ENSC 320 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Young Modern, Overfishing, American Bison
21 Apr 2017
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Over exploitation: the collapse of the northern cod. Common property resources owned by the entire populace without restriction as to who can use them and how. Individuals acting independently in their own self-interest can ultimately destroy a shared resource, even where it is clear that it is not in anyone"s long term interest for this to happen. Individual sheep farmers, grazing herds in a communal pasture. Shepherds will want to maximize yield, so they each want to increase herd size. But that approach is detrimental to the communal pasture since it leads to overgrazing. So the division of costs and benefits are unequal: benefits for the individual shepherd, costs shared by everyone. Identify the maximum biomass that can be harvested without affecting future harvest. Dominant approach in mid 20th century natural resource management. Problem is that it does not consider quality of the organism being harvested. Can push harvests towards smaller sized individuals, which may have ecological or evolutionary consequences.
