The common property resource problem and the creation of limited property rights

Abstract

Fish resources are generally considered common property and open to any user. This, the assumption goes, makes them susceptible to the “tragedy of the commons” in which selfish users are both the villains and the victims. While it is true that wild fish populations cannot readily be privatized, it hardly follows that they are completely open-access. In addition to social controls found in many traditional fishing communities, amply documented by anthropologists, many administrative controls in contemporary fisheries management also create limited property rights over fishery resources. This study focuses on Great Lakes fisheries of Ontario in Lakes Erie and St. Clair, and the kinds and diversity of limited property rights instituted in these areas: the formal and informal allocation of fishing areas, and the allocation of quantitative fishing rights (quotas), all of which serve as mechanisms to solve the common property resource problem. The Great Lakes fisheries suggest certain generalizations about the management of common property resources. The paper offers a “life-cycle” model of living resources use.