common sense and common-pool resources
TRANSCRIPT
Common Sense and Common-Pool ResourcesAuthor(s) MARI N JENSENSource BioScience Vol 50 No 8 (August 2000) pp 638-644Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Institute of Biological SciencesStable URL httpwwwjstororgstable1016410006-3568282000290505B06383ACSACPR5D20CO3B2
Accessed 17072014 0424
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This content downloaded from 21381239145 on Thu 17 Jul 2014 042450 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
638 BioScience bull August 2000 Vol 50 No 8
Features
The demise of ocean fisheries seemsa classic case of what Garrett Hardinnow professor emeritus at the Univer-s i ty of Ca l i forn i a ndash Santa Ba rb a ra termed a ldquotragedy of the commonsrdquo Ina 1968 article in Science (see box page644 for references) Hardin presented achilling picture of how a group ofh erd s m en inevi t a bly de s troyed thes h a red re s o u rce on wh i ch they alldepen ded Freedom to act in on ersquosi m m ed i a te sel f - i n terest meant thateach person put more and more cattleonto a shared rangeland Each herderbenefited from the additional cattle he
added to the range while the cost ofovergrazing the land was shared by allldquoEach man is locked into a system thatcompels him to increase his herd with-out limitmdashin a world that is limitedrdquoHardin wrote Ultimately the collec-tive action of the herders degraded therangeland so much that it was of nouse to any of them ldquoFreedom in acommons brings ruin to allrdquo he wroteadding that the only way to preventsuch tragedies was for resources toeither be privately owned or regulatedby the government
Although Hardinrsquos essay a productof the environmental movement of the1960s was actually a call to limit pop-ulation growth its central metaphorhas been applied much more broadlyHis now famous paper has beenreprinted innumerable times and itsgrim scenario taught as gospel in ecol-ogy and environmental science cours-es The term ldquotragedy of the com-monsrdquo shows up in the indexes andgl o s s a ries of tex tbooks and hasbecome shorthand for peoplersquos pro-clivity to destroy a shared resource
Elinor Ostroma political economistat Indiana Un ivers i ty ndash Bl oom i n g ton says of Hardinrsquos essay ldquoItrsquos one of themost dra m a tic para gra ph s I thinkthat has been wri t ten in S ci en cerdquoadding that ldquoit really is a masterfulpiece of work and it captures some
Common Sense and C o m m o n - Pool Resources
Re s e a rch ers dec i ph er how com mu n i ties avert the tra gedy of the com m on s
M A R I N J E N S E N
Despite more than 100 years of exploitation Mainersquos lobster fishery seems to bedoing relatively well while many other fisheries are in trouble Here a lobster
fisherman from Cape Porpoise Maine baits a wooden lobster trap Most oftodayrsquos traps are wire rather than wood Photo Glenn Nutting State of Maine
Department of Marine Resources
h ere are no lon ger plen ty of
fish in the sea O f f the coa s t
of Newfo u n dl a n d the famed
Grand Ba n k s on ce home to a vi bra n t
cod fishery is all but cl o s ed for cod
f i s h i n g Fu rt h er sout h the cod fishery
on the Geor ges Bank fares on ly a little
bet ter Worl dwi de h i s tori c a lly vi g-
orous fisheries are co ll a p s i n g Th ere
a ppe a rs to be a com m on cause too
m a ny fishers con ti nu a lly taking too
m a ny fish
T
This content downloaded from 21381239145 on Thu 17 Jul 2014 042450 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
trut h Nothing that has had thatimpact would have existed that long ifthere were not some truth to what hesaidrdquo
But itrsquos not the whole truthldquoHardinimplied to many that people would notself-organize and thus you had to haveeither government or the market Peri-odEnd of story And itrsquos not the end ofthe storyrdquo Ostrom says Her researchand that of others show that undermany conditions people can work col-l ectively to manage re s o u rces well ldquoWersquore showing right and left that theyc a n rdquo she says ldquoTh ey not on ly can[manage resources collectively]rdquo shesays ldquobut they can outperform a gov-ernmentmdashwhich was one of his solu-tionsrdquo
Thatrsquos not to say that tragedies donrsquotoccur They do But government con-trol or priva ti z a ti on of s h a red re-sources are not the only techniques forpreven ting tra ged i e s Nor is ei t h era pproach foo l proof The Ca n ad i a ngovernment regulated cod fishing yetthe fishery cra s h ed and has yet torecover
Although people have been studyingvarious aspects of common-propertyre s o u rces for more than a cen tu ryOstrom says the first time researchersdiscussed the issue across disciplinaryboundaries was at the 1985 Confer-ence on Common Property ResourceMa n a gem en t s pon s ored by theNational Research Council and held inAn n a po l i s Ma ryl a n d Si n ce then researchers from a range of disciplineshave been developing a picture of whatworks and what does not when itcomes to sustainable use of a jointlyh eld re s o u rce Some re s e a rch hasfocused on review and synthesis ofva rious case stu d i e s Ot h er insigh t sh ave come from labora tory ex peri-ments
Research in the field is blossomingas dem on s tra ted by the wealth ofpapers presented at the eighth biennialconference of the International Associ-ation for the Study of Common Prop-erty (IASCP) held in BloomingtonIn d i a n a in June 2000 In ad d i ti on NRC has a project under way to sum-marize what has been learned in the
last 15 years and what key questionsremain to be answered
The nastiest probl em of a llAlthough the resources in question areoften loosely called ldquocommon proper-tyrdquo scholars say the term ldquocommon-pool resourcesrdquo is more accurate Theterm common property describes whohas property rights over the resourcewh ereas the term com m on - poo lresources refers to characteristics ofthe resources themselves Any type ofresource may be governed by differentproperty rights regimes in differentlocations because the property rightsare a function of the legal systemrsquoscharacteristicsnot the resourcersquos char-acteristics
Clark C Gibsona political scientistat Indiana Un ivers i ty ndash Bl oom i n g ton s ays that if s om ething is com m onproperty a specific group of peoplemay use the resource legitimatelymdashand equally legitimately prevent out-siders from using it Gibson and otherresearchers stress that although Hardinu s ed the term com m on s i m p lyi n gcommon property the rangeland hedescribed was not common propertyIt was actually something researchersterm open accessmdasha situ a ti on inwhich anything goes because no onehas defined rights to the resource
Some types of resources howeverare inherently problematic with regardto management and enforcement ofproperty ri gh t s Com m on - poo lresources are those for which exclud-ing outsiders is difficult no matterwho actually has the right to use theresource The other characteristic ofcommon-pool resources is what econ-omists call subtractability Anythingone user takes reduces what is availablefor anyone else Fisheries and range-lands are classic examples Water canalso be a common-pool resource ldquoThenastiest environmental problems areabout common-pool resources Theya re hard to defen d but they aredegradablerdquo Gibson says ldquoIf I eat afish you canrsquot use itrdquo
Notwithstanding the difficulties ofm a n a ging com m on - pool re s o u rce s s ch o l a rs have now ex a m i n ed thousands
of situations in which resource usershave attempted various forms of self-governance many of which have beensuccessful Ostrom says Indeed pre-s en t a ti on after pre s en t a ti on at theBl oom i n g ton IASCP meeting dis-cussed successful as well as unsuccess-ful group management of resourcessuch as local fisheries forests and irri-gation projects
Maine lob s ter fishersgovern them selve sF i s h eries managem ent is one com-mon-pool resource problem Makingrules about who can fish where helpsbut the resource itselfmdashthe fishmdashcanand does move around So even if a
August 2000 Vol 50 No 8 bull BioScience 639
Features
Most Maine lobster fishers who catchan egg-bearing female voluntarily
place a notch on the first flipper to theright of center (as shown) and then
return the lobster to the water InMaine it is illegal to take a lobster
that has a v-notched flipper even ifshe no longer carries eggs After thelobster drops her eggs she will molt
out of her old shell However thenotch will remain in the flipper forthree molts protecting the animal
from fishing for several years PhotoGlenn Nutting State of Maine
Department of Marine Resources
This content downloaded from 21381239145 on Thu 17 Jul 2014 042450 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
fisher has exclusive rights to fish a cer-tain spothe or she still has to competewith others for the same fish And asf i s h eries around the world cl e a rlydem on s tra te the su pp ly of fish isfinite The more fish one person catch-es the less there are for everyone else
According to trad i ti onal fisheri e stheory Mainersquos lobster fishery whichhas b een exploited for more than 100years should be an economic and bio-logical basket case says James Wilsona resource economist at the Universityof Maine in Orono But the fisheryseems to be doing finehe adds
As one who 25 years ago predictedthe fishery rsquos dem i s e Wi l s on hassearched for an explanation to thisenigma He now believes the key isthat ldquofor all practical purposes [it is] afishery governed by fishermenrdquo Therules governing the lobster fishery havealways been set by Mainersquos legislaturealthough the initial suggestions oftencome from the scientific or manage-m ent com mu n i ti e s However e achtime a change in the conservation rulesis proposed there are years of publicdiscussion and meetings because rulesthat seem reasonable for one part ofthe coast may not be so good for otherregions Ultimately a consensus devel-ops among the lob s ter fishers a n dmasses of them troop to the capitol togive the legi s l a tu re their op i n i on sabout the proposed changeldquoItrsquos alwaysbeen this protracted public negotia-tionrdquo Wilson says The legislature hesays basically rubber-stamps the fish-ersrsquo decision
The current rules for the lobsterfishery were enacted in the 1930s inresponse to depletion of the fisheryduring the 1910s and 1920s Wilsonsays Lobsters to be a legal catch mustexceed 325 inches across the carapacebut be no broader than 5 inches onlylobster traps (pots) may be used andegg-bearing females may not be kept
One more rule the v-notch rulegives egg-bearing females a chance atan additional get-out-of-jail-free cardMost Maine lobster fishers voluntarilynotch a specific tail flipper on any egg-bearing female they catchA v-notchedfemale is not a legal catch and it takes
several years for the notch to disap-pe a r If a female lob s ter gets largeenough during that time she becomestoo big to be legally harvested
ldquoThe fishermen believe these rulesworkrdquo Wilson says ldquoTheyrsquove arguedthem out publicly over the years Fromtheir point of view they are dead cer-tain [the rules] have a good conserva-tion effectrdquo The rules have traditional-ly been en forced by the fishersthemselves in what Wilson calls ldquoanex tra l egal proce s s rdquo Wron gdoers re-ceive a series of escalating warningsSocial pressure from the communityin other words keeps everyone in lineWilsonrsquos son Carl head lobster biolo-gist with Ma i n ersquos Dep a rtm ent ofMarine Resources agrees ldquoThe con-servation rules are kind of like mother-hood and apple pierdquo
But the fishers are not so happy withsome other rules the state issued saysDave Cousens president of the MaineLobstermenrsquos Association In 1997 thefishers wanted a moratorium on issu-ing lobster-fishing licenses but insteadthe state limited the number of pots anindividual could put in the water to1200ldquoItrsquos like putting up a big poster-board saying lsquoIf you want to go lob-s teri n g do it now rsquo rdquo Co u s ens says Fearful of future limits on lobsteringthose who used fewer pots in the paststarted fishing the maximum allowablenu m ber of po t s In ad d i ti on m orepeople entered the fishery
Additional federal limits on lobster-ing dictated that in 2000 the maxi-mum number of traps a fisher coulduse is 800 Carl Wilson says Cousenssays about having to reduce his stringto 800 trapsldquoI took 400 traps out andwhere I fish there are probably 16 morefishers It was a net loss as far as con-servation [goes]rdquo Cousens says ldquoAll wedo is untangle trapsmdashitrsquos a messrdquo
That increase in the number of fish-ers is going to cause pain down theroad he says because lobstering is ac yclical bu s i n e s s Wh en last ye a r rsquosrecord haul of 52 mill i on po u n d sretu rns to the historic avera ge of 2 0m i ll i on poundsmdashand Co u s ens says itsu rely wi ll mdash people wi ll go out ofbu s i n e s s
Carl Wilson agrees that one of theunintended consequences of the traplimit was ending up with a greaternumber of traps in the water In thepasthe saysthere was de facto limitedentry into the lobster fishing industrybecause local tradition dictated whocould fish and where Those old tradi-tions he says are eroding
To provide a legal mechanism forthe lobster fishers to collectively man-age the fishery in 1996 Maine set upregi onal lob s ter managem ent zon e sand gave locally elected councils ofl ob s ter fishers aut h ori ty to manageeach zone The local councils set thel ob s ter fishing rules for that zon e including the rules on equipment andon day and time of fishing James Wil-son chaired the state committee thatp ut toget h er the ori ginal series ofzonesFishers are quite happy with there su l t he says and wi ll never giveauthority back to the state
Although Cousens would not agreethat the fishers are quite happy he doesthink that the zones have potentialldquoThey will probably do a lot of good inthe future Right now theyrsquore in theiri n f a n c y t h erersquore growing pains Iwouldnrsquot say itrsquos a cure-all but itrsquos astep in the right direction Before ifyou had a rule change you had to go tothe legi s l a tu re rdquo One of the ru l echanges being considered by four ofthe seven managem ent zon e s Ca rlWilson saysis limiting entry of fishersinto those zones
What motiva tes people toprote ct re sou rce s The case of the Maine lobster fishersexemplifies the qualities Ostrom saysare crucial for robust self-governancesystems By examining thousands ofcase studies of common-pool resourcemanagement she has identified eightdesign principles (see box page 642)for su ccessful sel f - govern a n ce Th eyi n clu de cl e a rly iden ti f ying ri gh tf u lu s ers i nvo lving most of the parti c i-pants in most rule ch a n ge s m on i tori n gwhether users follow the rules havinga graduated set of penalties for thosewho break the rules and having gov-ernments recognize the right of the
640 BioScience bull August 2000 Vol 50 No 8
Features
This content downloaded from 21381239145 on Thu 17 Jul 2014 042450 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
participants to manage the resourcethemselves
Cl a rk Gibson says that Ostromrsquosde s i gn principles are great ben ch-marks for any study of common-poolresources and common property Inhis own work on forest governancehel oo ked at two very similarGuatemalan communities Las Cebol-las and Moraacuten to see how they man-aged their forests Gibson says com-p a ring places as similar as LasCebo llas and Moraacuten can hel p re s e a rch ers figure out why peop l emanage to prevent tragedies in someplaces and not others
The two com mu n i ties have thesame property rights structure eleva-tion forest type and ethnic makeupGibson saysEach community is locat-ed far from urban areas and is reachedvia a rough dirt road that is not alwayspassable even for 4-wheel-drive vehi-cles Both communities have experi-ence creating organizations and insti-tuti ons and have little interferen cefrom external governmentsmdashcharac-teri s tics some re s e a rch ers think areprerequisites for developing self-gov-ernance Yet one community bandedtogether and developed a protectedarea in its forest the other did not
The communities both practice sub-sistence agriculture and depend on theforest for fuelwood timber and live-stock grazing However Las Cebollashas designated part of its forest off-limits for any of those uses In the pro-tected are a the forest looks pret tygood Gibson says The protected for-est has more diverse vegetation moregroundcover and the largest treesldquoItrsquosa great example of people managingtheir resource on their ownrdquo he saysBut where the communities use thefore s t the forest cl e a rly shows theeffects of fuelwood gathering and live-stock grazing ldquoParts of Las Cebollasrsquoforest and all of Moraacutenrsquos forest arethreatened by the tragedy of the com-monsrdquo Gibson says Whatrsquos even morepuzzling he says is that in Las Cebol-lasrsquo forest ldquotherersquos an area where thereis a tragedy and an area where thereisnrsquotrdquo and the two areas are managedby the same people
To figure out what was going on amultidisciplinary team of researchersf rom Indiana Un ivers i ty ndash Bl oom i n g-tonrsquos Center for the Study of Institu-tions Population and EnvironmentalChange FLACSOndashGuatemala (a socialsciences research institution) CentroUniversitario de Oriente and Univer-sidad del Valle de Guatemala spentabout a month at each communityinterviewing residents and taking bio-physical measurements to assess thecondition of the forest To collect thedata the teams used standardized pro-tocols developed by the InternationalFore s try Re s o u rces and In s ti tuti on sRe s e a rch Progra m a worl dwi deresearch program that studies forestsand forest communities
G i b s on and his co lleagues fo u n dthat only when community membersview a resource as both necessary andscarce do they put in the effort re-quired to protect it from overuse The
researchers concluded that althoughboth com mu n i ties depend on thei rforests for fuelwood timber and graz-ing the community members do notperceive those re s o u rces as scarce whereas they do regard agriculturalland as valuable and scarce Howeverthe people in Las Cebollas believe thatkeeping some specific hillsides forestedwill maintain the river water neededfor their agricultural fields whereaspeople in Moraacuten do not share thatbeliefGibson says focusing on scarcityand necessity helps explains why thet wo com mu n i ties treat their fore s t sdifferently He describes his study in achapter in the forthcoming book Pro -tecting the Commons A Framework forResource Management in the Americas
Co m pu ter ga m e sSelf-governance does not occur only ins m a ll com mu n i ties that depend ontraditional rural livelihoods such as
August 2000 Vol 50 No 8 bull BioScience 641
Features
A comparison of two rural Guatemalan communities Moraacuten and Las Cebollas byClark Gibson and his colleagues at Indiana UniversityndashBloomingtonrsquos
multidisciplinary Center for the Study of Institutions Population and EnvironmentalChange provided insights on why people manage to prevent ldquothe tragedy of thecommonsrdquo in some places but not in others Both communities use the forest forfuelwood and timber and for grazing livestock and horses but some areas of Las
Cebollasrsquo forest are protected from such uses Here horses graze in Moraacutenrsquos forestPhoto C Gibson Indiana UniversityndashBloomington
This content downloaded from 21381239145 on Thu 17 Jul 2014 042450 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
fishing or agriculture College studentsrec ru i ted to play com m on - pool re-source games on laboratory computers
can also u n der the ri ght circ u m-stances band together for collectivebenefit
James Wa l ker an ex peri m en t a lecon omist at Indiana Un ivers i ty ndashBloomington along with his IndianaUniversity colleagues Elinor Ostromand Roy Gardner has used computergames to test how people managecommon-pool resources under vary-ing con d i ti on s Just as in the re a lworl d p l ayers get tangi ble ben ef i t sfrom participating they earn varyingamounts of cash depending on whatdecisions they make during the gameLike Gibson and other researchers whodissect and compare various field situ-ations Walker is trying to find outwhat conditions encourage or discour-age cooperation
In one experiment eight players sitat computer terminals and make deci-sions in private Each player gets anendowment of resources (tokens) toallocate to one of two markets Thefirst market pays a nickel per tokenentered The second market the com-mon-pool resource initially pays bet-ter but the per-token payoff declinesas more and more tokens are added tothat market Walker presents the play-ers with a series of scenarios in which aspecific allocation of tokens betweenthe two markets will bring the greatestp ayof f to the group as a wh o l e If
642 BioScience bull August 2000 Vol 50 No 8
Features
1 Th ere is a clear def i n i ti on of who has the ri ght to use the re s o u rce and who does not The bo u n d a ries of the re s o u rcea re cl e a rly def i n ed
2 Us ers must perceive that their requ i red con tri buti ons for managing and maintaining the re s o u rce are fair in light of t h eben efits received Rules governing peop l ersquos obl i ga ti ons and rules abo ut wh en and how the re s o u rce is used are ad a ptedto the local con d i ti on s
3 Most of the indivi duals affected by the rules can parti c i p a te in ch a n ging the ru l e s
4 Use of the re s o u rce and ad h eren ce to the rules is actively mon i tored of ten by the users them s elve s
5 People who vi o l a te the rules are disciplined in accord a n ce with a gradu a ted set of s a n cti on s
6 Local insti tuti ons are ava i l a ble to re s o lve con f l i cts ra p i dly
7 Ex ternal govern m ent aut h ori ties do not interfere with re s o u rce managem ent sch emes devel oped on a local level
8 Com m on - pool re s o u rce managem ent sys tems that are part of l a r ger sys tems are or ga n i zed as a series of n e s ted en terpri s e s e ach level of wh i ch possesses ch a racteri s tics one thro u gh seven
Ad a pted from Ostrom E l i n or 1 9 9 0 Governing the Co m m o n s The Evol u tion of In s ti tu tions for Coll e ctive Acti o n Cambridge University Press Cambridge UK
Characteristics of successful cases of self-gov e rned common-pool resource management
A scene in Las Cebollas Guatemala shows a patchwork landscape of agriculturefallow fields and forest Las Cebollas has designated part of its forest off-limits for
gathering fuelwood or timber and for grazing livestock because communitymembers believe that keeping some specific hillsides forested will maintain the r iver
water needed for agricultural fields Photo CGibson IndianaUniversityndashBloomington
This content downloaded from 21381239145 on Thu 17 Jul 2014 042450 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
most players all oc a te their to kens atthe level that yields the maximal groupp ayof f a ny indivi dual who inste adputs more than ldquohis sharerdquo into thecom m on - pool re s o u rce market wi llearn even more However when thathappens the total earned by the otherssuffers
This is exactly what happens whenthe players are barred from communi-cating with one another Walker saysAs more and more players follow thestrategy of looking out for themselvesrather than considering the welfare ofthe group as a whole the payoff pertoken in the second market goes downldquoIt leads to a result thatrsquos [economical-ly] inefficient from the grouprsquos per-spectiverdquo
But if the players discuss what ishappening the results are differentPeople cooperate for their own goodand that of the group ldquoIf you let themcom mu n i c a te every dec i s i on ro u n d they form verbal commitments andtend to keep those com m i tm en t s rdquoWa l ker says Sa n cti oning defectorshelpshe says but only if communica-tion is allowed ldquoSanctions alone workmiserablyrdquo
Communication then seems to bethe essential factor for developing asystem of self-governance in the labo-ratory In a paper in the April issue ofSouthern Economic Journal Walker andhis doctoral students Pamela J Schmittand Kurtis J Swope described whathappened if six people could commu-nicate and two could not The resultWithout communication between allthe players the system of cooperationu n ravel s Wa l ker says He says there s e a rch shows that com mu n i c a ti onamong all participants is essential fordeveloping systems of self-governanceand cooperation
A del i c a te ba l a n ceHardin common-pool resource schol-ars like to point outwas dealing with aspecialized casemdashone in which usershad neither the ability to exclude otherusers nor whatever it takes to worktogether As Ostrom puts it Hardinrsquosherders were ldquovery self-centered self-ish individuals who didnrsquot care a hoot
for the communityrdquo She says researchshows that although there are suchpeople out there ldquothere are a largenumber of people in any set who haveinterest in reciprocity trust and jointgainrdquo Whether those people can worktoget h er depends on the situ a ti on Even people who are inclined to coop-erate she says will do so only whenthey feel they wonrsquot be played for suck-ers
That is wh ere mon i toring andenforcement come in Ostrom saysnoting that ldquomonitoring done rightenhances reciprocityrdquo By ldquodone rightrdquoshe means that people do not feelexcessively scrutinized yet they knowtheir activities are noticed Institutionscan be built that ldquosupport enhancehelp people trust one another so theycan really protect resources for thefuturerdquo Ostrom says But institutionscan also convey the sense that ldquonobodytrusts you so you might as well cheatany time you think you canrdquo She saysldquoItrsquos a delicate delicate balancerdquo
And itrsquos a balance that researchersare still sorting out Studies suggestthat common-pool resource manage-ment works best in what could bec a ll ed a small - town set ti n g one inwhich people regularly interact face-to-face have and will continue to havelong-term relationships and are rela-tively hom ogen eous with rega rd tocharacteristics such as caste ethnicityand wealth Two big unanswered ques-tions Ostrom says are the effect ofgroup size and the effect of group het-erogen ei ty Those qu e s ti ons becom emore important she says ldquobecause weare tackling ever-larger resource sys-tem s rdquo and larger size means morecom p l ex insti tuti on s An o t h er qu e s-tion that still needs to be answeredsays Arun Agrawal a political scientistat Yale University is how common-pool resource manag ement is affectedby uncertainty and unanticipated fluc-tuations in the resource base
Those and other questions are beingaddressed by NRCrsquos Committee on theHuman Dimensions of Global ChangeprojectldquoInstitutions for Managing theCommonsrdquo The NRC project dovetailsnicely with the mission of the Interna-
ti onal As s oc i a ti on for the Stu dy ofCommon Property Bonnie J McCaypresident of IASCP and professor ofanthropology and ecology at RutgersUniversity in New Brunswick NewJersey says that ldquoone part of the mis-sion is to further the study and under-standing of the ways human beingsu s e m a n a ge and mismanage com-mon-pool resources The other is touse that knowledge and understandingto help local communities and govern-ments improve management of com-mon-pool resourcesrdquo
August 2000 Vol 50 No 8 bull BioScience 643
Features
Student members of amultidisciplinary research team from
two universities in Guatemala CentroUniversitario de Oriente and
Universidad del Valle de Guatemalaand from Indiana
UniversityndashBloomington measure treessaplings and amount of groundcover
in a randomly selected area of thecommunal forest in Las Cebollas
Guatemala to assess the forestrsquoscondition Photo C Gibson Indiana
UniversityndashBloomington
This content downloaded from 21381239145 on Thu 17 Jul 2014 042450 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
644 BioScience bull August 2000 Vol 50 No 8
Features
McCay Ostrom Agrawaland otherleaders in the field presented papers onthose topics to the research communi-ty at special sessions held during theIASCP meeting Feedback from thosesessions will be used to refine andenrich the NRC project when the leadresearchers reconvene for more discus-sions in September A book detailingthe NRC grouprsquos findings is slated forpublication in 2001
McCay says ldquoThe lesson is not thateverything should be done by localpeople The lesson is not that if leftalone people can do a pretty good jobThe lesson is that under some condi-tions people can do it The policy les-son is to find out what those condi-tions are and to try and give people achance to do thatrdquo
Brom l ey DW ed 1 9 9 2 Making the Com m ons Work Th eory Practi ce and Po l i c y San Fra n c i s co In s ti tute for Con tem po-ra ry Stu d i e s
Bu r ger J O s trom E Nor ga a rd RB Po l i c a n s ky D G o l d s tein BD ed s In pre s s Pro tecting the Com m on s A Fra m ework forRe s o u rce Ma n a gem ent in the Am eri c a s Wa s h i n g ton (DC ) Island Pre s s
Ha rdin G 1 9 6 8 The tra gedy of the com m on s S ci en ce 1 6 2 1 2 4 3 ndash 1 2 4 8
Ha rdin G 1 9 9 8 Ex ten s i ons of ldquoThe tra gedy of the com m on s rdquo S ci en ce 2 8 0 6 8 2 ndash 6 8 3
O s trom E 1 9 9 0 G overning the Com m on s The Evo luti on of In s ti tuti ons for Co ll ective Acti on Ca m bri d ge (UK) Ca m-bri d ge Un ivers i ty Pre s s
O s trom E G a rd n er R Wa l ker J 1 9 9 4 Ru l e s G a m e s and Com m on - Pool Re s o u rce s Ann Arbor (MI) Un ivers i ty of Mi ch i-gan Pre s s
O s trom E Bu r ger J F i eld CB Nor ga a rd RB Po l i c a n s ky D 1 9 9 9 Revi s i ting the com m on s Local lesson s gl obal ch a ll en ge s S ci en ce 2 8 4 2 7 8 ndash 2 8 2
S chmitt P Swope K Wa l ker J 2 0 0 0 Co ll ective acti on with incom p l ete com m i tm en t Ex peri m ental evi den ce So ut h ern Eco-n omic Jo u rnal 66 8 2 9 ndash 8 5 4
In tern a ti onal As s oc i a ti on for the Stu dy of Com m on Property (IASCP) ltwww i n d i a n a edu ~ i a s c p gt
In tern a ti onal Fore s try Re s o u rces and In s ti tuti ons Re s e a rch Program ltwww i n d i a n a edu ~ i f ri gt
Work s h op in Po l i tical Th eory and Policy An a lysis at Indiana Un ivers i tyndash Bl oom i n g ton ltwww i n d i a n a edu ~ work s h op gt
F u rther reading and online resources
Ma ri N Jen sen is a fre el a n ce sci en ce wri ter
ba sed in Tu cso n Ari zo n a
This content downloaded from 21381239145 on Thu 17 Jul 2014 042450 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
638 BioScience bull August 2000 Vol 50 No 8
Features
The demise of ocean fisheries seemsa classic case of what Garrett Hardinnow professor emeritus at the Univer-s i ty of Ca l i forn i a ndash Santa Ba rb a ra termed a ldquotragedy of the commonsrdquo Ina 1968 article in Science (see box page644 for references) Hardin presented achilling picture of how a group ofh erd s m en inevi t a bly de s troyed thes h a red re s o u rce on wh i ch they alldepen ded Freedom to act in on ersquosi m m ed i a te sel f - i n terest meant thateach person put more and more cattleonto a shared rangeland Each herderbenefited from the additional cattle he
added to the range while the cost ofovergrazing the land was shared by allldquoEach man is locked into a system thatcompels him to increase his herd with-out limitmdashin a world that is limitedrdquoHardin wrote Ultimately the collec-tive action of the herders degraded therangeland so much that it was of nouse to any of them ldquoFreedom in acommons brings ruin to allrdquo he wroteadding that the only way to preventsuch tragedies was for resources toeither be privately owned or regulatedby the government
Although Hardinrsquos essay a productof the environmental movement of the1960s was actually a call to limit pop-ulation growth its central metaphorhas been applied much more broadlyHis now famous paper has beenreprinted innumerable times and itsgrim scenario taught as gospel in ecol-ogy and environmental science cours-es The term ldquotragedy of the com-monsrdquo shows up in the indexes andgl o s s a ries of tex tbooks and hasbecome shorthand for peoplersquos pro-clivity to destroy a shared resource
Elinor Ostroma political economistat Indiana Un ivers i ty ndash Bl oom i n g ton says of Hardinrsquos essay ldquoItrsquos one of themost dra m a tic para gra ph s I thinkthat has been wri t ten in S ci en cerdquoadding that ldquoit really is a masterfulpiece of work and it captures some
Common Sense and C o m m o n - Pool Resources
Re s e a rch ers dec i ph er how com mu n i ties avert the tra gedy of the com m on s
M A R I N J E N S E N
Despite more than 100 years of exploitation Mainersquos lobster fishery seems to bedoing relatively well while many other fisheries are in trouble Here a lobster
fisherman from Cape Porpoise Maine baits a wooden lobster trap Most oftodayrsquos traps are wire rather than wood Photo Glenn Nutting State of Maine
Department of Marine Resources
h ere are no lon ger plen ty of
fish in the sea O f f the coa s t
of Newfo u n dl a n d the famed
Grand Ba n k s on ce home to a vi bra n t
cod fishery is all but cl o s ed for cod
f i s h i n g Fu rt h er sout h the cod fishery
on the Geor ges Bank fares on ly a little
bet ter Worl dwi de h i s tori c a lly vi g-
orous fisheries are co ll a p s i n g Th ere
a ppe a rs to be a com m on cause too
m a ny fishers con ti nu a lly taking too
m a ny fish
T
This content downloaded from 21381239145 on Thu 17 Jul 2014 042450 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
trut h Nothing that has had thatimpact would have existed that long ifthere were not some truth to what hesaidrdquo
But itrsquos not the whole truthldquoHardinimplied to many that people would notself-organize and thus you had to haveeither government or the market Peri-odEnd of story And itrsquos not the end ofthe storyrdquo Ostrom says Her researchand that of others show that undermany conditions people can work col-l ectively to manage re s o u rces well ldquoWersquore showing right and left that theyc a n rdquo she says ldquoTh ey not on ly can[manage resources collectively]rdquo shesays ldquobut they can outperform a gov-ernmentmdashwhich was one of his solu-tionsrdquo
Thatrsquos not to say that tragedies donrsquotoccur They do But government con-trol or priva ti z a ti on of s h a red re-sources are not the only techniques forpreven ting tra ged i e s Nor is ei t h era pproach foo l proof The Ca n ad i a ngovernment regulated cod fishing yetthe fishery cra s h ed and has yet torecover
Although people have been studyingvarious aspects of common-propertyre s o u rces for more than a cen tu ryOstrom says the first time researchersdiscussed the issue across disciplinaryboundaries was at the 1985 Confer-ence on Common Property ResourceMa n a gem en t s pon s ored by theNational Research Council and held inAn n a po l i s Ma ryl a n d Si n ce then researchers from a range of disciplineshave been developing a picture of whatworks and what does not when itcomes to sustainable use of a jointlyh eld re s o u rce Some re s e a rch hasfocused on review and synthesis ofva rious case stu d i e s Ot h er insigh t sh ave come from labora tory ex peri-ments
Research in the field is blossomingas dem on s tra ted by the wealth ofpapers presented at the eighth biennialconference of the International Associ-ation for the Study of Common Prop-erty (IASCP) held in BloomingtonIn d i a n a in June 2000 In ad d i ti on NRC has a project under way to sum-marize what has been learned in the
last 15 years and what key questionsremain to be answered
The nastiest probl em of a llAlthough the resources in question areoften loosely called ldquocommon proper-tyrdquo scholars say the term ldquocommon-pool resourcesrdquo is more accurate Theterm common property describes whohas property rights over the resourcewh ereas the term com m on - poo lresources refers to characteristics ofthe resources themselves Any type ofresource may be governed by differentproperty rights regimes in differentlocations because the property rightsare a function of the legal systemrsquoscharacteristicsnot the resourcersquos char-acteristics
Clark C Gibsona political scientistat Indiana Un ivers i ty ndash Bl oom i n g ton s ays that if s om ething is com m onproperty a specific group of peoplemay use the resource legitimatelymdashand equally legitimately prevent out-siders from using it Gibson and otherresearchers stress that although Hardinu s ed the term com m on s i m p lyi n gcommon property the rangeland hedescribed was not common propertyIt was actually something researchersterm open accessmdasha situ a ti on inwhich anything goes because no onehas defined rights to the resource
Some types of resources howeverare inherently problematic with regardto management and enforcement ofproperty ri gh t s Com m on - poo lresources are those for which exclud-ing outsiders is difficult no matterwho actually has the right to use theresource The other characteristic ofcommon-pool resources is what econ-omists call subtractability Anythingone user takes reduces what is availablefor anyone else Fisheries and range-lands are classic examples Water canalso be a common-pool resource ldquoThenastiest environmental problems areabout common-pool resources Theya re hard to defen d but they aredegradablerdquo Gibson says ldquoIf I eat afish you canrsquot use itrdquo
Notwithstanding the difficulties ofm a n a ging com m on - pool re s o u rce s s ch o l a rs have now ex a m i n ed thousands
of situations in which resource usershave attempted various forms of self-governance many of which have beensuccessful Ostrom says Indeed pre-s en t a ti on after pre s en t a ti on at theBl oom i n g ton IASCP meeting dis-cussed successful as well as unsuccess-ful group management of resourcessuch as local fisheries forests and irri-gation projects
Maine lob s ter fishersgovern them selve sF i s h eries managem ent is one com-mon-pool resource problem Makingrules about who can fish where helpsbut the resource itselfmdashthe fishmdashcanand does move around So even if a
August 2000 Vol 50 No 8 bull BioScience 639
Features
Most Maine lobster fishers who catchan egg-bearing female voluntarily
place a notch on the first flipper to theright of center (as shown) and then
return the lobster to the water InMaine it is illegal to take a lobster
that has a v-notched flipper even ifshe no longer carries eggs After thelobster drops her eggs she will molt
out of her old shell However thenotch will remain in the flipper forthree molts protecting the animal
from fishing for several years PhotoGlenn Nutting State of Maine
Department of Marine Resources
This content downloaded from 21381239145 on Thu 17 Jul 2014 042450 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
fisher has exclusive rights to fish a cer-tain spothe or she still has to competewith others for the same fish And asf i s h eries around the world cl e a rlydem on s tra te the su pp ly of fish isfinite The more fish one person catch-es the less there are for everyone else
According to trad i ti onal fisheri e stheory Mainersquos lobster fishery whichhas b een exploited for more than 100years should be an economic and bio-logical basket case says James Wilsona resource economist at the Universityof Maine in Orono But the fisheryseems to be doing finehe adds
As one who 25 years ago predictedthe fishery rsquos dem i s e Wi l s on hassearched for an explanation to thisenigma He now believes the key isthat ldquofor all practical purposes [it is] afishery governed by fishermenrdquo Therules governing the lobster fishery havealways been set by Mainersquos legislaturealthough the initial suggestions oftencome from the scientific or manage-m ent com mu n i ti e s However e achtime a change in the conservation rulesis proposed there are years of publicdiscussion and meetings because rulesthat seem reasonable for one part ofthe coast may not be so good for otherregions Ultimately a consensus devel-ops among the lob s ter fishers a n dmasses of them troop to the capitol togive the legi s l a tu re their op i n i on sabout the proposed changeldquoItrsquos alwaysbeen this protracted public negotia-tionrdquo Wilson says The legislature hesays basically rubber-stamps the fish-ersrsquo decision
The current rules for the lobsterfishery were enacted in the 1930s inresponse to depletion of the fisheryduring the 1910s and 1920s Wilsonsays Lobsters to be a legal catch mustexceed 325 inches across the carapacebut be no broader than 5 inches onlylobster traps (pots) may be used andegg-bearing females may not be kept
One more rule the v-notch rulegives egg-bearing females a chance atan additional get-out-of-jail-free cardMost Maine lobster fishers voluntarilynotch a specific tail flipper on any egg-bearing female they catchA v-notchedfemale is not a legal catch and it takes
several years for the notch to disap-pe a r If a female lob s ter gets largeenough during that time she becomestoo big to be legally harvested
ldquoThe fishermen believe these rulesworkrdquo Wilson says ldquoTheyrsquove arguedthem out publicly over the years Fromtheir point of view they are dead cer-tain [the rules] have a good conserva-tion effectrdquo The rules have traditional-ly been en forced by the fishersthemselves in what Wilson calls ldquoanex tra l egal proce s s rdquo Wron gdoers re-ceive a series of escalating warningsSocial pressure from the communityin other words keeps everyone in lineWilsonrsquos son Carl head lobster biolo-gist with Ma i n ersquos Dep a rtm ent ofMarine Resources agrees ldquoThe con-servation rules are kind of like mother-hood and apple pierdquo
But the fishers are not so happy withsome other rules the state issued saysDave Cousens president of the MaineLobstermenrsquos Association In 1997 thefishers wanted a moratorium on issu-ing lobster-fishing licenses but insteadthe state limited the number of pots anindividual could put in the water to1200ldquoItrsquos like putting up a big poster-board saying lsquoIf you want to go lob-s teri n g do it now rsquo rdquo Co u s ens says Fearful of future limits on lobsteringthose who used fewer pots in the paststarted fishing the maximum allowablenu m ber of po t s In ad d i ti on m orepeople entered the fishery
Additional federal limits on lobster-ing dictated that in 2000 the maxi-mum number of traps a fisher coulduse is 800 Carl Wilson says Cousenssays about having to reduce his stringto 800 trapsldquoI took 400 traps out andwhere I fish there are probably 16 morefishers It was a net loss as far as con-servation [goes]rdquo Cousens says ldquoAll wedo is untangle trapsmdashitrsquos a messrdquo
That increase in the number of fish-ers is going to cause pain down theroad he says because lobstering is ac yclical bu s i n e s s Wh en last ye a r rsquosrecord haul of 52 mill i on po u n d sretu rns to the historic avera ge of 2 0m i ll i on poundsmdashand Co u s ens says itsu rely wi ll mdash people wi ll go out ofbu s i n e s s
Carl Wilson agrees that one of theunintended consequences of the traplimit was ending up with a greaternumber of traps in the water In thepasthe saysthere was de facto limitedentry into the lobster fishing industrybecause local tradition dictated whocould fish and where Those old tradi-tions he says are eroding
To provide a legal mechanism forthe lobster fishers to collectively man-age the fishery in 1996 Maine set upregi onal lob s ter managem ent zon e sand gave locally elected councils ofl ob s ter fishers aut h ori ty to manageeach zone The local councils set thel ob s ter fishing rules for that zon e including the rules on equipment andon day and time of fishing James Wil-son chaired the state committee thatp ut toget h er the ori ginal series ofzonesFishers are quite happy with there su l t he says and wi ll never giveauthority back to the state
Although Cousens would not agreethat the fishers are quite happy he doesthink that the zones have potentialldquoThey will probably do a lot of good inthe future Right now theyrsquore in theiri n f a n c y t h erersquore growing pains Iwouldnrsquot say itrsquos a cure-all but itrsquos astep in the right direction Before ifyou had a rule change you had to go tothe legi s l a tu re rdquo One of the ru l echanges being considered by four ofthe seven managem ent zon e s Ca rlWilson saysis limiting entry of fishersinto those zones
What motiva tes people toprote ct re sou rce s The case of the Maine lobster fishersexemplifies the qualities Ostrom saysare crucial for robust self-governancesystems By examining thousands ofcase studies of common-pool resourcemanagement she has identified eightdesign principles (see box page 642)for su ccessful sel f - govern a n ce Th eyi n clu de cl e a rly iden ti f ying ri gh tf u lu s ers i nvo lving most of the parti c i-pants in most rule ch a n ge s m on i tori n gwhether users follow the rules havinga graduated set of penalties for thosewho break the rules and having gov-ernments recognize the right of the
640 BioScience bull August 2000 Vol 50 No 8
Features
This content downloaded from 21381239145 on Thu 17 Jul 2014 042450 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
participants to manage the resourcethemselves
Cl a rk Gibson says that Ostromrsquosde s i gn principles are great ben ch-marks for any study of common-poolresources and common property Inhis own work on forest governancehel oo ked at two very similarGuatemalan communities Las Cebol-las and Moraacuten to see how they man-aged their forests Gibson says com-p a ring places as similar as LasCebo llas and Moraacuten can hel p re s e a rch ers figure out why peop l emanage to prevent tragedies in someplaces and not others
The two com mu n i ties have thesame property rights structure eleva-tion forest type and ethnic makeupGibson saysEach community is locat-ed far from urban areas and is reachedvia a rough dirt road that is not alwayspassable even for 4-wheel-drive vehi-cles Both communities have experi-ence creating organizations and insti-tuti ons and have little interferen cefrom external governmentsmdashcharac-teri s tics some re s e a rch ers think areprerequisites for developing self-gov-ernance Yet one community bandedtogether and developed a protectedarea in its forest the other did not
The communities both practice sub-sistence agriculture and depend on theforest for fuelwood timber and live-stock grazing However Las Cebollashas designated part of its forest off-limits for any of those uses In the pro-tected are a the forest looks pret tygood Gibson says The protected for-est has more diverse vegetation moregroundcover and the largest treesldquoItrsquosa great example of people managingtheir resource on their ownrdquo he saysBut where the communities use thefore s t the forest cl e a rly shows theeffects of fuelwood gathering and live-stock grazing ldquoParts of Las Cebollasrsquoforest and all of Moraacutenrsquos forest arethreatened by the tragedy of the com-monsrdquo Gibson says Whatrsquos even morepuzzling he says is that in Las Cebol-lasrsquo forest ldquotherersquos an area where thereis a tragedy and an area where thereisnrsquotrdquo and the two areas are managedby the same people
To figure out what was going on amultidisciplinary team of researchersf rom Indiana Un ivers i ty ndash Bl oom i n g-tonrsquos Center for the Study of Institu-tions Population and EnvironmentalChange FLACSOndashGuatemala (a socialsciences research institution) CentroUniversitario de Oriente and Univer-sidad del Valle de Guatemala spentabout a month at each communityinterviewing residents and taking bio-physical measurements to assess thecondition of the forest To collect thedata the teams used standardized pro-tocols developed by the InternationalFore s try Re s o u rces and In s ti tuti on sRe s e a rch Progra m a worl dwi deresearch program that studies forestsand forest communities
G i b s on and his co lleagues fo u n dthat only when community membersview a resource as both necessary andscarce do they put in the effort re-quired to protect it from overuse The
researchers concluded that althoughboth com mu n i ties depend on thei rforests for fuelwood timber and graz-ing the community members do notperceive those re s o u rces as scarce whereas they do regard agriculturalland as valuable and scarce Howeverthe people in Las Cebollas believe thatkeeping some specific hillsides forestedwill maintain the river water neededfor their agricultural fields whereaspeople in Moraacuten do not share thatbeliefGibson says focusing on scarcityand necessity helps explains why thet wo com mu n i ties treat their fore s t sdifferently He describes his study in achapter in the forthcoming book Pro -tecting the Commons A Framework forResource Management in the Americas
Co m pu ter ga m e sSelf-governance does not occur only ins m a ll com mu n i ties that depend ontraditional rural livelihoods such as
August 2000 Vol 50 No 8 bull BioScience 641
Features
A comparison of two rural Guatemalan communities Moraacuten and Las Cebollas byClark Gibson and his colleagues at Indiana UniversityndashBloomingtonrsquos
multidisciplinary Center for the Study of Institutions Population and EnvironmentalChange provided insights on why people manage to prevent ldquothe tragedy of thecommonsrdquo in some places but not in others Both communities use the forest forfuelwood and timber and for grazing livestock and horses but some areas of Las
Cebollasrsquo forest are protected from such uses Here horses graze in Moraacutenrsquos forestPhoto C Gibson Indiana UniversityndashBloomington
This content downloaded from 21381239145 on Thu 17 Jul 2014 042450 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
fishing or agriculture College studentsrec ru i ted to play com m on - pool re-source games on laboratory computers
can also u n der the ri ght circ u m-stances band together for collectivebenefit
James Wa l ker an ex peri m en t a lecon omist at Indiana Un ivers i ty ndashBloomington along with his IndianaUniversity colleagues Elinor Ostromand Roy Gardner has used computergames to test how people managecommon-pool resources under vary-ing con d i ti on s Just as in the re a lworl d p l ayers get tangi ble ben ef i t sfrom participating they earn varyingamounts of cash depending on whatdecisions they make during the gameLike Gibson and other researchers whodissect and compare various field situ-ations Walker is trying to find outwhat conditions encourage or discour-age cooperation
In one experiment eight players sitat computer terminals and make deci-sions in private Each player gets anendowment of resources (tokens) toallocate to one of two markets Thefirst market pays a nickel per tokenentered The second market the com-mon-pool resource initially pays bet-ter but the per-token payoff declinesas more and more tokens are added tothat market Walker presents the play-ers with a series of scenarios in which aspecific allocation of tokens betweenthe two markets will bring the greatestp ayof f to the group as a wh o l e If
642 BioScience bull August 2000 Vol 50 No 8
Features
1 Th ere is a clear def i n i ti on of who has the ri ght to use the re s o u rce and who does not The bo u n d a ries of the re s o u rcea re cl e a rly def i n ed
2 Us ers must perceive that their requ i red con tri buti ons for managing and maintaining the re s o u rce are fair in light of t h eben efits received Rules governing peop l ersquos obl i ga ti ons and rules abo ut wh en and how the re s o u rce is used are ad a ptedto the local con d i ti on s
3 Most of the indivi duals affected by the rules can parti c i p a te in ch a n ging the ru l e s
4 Use of the re s o u rce and ad h eren ce to the rules is actively mon i tored of ten by the users them s elve s
5 People who vi o l a te the rules are disciplined in accord a n ce with a gradu a ted set of s a n cti on s
6 Local insti tuti ons are ava i l a ble to re s o lve con f l i cts ra p i dly
7 Ex ternal govern m ent aut h ori ties do not interfere with re s o u rce managem ent sch emes devel oped on a local level
8 Com m on - pool re s o u rce managem ent sys tems that are part of l a r ger sys tems are or ga n i zed as a series of n e s ted en terpri s e s e ach level of wh i ch possesses ch a racteri s tics one thro u gh seven
Ad a pted from Ostrom E l i n or 1 9 9 0 Governing the Co m m o n s The Evol u tion of In s ti tu tions for Coll e ctive Acti o n Cambridge University Press Cambridge UK
Characteristics of successful cases of self-gov e rned common-pool resource management
A scene in Las Cebollas Guatemala shows a patchwork landscape of agriculturefallow fields and forest Las Cebollas has designated part of its forest off-limits for
gathering fuelwood or timber and for grazing livestock because communitymembers believe that keeping some specific hillsides forested will maintain the r iver
water needed for agricultural fields Photo CGibson IndianaUniversityndashBloomington
This content downloaded from 21381239145 on Thu 17 Jul 2014 042450 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
most players all oc a te their to kens atthe level that yields the maximal groupp ayof f a ny indivi dual who inste adputs more than ldquohis sharerdquo into thecom m on - pool re s o u rce market wi llearn even more However when thathappens the total earned by the otherssuffers
This is exactly what happens whenthe players are barred from communi-cating with one another Walker saysAs more and more players follow thestrategy of looking out for themselvesrather than considering the welfare ofthe group as a whole the payoff pertoken in the second market goes downldquoIt leads to a result thatrsquos [economical-ly] inefficient from the grouprsquos per-spectiverdquo
But if the players discuss what ishappening the results are differentPeople cooperate for their own goodand that of the group ldquoIf you let themcom mu n i c a te every dec i s i on ro u n d they form verbal commitments andtend to keep those com m i tm en t s rdquoWa l ker says Sa n cti oning defectorshelpshe says but only if communica-tion is allowed ldquoSanctions alone workmiserablyrdquo
Communication then seems to bethe essential factor for developing asystem of self-governance in the labo-ratory In a paper in the April issue ofSouthern Economic Journal Walker andhis doctoral students Pamela J Schmittand Kurtis J Swope described whathappened if six people could commu-nicate and two could not The resultWithout communication between allthe players the system of cooperationu n ravel s Wa l ker says He says there s e a rch shows that com mu n i c a ti onamong all participants is essential fordeveloping systems of self-governanceand cooperation
A del i c a te ba l a n ceHardin common-pool resource schol-ars like to point outwas dealing with aspecialized casemdashone in which usershad neither the ability to exclude otherusers nor whatever it takes to worktogether As Ostrom puts it Hardinrsquosherders were ldquovery self-centered self-ish individuals who didnrsquot care a hoot
for the communityrdquo She says researchshows that although there are suchpeople out there ldquothere are a largenumber of people in any set who haveinterest in reciprocity trust and jointgainrdquo Whether those people can worktoget h er depends on the situ a ti on Even people who are inclined to coop-erate she says will do so only whenthey feel they wonrsquot be played for suck-ers
That is wh ere mon i toring andenforcement come in Ostrom saysnoting that ldquomonitoring done rightenhances reciprocityrdquo By ldquodone rightrdquoshe means that people do not feelexcessively scrutinized yet they knowtheir activities are noticed Institutionscan be built that ldquosupport enhancehelp people trust one another so theycan really protect resources for thefuturerdquo Ostrom says But institutionscan also convey the sense that ldquonobodytrusts you so you might as well cheatany time you think you canrdquo She saysldquoItrsquos a delicate delicate balancerdquo
And itrsquos a balance that researchersare still sorting out Studies suggestthat common-pool resource manage-ment works best in what could bec a ll ed a small - town set ti n g one inwhich people regularly interact face-to-face have and will continue to havelong-term relationships and are rela-tively hom ogen eous with rega rd tocharacteristics such as caste ethnicityand wealth Two big unanswered ques-tions Ostrom says are the effect ofgroup size and the effect of group het-erogen ei ty Those qu e s ti ons becom emore important she says ldquobecause weare tackling ever-larger resource sys-tem s rdquo and larger size means morecom p l ex insti tuti on s An o t h er qu e s-tion that still needs to be answeredsays Arun Agrawal a political scientistat Yale University is how common-pool resource manag ement is affectedby uncertainty and unanticipated fluc-tuations in the resource base
Those and other questions are beingaddressed by NRCrsquos Committee on theHuman Dimensions of Global ChangeprojectldquoInstitutions for Managing theCommonsrdquo The NRC project dovetailsnicely with the mission of the Interna-
ti onal As s oc i a ti on for the Stu dy ofCommon Property Bonnie J McCaypresident of IASCP and professor ofanthropology and ecology at RutgersUniversity in New Brunswick NewJersey says that ldquoone part of the mis-sion is to further the study and under-standing of the ways human beingsu s e m a n a ge and mismanage com-mon-pool resources The other is touse that knowledge and understandingto help local communities and govern-ments improve management of com-mon-pool resourcesrdquo
August 2000 Vol 50 No 8 bull BioScience 643
Features
Student members of amultidisciplinary research team from
two universities in Guatemala CentroUniversitario de Oriente and
Universidad del Valle de Guatemalaand from Indiana
UniversityndashBloomington measure treessaplings and amount of groundcover
in a randomly selected area of thecommunal forest in Las Cebollas
Guatemala to assess the forestrsquoscondition Photo C Gibson Indiana
UniversityndashBloomington
This content downloaded from 21381239145 on Thu 17 Jul 2014 042450 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
644 BioScience bull August 2000 Vol 50 No 8
Features
McCay Ostrom Agrawaland otherleaders in the field presented papers onthose topics to the research communi-ty at special sessions held during theIASCP meeting Feedback from thosesessions will be used to refine andenrich the NRC project when the leadresearchers reconvene for more discus-sions in September A book detailingthe NRC grouprsquos findings is slated forpublication in 2001
McCay says ldquoThe lesson is not thateverything should be done by localpeople The lesson is not that if leftalone people can do a pretty good jobThe lesson is that under some condi-tions people can do it The policy les-son is to find out what those condi-tions are and to try and give people achance to do thatrdquo
Brom l ey DW ed 1 9 9 2 Making the Com m ons Work Th eory Practi ce and Po l i c y San Fra n c i s co In s ti tute for Con tem po-ra ry Stu d i e s
Bu r ger J O s trom E Nor ga a rd RB Po l i c a n s ky D G o l d s tein BD ed s In pre s s Pro tecting the Com m on s A Fra m ework forRe s o u rce Ma n a gem ent in the Am eri c a s Wa s h i n g ton (DC ) Island Pre s s
Ha rdin G 1 9 6 8 The tra gedy of the com m on s S ci en ce 1 6 2 1 2 4 3 ndash 1 2 4 8
Ha rdin G 1 9 9 8 Ex ten s i ons of ldquoThe tra gedy of the com m on s rdquo S ci en ce 2 8 0 6 8 2 ndash 6 8 3
O s trom E 1 9 9 0 G overning the Com m on s The Evo luti on of In s ti tuti ons for Co ll ective Acti on Ca m bri d ge (UK) Ca m-bri d ge Un ivers i ty Pre s s
O s trom E G a rd n er R Wa l ker J 1 9 9 4 Ru l e s G a m e s and Com m on - Pool Re s o u rce s Ann Arbor (MI) Un ivers i ty of Mi ch i-gan Pre s s
O s trom E Bu r ger J F i eld CB Nor ga a rd RB Po l i c a n s ky D 1 9 9 9 Revi s i ting the com m on s Local lesson s gl obal ch a ll en ge s S ci en ce 2 8 4 2 7 8 ndash 2 8 2
S chmitt P Swope K Wa l ker J 2 0 0 0 Co ll ective acti on with incom p l ete com m i tm en t Ex peri m ental evi den ce So ut h ern Eco-n omic Jo u rnal 66 8 2 9 ndash 8 5 4
In tern a ti onal As s oc i a ti on for the Stu dy of Com m on Property (IASCP) ltwww i n d i a n a edu ~ i a s c p gt
In tern a ti onal Fore s try Re s o u rces and In s ti tuti ons Re s e a rch Program ltwww i n d i a n a edu ~ i f ri gt
Work s h op in Po l i tical Th eory and Policy An a lysis at Indiana Un ivers i tyndash Bl oom i n g ton ltwww i n d i a n a edu ~ work s h op gt
F u rther reading and online resources
Ma ri N Jen sen is a fre el a n ce sci en ce wri ter
ba sed in Tu cso n Ari zo n a
This content downloaded from 21381239145 on Thu 17 Jul 2014 042450 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
trut h Nothing that has had thatimpact would have existed that long ifthere were not some truth to what hesaidrdquo
But itrsquos not the whole truthldquoHardinimplied to many that people would notself-organize and thus you had to haveeither government or the market Peri-odEnd of story And itrsquos not the end ofthe storyrdquo Ostrom says Her researchand that of others show that undermany conditions people can work col-l ectively to manage re s o u rces well ldquoWersquore showing right and left that theyc a n rdquo she says ldquoTh ey not on ly can[manage resources collectively]rdquo shesays ldquobut they can outperform a gov-ernmentmdashwhich was one of his solu-tionsrdquo
Thatrsquos not to say that tragedies donrsquotoccur They do But government con-trol or priva ti z a ti on of s h a red re-sources are not the only techniques forpreven ting tra ged i e s Nor is ei t h era pproach foo l proof The Ca n ad i a ngovernment regulated cod fishing yetthe fishery cra s h ed and has yet torecover
Although people have been studyingvarious aspects of common-propertyre s o u rces for more than a cen tu ryOstrom says the first time researchersdiscussed the issue across disciplinaryboundaries was at the 1985 Confer-ence on Common Property ResourceMa n a gem en t s pon s ored by theNational Research Council and held inAn n a po l i s Ma ryl a n d Si n ce then researchers from a range of disciplineshave been developing a picture of whatworks and what does not when itcomes to sustainable use of a jointlyh eld re s o u rce Some re s e a rch hasfocused on review and synthesis ofva rious case stu d i e s Ot h er insigh t sh ave come from labora tory ex peri-ments
Research in the field is blossomingas dem on s tra ted by the wealth ofpapers presented at the eighth biennialconference of the International Associ-ation for the Study of Common Prop-erty (IASCP) held in BloomingtonIn d i a n a in June 2000 In ad d i ti on NRC has a project under way to sum-marize what has been learned in the
last 15 years and what key questionsremain to be answered
The nastiest probl em of a llAlthough the resources in question areoften loosely called ldquocommon proper-tyrdquo scholars say the term ldquocommon-pool resourcesrdquo is more accurate Theterm common property describes whohas property rights over the resourcewh ereas the term com m on - poo lresources refers to characteristics ofthe resources themselves Any type ofresource may be governed by differentproperty rights regimes in differentlocations because the property rightsare a function of the legal systemrsquoscharacteristicsnot the resourcersquos char-acteristics
Clark C Gibsona political scientistat Indiana Un ivers i ty ndash Bl oom i n g ton s ays that if s om ething is com m onproperty a specific group of peoplemay use the resource legitimatelymdashand equally legitimately prevent out-siders from using it Gibson and otherresearchers stress that although Hardinu s ed the term com m on s i m p lyi n gcommon property the rangeland hedescribed was not common propertyIt was actually something researchersterm open accessmdasha situ a ti on inwhich anything goes because no onehas defined rights to the resource
Some types of resources howeverare inherently problematic with regardto management and enforcement ofproperty ri gh t s Com m on - poo lresources are those for which exclud-ing outsiders is difficult no matterwho actually has the right to use theresource The other characteristic ofcommon-pool resources is what econ-omists call subtractability Anythingone user takes reduces what is availablefor anyone else Fisheries and range-lands are classic examples Water canalso be a common-pool resource ldquoThenastiest environmental problems areabout common-pool resources Theya re hard to defen d but they aredegradablerdquo Gibson says ldquoIf I eat afish you canrsquot use itrdquo
Notwithstanding the difficulties ofm a n a ging com m on - pool re s o u rce s s ch o l a rs have now ex a m i n ed thousands
of situations in which resource usershave attempted various forms of self-governance many of which have beensuccessful Ostrom says Indeed pre-s en t a ti on after pre s en t a ti on at theBl oom i n g ton IASCP meeting dis-cussed successful as well as unsuccess-ful group management of resourcessuch as local fisheries forests and irri-gation projects
Maine lob s ter fishersgovern them selve sF i s h eries managem ent is one com-mon-pool resource problem Makingrules about who can fish where helpsbut the resource itselfmdashthe fishmdashcanand does move around So even if a
August 2000 Vol 50 No 8 bull BioScience 639
Features
Most Maine lobster fishers who catchan egg-bearing female voluntarily
place a notch on the first flipper to theright of center (as shown) and then
return the lobster to the water InMaine it is illegal to take a lobster
that has a v-notched flipper even ifshe no longer carries eggs After thelobster drops her eggs she will molt
out of her old shell However thenotch will remain in the flipper forthree molts protecting the animal
from fishing for several years PhotoGlenn Nutting State of Maine
Department of Marine Resources
This content downloaded from 21381239145 on Thu 17 Jul 2014 042450 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
fisher has exclusive rights to fish a cer-tain spothe or she still has to competewith others for the same fish And asf i s h eries around the world cl e a rlydem on s tra te the su pp ly of fish isfinite The more fish one person catch-es the less there are for everyone else
According to trad i ti onal fisheri e stheory Mainersquos lobster fishery whichhas b een exploited for more than 100years should be an economic and bio-logical basket case says James Wilsona resource economist at the Universityof Maine in Orono But the fisheryseems to be doing finehe adds
As one who 25 years ago predictedthe fishery rsquos dem i s e Wi l s on hassearched for an explanation to thisenigma He now believes the key isthat ldquofor all practical purposes [it is] afishery governed by fishermenrdquo Therules governing the lobster fishery havealways been set by Mainersquos legislaturealthough the initial suggestions oftencome from the scientific or manage-m ent com mu n i ti e s However e achtime a change in the conservation rulesis proposed there are years of publicdiscussion and meetings because rulesthat seem reasonable for one part ofthe coast may not be so good for otherregions Ultimately a consensus devel-ops among the lob s ter fishers a n dmasses of them troop to the capitol togive the legi s l a tu re their op i n i on sabout the proposed changeldquoItrsquos alwaysbeen this protracted public negotia-tionrdquo Wilson says The legislature hesays basically rubber-stamps the fish-ersrsquo decision
The current rules for the lobsterfishery were enacted in the 1930s inresponse to depletion of the fisheryduring the 1910s and 1920s Wilsonsays Lobsters to be a legal catch mustexceed 325 inches across the carapacebut be no broader than 5 inches onlylobster traps (pots) may be used andegg-bearing females may not be kept
One more rule the v-notch rulegives egg-bearing females a chance atan additional get-out-of-jail-free cardMost Maine lobster fishers voluntarilynotch a specific tail flipper on any egg-bearing female they catchA v-notchedfemale is not a legal catch and it takes
several years for the notch to disap-pe a r If a female lob s ter gets largeenough during that time she becomestoo big to be legally harvested
ldquoThe fishermen believe these rulesworkrdquo Wilson says ldquoTheyrsquove arguedthem out publicly over the years Fromtheir point of view they are dead cer-tain [the rules] have a good conserva-tion effectrdquo The rules have traditional-ly been en forced by the fishersthemselves in what Wilson calls ldquoanex tra l egal proce s s rdquo Wron gdoers re-ceive a series of escalating warningsSocial pressure from the communityin other words keeps everyone in lineWilsonrsquos son Carl head lobster biolo-gist with Ma i n ersquos Dep a rtm ent ofMarine Resources agrees ldquoThe con-servation rules are kind of like mother-hood and apple pierdquo
But the fishers are not so happy withsome other rules the state issued saysDave Cousens president of the MaineLobstermenrsquos Association In 1997 thefishers wanted a moratorium on issu-ing lobster-fishing licenses but insteadthe state limited the number of pots anindividual could put in the water to1200ldquoItrsquos like putting up a big poster-board saying lsquoIf you want to go lob-s teri n g do it now rsquo rdquo Co u s ens says Fearful of future limits on lobsteringthose who used fewer pots in the paststarted fishing the maximum allowablenu m ber of po t s In ad d i ti on m orepeople entered the fishery
Additional federal limits on lobster-ing dictated that in 2000 the maxi-mum number of traps a fisher coulduse is 800 Carl Wilson says Cousenssays about having to reduce his stringto 800 trapsldquoI took 400 traps out andwhere I fish there are probably 16 morefishers It was a net loss as far as con-servation [goes]rdquo Cousens says ldquoAll wedo is untangle trapsmdashitrsquos a messrdquo
That increase in the number of fish-ers is going to cause pain down theroad he says because lobstering is ac yclical bu s i n e s s Wh en last ye a r rsquosrecord haul of 52 mill i on po u n d sretu rns to the historic avera ge of 2 0m i ll i on poundsmdashand Co u s ens says itsu rely wi ll mdash people wi ll go out ofbu s i n e s s
Carl Wilson agrees that one of theunintended consequences of the traplimit was ending up with a greaternumber of traps in the water In thepasthe saysthere was de facto limitedentry into the lobster fishing industrybecause local tradition dictated whocould fish and where Those old tradi-tions he says are eroding
To provide a legal mechanism forthe lobster fishers to collectively man-age the fishery in 1996 Maine set upregi onal lob s ter managem ent zon e sand gave locally elected councils ofl ob s ter fishers aut h ori ty to manageeach zone The local councils set thel ob s ter fishing rules for that zon e including the rules on equipment andon day and time of fishing James Wil-son chaired the state committee thatp ut toget h er the ori ginal series ofzonesFishers are quite happy with there su l t he says and wi ll never giveauthority back to the state
Although Cousens would not agreethat the fishers are quite happy he doesthink that the zones have potentialldquoThey will probably do a lot of good inthe future Right now theyrsquore in theiri n f a n c y t h erersquore growing pains Iwouldnrsquot say itrsquos a cure-all but itrsquos astep in the right direction Before ifyou had a rule change you had to go tothe legi s l a tu re rdquo One of the ru l echanges being considered by four ofthe seven managem ent zon e s Ca rlWilson saysis limiting entry of fishersinto those zones
What motiva tes people toprote ct re sou rce s The case of the Maine lobster fishersexemplifies the qualities Ostrom saysare crucial for robust self-governancesystems By examining thousands ofcase studies of common-pool resourcemanagement she has identified eightdesign principles (see box page 642)for su ccessful sel f - govern a n ce Th eyi n clu de cl e a rly iden ti f ying ri gh tf u lu s ers i nvo lving most of the parti c i-pants in most rule ch a n ge s m on i tori n gwhether users follow the rules havinga graduated set of penalties for thosewho break the rules and having gov-ernments recognize the right of the
640 BioScience bull August 2000 Vol 50 No 8
Features
This content downloaded from 21381239145 on Thu 17 Jul 2014 042450 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
participants to manage the resourcethemselves
Cl a rk Gibson says that Ostromrsquosde s i gn principles are great ben ch-marks for any study of common-poolresources and common property Inhis own work on forest governancehel oo ked at two very similarGuatemalan communities Las Cebol-las and Moraacuten to see how they man-aged their forests Gibson says com-p a ring places as similar as LasCebo llas and Moraacuten can hel p re s e a rch ers figure out why peop l emanage to prevent tragedies in someplaces and not others
The two com mu n i ties have thesame property rights structure eleva-tion forest type and ethnic makeupGibson saysEach community is locat-ed far from urban areas and is reachedvia a rough dirt road that is not alwayspassable even for 4-wheel-drive vehi-cles Both communities have experi-ence creating organizations and insti-tuti ons and have little interferen cefrom external governmentsmdashcharac-teri s tics some re s e a rch ers think areprerequisites for developing self-gov-ernance Yet one community bandedtogether and developed a protectedarea in its forest the other did not
The communities both practice sub-sistence agriculture and depend on theforest for fuelwood timber and live-stock grazing However Las Cebollashas designated part of its forest off-limits for any of those uses In the pro-tected are a the forest looks pret tygood Gibson says The protected for-est has more diverse vegetation moregroundcover and the largest treesldquoItrsquosa great example of people managingtheir resource on their ownrdquo he saysBut where the communities use thefore s t the forest cl e a rly shows theeffects of fuelwood gathering and live-stock grazing ldquoParts of Las Cebollasrsquoforest and all of Moraacutenrsquos forest arethreatened by the tragedy of the com-monsrdquo Gibson says Whatrsquos even morepuzzling he says is that in Las Cebol-lasrsquo forest ldquotherersquos an area where thereis a tragedy and an area where thereisnrsquotrdquo and the two areas are managedby the same people
To figure out what was going on amultidisciplinary team of researchersf rom Indiana Un ivers i ty ndash Bl oom i n g-tonrsquos Center for the Study of Institu-tions Population and EnvironmentalChange FLACSOndashGuatemala (a socialsciences research institution) CentroUniversitario de Oriente and Univer-sidad del Valle de Guatemala spentabout a month at each communityinterviewing residents and taking bio-physical measurements to assess thecondition of the forest To collect thedata the teams used standardized pro-tocols developed by the InternationalFore s try Re s o u rces and In s ti tuti on sRe s e a rch Progra m a worl dwi deresearch program that studies forestsand forest communities
G i b s on and his co lleagues fo u n dthat only when community membersview a resource as both necessary andscarce do they put in the effort re-quired to protect it from overuse The
researchers concluded that althoughboth com mu n i ties depend on thei rforests for fuelwood timber and graz-ing the community members do notperceive those re s o u rces as scarce whereas they do regard agriculturalland as valuable and scarce Howeverthe people in Las Cebollas believe thatkeeping some specific hillsides forestedwill maintain the river water neededfor their agricultural fields whereaspeople in Moraacuten do not share thatbeliefGibson says focusing on scarcityand necessity helps explains why thet wo com mu n i ties treat their fore s t sdifferently He describes his study in achapter in the forthcoming book Pro -tecting the Commons A Framework forResource Management in the Americas
Co m pu ter ga m e sSelf-governance does not occur only ins m a ll com mu n i ties that depend ontraditional rural livelihoods such as
August 2000 Vol 50 No 8 bull BioScience 641
Features
A comparison of two rural Guatemalan communities Moraacuten and Las Cebollas byClark Gibson and his colleagues at Indiana UniversityndashBloomingtonrsquos
multidisciplinary Center for the Study of Institutions Population and EnvironmentalChange provided insights on why people manage to prevent ldquothe tragedy of thecommonsrdquo in some places but not in others Both communities use the forest forfuelwood and timber and for grazing livestock and horses but some areas of Las
Cebollasrsquo forest are protected from such uses Here horses graze in Moraacutenrsquos forestPhoto C Gibson Indiana UniversityndashBloomington
This content downloaded from 21381239145 on Thu 17 Jul 2014 042450 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
fishing or agriculture College studentsrec ru i ted to play com m on - pool re-source games on laboratory computers
can also u n der the ri ght circ u m-stances band together for collectivebenefit
James Wa l ker an ex peri m en t a lecon omist at Indiana Un ivers i ty ndashBloomington along with his IndianaUniversity colleagues Elinor Ostromand Roy Gardner has used computergames to test how people managecommon-pool resources under vary-ing con d i ti on s Just as in the re a lworl d p l ayers get tangi ble ben ef i t sfrom participating they earn varyingamounts of cash depending on whatdecisions they make during the gameLike Gibson and other researchers whodissect and compare various field situ-ations Walker is trying to find outwhat conditions encourage or discour-age cooperation
In one experiment eight players sitat computer terminals and make deci-sions in private Each player gets anendowment of resources (tokens) toallocate to one of two markets Thefirst market pays a nickel per tokenentered The second market the com-mon-pool resource initially pays bet-ter but the per-token payoff declinesas more and more tokens are added tothat market Walker presents the play-ers with a series of scenarios in which aspecific allocation of tokens betweenthe two markets will bring the greatestp ayof f to the group as a wh o l e If
642 BioScience bull August 2000 Vol 50 No 8
Features
1 Th ere is a clear def i n i ti on of who has the ri ght to use the re s o u rce and who does not The bo u n d a ries of the re s o u rcea re cl e a rly def i n ed
2 Us ers must perceive that their requ i red con tri buti ons for managing and maintaining the re s o u rce are fair in light of t h eben efits received Rules governing peop l ersquos obl i ga ti ons and rules abo ut wh en and how the re s o u rce is used are ad a ptedto the local con d i ti on s
3 Most of the indivi duals affected by the rules can parti c i p a te in ch a n ging the ru l e s
4 Use of the re s o u rce and ad h eren ce to the rules is actively mon i tored of ten by the users them s elve s
5 People who vi o l a te the rules are disciplined in accord a n ce with a gradu a ted set of s a n cti on s
6 Local insti tuti ons are ava i l a ble to re s o lve con f l i cts ra p i dly
7 Ex ternal govern m ent aut h ori ties do not interfere with re s o u rce managem ent sch emes devel oped on a local level
8 Com m on - pool re s o u rce managem ent sys tems that are part of l a r ger sys tems are or ga n i zed as a series of n e s ted en terpri s e s e ach level of wh i ch possesses ch a racteri s tics one thro u gh seven
Ad a pted from Ostrom E l i n or 1 9 9 0 Governing the Co m m o n s The Evol u tion of In s ti tu tions for Coll e ctive Acti o n Cambridge University Press Cambridge UK
Characteristics of successful cases of self-gov e rned common-pool resource management
A scene in Las Cebollas Guatemala shows a patchwork landscape of agriculturefallow fields and forest Las Cebollas has designated part of its forest off-limits for
gathering fuelwood or timber and for grazing livestock because communitymembers believe that keeping some specific hillsides forested will maintain the r iver
water needed for agricultural fields Photo CGibson IndianaUniversityndashBloomington
This content downloaded from 21381239145 on Thu 17 Jul 2014 042450 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
most players all oc a te their to kens atthe level that yields the maximal groupp ayof f a ny indivi dual who inste adputs more than ldquohis sharerdquo into thecom m on - pool re s o u rce market wi llearn even more However when thathappens the total earned by the otherssuffers
This is exactly what happens whenthe players are barred from communi-cating with one another Walker saysAs more and more players follow thestrategy of looking out for themselvesrather than considering the welfare ofthe group as a whole the payoff pertoken in the second market goes downldquoIt leads to a result thatrsquos [economical-ly] inefficient from the grouprsquos per-spectiverdquo
But if the players discuss what ishappening the results are differentPeople cooperate for their own goodand that of the group ldquoIf you let themcom mu n i c a te every dec i s i on ro u n d they form verbal commitments andtend to keep those com m i tm en t s rdquoWa l ker says Sa n cti oning defectorshelpshe says but only if communica-tion is allowed ldquoSanctions alone workmiserablyrdquo
Communication then seems to bethe essential factor for developing asystem of self-governance in the labo-ratory In a paper in the April issue ofSouthern Economic Journal Walker andhis doctoral students Pamela J Schmittand Kurtis J Swope described whathappened if six people could commu-nicate and two could not The resultWithout communication between allthe players the system of cooperationu n ravel s Wa l ker says He says there s e a rch shows that com mu n i c a ti onamong all participants is essential fordeveloping systems of self-governanceand cooperation
A del i c a te ba l a n ceHardin common-pool resource schol-ars like to point outwas dealing with aspecialized casemdashone in which usershad neither the ability to exclude otherusers nor whatever it takes to worktogether As Ostrom puts it Hardinrsquosherders were ldquovery self-centered self-ish individuals who didnrsquot care a hoot
for the communityrdquo She says researchshows that although there are suchpeople out there ldquothere are a largenumber of people in any set who haveinterest in reciprocity trust and jointgainrdquo Whether those people can worktoget h er depends on the situ a ti on Even people who are inclined to coop-erate she says will do so only whenthey feel they wonrsquot be played for suck-ers
That is wh ere mon i toring andenforcement come in Ostrom saysnoting that ldquomonitoring done rightenhances reciprocityrdquo By ldquodone rightrdquoshe means that people do not feelexcessively scrutinized yet they knowtheir activities are noticed Institutionscan be built that ldquosupport enhancehelp people trust one another so theycan really protect resources for thefuturerdquo Ostrom says But institutionscan also convey the sense that ldquonobodytrusts you so you might as well cheatany time you think you canrdquo She saysldquoItrsquos a delicate delicate balancerdquo
And itrsquos a balance that researchersare still sorting out Studies suggestthat common-pool resource manage-ment works best in what could bec a ll ed a small - town set ti n g one inwhich people regularly interact face-to-face have and will continue to havelong-term relationships and are rela-tively hom ogen eous with rega rd tocharacteristics such as caste ethnicityand wealth Two big unanswered ques-tions Ostrom says are the effect ofgroup size and the effect of group het-erogen ei ty Those qu e s ti ons becom emore important she says ldquobecause weare tackling ever-larger resource sys-tem s rdquo and larger size means morecom p l ex insti tuti on s An o t h er qu e s-tion that still needs to be answeredsays Arun Agrawal a political scientistat Yale University is how common-pool resource manag ement is affectedby uncertainty and unanticipated fluc-tuations in the resource base
Those and other questions are beingaddressed by NRCrsquos Committee on theHuman Dimensions of Global ChangeprojectldquoInstitutions for Managing theCommonsrdquo The NRC project dovetailsnicely with the mission of the Interna-
ti onal As s oc i a ti on for the Stu dy ofCommon Property Bonnie J McCaypresident of IASCP and professor ofanthropology and ecology at RutgersUniversity in New Brunswick NewJersey says that ldquoone part of the mis-sion is to further the study and under-standing of the ways human beingsu s e m a n a ge and mismanage com-mon-pool resources The other is touse that knowledge and understandingto help local communities and govern-ments improve management of com-mon-pool resourcesrdquo
August 2000 Vol 50 No 8 bull BioScience 643
Features
Student members of amultidisciplinary research team from
two universities in Guatemala CentroUniversitario de Oriente and
Universidad del Valle de Guatemalaand from Indiana
UniversityndashBloomington measure treessaplings and amount of groundcover
in a randomly selected area of thecommunal forest in Las Cebollas
Guatemala to assess the forestrsquoscondition Photo C Gibson Indiana
UniversityndashBloomington
This content downloaded from 21381239145 on Thu 17 Jul 2014 042450 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
644 BioScience bull August 2000 Vol 50 No 8
Features
McCay Ostrom Agrawaland otherleaders in the field presented papers onthose topics to the research communi-ty at special sessions held during theIASCP meeting Feedback from thosesessions will be used to refine andenrich the NRC project when the leadresearchers reconvene for more discus-sions in September A book detailingthe NRC grouprsquos findings is slated forpublication in 2001
McCay says ldquoThe lesson is not thateverything should be done by localpeople The lesson is not that if leftalone people can do a pretty good jobThe lesson is that under some condi-tions people can do it The policy les-son is to find out what those condi-tions are and to try and give people achance to do thatrdquo
Brom l ey DW ed 1 9 9 2 Making the Com m ons Work Th eory Practi ce and Po l i c y San Fra n c i s co In s ti tute for Con tem po-ra ry Stu d i e s
Bu r ger J O s trom E Nor ga a rd RB Po l i c a n s ky D G o l d s tein BD ed s In pre s s Pro tecting the Com m on s A Fra m ework forRe s o u rce Ma n a gem ent in the Am eri c a s Wa s h i n g ton (DC ) Island Pre s s
Ha rdin G 1 9 6 8 The tra gedy of the com m on s S ci en ce 1 6 2 1 2 4 3 ndash 1 2 4 8
Ha rdin G 1 9 9 8 Ex ten s i ons of ldquoThe tra gedy of the com m on s rdquo S ci en ce 2 8 0 6 8 2 ndash 6 8 3
O s trom E 1 9 9 0 G overning the Com m on s The Evo luti on of In s ti tuti ons for Co ll ective Acti on Ca m bri d ge (UK) Ca m-bri d ge Un ivers i ty Pre s s
O s trom E G a rd n er R Wa l ker J 1 9 9 4 Ru l e s G a m e s and Com m on - Pool Re s o u rce s Ann Arbor (MI) Un ivers i ty of Mi ch i-gan Pre s s
O s trom E Bu r ger J F i eld CB Nor ga a rd RB Po l i c a n s ky D 1 9 9 9 Revi s i ting the com m on s Local lesson s gl obal ch a ll en ge s S ci en ce 2 8 4 2 7 8 ndash 2 8 2
S chmitt P Swope K Wa l ker J 2 0 0 0 Co ll ective acti on with incom p l ete com m i tm en t Ex peri m ental evi den ce So ut h ern Eco-n omic Jo u rnal 66 8 2 9 ndash 8 5 4
In tern a ti onal As s oc i a ti on for the Stu dy of Com m on Property (IASCP) ltwww i n d i a n a edu ~ i a s c p gt
In tern a ti onal Fore s try Re s o u rces and In s ti tuti ons Re s e a rch Program ltwww i n d i a n a edu ~ i f ri gt
Work s h op in Po l i tical Th eory and Policy An a lysis at Indiana Un ivers i tyndash Bl oom i n g ton ltwww i n d i a n a edu ~ work s h op gt
F u rther reading and online resources
Ma ri N Jen sen is a fre el a n ce sci en ce wri ter
ba sed in Tu cso n Ari zo n a
This content downloaded from 21381239145 on Thu 17 Jul 2014 042450 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
fisher has exclusive rights to fish a cer-tain spothe or she still has to competewith others for the same fish And asf i s h eries around the world cl e a rlydem on s tra te the su pp ly of fish isfinite The more fish one person catch-es the less there are for everyone else
According to trad i ti onal fisheri e stheory Mainersquos lobster fishery whichhas b een exploited for more than 100years should be an economic and bio-logical basket case says James Wilsona resource economist at the Universityof Maine in Orono But the fisheryseems to be doing finehe adds
As one who 25 years ago predictedthe fishery rsquos dem i s e Wi l s on hassearched for an explanation to thisenigma He now believes the key isthat ldquofor all practical purposes [it is] afishery governed by fishermenrdquo Therules governing the lobster fishery havealways been set by Mainersquos legislaturealthough the initial suggestions oftencome from the scientific or manage-m ent com mu n i ti e s However e achtime a change in the conservation rulesis proposed there are years of publicdiscussion and meetings because rulesthat seem reasonable for one part ofthe coast may not be so good for otherregions Ultimately a consensus devel-ops among the lob s ter fishers a n dmasses of them troop to the capitol togive the legi s l a tu re their op i n i on sabout the proposed changeldquoItrsquos alwaysbeen this protracted public negotia-tionrdquo Wilson says The legislature hesays basically rubber-stamps the fish-ersrsquo decision
The current rules for the lobsterfishery were enacted in the 1930s inresponse to depletion of the fisheryduring the 1910s and 1920s Wilsonsays Lobsters to be a legal catch mustexceed 325 inches across the carapacebut be no broader than 5 inches onlylobster traps (pots) may be used andegg-bearing females may not be kept
One more rule the v-notch rulegives egg-bearing females a chance atan additional get-out-of-jail-free cardMost Maine lobster fishers voluntarilynotch a specific tail flipper on any egg-bearing female they catchA v-notchedfemale is not a legal catch and it takes
several years for the notch to disap-pe a r If a female lob s ter gets largeenough during that time she becomestoo big to be legally harvested
ldquoThe fishermen believe these rulesworkrdquo Wilson says ldquoTheyrsquove arguedthem out publicly over the years Fromtheir point of view they are dead cer-tain [the rules] have a good conserva-tion effectrdquo The rules have traditional-ly been en forced by the fishersthemselves in what Wilson calls ldquoanex tra l egal proce s s rdquo Wron gdoers re-ceive a series of escalating warningsSocial pressure from the communityin other words keeps everyone in lineWilsonrsquos son Carl head lobster biolo-gist with Ma i n ersquos Dep a rtm ent ofMarine Resources agrees ldquoThe con-servation rules are kind of like mother-hood and apple pierdquo
But the fishers are not so happy withsome other rules the state issued saysDave Cousens president of the MaineLobstermenrsquos Association In 1997 thefishers wanted a moratorium on issu-ing lobster-fishing licenses but insteadthe state limited the number of pots anindividual could put in the water to1200ldquoItrsquos like putting up a big poster-board saying lsquoIf you want to go lob-s teri n g do it now rsquo rdquo Co u s ens says Fearful of future limits on lobsteringthose who used fewer pots in the paststarted fishing the maximum allowablenu m ber of po t s In ad d i ti on m orepeople entered the fishery
Additional federal limits on lobster-ing dictated that in 2000 the maxi-mum number of traps a fisher coulduse is 800 Carl Wilson says Cousenssays about having to reduce his stringto 800 trapsldquoI took 400 traps out andwhere I fish there are probably 16 morefishers It was a net loss as far as con-servation [goes]rdquo Cousens says ldquoAll wedo is untangle trapsmdashitrsquos a messrdquo
That increase in the number of fish-ers is going to cause pain down theroad he says because lobstering is ac yclical bu s i n e s s Wh en last ye a r rsquosrecord haul of 52 mill i on po u n d sretu rns to the historic avera ge of 2 0m i ll i on poundsmdashand Co u s ens says itsu rely wi ll mdash people wi ll go out ofbu s i n e s s
Carl Wilson agrees that one of theunintended consequences of the traplimit was ending up with a greaternumber of traps in the water In thepasthe saysthere was de facto limitedentry into the lobster fishing industrybecause local tradition dictated whocould fish and where Those old tradi-tions he says are eroding
To provide a legal mechanism forthe lobster fishers to collectively man-age the fishery in 1996 Maine set upregi onal lob s ter managem ent zon e sand gave locally elected councils ofl ob s ter fishers aut h ori ty to manageeach zone The local councils set thel ob s ter fishing rules for that zon e including the rules on equipment andon day and time of fishing James Wil-son chaired the state committee thatp ut toget h er the ori ginal series ofzonesFishers are quite happy with there su l t he says and wi ll never giveauthority back to the state
Although Cousens would not agreethat the fishers are quite happy he doesthink that the zones have potentialldquoThey will probably do a lot of good inthe future Right now theyrsquore in theiri n f a n c y t h erersquore growing pains Iwouldnrsquot say itrsquos a cure-all but itrsquos astep in the right direction Before ifyou had a rule change you had to go tothe legi s l a tu re rdquo One of the ru l echanges being considered by four ofthe seven managem ent zon e s Ca rlWilson saysis limiting entry of fishersinto those zones
What motiva tes people toprote ct re sou rce s The case of the Maine lobster fishersexemplifies the qualities Ostrom saysare crucial for robust self-governancesystems By examining thousands ofcase studies of common-pool resourcemanagement she has identified eightdesign principles (see box page 642)for su ccessful sel f - govern a n ce Th eyi n clu de cl e a rly iden ti f ying ri gh tf u lu s ers i nvo lving most of the parti c i-pants in most rule ch a n ge s m on i tori n gwhether users follow the rules havinga graduated set of penalties for thosewho break the rules and having gov-ernments recognize the right of the
640 BioScience bull August 2000 Vol 50 No 8
Features
This content downloaded from 21381239145 on Thu 17 Jul 2014 042450 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
participants to manage the resourcethemselves
Cl a rk Gibson says that Ostromrsquosde s i gn principles are great ben ch-marks for any study of common-poolresources and common property Inhis own work on forest governancehel oo ked at two very similarGuatemalan communities Las Cebol-las and Moraacuten to see how they man-aged their forests Gibson says com-p a ring places as similar as LasCebo llas and Moraacuten can hel p re s e a rch ers figure out why peop l emanage to prevent tragedies in someplaces and not others
The two com mu n i ties have thesame property rights structure eleva-tion forest type and ethnic makeupGibson saysEach community is locat-ed far from urban areas and is reachedvia a rough dirt road that is not alwayspassable even for 4-wheel-drive vehi-cles Both communities have experi-ence creating organizations and insti-tuti ons and have little interferen cefrom external governmentsmdashcharac-teri s tics some re s e a rch ers think areprerequisites for developing self-gov-ernance Yet one community bandedtogether and developed a protectedarea in its forest the other did not
The communities both practice sub-sistence agriculture and depend on theforest for fuelwood timber and live-stock grazing However Las Cebollashas designated part of its forest off-limits for any of those uses In the pro-tected are a the forest looks pret tygood Gibson says The protected for-est has more diverse vegetation moregroundcover and the largest treesldquoItrsquosa great example of people managingtheir resource on their ownrdquo he saysBut where the communities use thefore s t the forest cl e a rly shows theeffects of fuelwood gathering and live-stock grazing ldquoParts of Las Cebollasrsquoforest and all of Moraacutenrsquos forest arethreatened by the tragedy of the com-monsrdquo Gibson says Whatrsquos even morepuzzling he says is that in Las Cebol-lasrsquo forest ldquotherersquos an area where thereis a tragedy and an area where thereisnrsquotrdquo and the two areas are managedby the same people
To figure out what was going on amultidisciplinary team of researchersf rom Indiana Un ivers i ty ndash Bl oom i n g-tonrsquos Center for the Study of Institu-tions Population and EnvironmentalChange FLACSOndashGuatemala (a socialsciences research institution) CentroUniversitario de Oriente and Univer-sidad del Valle de Guatemala spentabout a month at each communityinterviewing residents and taking bio-physical measurements to assess thecondition of the forest To collect thedata the teams used standardized pro-tocols developed by the InternationalFore s try Re s o u rces and In s ti tuti on sRe s e a rch Progra m a worl dwi deresearch program that studies forestsand forest communities
G i b s on and his co lleagues fo u n dthat only when community membersview a resource as both necessary andscarce do they put in the effort re-quired to protect it from overuse The
researchers concluded that althoughboth com mu n i ties depend on thei rforests for fuelwood timber and graz-ing the community members do notperceive those re s o u rces as scarce whereas they do regard agriculturalland as valuable and scarce Howeverthe people in Las Cebollas believe thatkeeping some specific hillsides forestedwill maintain the river water neededfor their agricultural fields whereaspeople in Moraacuten do not share thatbeliefGibson says focusing on scarcityand necessity helps explains why thet wo com mu n i ties treat their fore s t sdifferently He describes his study in achapter in the forthcoming book Pro -tecting the Commons A Framework forResource Management in the Americas
Co m pu ter ga m e sSelf-governance does not occur only ins m a ll com mu n i ties that depend ontraditional rural livelihoods such as
August 2000 Vol 50 No 8 bull BioScience 641
Features
A comparison of two rural Guatemalan communities Moraacuten and Las Cebollas byClark Gibson and his colleagues at Indiana UniversityndashBloomingtonrsquos
multidisciplinary Center for the Study of Institutions Population and EnvironmentalChange provided insights on why people manage to prevent ldquothe tragedy of thecommonsrdquo in some places but not in others Both communities use the forest forfuelwood and timber and for grazing livestock and horses but some areas of Las
Cebollasrsquo forest are protected from such uses Here horses graze in Moraacutenrsquos forestPhoto C Gibson Indiana UniversityndashBloomington
This content downloaded from 21381239145 on Thu 17 Jul 2014 042450 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
fishing or agriculture College studentsrec ru i ted to play com m on - pool re-source games on laboratory computers
can also u n der the ri ght circ u m-stances band together for collectivebenefit
James Wa l ker an ex peri m en t a lecon omist at Indiana Un ivers i ty ndashBloomington along with his IndianaUniversity colleagues Elinor Ostromand Roy Gardner has used computergames to test how people managecommon-pool resources under vary-ing con d i ti on s Just as in the re a lworl d p l ayers get tangi ble ben ef i t sfrom participating they earn varyingamounts of cash depending on whatdecisions they make during the gameLike Gibson and other researchers whodissect and compare various field situ-ations Walker is trying to find outwhat conditions encourage or discour-age cooperation
In one experiment eight players sitat computer terminals and make deci-sions in private Each player gets anendowment of resources (tokens) toallocate to one of two markets Thefirst market pays a nickel per tokenentered The second market the com-mon-pool resource initially pays bet-ter but the per-token payoff declinesas more and more tokens are added tothat market Walker presents the play-ers with a series of scenarios in which aspecific allocation of tokens betweenthe two markets will bring the greatestp ayof f to the group as a wh o l e If
642 BioScience bull August 2000 Vol 50 No 8
Features
1 Th ere is a clear def i n i ti on of who has the ri ght to use the re s o u rce and who does not The bo u n d a ries of the re s o u rcea re cl e a rly def i n ed
2 Us ers must perceive that their requ i red con tri buti ons for managing and maintaining the re s o u rce are fair in light of t h eben efits received Rules governing peop l ersquos obl i ga ti ons and rules abo ut wh en and how the re s o u rce is used are ad a ptedto the local con d i ti on s
3 Most of the indivi duals affected by the rules can parti c i p a te in ch a n ging the ru l e s
4 Use of the re s o u rce and ad h eren ce to the rules is actively mon i tored of ten by the users them s elve s
5 People who vi o l a te the rules are disciplined in accord a n ce with a gradu a ted set of s a n cti on s
6 Local insti tuti ons are ava i l a ble to re s o lve con f l i cts ra p i dly
7 Ex ternal govern m ent aut h ori ties do not interfere with re s o u rce managem ent sch emes devel oped on a local level
8 Com m on - pool re s o u rce managem ent sys tems that are part of l a r ger sys tems are or ga n i zed as a series of n e s ted en terpri s e s e ach level of wh i ch possesses ch a racteri s tics one thro u gh seven
Ad a pted from Ostrom E l i n or 1 9 9 0 Governing the Co m m o n s The Evol u tion of In s ti tu tions for Coll e ctive Acti o n Cambridge University Press Cambridge UK
Characteristics of successful cases of self-gov e rned common-pool resource management
A scene in Las Cebollas Guatemala shows a patchwork landscape of agriculturefallow fields and forest Las Cebollas has designated part of its forest off-limits for
gathering fuelwood or timber and for grazing livestock because communitymembers believe that keeping some specific hillsides forested will maintain the r iver
water needed for agricultural fields Photo CGibson IndianaUniversityndashBloomington
This content downloaded from 21381239145 on Thu 17 Jul 2014 042450 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
most players all oc a te their to kens atthe level that yields the maximal groupp ayof f a ny indivi dual who inste adputs more than ldquohis sharerdquo into thecom m on - pool re s o u rce market wi llearn even more However when thathappens the total earned by the otherssuffers
This is exactly what happens whenthe players are barred from communi-cating with one another Walker saysAs more and more players follow thestrategy of looking out for themselvesrather than considering the welfare ofthe group as a whole the payoff pertoken in the second market goes downldquoIt leads to a result thatrsquos [economical-ly] inefficient from the grouprsquos per-spectiverdquo
But if the players discuss what ishappening the results are differentPeople cooperate for their own goodand that of the group ldquoIf you let themcom mu n i c a te every dec i s i on ro u n d they form verbal commitments andtend to keep those com m i tm en t s rdquoWa l ker says Sa n cti oning defectorshelpshe says but only if communica-tion is allowed ldquoSanctions alone workmiserablyrdquo
Communication then seems to bethe essential factor for developing asystem of self-governance in the labo-ratory In a paper in the April issue ofSouthern Economic Journal Walker andhis doctoral students Pamela J Schmittand Kurtis J Swope described whathappened if six people could commu-nicate and two could not The resultWithout communication between allthe players the system of cooperationu n ravel s Wa l ker says He says there s e a rch shows that com mu n i c a ti onamong all participants is essential fordeveloping systems of self-governanceand cooperation
A del i c a te ba l a n ceHardin common-pool resource schol-ars like to point outwas dealing with aspecialized casemdashone in which usershad neither the ability to exclude otherusers nor whatever it takes to worktogether As Ostrom puts it Hardinrsquosherders were ldquovery self-centered self-ish individuals who didnrsquot care a hoot
for the communityrdquo She says researchshows that although there are suchpeople out there ldquothere are a largenumber of people in any set who haveinterest in reciprocity trust and jointgainrdquo Whether those people can worktoget h er depends on the situ a ti on Even people who are inclined to coop-erate she says will do so only whenthey feel they wonrsquot be played for suck-ers
That is wh ere mon i toring andenforcement come in Ostrom saysnoting that ldquomonitoring done rightenhances reciprocityrdquo By ldquodone rightrdquoshe means that people do not feelexcessively scrutinized yet they knowtheir activities are noticed Institutionscan be built that ldquosupport enhancehelp people trust one another so theycan really protect resources for thefuturerdquo Ostrom says But institutionscan also convey the sense that ldquonobodytrusts you so you might as well cheatany time you think you canrdquo She saysldquoItrsquos a delicate delicate balancerdquo
And itrsquos a balance that researchersare still sorting out Studies suggestthat common-pool resource manage-ment works best in what could bec a ll ed a small - town set ti n g one inwhich people regularly interact face-to-face have and will continue to havelong-term relationships and are rela-tively hom ogen eous with rega rd tocharacteristics such as caste ethnicityand wealth Two big unanswered ques-tions Ostrom says are the effect ofgroup size and the effect of group het-erogen ei ty Those qu e s ti ons becom emore important she says ldquobecause weare tackling ever-larger resource sys-tem s rdquo and larger size means morecom p l ex insti tuti on s An o t h er qu e s-tion that still needs to be answeredsays Arun Agrawal a political scientistat Yale University is how common-pool resource manag ement is affectedby uncertainty and unanticipated fluc-tuations in the resource base
Those and other questions are beingaddressed by NRCrsquos Committee on theHuman Dimensions of Global ChangeprojectldquoInstitutions for Managing theCommonsrdquo The NRC project dovetailsnicely with the mission of the Interna-
ti onal As s oc i a ti on for the Stu dy ofCommon Property Bonnie J McCaypresident of IASCP and professor ofanthropology and ecology at RutgersUniversity in New Brunswick NewJersey says that ldquoone part of the mis-sion is to further the study and under-standing of the ways human beingsu s e m a n a ge and mismanage com-mon-pool resources The other is touse that knowledge and understandingto help local communities and govern-ments improve management of com-mon-pool resourcesrdquo
August 2000 Vol 50 No 8 bull BioScience 643
Features
Student members of amultidisciplinary research team from
two universities in Guatemala CentroUniversitario de Oriente and
Universidad del Valle de Guatemalaand from Indiana
UniversityndashBloomington measure treessaplings and amount of groundcover
in a randomly selected area of thecommunal forest in Las Cebollas
Guatemala to assess the forestrsquoscondition Photo C Gibson Indiana
UniversityndashBloomington
This content downloaded from 21381239145 on Thu 17 Jul 2014 042450 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
644 BioScience bull August 2000 Vol 50 No 8
Features
McCay Ostrom Agrawaland otherleaders in the field presented papers onthose topics to the research communi-ty at special sessions held during theIASCP meeting Feedback from thosesessions will be used to refine andenrich the NRC project when the leadresearchers reconvene for more discus-sions in September A book detailingthe NRC grouprsquos findings is slated forpublication in 2001
McCay says ldquoThe lesson is not thateverything should be done by localpeople The lesson is not that if leftalone people can do a pretty good jobThe lesson is that under some condi-tions people can do it The policy les-son is to find out what those condi-tions are and to try and give people achance to do thatrdquo
Brom l ey DW ed 1 9 9 2 Making the Com m ons Work Th eory Practi ce and Po l i c y San Fra n c i s co In s ti tute for Con tem po-ra ry Stu d i e s
Bu r ger J O s trom E Nor ga a rd RB Po l i c a n s ky D G o l d s tein BD ed s In pre s s Pro tecting the Com m on s A Fra m ework forRe s o u rce Ma n a gem ent in the Am eri c a s Wa s h i n g ton (DC ) Island Pre s s
Ha rdin G 1 9 6 8 The tra gedy of the com m on s S ci en ce 1 6 2 1 2 4 3 ndash 1 2 4 8
Ha rdin G 1 9 9 8 Ex ten s i ons of ldquoThe tra gedy of the com m on s rdquo S ci en ce 2 8 0 6 8 2 ndash 6 8 3
O s trom E 1 9 9 0 G overning the Com m on s The Evo luti on of In s ti tuti ons for Co ll ective Acti on Ca m bri d ge (UK) Ca m-bri d ge Un ivers i ty Pre s s
O s trom E G a rd n er R Wa l ker J 1 9 9 4 Ru l e s G a m e s and Com m on - Pool Re s o u rce s Ann Arbor (MI) Un ivers i ty of Mi ch i-gan Pre s s
O s trom E Bu r ger J F i eld CB Nor ga a rd RB Po l i c a n s ky D 1 9 9 9 Revi s i ting the com m on s Local lesson s gl obal ch a ll en ge s S ci en ce 2 8 4 2 7 8 ndash 2 8 2
S chmitt P Swope K Wa l ker J 2 0 0 0 Co ll ective acti on with incom p l ete com m i tm en t Ex peri m ental evi den ce So ut h ern Eco-n omic Jo u rnal 66 8 2 9 ndash 8 5 4
In tern a ti onal As s oc i a ti on for the Stu dy of Com m on Property (IASCP) ltwww i n d i a n a edu ~ i a s c p gt
In tern a ti onal Fore s try Re s o u rces and In s ti tuti ons Re s e a rch Program ltwww i n d i a n a edu ~ i f ri gt
Work s h op in Po l i tical Th eory and Policy An a lysis at Indiana Un ivers i tyndash Bl oom i n g ton ltwww i n d i a n a edu ~ work s h op gt
F u rther reading and online resources
Ma ri N Jen sen is a fre el a n ce sci en ce wri ter
ba sed in Tu cso n Ari zo n a
This content downloaded from 21381239145 on Thu 17 Jul 2014 042450 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
participants to manage the resourcethemselves
Cl a rk Gibson says that Ostromrsquosde s i gn principles are great ben ch-marks for any study of common-poolresources and common property Inhis own work on forest governancehel oo ked at two very similarGuatemalan communities Las Cebol-las and Moraacuten to see how they man-aged their forests Gibson says com-p a ring places as similar as LasCebo llas and Moraacuten can hel p re s e a rch ers figure out why peop l emanage to prevent tragedies in someplaces and not others
The two com mu n i ties have thesame property rights structure eleva-tion forest type and ethnic makeupGibson saysEach community is locat-ed far from urban areas and is reachedvia a rough dirt road that is not alwayspassable even for 4-wheel-drive vehi-cles Both communities have experi-ence creating organizations and insti-tuti ons and have little interferen cefrom external governmentsmdashcharac-teri s tics some re s e a rch ers think areprerequisites for developing self-gov-ernance Yet one community bandedtogether and developed a protectedarea in its forest the other did not
The communities both practice sub-sistence agriculture and depend on theforest for fuelwood timber and live-stock grazing However Las Cebollashas designated part of its forest off-limits for any of those uses In the pro-tected are a the forest looks pret tygood Gibson says The protected for-est has more diverse vegetation moregroundcover and the largest treesldquoItrsquosa great example of people managingtheir resource on their ownrdquo he saysBut where the communities use thefore s t the forest cl e a rly shows theeffects of fuelwood gathering and live-stock grazing ldquoParts of Las Cebollasrsquoforest and all of Moraacutenrsquos forest arethreatened by the tragedy of the com-monsrdquo Gibson says Whatrsquos even morepuzzling he says is that in Las Cebol-lasrsquo forest ldquotherersquos an area where thereis a tragedy and an area where thereisnrsquotrdquo and the two areas are managedby the same people
To figure out what was going on amultidisciplinary team of researchersf rom Indiana Un ivers i ty ndash Bl oom i n g-tonrsquos Center for the Study of Institu-tions Population and EnvironmentalChange FLACSOndashGuatemala (a socialsciences research institution) CentroUniversitario de Oriente and Univer-sidad del Valle de Guatemala spentabout a month at each communityinterviewing residents and taking bio-physical measurements to assess thecondition of the forest To collect thedata the teams used standardized pro-tocols developed by the InternationalFore s try Re s o u rces and In s ti tuti on sRe s e a rch Progra m a worl dwi deresearch program that studies forestsand forest communities
G i b s on and his co lleagues fo u n dthat only when community membersview a resource as both necessary andscarce do they put in the effort re-quired to protect it from overuse The
researchers concluded that althoughboth com mu n i ties depend on thei rforests for fuelwood timber and graz-ing the community members do notperceive those re s o u rces as scarce whereas they do regard agriculturalland as valuable and scarce Howeverthe people in Las Cebollas believe thatkeeping some specific hillsides forestedwill maintain the river water neededfor their agricultural fields whereaspeople in Moraacuten do not share thatbeliefGibson says focusing on scarcityand necessity helps explains why thet wo com mu n i ties treat their fore s t sdifferently He describes his study in achapter in the forthcoming book Pro -tecting the Commons A Framework forResource Management in the Americas
Co m pu ter ga m e sSelf-governance does not occur only ins m a ll com mu n i ties that depend ontraditional rural livelihoods such as
August 2000 Vol 50 No 8 bull BioScience 641
Features
A comparison of two rural Guatemalan communities Moraacuten and Las Cebollas byClark Gibson and his colleagues at Indiana UniversityndashBloomingtonrsquos
multidisciplinary Center for the Study of Institutions Population and EnvironmentalChange provided insights on why people manage to prevent ldquothe tragedy of thecommonsrdquo in some places but not in others Both communities use the forest forfuelwood and timber and for grazing livestock and horses but some areas of Las
Cebollasrsquo forest are protected from such uses Here horses graze in Moraacutenrsquos forestPhoto C Gibson Indiana UniversityndashBloomington
This content downloaded from 21381239145 on Thu 17 Jul 2014 042450 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
fishing or agriculture College studentsrec ru i ted to play com m on - pool re-source games on laboratory computers
can also u n der the ri ght circ u m-stances band together for collectivebenefit
James Wa l ker an ex peri m en t a lecon omist at Indiana Un ivers i ty ndashBloomington along with his IndianaUniversity colleagues Elinor Ostromand Roy Gardner has used computergames to test how people managecommon-pool resources under vary-ing con d i ti on s Just as in the re a lworl d p l ayers get tangi ble ben ef i t sfrom participating they earn varyingamounts of cash depending on whatdecisions they make during the gameLike Gibson and other researchers whodissect and compare various field situ-ations Walker is trying to find outwhat conditions encourage or discour-age cooperation
In one experiment eight players sitat computer terminals and make deci-sions in private Each player gets anendowment of resources (tokens) toallocate to one of two markets Thefirst market pays a nickel per tokenentered The second market the com-mon-pool resource initially pays bet-ter but the per-token payoff declinesas more and more tokens are added tothat market Walker presents the play-ers with a series of scenarios in which aspecific allocation of tokens betweenthe two markets will bring the greatestp ayof f to the group as a wh o l e If
642 BioScience bull August 2000 Vol 50 No 8
Features
1 Th ere is a clear def i n i ti on of who has the ri ght to use the re s o u rce and who does not The bo u n d a ries of the re s o u rcea re cl e a rly def i n ed
2 Us ers must perceive that their requ i red con tri buti ons for managing and maintaining the re s o u rce are fair in light of t h eben efits received Rules governing peop l ersquos obl i ga ti ons and rules abo ut wh en and how the re s o u rce is used are ad a ptedto the local con d i ti on s
3 Most of the indivi duals affected by the rules can parti c i p a te in ch a n ging the ru l e s
4 Use of the re s o u rce and ad h eren ce to the rules is actively mon i tored of ten by the users them s elve s
5 People who vi o l a te the rules are disciplined in accord a n ce with a gradu a ted set of s a n cti on s
6 Local insti tuti ons are ava i l a ble to re s o lve con f l i cts ra p i dly
7 Ex ternal govern m ent aut h ori ties do not interfere with re s o u rce managem ent sch emes devel oped on a local level
8 Com m on - pool re s o u rce managem ent sys tems that are part of l a r ger sys tems are or ga n i zed as a series of n e s ted en terpri s e s e ach level of wh i ch possesses ch a racteri s tics one thro u gh seven
Ad a pted from Ostrom E l i n or 1 9 9 0 Governing the Co m m o n s The Evol u tion of In s ti tu tions for Coll e ctive Acti o n Cambridge University Press Cambridge UK
Characteristics of successful cases of self-gov e rned common-pool resource management
A scene in Las Cebollas Guatemala shows a patchwork landscape of agriculturefallow fields and forest Las Cebollas has designated part of its forest off-limits for
gathering fuelwood or timber and for grazing livestock because communitymembers believe that keeping some specific hillsides forested will maintain the r iver
water needed for agricultural fields Photo CGibson IndianaUniversityndashBloomington
This content downloaded from 21381239145 on Thu 17 Jul 2014 042450 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
most players all oc a te their to kens atthe level that yields the maximal groupp ayof f a ny indivi dual who inste adputs more than ldquohis sharerdquo into thecom m on - pool re s o u rce market wi llearn even more However when thathappens the total earned by the otherssuffers
This is exactly what happens whenthe players are barred from communi-cating with one another Walker saysAs more and more players follow thestrategy of looking out for themselvesrather than considering the welfare ofthe group as a whole the payoff pertoken in the second market goes downldquoIt leads to a result thatrsquos [economical-ly] inefficient from the grouprsquos per-spectiverdquo
But if the players discuss what ishappening the results are differentPeople cooperate for their own goodand that of the group ldquoIf you let themcom mu n i c a te every dec i s i on ro u n d they form verbal commitments andtend to keep those com m i tm en t s rdquoWa l ker says Sa n cti oning defectorshelpshe says but only if communica-tion is allowed ldquoSanctions alone workmiserablyrdquo
Communication then seems to bethe essential factor for developing asystem of self-governance in the labo-ratory In a paper in the April issue ofSouthern Economic Journal Walker andhis doctoral students Pamela J Schmittand Kurtis J Swope described whathappened if six people could commu-nicate and two could not The resultWithout communication between allthe players the system of cooperationu n ravel s Wa l ker says He says there s e a rch shows that com mu n i c a ti onamong all participants is essential fordeveloping systems of self-governanceand cooperation
A del i c a te ba l a n ceHardin common-pool resource schol-ars like to point outwas dealing with aspecialized casemdashone in which usershad neither the ability to exclude otherusers nor whatever it takes to worktogether As Ostrom puts it Hardinrsquosherders were ldquovery self-centered self-ish individuals who didnrsquot care a hoot
for the communityrdquo She says researchshows that although there are suchpeople out there ldquothere are a largenumber of people in any set who haveinterest in reciprocity trust and jointgainrdquo Whether those people can worktoget h er depends on the situ a ti on Even people who are inclined to coop-erate she says will do so only whenthey feel they wonrsquot be played for suck-ers
That is wh ere mon i toring andenforcement come in Ostrom saysnoting that ldquomonitoring done rightenhances reciprocityrdquo By ldquodone rightrdquoshe means that people do not feelexcessively scrutinized yet they knowtheir activities are noticed Institutionscan be built that ldquosupport enhancehelp people trust one another so theycan really protect resources for thefuturerdquo Ostrom says But institutionscan also convey the sense that ldquonobodytrusts you so you might as well cheatany time you think you canrdquo She saysldquoItrsquos a delicate delicate balancerdquo
And itrsquos a balance that researchersare still sorting out Studies suggestthat common-pool resource manage-ment works best in what could bec a ll ed a small - town set ti n g one inwhich people regularly interact face-to-face have and will continue to havelong-term relationships and are rela-tively hom ogen eous with rega rd tocharacteristics such as caste ethnicityand wealth Two big unanswered ques-tions Ostrom says are the effect ofgroup size and the effect of group het-erogen ei ty Those qu e s ti ons becom emore important she says ldquobecause weare tackling ever-larger resource sys-tem s rdquo and larger size means morecom p l ex insti tuti on s An o t h er qu e s-tion that still needs to be answeredsays Arun Agrawal a political scientistat Yale University is how common-pool resource manag ement is affectedby uncertainty and unanticipated fluc-tuations in the resource base
Those and other questions are beingaddressed by NRCrsquos Committee on theHuman Dimensions of Global ChangeprojectldquoInstitutions for Managing theCommonsrdquo The NRC project dovetailsnicely with the mission of the Interna-
ti onal As s oc i a ti on for the Stu dy ofCommon Property Bonnie J McCaypresident of IASCP and professor ofanthropology and ecology at RutgersUniversity in New Brunswick NewJersey says that ldquoone part of the mis-sion is to further the study and under-standing of the ways human beingsu s e m a n a ge and mismanage com-mon-pool resources The other is touse that knowledge and understandingto help local communities and govern-ments improve management of com-mon-pool resourcesrdquo
August 2000 Vol 50 No 8 bull BioScience 643
Features
Student members of amultidisciplinary research team from
two universities in Guatemala CentroUniversitario de Oriente and
Universidad del Valle de Guatemalaand from Indiana
UniversityndashBloomington measure treessaplings and amount of groundcover
in a randomly selected area of thecommunal forest in Las Cebollas
Guatemala to assess the forestrsquoscondition Photo C Gibson Indiana
UniversityndashBloomington
This content downloaded from 21381239145 on Thu 17 Jul 2014 042450 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
644 BioScience bull August 2000 Vol 50 No 8
Features
McCay Ostrom Agrawaland otherleaders in the field presented papers onthose topics to the research communi-ty at special sessions held during theIASCP meeting Feedback from thosesessions will be used to refine andenrich the NRC project when the leadresearchers reconvene for more discus-sions in September A book detailingthe NRC grouprsquos findings is slated forpublication in 2001
McCay says ldquoThe lesson is not thateverything should be done by localpeople The lesson is not that if leftalone people can do a pretty good jobThe lesson is that under some condi-tions people can do it The policy les-son is to find out what those condi-tions are and to try and give people achance to do thatrdquo
Brom l ey DW ed 1 9 9 2 Making the Com m ons Work Th eory Practi ce and Po l i c y San Fra n c i s co In s ti tute for Con tem po-ra ry Stu d i e s
Bu r ger J O s trom E Nor ga a rd RB Po l i c a n s ky D G o l d s tein BD ed s In pre s s Pro tecting the Com m on s A Fra m ework forRe s o u rce Ma n a gem ent in the Am eri c a s Wa s h i n g ton (DC ) Island Pre s s
Ha rdin G 1 9 6 8 The tra gedy of the com m on s S ci en ce 1 6 2 1 2 4 3 ndash 1 2 4 8
Ha rdin G 1 9 9 8 Ex ten s i ons of ldquoThe tra gedy of the com m on s rdquo S ci en ce 2 8 0 6 8 2 ndash 6 8 3
O s trom E 1 9 9 0 G overning the Com m on s The Evo luti on of In s ti tuti ons for Co ll ective Acti on Ca m bri d ge (UK) Ca m-bri d ge Un ivers i ty Pre s s
O s trom E G a rd n er R Wa l ker J 1 9 9 4 Ru l e s G a m e s and Com m on - Pool Re s o u rce s Ann Arbor (MI) Un ivers i ty of Mi ch i-gan Pre s s
O s trom E Bu r ger J F i eld CB Nor ga a rd RB Po l i c a n s ky D 1 9 9 9 Revi s i ting the com m on s Local lesson s gl obal ch a ll en ge s S ci en ce 2 8 4 2 7 8 ndash 2 8 2
S chmitt P Swope K Wa l ker J 2 0 0 0 Co ll ective acti on with incom p l ete com m i tm en t Ex peri m ental evi den ce So ut h ern Eco-n omic Jo u rnal 66 8 2 9 ndash 8 5 4
In tern a ti onal As s oc i a ti on for the Stu dy of Com m on Property (IASCP) ltwww i n d i a n a edu ~ i a s c p gt
In tern a ti onal Fore s try Re s o u rces and In s ti tuti ons Re s e a rch Program ltwww i n d i a n a edu ~ i f ri gt
Work s h op in Po l i tical Th eory and Policy An a lysis at Indiana Un ivers i tyndash Bl oom i n g ton ltwww i n d i a n a edu ~ work s h op gt
F u rther reading and online resources
Ma ri N Jen sen is a fre el a n ce sci en ce wri ter
ba sed in Tu cso n Ari zo n a
This content downloaded from 21381239145 on Thu 17 Jul 2014 042450 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
fishing or agriculture College studentsrec ru i ted to play com m on - pool re-source games on laboratory computers
can also u n der the ri ght circ u m-stances band together for collectivebenefit
James Wa l ker an ex peri m en t a lecon omist at Indiana Un ivers i ty ndashBloomington along with his IndianaUniversity colleagues Elinor Ostromand Roy Gardner has used computergames to test how people managecommon-pool resources under vary-ing con d i ti on s Just as in the re a lworl d p l ayers get tangi ble ben ef i t sfrom participating they earn varyingamounts of cash depending on whatdecisions they make during the gameLike Gibson and other researchers whodissect and compare various field situ-ations Walker is trying to find outwhat conditions encourage or discour-age cooperation
In one experiment eight players sitat computer terminals and make deci-sions in private Each player gets anendowment of resources (tokens) toallocate to one of two markets Thefirst market pays a nickel per tokenentered The second market the com-mon-pool resource initially pays bet-ter but the per-token payoff declinesas more and more tokens are added tothat market Walker presents the play-ers with a series of scenarios in which aspecific allocation of tokens betweenthe two markets will bring the greatestp ayof f to the group as a wh o l e If
642 BioScience bull August 2000 Vol 50 No 8
Features
1 Th ere is a clear def i n i ti on of who has the ri ght to use the re s o u rce and who does not The bo u n d a ries of the re s o u rcea re cl e a rly def i n ed
2 Us ers must perceive that their requ i red con tri buti ons for managing and maintaining the re s o u rce are fair in light of t h eben efits received Rules governing peop l ersquos obl i ga ti ons and rules abo ut wh en and how the re s o u rce is used are ad a ptedto the local con d i ti on s
3 Most of the indivi duals affected by the rules can parti c i p a te in ch a n ging the ru l e s
4 Use of the re s o u rce and ad h eren ce to the rules is actively mon i tored of ten by the users them s elve s
5 People who vi o l a te the rules are disciplined in accord a n ce with a gradu a ted set of s a n cti on s
6 Local insti tuti ons are ava i l a ble to re s o lve con f l i cts ra p i dly
7 Ex ternal govern m ent aut h ori ties do not interfere with re s o u rce managem ent sch emes devel oped on a local level
8 Com m on - pool re s o u rce managem ent sys tems that are part of l a r ger sys tems are or ga n i zed as a series of n e s ted en terpri s e s e ach level of wh i ch possesses ch a racteri s tics one thro u gh seven
Ad a pted from Ostrom E l i n or 1 9 9 0 Governing the Co m m o n s The Evol u tion of In s ti tu tions for Coll e ctive Acti o n Cambridge University Press Cambridge UK
Characteristics of successful cases of self-gov e rned common-pool resource management
A scene in Las Cebollas Guatemala shows a patchwork landscape of agriculturefallow fields and forest Las Cebollas has designated part of its forest off-limits for
gathering fuelwood or timber and for grazing livestock because communitymembers believe that keeping some specific hillsides forested will maintain the r iver
water needed for agricultural fields Photo CGibson IndianaUniversityndashBloomington
This content downloaded from 21381239145 on Thu 17 Jul 2014 042450 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
most players all oc a te their to kens atthe level that yields the maximal groupp ayof f a ny indivi dual who inste adputs more than ldquohis sharerdquo into thecom m on - pool re s o u rce market wi llearn even more However when thathappens the total earned by the otherssuffers
This is exactly what happens whenthe players are barred from communi-cating with one another Walker saysAs more and more players follow thestrategy of looking out for themselvesrather than considering the welfare ofthe group as a whole the payoff pertoken in the second market goes downldquoIt leads to a result thatrsquos [economical-ly] inefficient from the grouprsquos per-spectiverdquo
But if the players discuss what ishappening the results are differentPeople cooperate for their own goodand that of the group ldquoIf you let themcom mu n i c a te every dec i s i on ro u n d they form verbal commitments andtend to keep those com m i tm en t s rdquoWa l ker says Sa n cti oning defectorshelpshe says but only if communica-tion is allowed ldquoSanctions alone workmiserablyrdquo
Communication then seems to bethe essential factor for developing asystem of self-governance in the labo-ratory In a paper in the April issue ofSouthern Economic Journal Walker andhis doctoral students Pamela J Schmittand Kurtis J Swope described whathappened if six people could commu-nicate and two could not The resultWithout communication between allthe players the system of cooperationu n ravel s Wa l ker says He says there s e a rch shows that com mu n i c a ti onamong all participants is essential fordeveloping systems of self-governanceand cooperation
A del i c a te ba l a n ceHardin common-pool resource schol-ars like to point outwas dealing with aspecialized casemdashone in which usershad neither the ability to exclude otherusers nor whatever it takes to worktogether As Ostrom puts it Hardinrsquosherders were ldquovery self-centered self-ish individuals who didnrsquot care a hoot
for the communityrdquo She says researchshows that although there are suchpeople out there ldquothere are a largenumber of people in any set who haveinterest in reciprocity trust and jointgainrdquo Whether those people can worktoget h er depends on the situ a ti on Even people who are inclined to coop-erate she says will do so only whenthey feel they wonrsquot be played for suck-ers
That is wh ere mon i toring andenforcement come in Ostrom saysnoting that ldquomonitoring done rightenhances reciprocityrdquo By ldquodone rightrdquoshe means that people do not feelexcessively scrutinized yet they knowtheir activities are noticed Institutionscan be built that ldquosupport enhancehelp people trust one another so theycan really protect resources for thefuturerdquo Ostrom says But institutionscan also convey the sense that ldquonobodytrusts you so you might as well cheatany time you think you canrdquo She saysldquoItrsquos a delicate delicate balancerdquo
And itrsquos a balance that researchersare still sorting out Studies suggestthat common-pool resource manage-ment works best in what could bec a ll ed a small - town set ti n g one inwhich people regularly interact face-to-face have and will continue to havelong-term relationships and are rela-tively hom ogen eous with rega rd tocharacteristics such as caste ethnicityand wealth Two big unanswered ques-tions Ostrom says are the effect ofgroup size and the effect of group het-erogen ei ty Those qu e s ti ons becom emore important she says ldquobecause weare tackling ever-larger resource sys-tem s rdquo and larger size means morecom p l ex insti tuti on s An o t h er qu e s-tion that still needs to be answeredsays Arun Agrawal a political scientistat Yale University is how common-pool resource manag ement is affectedby uncertainty and unanticipated fluc-tuations in the resource base
Those and other questions are beingaddressed by NRCrsquos Committee on theHuman Dimensions of Global ChangeprojectldquoInstitutions for Managing theCommonsrdquo The NRC project dovetailsnicely with the mission of the Interna-
ti onal As s oc i a ti on for the Stu dy ofCommon Property Bonnie J McCaypresident of IASCP and professor ofanthropology and ecology at RutgersUniversity in New Brunswick NewJersey says that ldquoone part of the mis-sion is to further the study and under-standing of the ways human beingsu s e m a n a ge and mismanage com-mon-pool resources The other is touse that knowledge and understandingto help local communities and govern-ments improve management of com-mon-pool resourcesrdquo
August 2000 Vol 50 No 8 bull BioScience 643
Features
Student members of amultidisciplinary research team from
two universities in Guatemala CentroUniversitario de Oriente and
Universidad del Valle de Guatemalaand from Indiana
UniversityndashBloomington measure treessaplings and amount of groundcover
in a randomly selected area of thecommunal forest in Las Cebollas
Guatemala to assess the forestrsquoscondition Photo C Gibson Indiana
UniversityndashBloomington
This content downloaded from 21381239145 on Thu 17 Jul 2014 042450 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
644 BioScience bull August 2000 Vol 50 No 8
Features
McCay Ostrom Agrawaland otherleaders in the field presented papers onthose topics to the research communi-ty at special sessions held during theIASCP meeting Feedback from thosesessions will be used to refine andenrich the NRC project when the leadresearchers reconvene for more discus-sions in September A book detailingthe NRC grouprsquos findings is slated forpublication in 2001
McCay says ldquoThe lesson is not thateverything should be done by localpeople The lesson is not that if leftalone people can do a pretty good jobThe lesson is that under some condi-tions people can do it The policy les-son is to find out what those condi-tions are and to try and give people achance to do thatrdquo
Brom l ey DW ed 1 9 9 2 Making the Com m ons Work Th eory Practi ce and Po l i c y San Fra n c i s co In s ti tute for Con tem po-ra ry Stu d i e s
Bu r ger J O s trom E Nor ga a rd RB Po l i c a n s ky D G o l d s tein BD ed s In pre s s Pro tecting the Com m on s A Fra m ework forRe s o u rce Ma n a gem ent in the Am eri c a s Wa s h i n g ton (DC ) Island Pre s s
Ha rdin G 1 9 6 8 The tra gedy of the com m on s S ci en ce 1 6 2 1 2 4 3 ndash 1 2 4 8
Ha rdin G 1 9 9 8 Ex ten s i ons of ldquoThe tra gedy of the com m on s rdquo S ci en ce 2 8 0 6 8 2 ndash 6 8 3
O s trom E 1 9 9 0 G overning the Com m on s The Evo luti on of In s ti tuti ons for Co ll ective Acti on Ca m bri d ge (UK) Ca m-bri d ge Un ivers i ty Pre s s
O s trom E G a rd n er R Wa l ker J 1 9 9 4 Ru l e s G a m e s and Com m on - Pool Re s o u rce s Ann Arbor (MI) Un ivers i ty of Mi ch i-gan Pre s s
O s trom E Bu r ger J F i eld CB Nor ga a rd RB Po l i c a n s ky D 1 9 9 9 Revi s i ting the com m on s Local lesson s gl obal ch a ll en ge s S ci en ce 2 8 4 2 7 8 ndash 2 8 2
S chmitt P Swope K Wa l ker J 2 0 0 0 Co ll ective acti on with incom p l ete com m i tm en t Ex peri m ental evi den ce So ut h ern Eco-n omic Jo u rnal 66 8 2 9 ndash 8 5 4
In tern a ti onal As s oc i a ti on for the Stu dy of Com m on Property (IASCP) ltwww i n d i a n a edu ~ i a s c p gt
In tern a ti onal Fore s try Re s o u rces and In s ti tuti ons Re s e a rch Program ltwww i n d i a n a edu ~ i f ri gt
Work s h op in Po l i tical Th eory and Policy An a lysis at Indiana Un ivers i tyndash Bl oom i n g ton ltwww i n d i a n a edu ~ work s h op gt
F u rther reading and online resources
Ma ri N Jen sen is a fre el a n ce sci en ce wri ter
ba sed in Tu cso n Ari zo n a
This content downloaded from 21381239145 on Thu 17 Jul 2014 042450 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
most players all oc a te their to kens atthe level that yields the maximal groupp ayof f a ny indivi dual who inste adputs more than ldquohis sharerdquo into thecom m on - pool re s o u rce market wi llearn even more However when thathappens the total earned by the otherssuffers
This is exactly what happens whenthe players are barred from communi-cating with one another Walker saysAs more and more players follow thestrategy of looking out for themselvesrather than considering the welfare ofthe group as a whole the payoff pertoken in the second market goes downldquoIt leads to a result thatrsquos [economical-ly] inefficient from the grouprsquos per-spectiverdquo
But if the players discuss what ishappening the results are differentPeople cooperate for their own goodand that of the group ldquoIf you let themcom mu n i c a te every dec i s i on ro u n d they form verbal commitments andtend to keep those com m i tm en t s rdquoWa l ker says Sa n cti oning defectorshelpshe says but only if communica-tion is allowed ldquoSanctions alone workmiserablyrdquo
Communication then seems to bethe essential factor for developing asystem of self-governance in the labo-ratory In a paper in the April issue ofSouthern Economic Journal Walker andhis doctoral students Pamela J Schmittand Kurtis J Swope described whathappened if six people could commu-nicate and two could not The resultWithout communication between allthe players the system of cooperationu n ravel s Wa l ker says He says there s e a rch shows that com mu n i c a ti onamong all participants is essential fordeveloping systems of self-governanceand cooperation
A del i c a te ba l a n ceHardin common-pool resource schol-ars like to point outwas dealing with aspecialized casemdashone in which usershad neither the ability to exclude otherusers nor whatever it takes to worktogether As Ostrom puts it Hardinrsquosherders were ldquovery self-centered self-ish individuals who didnrsquot care a hoot
for the communityrdquo She says researchshows that although there are suchpeople out there ldquothere are a largenumber of people in any set who haveinterest in reciprocity trust and jointgainrdquo Whether those people can worktoget h er depends on the situ a ti on Even people who are inclined to coop-erate she says will do so only whenthey feel they wonrsquot be played for suck-ers
That is wh ere mon i toring andenforcement come in Ostrom saysnoting that ldquomonitoring done rightenhances reciprocityrdquo By ldquodone rightrdquoshe means that people do not feelexcessively scrutinized yet they knowtheir activities are noticed Institutionscan be built that ldquosupport enhancehelp people trust one another so theycan really protect resources for thefuturerdquo Ostrom says But institutionscan also convey the sense that ldquonobodytrusts you so you might as well cheatany time you think you canrdquo She saysldquoItrsquos a delicate delicate balancerdquo
And itrsquos a balance that researchersare still sorting out Studies suggestthat common-pool resource manage-ment works best in what could bec a ll ed a small - town set ti n g one inwhich people regularly interact face-to-face have and will continue to havelong-term relationships and are rela-tively hom ogen eous with rega rd tocharacteristics such as caste ethnicityand wealth Two big unanswered ques-tions Ostrom says are the effect ofgroup size and the effect of group het-erogen ei ty Those qu e s ti ons becom emore important she says ldquobecause weare tackling ever-larger resource sys-tem s rdquo and larger size means morecom p l ex insti tuti on s An o t h er qu e s-tion that still needs to be answeredsays Arun Agrawal a political scientistat Yale University is how common-pool resource manag ement is affectedby uncertainty and unanticipated fluc-tuations in the resource base
Those and other questions are beingaddressed by NRCrsquos Committee on theHuman Dimensions of Global ChangeprojectldquoInstitutions for Managing theCommonsrdquo The NRC project dovetailsnicely with the mission of the Interna-
ti onal As s oc i a ti on for the Stu dy ofCommon Property Bonnie J McCaypresident of IASCP and professor ofanthropology and ecology at RutgersUniversity in New Brunswick NewJersey says that ldquoone part of the mis-sion is to further the study and under-standing of the ways human beingsu s e m a n a ge and mismanage com-mon-pool resources The other is touse that knowledge and understandingto help local communities and govern-ments improve management of com-mon-pool resourcesrdquo
August 2000 Vol 50 No 8 bull BioScience 643
Features
Student members of amultidisciplinary research team from
two universities in Guatemala CentroUniversitario de Oriente and
Universidad del Valle de Guatemalaand from Indiana
UniversityndashBloomington measure treessaplings and amount of groundcover
in a randomly selected area of thecommunal forest in Las Cebollas
Guatemala to assess the forestrsquoscondition Photo C Gibson Indiana
UniversityndashBloomington
This content downloaded from 21381239145 on Thu 17 Jul 2014 042450 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
644 BioScience bull August 2000 Vol 50 No 8
Features
McCay Ostrom Agrawaland otherleaders in the field presented papers onthose topics to the research communi-ty at special sessions held during theIASCP meeting Feedback from thosesessions will be used to refine andenrich the NRC project when the leadresearchers reconvene for more discus-sions in September A book detailingthe NRC grouprsquos findings is slated forpublication in 2001
McCay says ldquoThe lesson is not thateverything should be done by localpeople The lesson is not that if leftalone people can do a pretty good jobThe lesson is that under some condi-tions people can do it The policy les-son is to find out what those condi-tions are and to try and give people achance to do thatrdquo
Brom l ey DW ed 1 9 9 2 Making the Com m ons Work Th eory Practi ce and Po l i c y San Fra n c i s co In s ti tute for Con tem po-ra ry Stu d i e s
Bu r ger J O s trom E Nor ga a rd RB Po l i c a n s ky D G o l d s tein BD ed s In pre s s Pro tecting the Com m on s A Fra m ework forRe s o u rce Ma n a gem ent in the Am eri c a s Wa s h i n g ton (DC ) Island Pre s s
Ha rdin G 1 9 6 8 The tra gedy of the com m on s S ci en ce 1 6 2 1 2 4 3 ndash 1 2 4 8
Ha rdin G 1 9 9 8 Ex ten s i ons of ldquoThe tra gedy of the com m on s rdquo S ci en ce 2 8 0 6 8 2 ndash 6 8 3
O s trom E 1 9 9 0 G overning the Com m on s The Evo luti on of In s ti tuti ons for Co ll ective Acti on Ca m bri d ge (UK) Ca m-bri d ge Un ivers i ty Pre s s
O s trom E G a rd n er R Wa l ker J 1 9 9 4 Ru l e s G a m e s and Com m on - Pool Re s o u rce s Ann Arbor (MI) Un ivers i ty of Mi ch i-gan Pre s s
O s trom E Bu r ger J F i eld CB Nor ga a rd RB Po l i c a n s ky D 1 9 9 9 Revi s i ting the com m on s Local lesson s gl obal ch a ll en ge s S ci en ce 2 8 4 2 7 8 ndash 2 8 2
S chmitt P Swope K Wa l ker J 2 0 0 0 Co ll ective acti on with incom p l ete com m i tm en t Ex peri m ental evi den ce So ut h ern Eco-n omic Jo u rnal 66 8 2 9 ndash 8 5 4
In tern a ti onal As s oc i a ti on for the Stu dy of Com m on Property (IASCP) ltwww i n d i a n a edu ~ i a s c p gt
In tern a ti onal Fore s try Re s o u rces and In s ti tuti ons Re s e a rch Program ltwww i n d i a n a edu ~ i f ri gt
Work s h op in Po l i tical Th eory and Policy An a lysis at Indiana Un ivers i tyndash Bl oom i n g ton ltwww i n d i a n a edu ~ work s h op gt
F u rther reading and online resources
Ma ri N Jen sen is a fre el a n ce sci en ce wri ter
ba sed in Tu cso n Ari zo n a
This content downloaded from 21381239145 on Thu 17 Jul 2014 042450 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
644 BioScience bull August 2000 Vol 50 No 8
Features
McCay Ostrom Agrawaland otherleaders in the field presented papers onthose topics to the research communi-ty at special sessions held during theIASCP meeting Feedback from thosesessions will be used to refine andenrich the NRC project when the leadresearchers reconvene for more discus-sions in September A book detailingthe NRC grouprsquos findings is slated forpublication in 2001
McCay says ldquoThe lesson is not thateverything should be done by localpeople The lesson is not that if leftalone people can do a pretty good jobThe lesson is that under some condi-tions people can do it The policy les-son is to find out what those condi-tions are and to try and give people achance to do thatrdquo
Brom l ey DW ed 1 9 9 2 Making the Com m ons Work Th eory Practi ce and Po l i c y San Fra n c i s co In s ti tute for Con tem po-ra ry Stu d i e s
Bu r ger J O s trom E Nor ga a rd RB Po l i c a n s ky D G o l d s tein BD ed s In pre s s Pro tecting the Com m on s A Fra m ework forRe s o u rce Ma n a gem ent in the Am eri c a s Wa s h i n g ton (DC ) Island Pre s s
Ha rdin G 1 9 6 8 The tra gedy of the com m on s S ci en ce 1 6 2 1 2 4 3 ndash 1 2 4 8
Ha rdin G 1 9 9 8 Ex ten s i ons of ldquoThe tra gedy of the com m on s rdquo S ci en ce 2 8 0 6 8 2 ndash 6 8 3
O s trom E 1 9 9 0 G overning the Com m on s The Evo luti on of In s ti tuti ons for Co ll ective Acti on Ca m bri d ge (UK) Ca m-bri d ge Un ivers i ty Pre s s
O s trom E G a rd n er R Wa l ker J 1 9 9 4 Ru l e s G a m e s and Com m on - Pool Re s o u rce s Ann Arbor (MI) Un ivers i ty of Mi ch i-gan Pre s s
O s trom E Bu r ger J F i eld CB Nor ga a rd RB Po l i c a n s ky D 1 9 9 9 Revi s i ting the com m on s Local lesson s gl obal ch a ll en ge s S ci en ce 2 8 4 2 7 8 ndash 2 8 2
S chmitt P Swope K Wa l ker J 2 0 0 0 Co ll ective acti on with incom p l ete com m i tm en t Ex peri m ental evi den ce So ut h ern Eco-n omic Jo u rnal 66 8 2 9 ndash 8 5 4
In tern a ti onal As s oc i a ti on for the Stu dy of Com m on Property (IASCP) ltwww i n d i a n a edu ~ i a s c p gt
In tern a ti onal Fore s try Re s o u rces and In s ti tuti ons Re s e a rch Program ltwww i n d i a n a edu ~ i f ri gt
Work s h op in Po l i tical Th eory and Policy An a lysis at Indiana Un ivers i tyndash Bl oom i n g ton ltwww i n d i a n a edu ~ work s h op gt
F u rther reading and online resources
Ma ri N Jen sen is a fre el a n ce sci en ce wri ter
ba sed in Tu cso n Ari zo n a
This content downloaded from 21381239145 on Thu 17 Jul 2014 042450 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions