Communities and the Environment: Ethnicity, Gender, and the State in Community-Based Conservation. Edited by Arun Agrawal and Clark C. Gibson. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2001. 232p. $60.00 cloth, $23.00 paper.

Extract

Common pool (or property) resource studies attempt to address the puzzle of managing natural resources highlighted by Garrett Hardin's (1968) Tragedy of the Commons dilemma. In that scenario of an unmanaged commons, a resource (e.g., pasture) made available to a multiplicity of users will result in a free-for-all leading to the destruction of that natural resource. Traditionally, solutions to this resource overuse problem have come in the form of privatization or state control of natural resources.