A major international conference of commons scholars convenes next week (June 19-23) to explore the special role that the commons plays in preserving indigenous cultures, conserving natural resources and limiting the abuses of global markets. One special concern of the event will be to alert the world’s public policymakers that the commons is a neglected tool for tackling poverty, ecosystem strains and other problems. Markets and government are not the only feasible approaches.
Every two years, the International Association for the Study of Common Property (IASCP) meets to present and debate scholarly papers on all sorts of commons, but especially natural resource commons in the developing world. IASCP is the organization started by Professor Elinor Ostrom of Indiana, author of the landmark Governing the Commons (1990), and other scholars, in the 1980s. This latest conference – “ Survival of the Commons: Mounting Challenges & New Realities” – will take place in Bali.
The IASCP points out that politicians and policymakers tend to ignore the practical value of the commons as a management solution:
Examples from all over the world show that communities can successfully set up their own arrangements for managing natural resources. The result is greater prosperity for both the local people and the natural resources they depend upon, such as water, forests and fish.
Yet the lessons from those communities are often left out of the mix in international discussions of ways to address poverty. Typically, anti-poverty policy emphasizes either private-property or government-controlled solutions. The United Nations High Commission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor, launched in September 2005, is an example of an approach that focuses on creation of private property rights for the poor as a solution to poverty.
Through careful empirical work and analytic models, IASCP scholars have shown that Garrett Hardin’s “tragedy of the commons” critique is simply wrong. Shared resources, even depletable ones like water and timber, are not inexorably subject to over-exploitation. Communities can and do successfully manage them in sustainable ways.
This year, the IASCP has announced two notable changes. First, it is changing its name to the International Association for the Study of Commons. It is dropping the “common property” phrase, which has been eclipsed in recent years by “the commons.” Second, the association will launch a new publication, The International Journal of the Commons, starting in January 2007. The inaugural issue will provide an overview of how things have progressed in the theoretical understanding of the commons and related policy issues.
Both of these welcome developments will strengthen the IASC’s role as a valuable resource for anyone concerned about the world’s commons.