TRAGEDY Flashcards
What is the tragedy of the commons?
Shared access to a field - each farmer keeps adding livestock, grass is then gone due to greed.
Access to a shared resource results in its degradation through overconsumption.
What are Hardin’s options?
Direct governance and control of a resource.
Privatisation.
Cooperative collective action (limiting access to those who are part of an agreement).
What is the difference between a common pool and an open access resource?
Only 1 can consume a common pool unit, but open access do not dwindle in supply as they are consumed, like air. Both are non-excludable. You cannot stop someone from consuming either.
Who is Elinor Ostrom?
A novel-prize winning economist who proved that communities can share a common resource through collective property rights, challenging the tragedy of the commons.
What are the global commons? Give 2 examples and say why they are hard to manage.
Earth’s shared natural resources, such as the oceans and the atmosphere.
They are non-renewable on human time scales
They have a large scale of users and size of resource
Differences in cultures and expectations of the resource’s use
What are 2 existing government frameworks for the global commons?
Exclusive economic zones of 200 nautical miles.
International environmental agreements such as the Vienna convention for the protection of the ozone layer of 1985.
What are exclusive economic zones and how do they protect the resource?
Areas of the seas in which a state has special rights over exploration and its resources under the 1982 law of the sea.
