Posted January 26, 2018 by Dana James

Resources that are collectively shared and managed for common use and benefit have always been important in socioecological systems, including agrifood systems, and communities in many parts of the world have successfully co-managed “commons” – such as fields, pastures, forests, and fisheries – over long periods. At the same time, many of us are familiar with Garrett Hardin’s influential essay “The Tragedy of the Commons,” published 50 years ago this year. In it, Hardin argues that tragedies of the commons occur when rational (in the economic sense) actors using a common-pool, open-access resource, such as a pasture or coral reef, each try to maximize their own individual profit. In such a system, the increased profits essentially all aggregate to the individual actor, but the associated costs (i.e. resource degradation) are shared by all persons using the resource, and thus remain overlooked at the level of the individual user (Hardin, 1968; Ostrom, Burger, Field, Norgaard, & Policansky, 1999).

By this logic, it follows that all persons try to maximize their individual profit until the resource itself surpasses an ecological threshold and becomes so degraded as to be rendered unusable for the same purpose, function, or service – in essence, losing its original structure or identity (Groffman et al., 2006). Scholars in ecology have termed this a “regime shift” (Andersen, Carstensen, Hernández-García, & Duarte, 2009; Folke et al., 2004). To continue with the pasture and reef examples: a regime shift might look like a pasture becoming so overgrazed that it transitions into a shrubby or woody state (Folke et al., 2004). In the case of a reef, an ecological threshold may be surpassed once higher trophic levels become scarce enough (due to overexploitation) that the reef’s stability is compromised, causing the system to flip to an algae-dominated state (Folke et al., 2004).

Ultimately, this leads Hardin to proclaim, “Freedom in a commons brings ruin to all” (1968, p. 1244), with the only potential solutions being socialism or privatization of the resource (Hardin, 1968; Ostrom et al., 1999). However, the eminent political economist Elinor Ostrom has more recently argued that “tragedies of the commons are real, but not inevitable.” So, what conditions (or lack thereof) lead to tragedies of the commons? How might we address these factors so that tragedies of the commons are not inevitable?

Students working together to construct and maintain a community garden in Manitoba. Photo credit: Evan Bowness.

I would argue that Hardin glosses over the complexity, resilience, and adaptive capacity (including the ability to learn and self-organize) of socioecological systems with his proposed solutions (Berkes, Colding, & Folke, 2003). However, through his simplified solutions, it is clear that Hardin acknowledges the critical role that actors, institutions, and governance play in socioecological systems (Berman, Quinn, & Paavola, 2012) – a point that Ostrom also certainly supports (Anderies, Janssen, & Ostrom, 2004). Where the two really differ, perhaps, is in their degree of conviction that a) individual actors can operate altruistically and/or can extend their thinking beyond individual gain to also consider the effects of their actions in relation to the collective whole (i.e. the system), and that b) actors and institutions can indeed learn from and adapt to changing circumstances in novel ways and with novel tools and skills (or, with novel combinations of existing tools and skills).

Ostrom would take the more optimistic view: that actors can learn and can take into account the impact of their behaviors on others and on the resource – and thus, can alter/modify their actions and institutions accordingly. In other words: actors and institutions are adaptive and can act in a responsive manner, and there are existing principles we can use to better design socioecological systems. In theory, I agree with her. But there are, of course, many caveats in practice.

Ostrom and other scholars would argue that managing a common-pool resource is possible if the system exhibits characteristics like the following: if the actors trust one another; if there is high social capital; if there are avenues for all affected stakeholders to participate in decision-making processes; if external actors acknowledge that the resource-users have the right to define their own management strategy; if monitoring and evaluation structures are in place; if enforcement and conflict-resolution strategies exist; if there is flexibility to innovate; if there is high access to information; and if system boundaries are well-defined, with the recognition that there needs to be coordination and integration across (governance and ecological) scales (Armitage, 2005). If these conditions are in place, then the potential exists for users to adaptively manage the defined socioecological system.

The problem, in my view, lies herein: beyond very localized scales – and in a very connected, yet heterogeneous, world – how are we to tackle and adaptively manage global common-pool resources? Are there many – or any – systems that exist today where the above conditions are met? These questions become even more challenging to answer when considering the dynamic, interconnected, and multiscalar nature of rules and institutions. As a timely example, consider the rapid flurry of changes in a wide array of formal rules and policies in the United States (which we may even deem to be a sociopolitical “regime shift”), and the effect that this has not only on actors at various levels within the U.S., but also across the world. Given the United States’ position as both a leading resource consumer and a geopolitical superpower within the international arena, many of the revisions to environmental rules in the US have major implications for collective management of global common-pool resources, like the atmosphere and the oceans. The resulting mismanagement of such global common-pool resources will invariably have effects on socioecological systems at other spatial scales due to the nested and interconnected nature of complex systems (although the effects may not be immediately apparent due to time lags).

Thus, in order to be effective, management of global common-pool resources requires long-term political and institutional commitment, coordination, and trust. Unfortunately, the shorter time scales at which political processes operate usually do not align with the long-term institutional arrangements necessary to build, or design, better governance systems. In addition, power imbalances between actors can often prevent vulnerable states and communities from participating in decision-making as well as monitoring and enforcement processes, which can lead to an erosion of trust and a lack of accountability.

Clearly, there are significant challenges to managing common-pool resources – particularly at larger spatial scales; when temporal scales do not match; and when the socioecological issue is “epistemologically distant,” as is the case with a phenomenon such as anthropogenic climate change (Carolan, 2004). However, as Ostrom indicates, these challenges are not inherently insurmountable; there are existing principles that can inform the design of better socioecological systems, and we should absolutely strive for improvement. (And in fact, we have some good examples to look to – the most frequently-cited being the development of the Montreal Protocol to phase out production of compounds damaging to the ozone layer.) It will take sustained effort, committed collaboration, and the renegotiation and revaluation of both social-social and social-environmental relationships on the part of many actors. It’s a tall order, but a necessary one.

References:

Anderies, J. M., Janssen, M. A., & Ostrom, E. (2004). A Framework to Analyze the Robustness of Social-ecological Systems from an Institutional Perspective. Ecology and Society, 9(1), 18.

Andersen, T., Carstensen, J., Hernández-García, E., & Duarte, C. M. (2009). Ecological thresholds and regime shifts: approaches to identification. Trends in Ecology and Evolution, 24(1), 49–57.

Armitage, D. (2005). Adaptive Capacity and Community-Based Natural Resource Management. Environmental Management, 35(6), 703–715.

Berkes, F., Colding, J., & Folke, C. (2003). Introduction. In F. Berkes, J. Colding, & C. Folke (Eds.), Navigating social-ecological systems: Building resilience for complexity and change (p. 393). Cambridge University Press.

Berman, R., Quinn, C., & Paavola, J. (2012). The role of institutions in the transformation of coping capacity to sustainable adaptive capacity. Environmental Development, 2, 86–100.

Carolan, M. (2004). Ontological Politics: Mapping a Complex Environmental Problem. Environmental Values, 13, 497–522.

Folke, C., Carpenter, S., Walker, B., Scheffer, M., Elmqvist, T., Gunderson, L., & Holling, C. S. (2004). Regime Shifts, Resilience, and Biodiversity in Ecosystem Management. Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics, 35(1), 557–581.

Groffman, P. M., Baron, J. S., Blett, T., Gold, A. J., Goodman, I., Gunderson, L. H., … Wiens, J. (2006). Ecological Thresholds: The Key to Successful Environmental Management or an Important Concept with No Practical Application? Ecosystems, 9, 1–13.

Hardin, G. (1968). The Tragedy of the Commons. Science, 162(3859), 1243–1248.

Ostrom, E., Burger, J., Field, C. B., Norgaard, R. B., & Policansky, D. (1999). Revisiting the Commons: Local Lessons, Global Challenges. Science, 284(5412), 278–282.