Can anyone please lend me your thoughts on this? What are some tradegies of the commons? How can the free market resolve this issue (privatize?)? This is inevitable?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmiknXoow7c
Skip to 6:50…
Well one example can be the depletion of coral reefs in Jamaica. When a hurricane strikes it can destroy part of a reef environment which is then colonized by Macroalgae. Because of the large increases in selective spear fishing by locals, herbivore species have been in rapid decline. These fish would have kept the Marcoalgae colonization of destroyed reefs in check and in turn encourage coral recovery.
Overfishing is one of the biggest examples of a “tragedy of the commons.”
Over exploitation of resources is more likely in the commons as more people exploit them. Many of those involved want to get as much as they can before the other guy.
On NPR, of all things, they were talking about how private ownership was helping to save elephants and other endangered species in Africa. They said one of the problems with it, though, was that the private owner did not have the power to protect their land from high tech poachers. I think that criticism would only be true for some owners, however if they really had to they could take out a loan to come up with some security measures like infrared cameras, etc.
NPR sometimes isn’t that bad. I remember they were talking about how while everyone was blaming the banks for the housing people they were talking about how the borrowers should also take some of the blame. That they shouldn’t have taken on loans they knew they couldn’t pay back and not reading their contract carefully enough to realize they were signing up for ARM and when interest rates go up they will have a hard time making payments. If only they went on to mention Greenspan that would have been epic.