Collective cooperation in common pool resources

One of the most compelling images and persuasive arguments capturing natural resource destruction is that of Garrett Hardin's (1968) tragedy of the commons. The dynamic captured by the tragedy of the commons has long been recognized as the source of natural resource degradation. H. Scott Gordon (1954) and Anthony Scott (1955), in developing the bio-economic model, argued that open-access conditions in fisheries lead to the economic destruction of stocks. In public choice and game theory, a similar dynamic is captured by Olson's (1965) work on collective action and the prisoner's dilemma game, thus generalizing the dynamic across the social sciences, further enhancing its grip on scholars, policy makers, and citizens alike (see chapter 1).