blackfoot-valley

The reason has been spelled out clearly and succinctly by the brilliant biologist-economist-ecologist Garret Hardin, in a famous essay first published in the journal Science (Dec. 13,1968) entitled, “The Tragedy of the Com- mons.” A commons is any resource, in this case open land, in the public do- main - that is, owned by no private individual or organization - to which any- one has free, unfettered access to take what he wants from it, limited only by his ability to do so. The principle Hardin stated was that in the case of herd- ers of animals, it is in the interest of herders collectively to make sure that too many animals are not pastured on a piece of land, to prevent overgrazing. But, as Hardin pointed out, to observe a prudent grazing limit is against the interest of any herder individually. This is because such responsible behavior could not prevent his neighbors from grazing their herds freely on the “open” land, helping themselves to the fruits of his restraint. Thus, each herder rationally would do better to get what he could out of the open range while it was available, or be shut out by others doing the same. The result inevitably in such a situation, is overgrazing and erosion, which destroy the land’s ca- pacity for producing edible grass on a sustained basis. This is exactly what happened in the 1880s with the boom that brought great numbers of livestock to use the “commons”, the open range. The land became more and more overgrazed as the grasslands became depleted and damaged. The run of bad weather was not what did it - hard seasons always occur from time to time in almost any climate, though the precise year of their onset is unpredictable. This is particularily true in a climate like Mon- tana’s that is borderline between humid and arid (or as climatologists call it, semiarid.) Only six years before the disastrous 1886-87 Hard Winter there had been another Montana winter nearly as severe, but the blow to ranchers was minimal because the land had not reached the stage of overgrazing and there was plenty of fodder. The root cause was the overuse of “free” open range in a commons that could not be sustained once too many animals over- whelmed the natural carrying capacity of the land. But ... if a piece of land is owned, or leased by a herder who by virtue of his investment has a real stake in sustaining its productivity, he has every incentive not to overuse the range beyond long-term carrying capacity. The principle of private property is a much more reliable guarantor that a piece of land will not be overgrazed because its owner has a strong incentive to be sure he maintains its productivity over the long haul. If he doesn’t, he will be compelled to sell out at a sacrifice to someone who will. Hardin’s insight has myriad implications beyond the area of animal husbandry and seems like simple common sense. How often is this common sense actually utilized? 84