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Top 10 Unique and Helpful Insights (with Fitting Emojis):

🌊 What are common pool resources (CPRs)? CPRs are shared resources like fisheries, forests, and water basins, defined by their rivalrous use (one’s consumption limits another’s) and non-excludability (hard to restrict access).

🐟 What is the tragedy of the commons? Shared resources deplete when individuals prioritize personal gain over collective well-being, like overfishing depleting marine populations for all.

🛡️ How does the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) help? MSC certifies sustainable fishing practices, engages local communities, and protects global fish stocks, ensuring responsible consumption.

🐑 What’s the classic example of the tragedy of the commons? Overgrazing: Too many sheep on shared land degrade it, harming all users by exceeding its carrying capacity.

👩‍🏫 Who was Elinor Ostrom, and why does she matter? The first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Economics, she championed polycentric governance—local communities managing shared resources collaboratively.

📜 What are Ostrom’s key principles? Clear boundaries, local rulemaking, conflict resolution mechanisms, nested enterprises, monitoring, and sanctions ensure sustainable governance of CPRs.

🔄 What is polycentric governance? A system where local communities, organizations, and governments collaboratively manage resources, sharing accountability and decision-making.

💼 What role do organizations play? Organizations mediate conflicts, facilitate collective action, innovate solutions, educate stakeholders, and advocate for sustainable policies.

💰 What are alternative governance mechanisms? Market-based tools (e.g., carbon trading), collaborative governance (stakeholder partnerships), and collective action theory complement Ostrom’s principles.

🛰️ How can technology enhance CPR management? Satellites (e.g., Global Fishing Watch) and innovations (e.g., WorldFish aquaculture) improve resource transparency, monitoring, and efficiency.

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Key Stories, Symbols, and Archetypes:

1. The Overgrazed Meadow (🐑): The iconic story of too many sheep grazing on shared land illustrates how unchecked self-interest harms collective resources.

2. The Fish Hook (🎣): Overfishing is the tragedy of the commons in action, where unregulated use depletes global marine life, impacting all.

3. Ostrom’s Toolbox (🛠️): Her principles act as tools—clear rules, local collaboration, and monitoring ensure CPRs remain sustainable for generations.

4. The Web of Governance (🕸️): Polycentric governance weaves communities, organizations, and policymakers into a strong net, protecting shared resources.

5. The Transparent Lens (🔍): Technology like satellite monitoring brings clarity to resource use, exposing overconsumption and enabling accountability.

These metaphors simplify complex ideas, making the challenges and solutions of managing common pool resources vivid and memorable.

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Why is the management of shared resources so special, and what do organizations have to do in order to manage these resources, and what do we understand by the tragedy of the commons? In this video, we are having a look at the tragedy of the commons for creating sustainable solutions for shared resources.

What are we learning in this video? First of all, we want to understand what common pool resources are and grasp the concept of the tragedy of the commons, including its causes and consequences. In a second step, we want to analyze the tragedy of the commons and its implications for resource depletion and collective action challenges. In a third step, we are evaluating the roles and responsibilities of organizations in managing, preserving, and sustainably utilizing common pool resources.

Let's look at an example. Here we want to use the classic example of overusing natural resources: the case of overfishing. Overfishing is broadly covered in newspaper stories. Since the 1970s, the population of sharks and rays has gone down, and the main cause is overfishing—perhaps not even overfishing the sharks per se, but as bycatch in fishing other kinds of fish. At the same time, not only bycatch results in crashing populations of certain species, but also the species that are caught, like tuna, are subject to overfishing. There are already government initiatives, like here from the UK, that want to end overfishing. This is not only happening in single countries, but also the UN (United Nations) takes action and comes up with resolutions to end overfishing.

As a consequence of this ongoing debate in the public domain, there are also organizations founded that want to end the overuse of certain resources, such as the fish population. They want to end overfishing. Here we have the example of the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), which has developed a standard for sustainable fishing and also a certificate that shows seafood is responsibly fished. Under this standard, seafood accounts for more than 10 billion in annual revenues and covers almost 20% of all fish catches worldwide. There are more than 200 species covered under the standard of the MSC. It provides certification and labels for products. There have already been more than 400 fisheries worldwide certified with this standard. Also very special about the MSC is that they engage with the local communities and the stakeholders that are affected by fishing, to support their opinions on what is responsible fishing in that particular region of our world.

We already talked about fishing and the fishing industry and how overfishing is a big problem, and what initiatives are there to stop this overfishing. Now, when we're talking about common pool resources, what are common pool resources? The definition says that common pool resources are natural or human-made resources where, first, one person's use reduces the availability of the resource for others, so we have rivalry in consumption, and second, it is challenging or costly to exclude others from accessing these resources, so they are non-excludable.

What does it mean? When we're thinking, for example, about forests, when using a forest, we cannot exclude someone, except there is some kind of wall or something around the forest. Of course, if I go into a forest, another person can also go there, and the more persons are there, the more rivalry we have in this forest.

Let's go a little bit deeper. Common pool resources, as said, are difficult to exclude persons from. There's also the level of subtractability. How can we measure or define different levels of use? Common pool resources have a high difficulty of exclusion and a high level of subtractability. Private goods, for example, have a low difficulty of exclusion. Common pool resources differ from public goods. Public goods are, for example, public parks with trees. It's not that we have the trees in a public forest, but in a public park with a defined boundary. Then we have toll goods, for example, private parks, which are not accessible by the public and therefore have a low difficulty of exclusion and a low level of subtractability.

Zooming in more on the common pool resources: what are common pool resources? We already talked about fisheries, forests, and trees, but also river basins or water in general, or grazing lands are examples of common pool resources. They are rivalrous in consumption and not excludable. Common pool resources might have the danger of being over-consumed and overused because everybody can use them and we cannot exclude anyone. However, as with every resource, common pool resources are limited.

We are now deep diving into the tragedy of the commons. The tragedy of the commons occurs, per definition, when shared resources are depleted because individuals prioritize personal gain over collective well-being. We have rivalrous resources, they are not excludable, and this has collective consequences if we overuse the resources.

Looking at an example with sheep and grazing land: we have a certain amount of grass. When there are only a few sheep using the grass, the use of the commons is below the carrying capacity of the land, and all users can benefit. The more sheep there are on this piece of land, the more the land is used and the resource is consumed. If one or more users increase the use of the commons beyond its carrying capacity, the commons become degraded. The cost of this degradation is incurred by all users. Nobody can be excluded, and the more users there are, the more the resource is consumed, and everybody has to pay the price for this consumption.

Unless environmental costs are accounted for and addressed in land use practices, eventually the land will be unable to support the activity. For example, if we have way too many sheep for the little piece of land we are looking at, the resource is overused. This is what we call the tragedy of the commons because the resource is overused, but nobody can really be held accountable for it since everybody is doing the same and has the right to do so. However, everyone is paying the same price because the resource is overused and cannot be used any longer.

This whole tragedy of the commons principle or idea was introduced by Garrett Hardin in 1968, and he summarized it quite well by saying, "Ruin is the destination toward which all men rush, each pursuing his own best interest in a society that believes in the freedom of the commons."

We now understand what the tragedy of the commons is and what a common pool resource is. The question now is how can we govern these common pool resources? Here we want to introduce you to a famous researcher, Elinor Ostrom. She was a professor of political science at Indiana University and notably was the first woman to receive the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 2009, shared with Williamson. She received it for her work around governing the commons—the evolution of institutions for collective actions. She brought up the idea that common pool resources or common property could be managed by user organizations, and that the users of these resources could jointly govern the resource and find solutions to the tragedy of the commons. Her work emphasized the role of user organizations, and not only policymaking or government, as key players in governing common pool resources. She stimulated thinking about resource management in general and how these natural resources can be managed collectively by the users at the location where the common pool resource is situated.

What did Ostrom do? She defined eight principles that are important for joint governance of a resource. The first broad area is the question of who owns what. Two principles are important here. The first one is clearly defined boundaries. We need to establish a boundary that delineates the community of those using the resource and also the boundary of the resource itself. What belongs to that resource and who is a member of the community using it? For instance, consider a forest: where are the boundaries of that forest, and who are all the people using that forest?

The next thing is that the rules should be congruent with local conditions. They should be tailored to the specific conditions of the community and the resource itself. We should consider local needs and natural circumstances. How fast can a forest regenerate when trees are extracted, and what is the local community’s need for wood?

After looking at who owns what, Ostrom also defined some design principles for governance based on the question, who makes the rules? She suggests four design principles here. First is minimal recognition of rights, meaning the rights of community members to govern the resource should be recognized. Second, collective choice arrangements: all individuals directly affected by the rules should have a say in decision-making regarding those rules. Third, conflict resolution mechanisms: there should be procedures to resolve conflicts that may arise among resource users, and these mechanisms should be easily accessible, fair, and efficient. Fourth, nested enterprises: the idea that the resource is part of a larger system. Governance should allow for multiple layers of decision-making, from the local level to higher levels, to appropriately manage complex resources such as river systems crossing multiple countries.

The last set of principles is around how the rules are enforced. Here, Ostrom brings up two principles: monitoring and sanctioning. There should be a system for monitoring the use of the resource so everyone understands how much is being used and by whom. This transparency enables rule enforcement. Sanctions should be in place for those who violate the rules, with increasing severity for repeated violations. This maintains compliance and deters rule-breaking.

Ostrom’s design principles for governing common pool resources clearly emphasize that every member and stakeholder around a common pool resource should have a say and the possibility to govern. She summarized this idea by saying that there is no reason to believe that bureaucrats and politicians, no matter how well-meaning, are better at solving problems than the people on the spot who have the strongest incentive to get the solution right.

Her idea became known as polycentric governance, a framework for how common pool resources could be managed by organizations and local communities jointly with municipalities and politicians at the local level. Polycentric governance originated from her work and that of her husband, Vincent Ostrom, as an alternative to other governance mechanisms for commons, mainly market- or government-based mechanisms. There is growing interest in polycentric governance because it involves institutions, cooperation, and a dense web of decision-making centers. Different organizations, players, and actors jointly govern the resource and make decisions on it, cooperating and holding each other accountable. This approach can provide greater capacity for solving social or environmental challenges in complex systems with many players and complex ecosystems. Redundancy in monitoring, conflict resolution, and sanctioning reduces the risk of overusing resources.

Polycentric governance is one framework for managing common pool resources. There are also other approaches. The first approach is market-based mechanisms, focused on economic incentives and market tools, as discussed by Garrett Hardin and Robert Stavins. Market mechanisms like tradable permits, taxes, or resource pricing encourage sustainable resource use. A prominent example is the European Union’s carbon trading system. However, this approach focuses on economic efficiency and might overlook social complexities.

The second mechanism is collaborative governance, where multiple stakeholders collaborate to manage the resource. It involves governments, local organizations, firms, and communities working together based on trust. This builds feelings of ownership and compliance. An example is the catchment management authorities in Australia, involving local communities, businesses, and policymakers. This overlaps with Ostrom’s ideas but tends to be more informal and trust-based.

The third idea is collective action theory, focusing on overcoming individual self-interest to achieve shared resource goals. Groups need to solve the problem of free-riders—individuals who benefit without contributing. Successful collective action often requires selective incentives, leadership, or external enforcement. This complements Ostrom by explaining how incentives, leadership, and monitoring solve free-riding issues.

Organizations can play a key role in sustaining common pool resources by facilitating collective action, serving as platforms for cooperation and exchange, mediating between diverse stakeholders, and building trust. An example is the Federation of Community Forest Users in Nepal. Organizations can also design and enforce governance mechanisms, establishing rules and enforcement measures. The California Sustainable Groundwater Management Act is an example. They can provide knowledge, build capacity, and share best practices. Wetlands International in Africa works in the Niger Delta, balancing agricultural interests with biodiversity conservation.

Organizations can foster innovation and the adoption of new technologies to reduce environmental impact, enhance resource productivity, and ensure sustainable use. The WorldFish initiative introduces aquaculture innovations in Southeast Asia to improve food security while reducing overfishing. Organizations can act as neutral mediators in disputes, such as the Nile Basin Initiative, bringing together riparian countries to overcome conflicts over water usage.

Organizations can shape policy and advocate for new regulations, serving as a bridge between local communities and policymakers. Greenpeace successfully lobbied for marine protected areas such as the Antarctic Ocean Sanctuary. They can enhance transparency and accountability, reducing corruption and overuse. Global Fishing Watch uses satellite technology to monitor fishing activities, improving transparency and tracking illegal fishing.

In summary, we learned that common pool resources encompass natural and human-made resources characterized by rivalrous consumption and non-excludability, making them susceptible to overuse and depletion. The tragedy of the commons highlights how individuals prioritizing personal gain can deplete shared resources. Organizations can address this dilemma by acting as facilitators, creating governance structures, providing education and innovation, mediating conflicts, and advocating for supportive policies. Hopefully, you enjoyed this video.

transcript

why is the management of shared resources so special and what do organizations have to do in order tomanage these resources and what do we understand by the tragedy of the Commons in this video we are having a look atthe tragedy of the commons for creating Sustainable Solutions for sharedresources and what are we learning in this video so first of all we want to understand what common pool resourcesare and grasps the concept of the tragedy of the commment including its causes and consequen quences in a secondstep we want to analyze the tragedy of the commment and its implications for research depression and Collectiveaction challenges and in a third step we are evaluating the roles and responsibilities of organizations inmanaging preserving and sustainable utilizing common pool resources let's look at an example andhere we want to use as a classic example of overusing Natural Resources here thecase of over fishing and over fishing is broadly covered in newspaper storieslike here since uh the 1970s the population of sharks and Rays goes downand the main cause is over fishing and perhaps not even over fishing the Sharks per se but as a by catch in fishingother kinds of fish but at the same time not only B catch is uh yeah resulting inuh yeah crashing populations of certain um species but also the uh the speciesthat are catch like tunar are yeah also are subject to over fishing and thereare already government initiatives like here from the UK that want to uh end uhover fishing but this is not only happening in single countries but also the UN United Nations take action and uhyeah come up with uh resolutions to uh yeah to end over fishing as aconsequence with this of this ongoing debate in in in the public domain mainuh there are also organizations found that uh yeah want to end the overuse ofcertain uh resources such as the fish population here and want to end overfishing here we have this example of the Marine Stewardship uh stewardships Council MSC which uh have developed alsoU yeah um a standard for sustainable fishing and also a certificate thatshows that Seafood is responsible um fish that is caught uhunder the this uh yeah this certificate or the standard uh is uh accounts formore than 10 billion annual revenues uh and covers almost 20% of all uh uh yeahfish catch worldwide um and there are more than 200 species that are coveredunder the uh the standard of the MSC uh it provides the certification and thelabels for uh products uh there have already been more than 400 Fisheriesworldwide certified with this standard um and uh also very special of the MSEis that they engage uh with the local communities with the stakeholders that are affected by fishing or takeresponsibility of to support their opinions on uh yeah what is uhresponsible fishing in thatb particular region of our world so we now alreadytalked about fishing and the fishing industry and how over fishing uh is a big problem in the world and whatinitiatives are there to stop this over fishing so now when we're talking about common pool resources what are commonpool resources so the definition says that common pool resources are natural or human-made resources where first oneperson's use reduces the availability of the resource for others so we have rivalry and consumption and second it ischallenging or costly to exclude others from accessing these resources so they arenonexcludable so what does it mean when we're thinking for example about forests so when using a forest like we cannotexclude someone except there is kind of um yeah a wall or something around the forest and of course um if I am going ina forest then another person can also go there and um and the more persons are there themore rivalers we have or like the more rival we have uh in this Forest butlet's go a little bit deeper so common pool resources as said they are difficult um to exclude persons from itand there's also um the second level is the level of substract ability so um thethe level of how can we um yeah how can we measure or how can we um yeah excludeor um yeah Define different levels of use so common po resources have a highdifficulty of exclusion and high level of of substract ability whereas for example um the um private goods forexample private trees that are like planted in a garden in a private Garden or something like that they have more alow level of exclusion um present then thinking about um common pool resourceversus public goods public goods are for example public parks with trees so hereit's not that we have the trees in kind of a public forest or kind of um in the streets but in a public park so aroundthe public park there could be also a wall or something like that so really we can like um Define this different orthis special public park and then we have tall goods for example private Parks so these are then not accessibleby the public and therefore have um a low difficulty of exclusion and ofcourse also a low level of substract ability so zooming a little bit moreinto the common pool resources what are common pool resources we already talked about about Fisheries we already talkeda little bit about forests and trees but also river basins or water in general orgrazing lands are um examples for common pool resources so we already said that theyare rivalers in consumption and that they are not excludible so common pool resources might have the danger to umyeah be overc consumed and um yeah overuse because everybody can use it wecannot exclude people or persons um from using the resources however as every resource the common po resources arelimited so we are deep diving now into the tragedy of the common so the tragedyof the commons occurs per definition when shared resources are deped becauseindividuals prioritize personal gain over Collective well-being so far sogood so what does it mean we have as we already said rivalers resources they are not excludable and it has Collectiveconsequences if you're overusing the resources so looking for example here at our sheeps and the grace land um we havea certain amount of grass here and when there are like some sheeps that are using the grass the use of the commonsis below the carrying capacity of the land and all users can benefit so in our example all sheep can um feed themselfthe more sheeps are present on this little piece of land here um the more of course um yeah the land is used and theresource is used so here um the the definition if if one or more users increases the use use of the commonsBeyond its carrying capacity the commons become degraded so the cost of the degradation is incured by all users sonobody can be excluded and the more users there are the more the resource is consumed and um but everybody has to payfor this um consumption then of course there canalso be an overc consumption so unless environmental costs are accounted for and addressed in land usepractices eventually the land will be unable to support the activity for here there are way too much cheap for thelittle piece of land that we are looking at so the resource is overused and this is what we then call the tragedy of thecommons because the resource is overused but nobody can really made accountable for it because everybody is doing thesame everybody has the right to do the same however everybody is paying the same price because the resource isoverused or cannot be used um any longer so this um whole tragedy of the commonum principle or idea was introduced by Garett Harland in 1968 and he summarized it quite well insaying Rune is the destination to watch with all men Rush each pursuing his own best interest in a society that believesin the freedom of the commons so we understood now what the trategy of the common is and what a ingeneral what a common is as a as a Comm pool resource right so the question now is how can we govern these CP resourcesand here we want to introduce you to a famous researcher namely to Elan a St heshe was a professor of political science at the Indiana University and most notably she was the first woman toreceive the Nobel Prize in economic Sciences uh back in the year 2009 and shared it with Williamson and shereceived it for her work around governing the commons um the evolution of Institutions for Collective actionsand um she brought up the idea that uh common pool resources or common propertycould be managed by user organizations and uh that organizations uh that thatthat use these resources could uh jointly govern the resource and jointlyfind solutions to the problem of the or to the tragedy of the commin and thereby her work has somehow um emphasized therole of user organizations and not only policymaking or uh bureaucracies orgovernment as a key player in governing a c resources and then thereby uh shehas stimulated thinking about resource management in general and how these umyeah natural resources these C resources can be knowledged as a collective and umaction by the users at the uh yeah at atthe Bas and at at the organiz at the location where this uh campu resources is located so um what did Ostrom do sheso she defined uh in some eight principles that are important uh forjoint governance of a resource so the first uh yeah broad uh area is thequestion of who owns what and here she says okay two principles are important to follow the first one is clearlydefined boundaries so we need to establish a boundary that delineates um the community of yeah ofthose using the resource and also the bound of the resource itself right sowhat belongs into that resource and who is also a member of the community thatis using that resource for instance thinking about um let's say a forest sowhere are the boundaries of that forest and who are all the people using thatForest so thinking it uh of it uh in geographical terms what are the villagesclose to the um to the forest that are somehow using it as a source of uh woodfor firing or something like this um and beyond that Beyond these uh villages uhwho is else part of that community and using that resources so these are the clearly defined boundaries and then thenext thing is uh the rules uh should be so the rules of you of owning uh theseresources should be somehow congruent to the local conditions so umthey should be tailored to the specific conditions of the community and the resource itself so we should considerlocal needs but also natural circumstances so how fast can a forestfor example um yeah regenerate itself when trees are extracted by the localcommunity and on the other hand what are the local needs so uh in terms of uhwhat is the amount of wood needed from that forest for the local community so after heading a look at whoowns what Ostrom also defined some um some design principles of the governanceof um common po resources based on the question who makes the rules so when thinking about who makes the rules heridea is um that there are four design principles that can um yeah can give usan answer to that the first one is the minimal recognition of Rights so the rights of community members to governthe resource should be recognized so we already had identified the community members that is using the res Resourceas explained like for example The Villages around the forest um and then the idea is that there has to be kind ofa community self-governance so that all the community members have the right to also have a saying um when thinking orwhen discussing the use of the common po resource then the second one is the collective Choice arrangements so allthe individuals who are directly affected by the rules that are like established for governing the commonthey should also have a saying in the decision-making process regarding those rules so that nobody is excluded fromalso um yeah defining the rules and then third of course conflict resolution mechanisms because where the more peopleor the more organizations have a saying there have to be procedures established to um yeah defining how to resolveconflicts that might arise among the use of the resource but also of course among like defining the rules or defining theprocedures and these mechanisms should be easily be easily accessible Fair andefficient for all the community members around the common and then fourth thenested Enterprise idea so what's behind this idea the idea is that of course the resource is part of a larger system sothere doesn't have to be only one set of governance structures but that there could be or there should be alsoarrangement for multiple layers of governance so that there is a decision making possible that is each made at theappropriate level like from local level or higher level so when thinking again for example about a river and the riveris like going through different countries then of course there should be decision making on the village level for example on the community or state levelbut also on the country level so this is then called nested Enterprises so having understood thequestions of who owns what and who makes the rules the last set of principles is around the question who or how are therules enforced and here uh aom brings up uh to uh principles namely monitoring soshe talks about a system for monitoring the use of the resource so that Um thiscan help to enforce the established rules so for understanding for everybody in the community to understand how muchof the resource has been used there should be some monitoring mechanism thatis also uh the information is distributed to to everybody in the community so that everybody understandsthe state of the resource and that everybody understands that using the resource is also transparent to theother members so that uh also other people can see or other other organizations can see how much I used ituh polluted it um and so on and thereby um yeah the basis for monitoring is lateand also for enforcing the rules um but this is only possible if we also havesome sanctions right so if there are uh penalties uh also um brought up by thecommunity for those who violate the rots and for seeing if something is violated first it has to be monitored right sothis is how these two uh principles here go hand in hand um and uh there shouldalso be sanctions uh yeah increasing in severity uh when there are uh repeatedviolations of the rules uh that that have been brought up so this uh shouldmaintain compl liance with the rules and uh DET deter the the amount of rulebreaking among uh the members of the local community so 's design principlesfor governing common pool resources has a clear idea on like eight clear principles on how common pool resourcesshould be managed and of course what is also standing out here is that um ometruly believes that every member and every stakeholder around a common pool resource has to have a saying and has tohave um the the um possibility to um govern and to have a saying about the commonPro Resources so she's um yeah or ustom is kind of summarizing this idea bysaying that there is no reason to believe that bureaucrats and politicians no matter how well-meaning are better atsolving problems than the people on the spot who have the strongest incentive to get the solution right and this quotekind of summarizes her design principles and the idea behind that that it's not about like some government and somepoliticians to think about how to best manage the the commons but really thestakeholders and people at place that are also um affected by the common andof course potentially overuse of the common and her idea came came be knownas the idea of polycentric governance as a framework how such campu resourcescould be managed by organizations by local communities uh yeah jointly andalso jointly with municipalities and politicians at the local level so um theidea of poly Centric governance it originated from her work and no not only her work but also her joint work withher husband Vincent Ostro and uh it's an alternative to other governancemechanisms for Commons um yeah mainly Market or government based uh mechanismsto manage those um there's a growing interest in because it's a different wayof managing these Resources by institutions by cooperation among institutions andorganizations um and the users not only individuals but also organizational users of these resources and as suchthere has to be a yeah a dense web of uh decision- making centers so differentorganizations different players different actors who jointly uh governthe resource and make decisions on it but do it not only in isolation as asingle actor but somehow uh account for the actions of others cooperate witheach others and uh find a solutionum uh to yeah to potential conflicts and find resolutions for them uh asdistinct um entities but finding a way of working together um yeah and the ideahere is uh that uh that this approach uh brings capacity so that there is agreater capacity for finding solution to social or environmental CH uh changesand challenges around these um uh yeah campu resources um and provide a a verygood fit for um yeah complex systems where many players uh are involved anduh yeah also uh a diverse and complex uh natural ecosystem is involvedum and the idea is that there are redundant mechanisms in place in thesepolycentric um yeah governance systems in these go governance and decision-making centers through the various players uh available there uh that thereis also a lower risk of uh yeah of overuse because there might be different players who engage in monitoringdifferent players who engage in conflict resolution different players um who arecooperating so with with these dense web of Corporations and uh yeah uh alliancesand corporations we uh have redundancy in all these different principles incontrolling in uh in engaging with each other and also in uh sanctioning eachother which in some should reduce red the risk of uh yeah overusing resourcesleading to depletion of the resource so polycentric governance is one framework or one approach on how to manage umcommon pool resources of course there are also other approaches that we are now um having a look at so the first ofall the first approach um also um yeah thinking about how to best manage the umcommon for resources is the market-based mechanisms approach so the key Focus here is to use economic incentives andMarket tools to regulate to regulate the use of common pool resources and thescholars behind that idea are Garrett Harden and Robert stavens thinking about how Market mechanisms like tradablepermits taxes or resource pricing incentives um for sustainable resource use um are yeah are relevant or are umare used in order to manage common po resources because they are then making overuse costly and rewarding efficiencyso here the really the idea is that incentives are best for managing commonpo resources and a prominent example here is for example with the European Union the carbon trading system sothat's used to market-based principles to regulate emissions and encourage efficiency so um yeah having a carbontrading system then um yeah is kind of the best example for market-basedmechanisms and when comparing this then to the idea of Ostrom we clearly can see that the focus here is more on economicefficiency but however potentially overlooks social complexities becausethese incentive systems and these clearly economic Focus incentive systems might Overlook how yeah complex then thesocial net or the social um yeah the interess of social um complexities arebehind that the second mechanism is uh collaborative governance where the ideais that there might be multi-stakeholder uh around aable resources and uh that theyshould collaborate to manage the resource and uh that uh we can overcomethe strategy of the commons by these collaboration and Partnership of different actors like governments orlocal organizations um uh and firms uh but also communities which is mainlybased on trust right so it's not based on treaties or other um uh yeah morerights but mainly on trust um and that we have joint decisions decisions on thecollective level um which uh yeah Fosters in the end feelings of ownershipby everybody uh and therefore enforces compliance and here uh we we see like uhlike here an organization like the catchment Management Authority in Australia which um yeah involves localcommunities businesses and poy makers when talking about fishing um as we seehere uh we have a very yeah broad overlap with the idea of Ostrom umOstrom also includes more formal mechanisms about uh yeah who owns whatand property rights systems uh compared to this more collaborative approaches here which are mainly trust uh based uhum and yeah therefore are less formal and uh more informal where whereasostrome is including both dimensions and the third idea of how tobest manage um Comm po researches is um defined by the collective action Theoryand here the key focus is on overcoming individual self interest to achieve shared resources goal so um what thecollective action theory is focusing on is how groups overcome the tendency forindividuals to freewrite so it's about like why are some individuals freewriting and under contribute tomanaging the common pool resource so the idea or the question behind is again we have a community we have differentindividuals and these individuals tend to freewrite and then of course not contribute equally um to manage thecommon pool resource so the idea is that successful Collective action often requires selective incentives leadershipor external enforcement and in doing so or in defining um it this way it kind ofis a combination of the market based mechanisms and the collaborative governance mechanisms because it's also about incentives but also aboutleadership and external uh enforcement however also um putting the individualat first place and an example is for example the uh irrigation uhcooperatives in India because they incentivize Farmers to maintain sharedinfrastructures through rules and rewards so this cooperatives are um likeyeah defining rules or incentivizing farmers in this um example so whenthinking about how this is going hand inand with Ostrom it is kind of complimenting Ostrom by explaining howincentives leadership and monitoring solve the free writing issues that might be present when thinking about managingcommon pool resources so talking about the management of these resources um yeah itcould be done by organizations being it uh uh yeah collaboration of manydifferent organizations there might be some umbrella organization bringing those together organizing also the wholeum interaction process and this is in line with uh here the more collaborative approach with Collective action Theorybut also with Ostrom and her ideas uh around polycentric governance so let'stake a look uh on on how and why organizations can play play a key rolein sustaining come resources so first of all they can facilitate collective action so organizations might be therethat facilitate um yeah a cooperation and exchange between community members itcould serve as a platform um where people can share their concerns work together towards a common goal insustaining the resource and these organizations might also mediate between diverse stakeholders and thereby helpbuild trust and uh yeah yeah build up cooperation among the variousstakeholders and an example is the Federation of community Forest users in Nepal uh which brings together localgroups to manage these uh yeah shared forest and uh have also Collectivedecision- making uh rules in place to allocate resources and to organize uhreforestation activities of the members organizations however might alsothemselves design or enforce governance mechanisms so um they might do so byestablishing rules regulations and enforcement mechanisms to manage access um and use of common po resources soorganizations often play a role in ensuring compliance and punishing violations to then of course maintainfairness and sustainability of the resource and an example is the California sustainable groundwatermanagement act act that is um created or that was created to regulate the waterextraction so the agencies behind that was designing rules for sustain stainable groundwater use and enforccompliance these organizations can also help the local community by providing knowledge and uh there for our uh yeahfacilitating capacity building at uh the local level so they could train uhtechnical expertise uh they could provide resources to the local community and users and uh thereby improve theirability to manage the resource um they could yeah engage in benchmarkingknowledge sharing activities um and help thereby to tailor uh solutions to thelocal context and an example here is Wetlands International in Africa which is uh working at the Nea Delta and uhyeah shares their ideas on Wetland management that balancesagricultural uh interests and productivity with biodiversity consconservation however of course um yeah Innovation is also playing a crucial role when thinking about how to managecommon pool resources so organization might also Foster the development and Adoption of Innovative Technologies andpractices to reduce the environmental impact and of course enhance resource productivity and ensure sustainable useof common po resources so by um improving or enhancing or promotingInnovation they ensure resource sustainability while of course balancing Economic Development and a prominentexample is the world fish and uh aquaculture Innovations so this is an international organization that developssustainable aquaculture systems in Southeast Asia by introducing Innovations like integrated rice fishfarming to improve food security while reducing over fishing so kind of awin-win situation here of course these organizations can also be a neutralactor right so and as a neutral actor they could help as a mediator for uhdisputes and conflicts around the resource use uh especially when there are competing or overlapping interestsand claims right so they could help to come up with the resolution they canhelp in negotiating a uh a a treaty or something like this and thereby mediatedisputes uh for example over water rights or other rights in uh yeah in thelocation of cable resources an example here is the NY Basin initiative and thisis a River Basin organization so an organization that helps to manage uh the River Nile and it brings together all uhcountries all reparan countries of the Nile and helps to overcome conflictsaround water usage and uh helps developing Cooperative agreements forwater sharing for everybody and organizations can of course also shape policy orinstitutional um support so they could also advocate for um new rules and newregulations so um what organizations are doing then is um serving as a bridgebetween local communities and National or International policy makers by really like using their influence to um yeah tothink about new policies or new incentive systems that are then um yeah put in place and an example is GreenPeace and Marine protection zones because Green Peace successfully lobbied for the creation of marine protectedareas so on a global level including the Antarctic ocean Sanctuary to safeguardMarine biodiversity so here Greenpeace as an organization made the lobby workand really influenced um stakeholders and communities and especially policy makers in order to make these umSafeguard zones or these zones um possible and already when talking aboutOstrom we heard about the idea of monitoring um as a key importantprinciple in order to ensure um yeah that people comply with the local rulesso these organizations could also serve in enhancing transparency and uhaccountability of people of uh users at the local uh level of a resource rightand thereby they can help to reduce corruption overuse and mismanagement of a resource and ensure that stakeholdersand uh people using the resource are accountable for their actions um uh anexample here is global fishing watch so they are using satellite technology to monitor fishing activities uh globallyand provide open access data on those ships and vessels um that are engagingin fishing and help tracking illegal fishing and thereby improve transparencyuh of the fishing industry and help yeah uh local authorities to take action ifsomething has happened in an illegal way so what did we learn in this videofirst of all we talked about what are common po resources and we said that they Encompass natural and human-maderesources we talked about Fisheries forest and for example also river basins that are all characterized by their Rousconsumption and nonexcludability so this makes them suspectable to overuse andDeion and when they are overused and this tendency to be overused and this tendency to not really have kind of umyeah someone to blame on this overuse that's what we call the trag of the common and the tragedy of the commonshighlights the deple of shared resources due to individual prioritization of personal gains overthe collective well-being so the idea that everybody is like doing what is best for him or her uh without thinkingabout the collective um impact that this um yeah this doing um has so we alsotalked about different forms how organizations can address this dilemma by for example acting as facilitatorsfostering collaboration and Trust among stakeholders holders ER by creating governance structures we also talkedabout um how organizations can um find Sustainable Solutions through education and Innovation to empower communitieswith knowledge uh of best practices and introducing Technologies and we alsotalked about the role of organizations in mediating conflicts and advocating for supportive policies um in order tothen of course also um yeah as we saw with um with the fishing zones reallyhave a saying on the policymaking domain hopefully you enjoyed this video

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