Discussions of property rights for environmental protection tend to focus on the choice between public and private/individual property regimes, to the exclusion of common property regimes. This neglect may stem from the unfortunate conflation of common property with open access discussed above in chapter 1. Common property regimes have, however, proven capable of averting the tragedy of the commons in various circumstances and over long periods of time. Common ownership may even be preferable in some circumstances to alternative public and private property regimes for environmental protection (see Ostrom et al. 1999, p. 278; Stevenson 1991, p. 70; Dagan and Heller 2001, p. 572).

This chapter assesses the utility and limitations of common property regimes for environmental protection. The first section defines common property regimes, in contradistinction to public/state and private/ individual property regimes. Section 2 explains how common property regimes can, and in some places do, provide a useful solution to the tragedy of open access. The third section probes the limits of common property solutions. Section 4 discusses a theoretical framework for explaining and predicting the success or failure of common property regimes. And section 5 concludes with a caveat about judging the “success” of common property regimes from an environmental point of view.

What is common property?

As explained in chapter 1, the “tragedy of the commons” is a misnomer to the extent it implies that the problem of resource conservation and environmental degradation is one of common property.