats in Devon may be culled because they are devastating the local environment - including people's gardens.

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Apparently the goats are not paying their way - as 'thousands' of people come to the Valley of the Rocks to see the wild goats. The council rejected financing to fence the area where the goats roam (e.g. to build a fence or erect a cattle grid).

(An earlier post discussed goats in Africa )
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"genetically modified plant hoovers"

Posted by Kendra Okonski  ·  25 January 2005  ·  Tragedy of the Commons

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]

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Overfishing Talks

Posted by J. Bishop Grewell  ·  24 January 2005  ·  International ~Oceans ~Tragedy of the Commons ~Wildlife

In May, Canada will be hosting international talks on the problem of overfishing.

Jared Diamond / Ecocide

Posted by Kendra Okonski  ·  18 January 2005  ·  Tragedy of the Commons

I recently attended a lecture by Jared Diamond, an esteemed researcher, writer and academic. Discussing his new book, Collapse: How societies choose to fail or succeed, Diamond's hypothesis is that societies often fail to change their behaviour before it is too late, because of closely held cultural values that make them blind. (my own brief summary of a much more complex thesis)

Diamond is overwhelmingly pessimistic about the role of technology, the higher living standards that this brings and the fact that most people in poorer countries aspire to live like people in wealthier countries. Technology, according to Diamond, is neutral - it is the cause of problems, and only sometimes a solution. In an article in The Guardian (which is a good summary of his views), Diamond said

New technologies, whether or not they succeed in solving the problem they were designed to solve, regularly create unanticipated new problems...All of our current problems are unintended negative consequences of our existing technology.

In fact, said Diamond at the lecture, the world doesn't need new technologies - we know how to solve all of our problems with existing ones. (Diamond leads one to conclude that we ought not potentially develop a cure for HIV/AIDS, or new technologies that prevent deaths from tsunamis and earthquakes...)

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Sadly Diamond makes no distinction between decisions made in societies which are democratic, and societies which are run by tyrants; he praised Indonesia's military dictatorship because it established an extensive park system to protect its ecological resources.

While Diamond is a first-rate physiologist and geographer, his rhetoric is based on about conventional mythologies - the world is running out of oil and other resources, while we are consuming too much and the world's population continues to grow. Many people have disproven such mythologies - such as The Bottomless Well (a discussion of our energy supply).

And all the while Diamond lacks any coherent discussion or understanding of institutions that have evolved in societies to govern human behaviour and interactions - such as tort law, contracts and property rights. Many of the problems he discusses are in fact those which stem from the absence of such institutions - what we all refer to as the 'tragedy of the commons'. And while they are imperfect, these institutions both help societies to sort out clashes of cultural values in a peaceful and civilised manner, and lead to better decision-making about resources.

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Public Trust & Private Rights

Posted by Jonathan H. Adler  ·  11 November 2004  ·  Tragedy of the Commons

Is the public trust doctrine a threat to private property? Is it a vital, evolving common law doctrine? Or a metastasizing source of governmental authority over private land? The Federalist Society’s Environmental Law and Property Rights Practice Group took up these questions in a panel Thursday at the Society’s National Lawyers Convention in Washington, D.C. The remainder of this post summarizes the highlights of the session, interspersed with some of my own commentary.

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Leading off, Lewis & Clark Law School Dean Jim Huffman noted that the public trust doctrine, as initially conceived, was very limited. As developed under Roman law and later English law, the public trust only applied to very limited areas – navigable waters and submerged lands under the waters – and only protected a very limited set of uses, such as fishing, navigation and bathing. Government actions could not limit the public’s access to such areas for such uses, nor could the rights to such uses on these lands be privatized. As initially conceived it was a doctrine designed to prevent a despotic state from limiting the public’s liberties in the public’s resources.

In more recent years, however, environmental activists have sought to use the doctrine to control land-use – in effect using a doctrine designed to limit government power over private liberties to expand government power over private lands. By expanding the public trust doctrine to more lands and more uses, the doctrine has the potential to authorize land-use restrictions without triggering the Fifth Amendment. As Rhode Island Special Assistant Attorney General Michael Rubin commented, if land is covered by the public trust doctrine, it is by definition not within the protection of the Fifth Amendment’s takings clause. To claim that land is within the public trust then it cannot be taken, as it already belongs to the “public,” and the takings clause is irrelevant. According to Rubin, the existence of public ownership in some submerged lands – such as the land below open water – is undisputed. The real questions are how far such ownership extends, and what happens when land is converted from private land into public land, such as when private lands become submerged when coastlines shift over time. According to Rubin, the slow erosion of land due to shifting tides can well result in the shift of title from private to “public” hands by operation of law (yet should not occur due to a sudden “lurch” by state courts to redefine private rights).

Attorney Shawn Gunnarson of White & Case noted that property owners’ concerns about the operation of the doctrine are not purely theoretical. In McQueen v. South Acarolina Department of Health and Environmental Control (a case Gunnarson litigated), the South Carolina Supreme Court recently held that the public trust doctrine provides a categorical defense to Fifth Amendment takings claims. Although Sam McQueen’s property was rendered economically worthless by the government’s refusal to grant permits to develop to lots in North Myrtle Beach, and would therefore constitute a “total taking” for which compensation was required, there was no taking because the tidal wetlands on McQueen’s lots were within the public trust, even though all of the surrounding properties were already developed. In effect, the South Carolina Supreme Court expanded the public trust doctrine to cover unsubmerged lands and thereby allowed the state to evade its constitutional obligation to compensate McQueen for effectively taking his land. According to Gunnarson, this case demonstrates the threat posed by an expansive interpretation of the public trust doctrine to private property.

John Echeverria of the Georgetown Environmental Law and Policy Institute (subbing for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. who begged off) suggested there are two important aspects to the public trust doctrine. One aspect of the public trust doctrine suggests that the government has both substantive and procedural duties to protect the resources covered by the public trust. This is a problematic formulation, Echeverria suggests, as it lends itself to judicial activism. The other aspect of the doctrine is that it limits the scope of private property. This aspect of the doctrine is unproblematic, Echeverria argued, that fits comfortably within current takings doctrine insofar as it helps define the contours of private property under state law. It is a common law doctrine and, therefore, evolves over time. Thus, the doctrine could limit property rights in the present or future in ways that it did not limit private rights in the past. McQueen should not be a controversial case, Echeverria argued, as it was a “pedestrian” application of the public trust doctrine (a point seconded by Rubin given the nature of the marsh grasses growing on McQueen’s land). Nor would it be particularly controversial for the doctrine to continue to evolve and expand to cover additional environmental resources that are not easily amenable to private ownership, including air and wildlife.

The Justice Department’s Jeffrey Clark noted that most of the debate over the public trust doctrine has been a debate within the left over how best to expand regulatory control over private land. Whereas Joseph Sax called for using the public trust doctrine in the courts to defend – if not actually impose – land use controls, Richard Lazarus suggested democratically adopted land-use controls would provide more lasting environmental protections. Both assume environmental protection is best advanced by controlling land-use, a presumption that persists today. As framed by some academics today, Clark noted, the public trust doctrine potentially embraces any and all environmental resources in which the public claims a subjective interest, even if purely aesthetic or visceral. Also, Clark noted, while the contours of property rights may well change over time, it is not legitimate to engineer this process to produce predetermined regulatory ends. The common law may evolve, but state governments cannot simply redefine preexisting property rights by legislative fiat.

In comments, Huffman agreed that public trust resources are beyond the scope of the takings clause, but defining what is public and what is private “is the whole ball game.” Applying the public trust doctrine to, say, air and wildlife would have the potential of expanding it over all private land. At the same time, there is no reason to assume that certain resources, such as water or submerged lands, are by their very nature not amenable to private ownership. Expanding the public trust doctrine, as encouraged by some environmentalists and academics, effectively narrows the scope of private property and private ordering. Although done in the name of the "public," it transfers power to the government. "Public" properties, today, are political properties, which explains quite a bit about how they are managed.

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Tragedy of the Common Fisheries Policy

Posted by Iain Murray  ·  13 August 2004  ·  Oceans ~Tragedy of the Commons ~Wildlife

The blatantly protectionist Common Agricultural Policy is well-known as one of the worst things the European Union does, preventing developing nations from selling agricultural products in a competitive European market. Less well known is the disaster that is the Common Fisheries Policy. Euroskeptic commentator Richard North, who I believe has worked closely with the dying British fising industry, examines the problems in this post at his EU Referendum blog. He notes a publicity stunt by Greenpeace, which arranged for delivery of a load of dead marine life:

This was the by-catch from a two-hour trawl on the Dogger Bank, and comprised 11,000 dead or dying marine species. It included a variety of flatfish, small cod, mackerel, sole, Norway lobster, edible crab and starfish.
The catch represented a fraction of the estimated 720,000 tons of discarded fish returned annually to the North Sea, including some 12 percent (or more) of the total cod and 40 percent of the plaice catch by weight had been discarded.

So far so good. Every fisherman and campaigner would agree that discarding is highly wasteful, and experience from the successful fisheries of Norway, Iceland and the Faroes demonstrate that banning this practice is an essential past of good fisheries management.

But Greenpeace does not make this point. It uses the information to claim that "this type of fishing practice" – and then lumps beam trawling with otter trawling, which is claims are "particularly prone to picking up unwanted species, because they are inherently indiscriminate".

That, in fact, is not true as a matter of principle. Given good design, these nets can be highly selective – the problem being that the rigidities of the CFP prevent the design and development of more selective gear, and prohibit experimentation to reduce by-catch.

North goes on to point out that there are some exclusion zones in the North Sea, notably around oil and gas installations.

These in part may account for the fact that certain species, like haddock, are at a thirty-year high, and that fishermen are taking record catches of large cod, despite scientists' claims that the stock is near exhaustion.
Finally, North notes that, under the proposed EU Constitution, conservation of fish stocks will become the responsibility of the EU itself, and not of member governments. Given the "depradations" of the CFP, this is unlikely to be good for marine life.

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Cows, But No Fish

Posted by Amy Ridenour  ·   6 August 2004  ·  Tragedy of the Commons

Radley Balko has a solid piece explaining his take on "the tragedy of the commons." Money quote:
The best example of the tragedy of commons occurs in the oceans. Why is it that we regularly hear about how we're running out of various species of fish, but we're always well stocked with beef, pork and poultry? The difference is that the latter are raised on dry land, where there are clear, discernible property rights.
Robert Kennedy, Jr. -- among others -- should read it.

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RFK Jr. - No Historian

Posted by Amy Ridenour  ·   6 August 2004  ·  Tragedy of the Commons

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is not only not a serious environmentalist, as I noted below, nor a free-marketeer, as Jonathan Adler has just demonstrated, but he's not much of a historian, either.

Note this Kennedy paragraph in the Grist magazine interview:
When Roman law broke down in Europe during the Dark Ages, a lot of the feudal kings began reasserting control over the public-trust resources. For example, in England, King John began selling monopolies to the fisheries and he said the deer belonged to nobility. The public rose up and confronted him at the Battle of Runnymede and forced him to sign the Magna Carta, which of course was the beginning of constitutional government. In addition to having virtually all of our Bill of Rights, the Magna Carta has two other chapters on free access to fisheries in navigable waters. And those rights descended to the people in the States when we had the revolution. And virtually every state constitution says the people of the state own the waters and the fisheries, the wildlife, the air. They're not owned by the governor, the legislature, the corporations. Nobody has a right to use them in a way that will diminish or injure their use and enjoyment by others.
There's too much to address here for just a blog entry, but a few points:

1) King John was one in a long line of Norman/English/British Kings who believed that the nobility had the right to control hunting rights in "public" forests. William the Conquerer, King John's grandmother's grandfather, was a big believer in exercising the sovereign's "right" to control the land, and the practice did not end with the signing of the Magna Carta (although that document does address the matter).

2) The Magna Carta does not "hav[e] virtually all of our Bill of Rights." It was mostly about preserving the prerogatives of a small number of families against the power of the monarch.

3) Note Kennedy's line "those rights descended to the people in the States when we had the revolution." The the governmental philosophy of the United States is that rights descend to the public (actually, all individuals) from our Creator, not from some dude or dudette in London ("...all men are created equal... endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights").

4) Kennedy's timeline ("those rights descended to the people in the States when we had the revolution") is baffling. The Revolution ended the authority of any British monarch and his/her governments over the American (ex)colonies. It was not a lobbying effort aimed at convincing King John's heirs to grant Americans a few more "rights."

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