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Chapter 10. Environmental Stewardship

10.3 Environmental Stewardship Theory in Tourism

Some basic concepts of environmental management and ethics, especially as they apply to tourism, include carrying capacity, footprint, tragedy of the commons, and the tourism paradox.  This section also outlines some of the key approaches to dealing with environmental and sustainability issues in the tourism industry including sustainable tourism, ecotourism, and responsible tourism management.

Carrying Capacity

Carrying capacity is “the average maximum number of individuals of a given species that can occupy a particular habitat without permanently impairing the productive capacity of that habitat” (Rees, 2001, p. 229).

This concept has been applied to tourism in the context of a tourism carrying capacity (TCC) , “the maximum number of visitors which an area can sustain without unacceptable deterioration of the physical environment and without considerably diminishing user satisfaction” (Salerno, Viviano, Manfredi, Caroli, Thankuri, & Tartari, 2013, p. 116).

Take a Closer Look: Vehicle Congestion in Banff National Park

In late 2014, the Town of Banff approved $70,000 to study the feasibility of introducing a gondola network to connect the Banff Centre, the Banff Springs Hotel, the Upper Hot Springs, and the existing mountain gondola. That summer the town experienced 54 days of congestion that exceeded its threshold of 20,000 vehicles per day, with vehicle waits and idle times of up to 1.5 hours during peak periods. To learn more about the issue and proposed solutions, read  “Banff Considers Potential of Gondola Network.”

Carrying capacity factors are determined within a scientific framework and must adapt to various changes and needs of local people and ecosystems. There are many examples of TCC being applied in tourism globally and it is important to note that no two areas have the same set of factors to determine carrying capacity. In Canada, national parks use the concept to ensure visitor numbers are restricted to a sustainable level along with other wilderness areas, protected areas, Indigenous Territories and waterways, campgrounds, and front country experiences.

Although TCC is a theoretical concept that is often discussed and utilized for analysis, in reality it can be challenging to restrict the numbers of tourists arriving at a destination.  Both determining and managing the carrying capacity of a destination requires input from local peoples and environmental data.  One successful approach is to limit access to an area or to simply limit tourist numbers.

Ecological Footprint

Ecological footprint is essentially a tool to analyze the impact of a population on Earth (Rees, 2001). The model calculates the total area of land and water resources used to support the population, presenting it in a manner that can be easily related to — usually in terms of the amount of land needed to support an individual at the standard of living that person is used to.

Many countries and people of those countries use more natural resources within and beyond their own borders than ecosystems can regenerate (biocapacity). Because of this, these countries and people are essentially running an “ecological deficit.” Nations and people can run these ecological deficits by overusing their own (and other Nations’/peoples’) resources, such as by overfishing, taking resources from other areas, and/or emitting higher levels pf carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than can be absorbed (Global Footprint Network, 2020).

Tragedy of the Commons

Tragedy of the commons is an economic theory first proposed by Garrett Hardin in 1968, which states that if individuals are given the chance to overuse a common property, they will, in order to realize the maximum personal benefits. If every person does this, common property quickly becomes overused and damaged (Hardin, 1968).

For example, a group of tourism operators may look at a pristine natural area and see a chance for economic profit, and in the race for development, little or nothing is done to protect the area. If this unchecked development were to continue, the damage to the environment could reach a point where the elements that attracted tourists in the first place are irreversibly damaged, thus resulting in the “tragedy” that Hardin discusses (Hardin, 1968).

The tragedy of the commons leads to something known as the tourism paradox , a concept that describes the paradoxical nature of tourism’s relationship with the environment.

The Tourism Paradox

A common theme promoted by many tourism destinations is their location in some of the most ecologically fragile environments in existence — coastal, mountain, and river environments (Williams & Ponsford, 2008). Tourism requires these areas to be intact to serve as an attraction to visitors. Tourists expect a clean physical environment, appropriate seasonal conditions, and diversity of wildlife. Destinations failing to provide at least some of these elements risk losing their competitive edge in the global market; visitors will steer clear of polluted, barren landscapes with unpredictable or uncomfortable weather.

Spotlight On: The Resort Municipality of Whistler

The community of Whistler relies heavily on natural resources for its local tourism products, such as skiing, and has long been active in sustainability initiatives. The plan, Whistler 2020, sets out integrated community strategies for enhancing community life, enhancing the resort experience, ensuring economic viability, protecting the environment, and partnering for success. For more information about the plan and Whistler’s progress with these initiatives, visit the Whistler2020 website .

At the same time, the tourism industry is itself causing environmental damage through its own development in pristine areas, consumption of resources, and contribution to climate change. This is the paradox: as an industry, tourism both creates damage and suffers from it. That’s why it’s critical for the industry to be proactive about environmental sustainability in tourism; failing to do so may result in our downfall (Williams & Ponsford, 2008).

Before we gain a better understanding of the ways the tourism industry and individual operators can try to mitigate their impacts, let’s take a closer look at the overall management of BC’s environmental resources.

Sustainable Tourism

The UNWTO sees sustainable tourism as a set of guidelines and management practices that can be applied to all forms of tourism (from small-scale to mass tourism) and in all destination types (2005).  When referring to sustainable tourism, sustainability principles relating to environmental, economic and socio-cultural aspects of tourism development must be addressed.  As such, sustainable tourism development requires the informed consent and input from local people and stakeholders and must address the need to:

• Make optimal use of environmental resources that constitute a key element in tourism development, maintaining essential ecological processes and helping to conserve natural heritage and biodiversity.
• Respect the socio-cultural authenticity of host communities, conserve their built and living cultural heritage and traditional values, and contribute to inter-cultural understanding and tolerance.
• Ensure viable, long-term economic operations, providing socio-economic benefits to all stakeholders that are fairly distributed, including stable employment and income-earning opportunities and social services to host communities, and contributing to poverty alleviation (UNWTO, 2005, p. 11–12).

Many industry leaders feel that the sustainable tourism movement is fragmented and lacks leadership and accountability due to the fragmentation of the tourism industry itself (Mullis, 2017). Tourists themselves have a large role to play in this equation in that their experiences are generally more positive when experiences incorporate sustainability principles and it has been found that tourists are more likely to visit or make purchases from tourism companies that have sustainability practices in place (Mandala Research, 2015).

Responsible Tourism

Responsible Tourism is an approach to tourism development that was defined through the Cape Town Declaration in 2002 in an effort to provide practical, evidence-based solutions that sustainable tourism approaches have not succeeded to do.  Responsible tourism is defined as “making better places for people to live in and better places for people to visit” (Cape Town Declaration, 2002).  Responsible tourism approaches focus on identifying important issues to local people and their environments, addressing those issues and transparently reporting and monitoring on those issues.

The Cape Town Declaration recognizes that Tourism can provide numerous benefits to people and destinations however tourist and industry behaviour must be managed in a way that is defined by local people who know what they need best.

The Responsible Tourism approach is defined by tourism that:

• minimizes negative economic, environmental and social impacts;
• generates greater economic benefits for local people and enhances the well-being of host communities, improves working conditions and access to the industry;
• involves local people in decisions that affect their lives and life changes;
• makes positive contributions to the conservation of natural and cultural heritage, to the maintenance of the world’s diversity;
• provides more enjoyable experiences for tourists through more meaningful connections with local people, and a greater understanding of local cultural, social and environmental issues;
• provides access for people with disabilities and the disadvantaged;
• is culturally sensitive, engenders respect between tourists and hosts, and builds local pride and confidence (Harold Goodwin, 2014).

The maximum number of a given species that can be sustained in a specific habitat or biosphere without negative impacts.

The maximum number of people that can visit a specific habitat in a set period of time without negative impacts, and without compromising the visitor experience.

A model that calculates the amount of natural resources needed to support society at its current standard of living.

The tendency of society to overconsume natural resources for individual gain.

The concept that tourism operations destroy its very requirements for success: a pristine natural environment.

Introduction to Tourism and Hospitality in BC - 2nd Edition Copyright © 2015, 2020, 2021 by Morgan Westcott and Wendy Anderson, Eds is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Tragedy of the Commons: What It Is and 5 Examples

• 06 Feb 2019

Have you ever thought about the environmental impact of the items used in your daily life? Are they harming the environment? Perhaps they have a positive effect. For some individuals, this may be the reason they chose these items in the first place.

Yet, this isn’t always the case. What if the production or use of your favorite products threatens the ecosystem? Or worse, what if your consumption threatens the very existence of those products?

While this notion may seem implausible, it turns out there are many goods that are being produced unsustainably, endangering resources, or negatively impacting the environment.

What Is the Tragedy of the Commons?

The tragedy of the commons refers to a situation in which individuals with access to a public resource (also called a common) act in their own interest and, in doing so, ultimately deplete the resource.

This economic theory was first conceptualized in 1833 by British writer William Forster Lloyd. In 1968, the term “tragedy of the commons” was used for the first time by Garret Hardin in Science Magazine .

This theory explains individuals’ tendency to make decisions based on their personal needs, regardless of the negative impact it may have on others. In some cases, an individual’s belief that others won’t act in the best interest of the group can lead them to justify selfish behavior. Potential overuse of a common-pool resource—hybrid between a public and private good— can also influence individuals to act with their short-term interest in mind, resulting in the use of an unsustainable product and disregard the harm it could cause to the environment or general public.

It’s helpful for both firms and individuals to understand the tragedy of the commons so they can make more sustainable and environmentally-friendly choices. Here are five real-world examples of the tragedy of the commons and an exploration of the solution to this problem.

Check out our video on the tragedy of the commons below, and subscribe to our YouTube channel for more explainer content!

5 Tragedy of the Commons Examples

1. coffee consumption.

While a simple cup of coffee might seem harmless, coffee consumption is a prime example of the tragedy of the commons. Coffee plants are a naturally occurring shared resource, but overconsumption has led to habitat loss endangering 60 percent of the plants' species —including the most commonly brewed Arabica coffee.

2. Overfishing

As the global population continues to rise, the food supply needs to increase just as quickly. However, overhunting and overfishing have the potential to push many species into extinction. For example, overfishing of the Pacific bluefin tuna has caused an all-time population low of approximately three percent of their original population. This not only endangers the Pacific bluefin tuna, but also risks further marine ecosystem endangerment as a result.

3. Fast Fashion

Overproduction by fashion brands has created extreme product surplus to the point that luxury brand Burberry burnt $37.8 million worth of its 2018 season’s leftovers to avoid offering a discount on unsold wares. Furthermore, as new trends emerge rapidly within social networks on the Internet and social media, consumers are constantly purchasing new clothing items and disposing of old, out-of-trend items that ultimately end up in landfills and contribute to pollution.

4. Traffic Congestion

Traffic congestion is one of the best-known modern examples of the tragedy of the commons. According to a study by the Harvard School of Public Health , air pollution from traffic congestion in urban areas contributes to more than 2,200 premature deaths annually in the United States alone. As more people decide that roads and highways are the fastest way to travel to work, more cars end up on the roads, ultimately slowing down traffic and polluting the air.

5. Groundwater Use

In the United States, groundwater is the source of drinking water for about half the population, and roughly 50 billion gallons are used each day for agriculture. Because of this, groundwater supply is decreasing faster than it can be replenished. In drought-prone areas, the risk for water shortage is high and restrictions are often put in place to mitigate it. Some individuals, however, ignore water restrictions and the supply ultimately becomes smaller for everyone.

Related: The Parlor Room Podcast: HBS Professor Forest Reinhardt on Climate Change and the Tragedy of the Commons

How Can the Tragedy of the Commons Be Avoided?

How would you react to discovering that your consumption habits are depleting natural resources? You have two primary options: finding alternative, sustainable products and preventing overconsumption.

Finding Alternative and Sustainable Products

To drive change and avoid the tragedy of the commons, it’s important to boycott the products or brands causing the alleged harm and search for alternatives. Finding sustainable options, rather than carrying on with what Sustainable Business Strategy Professor Rebecca Henderson calls, “business as usual,” directly addresses the impact of your consumption habits. Unfortunately this response has not grown in popularity, since many consumers feel boycotting a product won’t make a large enough impact to make a difference.

The tragedy of the commons shows us how, without some sort of regulation or public transparency of choices and actions associated with public goods, there's no incentive for individuals to hold themselves back from taking too much. In fact, individuals may even have a “use it or lose it” mentality; if they’re aware of the inevitability that the good itself will be depleted, they may think, “I better get my share while I still can.”

Related: What Does "Sustainability" Mean in Business?

Preventing Overconsumption

You’ve likely encountered examples of the tragedy of the commons in your everyday life; these hypothetical scenarios can offer insight into how to prevent the overconsumption of resources. Consider how you’d respond in the following scenarios:

• If everyone in your community abides by the town’s lawn-watering regulations, you're more likely to follow them as well. Who wants a bright green lawn while the rest of the town's lawns are brown?
• No one wants to pay a premium for something they’ll likely throw away or use as a trash bag. Charging for grocery bags raises the stakes, because it involves the customer’s bottom line. Chances are, this change will lead you to keep reusable bags in your car, just in case you need to stop at the grocery store on the way home.

These examples show how, when faced with a public good, individuals can be motivated to cooperate through monetary or moral incentives or penalties. What’s truly fascinating is that this also holds true on a larger scale.

Remember the previous example of luxury fashion brands burning surplus clothing? Well, Burberry—having heard its customers’ reactions to the burning of inventory, regardless of how sustainably its products were disposed of—has since pledged to stop burning clothes and using real fur.

Developing a Sustainable Mindset

It’s easy for both individuals and organizations to fall victim to the tragedy of the commons. However, it doesn’t have to be this way. By developing a more sustainable mindset , you can become better aware of the long-term impact that your short-term choices have on the environment both in your personal life and at work.

Are you interested in learning more? Explore our Sustainable Business Strategy course and other business in society courses to discover how you can make a difference and become a purpose-driven leader.

This post was updated on August 17, 2022. It was originally published on February 6, 2019.

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Regenerative tourism: avoiding the ‘tragedy of commons’.

Mridula Tangirala

Mridula Tangirala, Head – Tourism, Tata Trusts

The post-pandemic world is a significantly different place – to live as well as to travel. Consumers today are more informed and aware about how tourism has, over the years, also had a negative impact on the environment as well as on the local communities. Sustainable tourism grew as a response to this realisation, but more needs to be done; regenerative tourism embodies that promise. 

Regenerative tourism is a fundamentally different approach that starts with putting the well-being of the destination and its people, above all else. It paves the way for the emergence of ‘Destination Stewardship’ which means finding solutions outside the mere confines of the privatised or government control of environment to maintain cultural, environmental, economic, and aesthetic integrity of their destination. 

A destination, as we know, is a common public good and would inevitably face the ‘tragedy of commons’.

Garret Hardin, renowned American ecologist, and others demonstrated amply in theory and practice that if everyone acts only in their self-interest, contrary to the common good of all users, it results in depletion of the underlying resource for everybody, thereby the term – ‘tragedy of commons’. Pioneering work done by Nobel Prize laureate Elinor Ostrom has also shown how a community of like-minded people can avoid this tragedy and create thriving common resources if they follow certain principles.   

Regenerative tourism can deliver on its full potential if the following five enabling conditions are ensured. Each element on its own also helps the cause; but lasting, long-ranging, irreversible change requires all the five elements.  

• Collective action for inclusive management and governance – In initiation, a forum must be created to allow participation by all relevant stakeholders in decisions regarding balancing tourism and conservation. Creating such a forum is the easier part, the difficult aspect is to ensure that this collective body has a mechanism for low cost and speedy conflict resolution. Forums with face-to-face communications make it easy to build trust and find creative solutions that would inevitably follow. There already are examples of community tourism like Himalayan Ark or Ecosphere that leverage their existing community ties merging the livelihood needs of the local community members with their role as transformation stewards of their landscape. 
• Recognition of rights by government – To work effectively, the above body must have recognised rights to steer the destination, locally. Panchayati Raj Act and Forest Rights Acts have been enablers in this regard, while some states, like Uttarakhand (Van Panchayats) and Nagaland (Community ownerships of the vast tract of forests), also have additional institutional structures. However, to effectively discharge their role, these collective bodies need to have influencing power over various aspects, like building vocabulary, usage of fragile resources, like water, waste management, and tourism revenue collection. The new draft Strategy for Rural Tourism also envisages the creation of District and State level nodal agencies as well as Cluster level monitoring and Coordination Committee to act as a Destination Management Organisation. These bodies need to have the authority to create incentives for strengthening compliance and enforcing graduated sanctions (as per severity, frequency, and context of the violation) for violations.
• Critical systems thinking, improved convergence in planning and action – In a connected eco-system, any intervention should be backed by science and ancient wisdom. Local capacities need to be built so that the limits of usage or boundary of a particular resource are not only understood by all, but also create a conservation mind-set. Effectively implemented rules governing both consumption and conservation of resources can create all-around acceptance, results-oriented dialogues and empowered agency; as it happened in Mangalajodi. This former notorious poacher-village on the banks of Chilka Lake in Odisha changed their mind-sets as well as livelihood from bird-hunting and illegal prawn-farming to eco-tourism, when the local bird protection collective forced them to confront the impact of their actions.
• Access to resources and finance for regeneration – Regular monitoring of various parameters describing the health of the landscape and all its life-forms is often missed. Usually, only biodiversity hot-spots or important cultural site are monitored for specific aspects while satisfaction levels of local communities vis-à-vis tourism (through surveys like Planet Happiness for example) are rarely monitored. Holistic tracking of a destination would clearly establish the need for the trans-disciplinary resources and finance for regeneration which can then be solicited. It also becomes easier to influence policy and programmatic action for sustained investments. 
• Building coalitions, awakened everyday leadership – This is the most important component; when every stakeholder is an ethical change agent working in a synergised manner with others, the ‘Tragedy of Commons’ can be circumvented. The beauty of this journey of a thousand miles is that each of us can contribute by taking that one step of personal transformation. Be it the volunteers cataloguing the cultural and natural assets or the NGOs carving out their programmes to use tourism as an enabler, regenerative tourism can be the thread connecting all of us together in our quest for a better world!

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Tragedy of the commons' in the tourism accommodation industry

2007, Tourism Economics

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• Responsible Tourism

Overtourism, parasitism and the tragedy of the commons

By harold goodwin dr harold goodwin has worked on 4 continents with local communities, their governments, accommodation providers and the inbound and outbound tourism industry. he is a professor emeritus and  responsible tourism director at the institute of place management at manchester metropolitan university, managing director of the responsible tourism partnership and adviser to wtm africa on its responsible tourism programme. he chairs the panels of judges for the world responsible tourism awards and the other awards in the family, africa, india and latin america. harold founded the icrtd series of international conferences on responsible tourism in destinations in 2002, he co-chairs the conferences with the local host organisation. he is also founder director of the international centre for responsible tourism which he founded in 2002 and which promotes the principles of the 2002 cape town declaration. in 2022 the responsible tourism charter was signed on magna carta island incorporating two decades of experience in using tourism to make better places for people to live in and to visit..

Fundamental to Responsible Tourism is the principle that the destination belongs to the people who live there and their descendants. The 2002 Cape Town Declaration on Responsible Tourism in Destinations called on “planning authorities, tourism businesses, tourists and local communities – to take responsibility for achieving sustainable tourism, and to create better places for people to live in and for people to visit.” This is a litmus test for Responsible Tourism. Those who put the visitors first reveal that they have not understood.

Overtourism is the antithesis of Responsible Tourism, and it is a growing problem around the world. Last week, I discussed the issue with Mirko Lalli, the CEO & Founder of The Data Appeal Company based in Florence. “ Overtourism describes destinations where hosts or guests, locals or visitors feel that there are too many visitors and that the quality of life in the area, or the quality of the experience, has deteriorated unacceptably.” The problem is that destinations have great difficulty in preventing too many visitors arriving, they are “ common pool resources .” The indoor and outdoor public spaces in destinations are free to use, and there is no mechanism readily available to limit numbers too often, resulting in a tragedy of the commons .

Back in 1994, Sir Colin Marshall, then Chair of British Airways, launched their Travel for Tomorrow Awards and spoke of the tourism and the travel industry as “essentially the renting out for short-term lets, of other people’s environments, whether that is a coastline, a city, a mountain range or a rainforest.” The industry primarily comprises service providers, accommodation, travel, and guiding. The attractions are the products which bring tourists and day visitors. Where the attractions can control access through a gate and collect fees, the visitor potentially contributes to the costs of maintaining the product, but public spaces, views and museums are often ungated and free to use.

There is a symbiotic relationship between the travel and tourism service providers and the destinations. Too often, the relationship is one of parasitism – the tourist and tourism service providers benefit at the expense of the other species, the hosts. Responsible Tourism aspires to develop mutualism where both hosts and guests benefit, and the host is not harmed.

The Landscape Devourers (Die Landschaft Fresser), Jost Krippendorf’s first book, published in 1975, was about the problems tourism created in the Swiss Alps. A trained economist, he was then Director of the Institute of Leisure and Tourism at the University of Bern, with a chair in the Theory and Politics of Tourism; he was also director of the Swiss Tourism Association from 1971 to 1978. Krippendord was no stranger to controversy. One of the first to understand the negative impacts of tourism and increasingly concerned with ecology, he ended his career as head of the Liaison Office for General Ecology at the University of Bern.

“He was often personally attacked, but his classic response was: “We are damned to have the duty to be far-sighted, critical and unpopular.”” Krippendorf’s The Holiday Makers, published in German in 1984, and translated into English in 1987, is his best-known work. Krippendorf analysed the role of tourism in industrialised societies and argued for the humanisation of travel and balanced tourist development, calling for conscious travel, which would be achieved by “rebellious tourists and rebellious locals.”

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What Is the Tragedy of the Commons?

Economic theory, supply and demand, preventing the tragedy of the commons, the bottom line.

• Guide to Microeconomics

What Is the Tragedy of the Commons in Economics?

A common resource or "commons" is any resource, such as water or land, that provides users with tangible benefits but which nobody has an exclusive claim. The tragedy of the commons is an economic problem where the individual consumes a resource at the expense of society.

If an individual acts in their best interest, it can result in harmful over-consumption to the detriment of all. This phenomenon may result in under-investment and total depletion of a shared resource.

Key Takeaways

• The tragedy of the commons is an economic problem where the individual consumes a resource at the expense of society.
• A common resource or "commons" is any resource, such as water or land, that provides users with tangible benefits but which nobody has an exclusive claim.
• The tragedy of the commons occurs when an economic good is rivalrous in consumption, non-excludable, scarce, and a common-pool resource.

Investopedia / Julie Bang

The tragedy of the commons is an economic theory claiming that individuals tend to exploit shared resources so that demand outweighs supply, and it becomes unavailable for the whole.

In 1968 evolutionary biologist Garrett Hardin published "The Tragedy of the Commons" in the peer-reviewed journal Science , which addressed the growing concern of overpopulation. Hardin used an example of sheep grazing land, taken from the early English economist William Forster Lloyd.

Grazing lands that are held as private property are prudently used by the landholder to preserve the land and the health of the herd. Common grazing lands become over-saturated with livestock because the food the animals consume is shared among all sheepherders. Hardin equated his point to humans who over-consume the commonly accessible scarce resource, making it harder to find.

The tragedy of the commons occurs when an economic good is rivalrous in consumption, non-excludable, scarce, and a common-pool resource . Each consumer consumes as much as they can as fast as they can before others deplete the good, and no one has the incentive to reinvest in maintaining or reproducing the good.

• Rival good: A rival good is one that only one person can consume and cannot be shared. All consumers are rivals competing for that unit, and each person’s consumption subtracts from the total supply of the good.
• Non-excludable: A good is non-excludable when individual consumers are unable to prevent others from also consuming it.
• Scarce: The good must be scarce since a non-scarce good cannot be rivalrous in consumption.
• Common-pool resource: A common-pool resource functions as a hybrid between a public and private good because it is shared and available to everyone but also scarce, with a finite  supply . 

Institutional and technological factors play a role in the rivalry and excludability of a good. Societies have developed methods of dividing and enforcing exclusive rights to economic goods and natural resources or punishing those who over-consume common resources.

Regulatory Solutions

Top-down government regulation or direct control of a common-pool resource can reduce over-consumption, and government investment in the conservation and renewal of the resource can help prevent its depletion. Government regulation can limit how many cattle may graze on government lands or issue fish catch quotas.

Assigning private property rights over resources to individuals can convert a common-pool resource into a private good . Technologically it may mean developing a way to identify, measure, and mark units or parcels of the common pool resource into private holdings, such as branding cattle.

William Forster Lloyd argued for this around the time of the English Parliament’s Enclosure Acts, which stripped traditional common property arrangements to grazing lands and fields and divided the land into private holdings.

Collective Solutions

Economists led by Nobelist Elinor Ostrom touted customary arrangements among rural villagers and aristocratic lords, including common access to most grazing and farmlands and managing their use and conservation. Practices such as crop rotation, seasonal grazing, and enforceable sanctions against overuse and abuse of the resource meant collective action arrangements readily overcame the tragedy of the commons.

Elinor Ostrom was the first woman, and one of just two women, to win the Nobel prize in economics.

Collective action is used where technical or natural physical challenges prevent the division of a common-pool resource into small private parcels by instead relying on measures to address the good’s rivalry in consumption by regulating consumption.

Has the Tragedy of the Commons Led to Extinction of a Resource?

The extinction of the dodo bird is a historical example of the tragedy of the commons. An easy-to-hunt, flightless bird native to only a few small islands, the dodo was a source of meat for sailors traveling the southern Indian Ocean. Due to overhunting, the dodo was driven to extinction less than a century after its discovery by Dutch sailors in 1598.

Where Is the Tragedy of the Commons Evident in Industry?

Before the 1960s, the Grand Banks fishery off the coast of Newfoundland was abundant with codfish because the fishery supported all the cod fishing they could do with existing fishing technology while reproducing itself each year through the natural spawning cycle. However, advancements in fishing technology made it so fisherfolk could catch massive amounts of codfish unsupportable with natural replenishment. With no framework of property rights or institutional common regulation, the entire industry collapsed by 1990.

How Is the Tragedy of the Commons Handled When Different Nations Share Resources?

Within individual countries, governments at the local level can manage shared resources with clear boundaries. At the international level, rules regarding shared resources are difficult to enforce across jurisdictions. When resources cannot be divided, international law regarding shared resources is essentially voluntary, according to the economist Scott Barrett at Columbia University.  

The tragedy of the commons occurs when individuals overconsume a resource at the expense of society. When a common resource, such as water or land, is rivalrous in consumption, non-excludable, scarce, and a common-pool resource, the tragedy of the commons occurs. A common resource is any resource that provides users with tangible benefits but to which nobody has a claim.

Scientific American. " The Tragedy of the Tragedy of the Commons ."

American Association for the Advancement of Science. " The Tragedy of the Commons ."

The Nobel Prize. " Elinor Ostrom—Facts ."

Panorama. " How Humanity First Killed Dodo, Then Lost It as Well ."

National Park Service. " The Grand Banks: Where Have All the Cod Gone? "

Earth.org. " What Is the Tragedy of the Commons ?"

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April 23, 2019

The Tragedy of the Tragedy of the Commons

The man who wrote one of environmentalism’s most-cited essays was a racist, eugenicist, nativist and Islamaphobe—plus his argument was wrong

By Matto Mildenberger

Garrett Hardin in 1972.

Bill Johnson Getty Images

This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American

Fifty years ago, University of California professor Garrett Hardin penned an influential essay in the journal Science . Hardin saw all humans as selfish herders: we worry that our neighbors’ cattle will graze the best grass. So, we send more of our cows out to consume that grass first. We take it first, before someone else steals our share. This creates a vicious cycle of environmental degradation that Hardin described as the “tragedy of the commons.”

It's hard to overstate Hardin’s impact on modern environmentalism. His views are taught across ecology, economics, political science and environmental studies. His essay remains an academic blockbuster, with almost 40,000 citations . It still gets republished in prominent environmental anthologies .

But here are some inconvenient truths: Hardin was a racist, eugenicist, nativist and Islamophobe . He is listed by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a known white nationalist. His writings and political activism helped inspire the anti-immigrant hatred spilling across America today.

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And he promoted an idea he called “ lifeboat ethics ”: since global resources are finite, Hardin believed the rich should throw poor people overboard to keep their boat above water.

To create a just and vibrant climate future, we need to instead cast Hardin and his flawed metaphor overboard.

People who revisit Hardin’s original essay are in for a surprise. Its six pages are filled with fear-mongering. Subheadings proclaim that “freedom to breed is intolerable.” It opines at length about the benefits if “children of improvident parents starve to death.” A few paragraphs later Hardin writes: “If we love the truth we must openly deny the validity of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.” And on and on. Hardin practically calls for a fascist state to snuff out unwanted gene pools. 

Or build a wall to keep immigrants out. Hardin was a virulent nativist whose ideas inspired some of today’s ugliest anti-immigrant sentiment. He believed that only racially homogenous societies could survive. He was also involved with the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), a hate group that now cheers President Trump’s racist policies. Today, American neo-Nazis cite Hardin’s theories to justify racial violence.

These were not mere words on paper. Hardin lobbied Congress against sending food aid to poor nations, because he believed their populations were threatening Earth’s “carrying capacity.”

Of course, plenty of flawed people have left behind noble ideas. That Hardin’s tragedy was advanced as part of a white nationalist project should not automatically condemn its merits.

But the facts are not on Hardin’s side. For one, he got the history of the commons wrong. As Susan Cox pointed out , early pastures were well regulated by local institutions. They were not free-for-all grazing sites where people took and took at the expense of everyone else.

Many global commons have been similarly sustained through community institutions. This striking finding was the life’s work of Elinor Ostrom, who won the 2009 Nobel Prize in Economics (technically called the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel). Using the tools of science—rather than the tools of hatred—Ostrom showed the diversity of institutions humans have created to manage our shared environment.

Of course, humans can deplete finite resources. This often happens when we lack appropriate institutions to manage them. But let’s not credit Hardin for that common insight. Hardin wasn’t making an informed scientific case. Instead, he was using concerns about environmental scarcity to justify racial discrimination.

We must reject his pernicious ideas on both scientific and moral grounds. Environmental sustainability cannot exist without environmental justice. Are we really prepared to follow Hardin and say there are only so many lead pipes we can replace? Only so many bodies that should be protected from cancer-causing pollutants? Only so many children whose futures matter?

This is particularly important when we deal with climate change. Despite what Hardin might have said, the climate crisis is not a tragedy of the commons . The culprit is not our individual impulses to consume fossil fuels to the ruin of all. And the solution is not to let small islands in Chesapeake Bay or whole countries in the Pacific sink into the past, without a seat on our planetary lifeboat.

Instead, rejecting Hardin’s diagnosis requires us to name the true culprit for the climate crisis we now face. Thirty years ago, a different future was available. Gradual climate policies could have slowly steered our economy towards gently declining carbon pollution levels. The costs to most Americans would have been imperceptible.

But that future was stolen from us. It was stolen by powerful, carbon-polluting interests who blocked policy reforms at every turn to preserve their short-term profits. They locked each of us into an economy where fossil fuel consumption continues to be a necessity, not a choice. 

This is what makes attacks on individual behavior so counterproductive. Yes, it’s great to drive an electric vehicle (if you can afford it) and purchase solar panels (if powerful utilities in your state haven’t conspired to make renewable energy more expensive). But the point is that interest groups have structured the choices available to us today. Individuals don’t have the agency to steer our economic ship from the passenger deck.

As Harvard historian Naomi Oreskes reminds us , “[abolitionists] wore clothes made of cotton picked by slaves. But that did not make them hypocrites … it just meant that they were also part of the slave economy, and they knew it. That is why they acted to change the system, not just their clothes.”

Or as Representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez tweeted : “Living in the world as it is isn’t an argument against working towards a better future.” The truth is that two-thirds of all the carbon pollution ever released into the atmosphere can be traced to the activities of just ninety companies.

These corporations’ efforts to successfully thwart climate action are the real tragedy .

We are left with very little time. We need political leaders to pilot our economy through a period of rapid economic transformation, on a grand scale unseen since the Second World War. And to get there, we are going to have make sure our leaders listen to us, not—as my colleagues and I show in our research—fossil fuel companies.

Hope requires us to start from an unconditional commitment to one another, as passengers aboard a common lifeboat being rattled by heavy winds. The climate movement needs more people on this lifeboat, not fewer. We must make room for every human if we are going to build the political power necessary to face down the looming oil tankers and coal barges that send heavy waves in our direction. This is a commitment at the heart of proposals like the Green New Deal.

Fifty years on, let’s stop the mindless invocation of Hardin. Let’s stop saying that we are all to blame because we all overuse shared resources. Let’s stop championing policies that privilege environmental protection for some human beings at the expense of others. And let’s replace Hardin’s flawed metaphor with an inclusive vision for humanity—one based on democratic governance and cooperation in this time of darkness.

Instead of writing a tragedy, we must offer hope for every single human on Earth. Only then will the public rise up to silence the powerful carbon polluters trying to steal our future.

Mussolini’s Hometown Can’t Figure Out How to Quit Him

Right-wingers treat Predappio as a Disneyland of sorts; to left-wingers, it’s a toxic symbol of Italy’s handling of its fascist past. But the reality is far more complicated.

Alex Sakalis

Piero Cruciatti/AFP

How do you solve a problem like Predappio?

This small town in the hills of northern Italy where Mussolini was born in 1883 remains something of an enigma. The previous mayor called it the “Chernobyl of Italy”—a place too toxic to touch. It plays host to large neo-fascist rallies, souvenir shops selling Mussolini trinkets and the tomb of Il Duce himself, which lies in a crypt in the town’s municipal cemetery. All of this co-existing alongside 6,000 citizens in one of Italy’s most historically left-wing strongholds.

Since the end of World War II, Predappio’s citizens have routinely elected mayors from the political left. This was until 2019 when, as part of a right-wing surge across Italy that eventually brought Giorgia Meloni to power, Predappio elected its first right-wing mayor since the death of its most famous son.

The town hall of Predappio, Palazzo Varano, in Italy. The Italian dictator Mussolini was born in the town in 1883, and for a time he lived in this building, which was once a school.

Petra Kaminsky/picture alliance via Getty Images

At Palazzo Varano, Predappio’s striking town hall, where Mussolini lived for a time as a child, I met with Roberto Canali, the new mayor. He was charming, earnest, almost guileless in a way that’s difficult to feign. He talked at length about his love for Predappio, its Sangiovese wine, its festivals and its ancient Roman origins. He winced slightly when I brought up its most famous local son.

“Every time something fascist happens anywhere in Italy, journalists phone me up for a response. It happened recently with the rally in Rome . The next day I was inundated with calls. Why should I, as the mayor of a small village in northern Italy, be forced to comment? I’m tired of it. Some people still think we’re living in the 1920s here.”

His weariness was understandable. Much of his time, he told me plaintively, is spent dealing with the ongoing damage and compensation over last year’s devastating floods, which severely damaged Predappio and its constellation of villages.

He took a dim view of the carnivalesque fascist rallies which take place here every year on Italian fascism’s three most important anniversaries: Mussolini’s birthday, Mussolini’s death day, and the March on Rome—the bloodless coup that brought Mussolini to power in 1922.

“I don’t like seeing them. If you come to Predappio, you should leave your black shirts at home. Dress as you would in your own town. We are hospitable people but we deserve respect.”

But should they still be allowed to continue?

“It’s a police matter,” he said bluntly. “If they’re not illegal, then we can’t ban them. Anyway, these marches are organized and attended by outsiders. No one from Predappio actually joins them. But somehow we’re the ones who get castigated.”

The childhood home of Mussolini in Predappio, Italy.

Ullstein Bild via Getty Images

When Mussolini was born here in 1883, Predappio was an unassuming farming village in a rural, undeveloped corner of Italy, which had unified as a country just 22 years earlier. After he came to power in 1922, he returned to the village and inaugurated Predappio Nuova, a grand, futuristic utopia built around the farmhouse where he was born. The idea was twofold: look at the humble origins of your leader, the straw bed where he slept, the schoolhouse where his working-class mother taught. And now look at how he is transforming the country, emancipating the downtrodden and leading Italy into a glorious, developed future.

The church of S. Antonio in a central square of Predappio. The church was consecrated in 1934.

The story is interesting, but the results are not. Unlike the more beguiling and impressive “foundation cities” of the 1930s such as Tresigallo, Sabaudia and EUR, Predappio feels unfinished and glibly monumental; a boulevard in search of a city. Its roll call of buildings, lined up in military formation, are striking, eclectic, occasionally attractive, some indicative of the prevailing trends in modernism, others appearing like Art Nouveau townhouses bussed in from the 19th century. The boulevard ends at the town’s church, which features the inscription E.F. XIII, indicating that it was built in the 13th year of fascist rule. (In one of his more messianic moments, Mussolini had decided to reinvent the calendar so that 1922—the year he came to power—now became Year 1. This new chronology frequently graced public buildings.)

An example of the architecture found in Predappio, Italy. This is the municipal movie theater.

Giovanni Mereghetti/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Just opposite is the former local branch of the Fascist Party, a hulking leviathan of a building that has mostly sat derelict since the end of the war. This was the intended site of a Museum of Fascism, the big idea of the previous mayor, who thought it would bring a sense of closure to the town. The project was attacked by both the right and the left in Italy, the latter believing it would further glamorize Predappio as the cradle of fascism, rather than just an incidental moment in fascism’s pan-Italian story. Ultimately, the project was killed by the new mayor.

“We are a small town with a small economy and we cannot take on the huge responsibility of Italy’s only Museum of Fascism all by ourselves,” said Canali. “If we had the help of the central government and large institutions, then that would be different. But that has not been forthcoming. Instead, I think we should focus on architectural tourism. We have some amazing buildings from the interwar period. We recently put on a successful exhibition about the architecture of the town in Mussolini’s birth house.”

Calendars with Benito Mussolini’s image on sale in a shop selling souvenirs from the fascist and Nazi period, Oct. 30, 2022 in Predappio, Italy.

Francesca Volpi/Getty Images

Can tourism in Predappio ever be neutral? The town hosts two Mussolini souvenir shops; both unexpectedly large, one of them taking up the commercial space of two separate buildings. I had half-expected them to be flogging tacky mementos in the name of “historical curiosity” but no, this was overtly and unambiguously fascist merchandise. Mussolini calendars, Mussolini wine, Mussolini pasta(?), Mussolini busts, black shirts, baby clothes, truncheons, fasces, eagles, cigarette lighters and ashtrays. One shop offered a special deal: 10 anti-communism bracelets for only €5 ($5.50). The stores were plastered with flyers for various local neo-fascist groups in Italy, all of which seem to have adopted the aesthetics of early-2000s metalcore bands.

The fact that both shops feel confident enough to be open on a Friday morning in February suggests that Predappio is more than just a three-times-a-year destination for a certain kind of tourist.

The Mussolini crypt in Predappio, Italy.

Likewise, the Mussolini family crypt is open and I’m one of several visitors squeezed into an underground cavern where various members of the clan are buried. The big draw is the tomb of the man himself, draped in a large Italian flag and a sash that says, “GRAZIE DUCE,” followed by the date of the March on Rome. A Trunchbull-ish custodian leads approving tours of the space to wide-eyed pilgrims but scolds me for trying to flick through the crypt’s guestbook. It’s estimated that up to 100,000 people visit Mussolini’s tomb every year.

“We’re just an ordinary town” is a common refrain heard in Predappio. But visiting the town, it comes across more as a cry for help. The paradox of Predappio is that it is an extraordinary place filled with people who desperately want it to be ordinary. The result is a kind of netherworld: an entire town constructed as fascist propaganda now condemned for eternity to be fascism’s theme park.

“The residents of Predappio know as well as you and I that there’s quite a lot that’s weird and distinctive about their hometown,” said Paolo Heywood, assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Durham and author of Burying Mussolini: Ordinary Life in the Shadows of Fascism . “They know that it’s not usual to have to muscle your way past a group of singing fascists to get to the bar to order a coffee. They know it’s not ordinary to be asked for directions to Mussolini’s tomb by tourists dressed in black while on your way to do the shopping. The mayor knows that other small-town mayors aren’t frequently contacted by journalists wanting them to comment on fascism. But because they don’t want that to be so, then they try hard to live as if it isn’t so. And that’s the way of dealing with it. That’s the attitude that you’re supposed to have towards this stuff because touching it brings no good, basically, to anybody ever.”

Heywood has family links to Predappio and has lived in the town trying to understand how ordinary life carries on in the shadow of Mussolini. Like Canali, he agreed that public opinion in traditionally left-wing Predappio is largely against the fascist rallies that turn the town into a raging cauldron of discourse three times a year.

“I think it’s a resigned sense that there’s absolutely nothing they could do about it. Again, in collective memory and experience, they know that in 1957, when these things first started, the police tried to arrest people. It didn’t make any difference. They know that in the 1960s and ’70s, left-wing militants came and beat people up and tried to stop them coming that way. There was even a bomb set off in the crypt. It didn’t make any difference,” he said. “If anything, that just made life more inconvenient and uncomfortable for locals. Since the ’80s, it’s basically been peaceful. What is there to do about it, from their point of view? They have no experience of any legal recourse.”

So how can Predappio ever move on?

“I think what would be important to bear in mind for anybody thinking about solutions is that Predappio exists in the wider national and historical context. It’s not an island untouched by post-war history or by national attitudes to these phenomena,” Heywood explained. “That’s the way in which it’s often conceived of by people on the right, who think it’s this weird Disneyland place that they can visit to remember when everything was great, and people on the left who loathe it and think it condenses everything poisonous and awful about Italian attitudes to fascism. But it isn’t that. It exists in symbiosis with wider issues including broader, systemic failures in the de-fascistization process since the war. And so in that sense, I think it’s reasonable that locals are somewhat suspicious of ideas that are going to treat them as an isolated case that just needs a special magical fix and then everything will be alright.”

The irony is that all discussions about Predappio never seem to escape the trap of thinking of it—not as a real town with real people—but as a symbol, a problem, a Rorschach test.

Mussolini created Predappio to give himself a sense of immortality. The tragedy is that he succeeded, and no one is quite sure how to deal with that.

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The death of Samantha Miller: One year since bride was killed on her wedding night

by Matthew Sockol

FOLLY BEACH, S.C. (WCIV) — What was supposed to be the happiest day of Samantha Miller's life turned to tragedy.

On April 28, 2023, Miller married Aric Hutchinson in Folly Beach. They left their wedding reception in a low-speed vehicle (LSV) and were headed back to their apartment when they were struck by another vehicle.

The collision killed Miller on her wedding night.

Read more: Woman charged with killing bride in wedding night collision released on $150K bond

Miller and Hutchinson were sitting in the rear of the LSV when it was struck from behind. Hutchinson and another passenger were seriously injured in the collision.

Jamie Lee Komoroski, the driver of the vehicle that struck the LSV, was traveling 65 m.p.h. in a 25 m.p.h. zone and her blood alcohol level was three times over the legal limit. She is charged with three counts of felony DUI resulting in great bodily injury or death and one count of reckless homicide.

Initially denied bond, Komoroski was released from the Sheriff Al Cannon Detention Center after her trial did not begin in March. She will remain under house arrest as she awaits her trial.

Read more: Legal battle erupts between widower and mother over estate of bride killed on wedding night

Hutchinson filed a wrongful death claim against Komoroski and the establishments that served her the night of the collision that May. In October, a settlement agreement between Hutchinson and the establishments was reached.

The settlement led to a legal battle between Hutchinson and Samantha Miller's mother, Lisa Miller, who has challenged the validity of the marriage. While Hutchinson offered to pay half of what he received from the lawsuit, Lisa Miller has argued she should be the sole beneficiary of her daughter's estate.

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Archaeologists unearth top half of statue of Ramesses II

by Clay Bonnyman Evans, University of Colorado at Boulder

A team co-led by a CU Boulder classics researcher has unearthed the upper portion of a huge, ancient pharaonic statue whose lower half was discovered in 1930; Ramesses II was immortalized in Percy Bysshe Shelly's "Ozymandias."

In 1930, German archaeologist Günther Roeder unearthed the lower half of an enormous statue depicting pharaoh Ramesses II, also known as Ramesses the Great, ruler of Egypt some 12 centuries before the common era.

Nearly a century later, an Egyptian–American archaeological team co-led by Yvona Trnka-Amrhein, assistant professor of classics at the University of Colorado Boulder, discovered the upper portion of the enormous statue while conducting research in the ruins of the ancient city of Hermopolis, about 150 miles south of Cairo.

The 12.5-foot-long upper half depicts the pharaoh seated and wearing a double crown and headdress topped with a royal cobra. The researchers determined that the complete statue would have stood approximately 23 feet tall when it was erected.

"We knew it might be there, but we were not specifically looking for it," says Trnka-Amrhein, who teamed up with Basem Gehad, an archaeologist with the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities. "It was plausible that the rest of the statue might be there, but it was a total surprise. … Getting the text was amazing."

Trnka-Amrhein, a specialist in papyri whose Ph.D. dissertation at Harvard University examined a "mostly lost Greek novel" about a pharaoh, had been eager to conduct research in Egypt since researching them at Oxford University as a graduate student.

In 2022, Gehad offered her access to conduct research on a papyrus that turned out to be 98 lines containing "substantial excerpts" of two lost works by Greek playwright Euripides. She soon brought in CU Boulder Classics Professor John Gibert, a specialist in tragedy, to continue research on that unusual find.

After the two met, Gehad asked her to co-lead a team of field researchers at Hermopolis. Gehad submitted a proposal and obtained all the necessary permissions to begin work at the site. Theirs was the first major excavation at the site since one led by the British Museum in the 1980s.

"Hermopolis is the second-most productive site for Greek papyri," Trnka-Amrhein says. "In addition to research, our goal is to preserve the site and make it a viable part of the Egyptian economy."

Clues to Egypt's history

Trnka-Amrhein was in the United States awaiting the birth of a child when the piece was discovered in a face-down position in January. She and her teammates were thrilled but had to temper their excitement pending further excavation.

"One problem with Hermopolis is that it's close to the Nile (River). After (the building of) the Aswan Low Dam, the water table became a huge issue. There was no guarantee that the stone would be OK. Sometimes sandstone is uncovered that is basically just sand or degraded limestone," Trnka-Amrhein says. "It could have just been a lump of rock."

Additional excavation revealed that the pharaonic face was remarkably well preserved. The team even found traces of ancient blue and yellow pigment that can be analyzed to deepen their understanding of the time period and the circumstances of the statue's creation; Gehad specializes in paintings of the Greco-Roman period.

"It will be quite exciting to have a scientific analysis of the pigment," Trnka-Amrhein says, noting that soil mixed in with the paint will also be scrutinized for clues to Egypt's history.

Ramesses II is one of the few Egyptian pharaohs widely known to non-experts in the Western world. He was the inspiration for Percy Bysshe Shelley's famous poem, "Ozymandias," was played by Yul Brynner in Cecil B. DeMille's movie The Ten Commandments and voiced by actor Ralph Fiennes in the animated movie "The Prince of Egypt."

The lower half of the statue remains at the site and Gehad has submitted a proposal to reunite the two pieces, which Trnka-Amrhein expects will be approved. It's uncertain what would happen to a reassembled statue, but it would likely remain at the site or be placed in a museum, she says.

In the meantime, the team continues intensive study of the piece, and she hopes they will publish a paper on their work sometime this year. Trnka-Amrhein says she hopes to involve more CU Boulder graduate students in the project as it proceeds.

"I came to CU after finishing my Ph.D. because the Classics Department is a really great place where everyone is willing to think outside the box; it's less canonical than typical classics departments," she says. "I love Homer and Virgil, but it's fun to do other things, too."

Provided by University of Colorado at Boulder

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Syracuse Police Chief discusses seven new recruits sworn in, in the wake of a tragedy

by Nicole La Fiandra

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — Syracuse Police Department's Chief of Police Joseph Cecile answers law enforcement questions from viewers to increase transparency and community relations.

This week, Chief Cecile shares more vacant house problems, the cadet program, and the next police academy class.

Watch the video for his full response.

Capt. Malinowski will no longer be doing this program each week since he has been promoted within the department to an internal role.