Competition over common resources is a ubiquitous challenge for social animals (Koomen & Herman, 2018), especially humans. This competition manifests as the dramatically termed ‘tragedy of the commons’. Because no one owns these resources, it is available to all for use, and subsequently, abuse.

Just ask any Bangalorean like me. We grew up in a city with hundreds of lakes that recharged aquifers and gave the city it’s amazing climate. The lakes were among the first to be sacrificed at the alter of the IT boom, paving the way for lucrative real estate development.

While the concept of ‘the tragedy of the commons’ makes intuitive sense (source), the reality is far more complex. Humans are capable of unimaginable destruction, yes, but also ingenious cooperation. Commons have been regulated, protected, and nurtured across the world, defying the simplistic view that that which is common will inevitably be abused. Here are some interesting examples.

Giving power back to communities

Power is an integral part of the commoning concept (Partelow & Manlosa, 2022). One of the best solutions, corroborated by several case studies around the world, involves giving people using the commons the power to make decisions about its management.

Wildlife management in Namibia is a wonderful example. When severe drought and an epidemic of illegal hunting threatened livelihoods and wildlife in the territory’s northwestern desert in the early 1980s, a system that created a community of unarmed guards put a complete stop to illegal hunting. Hunting passes began to be reissued after careful population estimates by these guard communities. Eventually, in 1996, a national-level legislated was passed that allowed communities on common land to establish conservancies. Elected members govern these committees, and all members share the benefits of tourism or prescribed commercial hunting within conservancy boundaries. For more on this story, check out this fascinating article by Michelle Nijhuis.

Brokering trust for commons management

Trust among the commons users is paramount for common land management. If you, for even a second, feel that your neighbor is picking more mangoes from the tree in your common backyard, the doubt and resentment would build into an escalation of mango collection that will leave the tree bare (and make all of you gain weight), wouldn’t it? Unless, you build a relationship with the neighbor and then trust that each will allow the other to enjoy the mangoes throughout the scorching summer.

Trust may break over time, when the generations that build sharing mechanisms are long gone and present generations feel aggrieved by established mechanisms. They aspire for different things. If the trust cannot be rebuilt, external parties may need to step in to help negotiate. Most commonly, these are NGOs. Their moderation helps prevent negotiations from escalating into anger/silence.

The Foundation for Ecological Society (FES) in India has spent decades researching and brokering trust for commons management in India. For example, in a village called Tholapalle (Bagepalli), Karnataka, local water resources management was affected due to trust issues. Traditionally, one family was given the responsibility to ensure that water from a common reservoir was pumped to all the agricultural fields. This family would benefit from the produce of these fields, as ‘social payment’ for their service. When such systems broke down, FES came in. They facilitated several meetings among the community members, increased access to financial resources from government schemes that can help maintain the reservoir and increased awareness on the latest methods for water resources management. They also facilitated drilling borewells to extract groundwater, promoting a sense of autonomy (source). You can check out more about their work here.

Enforcing regulations and rules: A top-down approach

Where there isn’t enough buy-in for commons management or if the commons is spatially huge, a higher authority may need to step in and enforce regulations to manage commons. This is often the case in urban areas, where most people have migrated into and have limited emotional/cultural connections with the commons. There is also much less trust between different facets of urban society.

Air pollution is a classic example of urban commons abuse. All major urban centers have faced this at some point or the other. In the 2000s in Central London, traffic congestion and vehicular emissions had created severe nitrogen dioxide (NO₂) and particulate matter (PM2.5) pollution. A community-driven approach was impractical; the anonymity and heterogeneity of road users could not establish the social trust and cohesion necessary for self-governance. The scale of the problem also crossed multiple sections of the city (called boroughs) with fragmented jurisdictions.

Centralized coordination was the answer, through a combination of congestion charges, emission standards, and supportive measures for faster clean vehicle adoption to address the commons problem. The Mayor of London created the Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) in 2019, expanding it in 2021 and 2023 to cover all of Greater London. The ULEZ imposed strict emission standards on vehicles entering designated zones, charging non-compliant cars £12.50 daily and larger vehicles up to £100 (source). Full electric, hydrogen and plug-in hybrid vehicles qualify for a 100% Ultra Low Emission Vehicle (ULEV) discount, providing an incentive to own and operate these types of vehicles. A further £132 million scrappage scheme was introduced to help low-income residents transition to cleaner vehicles.

Results have been impressive: NO₂ emissions within the ULEZ fell by 26% (5,000 tonnes) between 2019 and 2023, PM2.5 levels dropped by 19% (80 tonnes), and overall vehicle traffic in the zone decreased by 5%, with 94% of vehicles now meeting ULEZ standards (source). 

Commons problems exist, but it is far from a tragedy

The pessimistic view of human self-interest and inability to cooperate over commons has been emphatically disproved, leading to Dr. Elinor Ostrom becoming first female Nobel Laurate in Economics in 2009. The challenge lies in understanding commons system as a unique case, requiring its own solution using some common principles of trust, governance and enforcement guidelines.

Additional references and resources:

1. Polycentric and resilient perspectives for governing the commons: Strategic and law and economics insights for sustainable development
2. Sustaining the urban commons in Ghana through decentralized planning
3. A tragedy of the commons case study: modeling the fishers king crab system in Southern Chile
4. Evolution and new potentials of landscape commons: Insights from Japan and Slovenia