Abstract
Classic theories suggest that common pool resources are subject to overexploitation. Community-based resource management approaches may ameliorate “tragedy of the commons” effects. Using a randomized evaluation in Namibia’s communal rangelands, we find that a comprehensive four-year program to support community-based rangeland and cattle management led to persistent and large improvements for eight of thirteen indices of social and behavioral outcomes. Effects on rangeland health, cattle productivity and household economics, however, were either negative or nil. Positive impacts on community resource management may have been offset by communities’ inability to control grazing by non-participating herds and inhibited by an unresponsive rangeland sub-system. This juxtaposition, in which measurable improvements in community resource management did not translate into better outcomes for households or rangeland health, demonstrates the fragility of the causal pathway from program implementation to intended socioeconomic and environmental outcomes. It also points to challenges for improving climate change–adaptation strategies.
Highlights
In his seminal 1968 essay, “The Tragedy of the Commons,” Garrett Hardin argued that poorly managed common resources are subject to overexploitation[1]
We find that an external intervention to support community-based resource management generated substantial and persistent improvements in rangeland grazing management, community governance, and collective action
Relative to control sites, sites in treatment areas were 12 percentage points more likely to be heavily grazed in the wet season
Summary
In his seminal 1968 essay, “The Tragedy of the Commons,” Garrett Hardin argued that poorly managed common resources are subject to overexploitation[1]. Hardin explained the tragedy of the commons using the metaphor of “a pasture open to all” in which each herd owner receives individual benefits from accumulating livestock while sharing the cost of overgrazing with other community members This “natural” promotion of self-interest harms the common resource and brings ruin to all herders. Elinor Ostrom and other critics of Hardin’s thesis have documented numerous communities that successfully developed local management systems to avoid overexploitation of commonly held resources, including 47 rangelands[3–11]. These findings have generated considerable enthusiasm for programs undertaken by governmental and non-governmental organizations that provide external support for holistic, 49 community-based management of natural resources[2,12,13]. Namibia’s NCAs have a population of about 1.2 million people, predominantly pastoralists and agro-pastoralists, who herd cattle and small ruminants using traditional methods 73 and grow crops (i.e., millet, maize) under non-irrigated conditions[16] Rangeland vegetation and soils have been degraded by pressure from growing populations and reduced herd mobility
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