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Competition for Open‐Access Resources: A Class Exercise That Demonstrates the Tragedy of the Commons
Author(s) -
Johnson Barry L.,
Stein Roy A.
Publication year - 1986
Publication title -
fisheries
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.725
H-Index - 79
eISSN - 1548-8446
pISSN - 0363-2415
DOI - 10.1577/1548-8446(1986)011<0002:cforac>2.0.co;2
Subject(s) - tragedy of the commons , competition (biology) , commons , tragedy (event) , business , class (philosophy) , natural resource economics , political science , economics , ecology , computer science , biology , sociology , law , social science , artificial intelligence
Open‐access resources, such as fisheries, often suffer from overexploitation due to competition among individuals. To help students appreciate this phenomenon, we developed a laboratory exercise that uses a computer model of a commercial fishery to illustrate the inevitability of overexploiting open‐access resources. Our model contained two identical populations that were fished simultaneously: one on an individual, competitive basis and the other on a collective, cooperative basis. Both populations were governed by identical relationships for recruitment and catch‐per‐effort, and had constant growth and natural mortality rates. Competition within the individually‐run fishery invariably led to population collapse whereas the cooperative group usually maintained sustained yields. This exercise demonstrated that optimal resource use was impossible in a purely competitive fishery and helped students understand fish population biology and commercial fishing strategies. The exercise can show how changes in regulations or population parameters influence yields from a fishery. It can be adapted for use in workshops and other professional settings, even for participants with little background in fisheries.