Passenger pigeon, anyone?
WT
----- Original Message -----
From: "James Crants" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, March 22, 2011 10:35 AM
Subject: Re: [ECOLOG-L] the precautionary principle makes sense and should
be applied to GCC arguments
On the contrary, examples exist (sea mink, cod) of animal communities
being
greatly diminished at the hands of the very people turning a profit from
their harvesting.
Phil
The tragedy of the commons. The benefit from harvesting a resource
accrues
only whoever collects it (and probably to some middlemen), while the costs
are shared by everyone with a stake in the resource. The economically
rational thing to do, on the individual level, is to harvest as much as
you
can, but this produces the collective result of putting all the harvesters
out of business. The only way for them to stay in business is for them to
accept some set of rules (either their own or someone else's) that keeps
them, collectively, from over-harvesting. If the resource is very scarce,
the rules might say not to harvest at all, on the assumption that all the
rule-breakers will harvest at unsustainable or barely-sustainable rates.
It's an economic theory, but while almost every ecologist I've talked to
about it seems to be familiar with it, every time I've mentioned it to an
economist, I've gotten a blank stare in return.
Jim
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