Should the state regulate the local commons? Lessons from economic experiments in the field

Abstract

Strategies that integrate conservation and development are especially critical in regions where ecosystems provide direct and indirect benefits for local users and others, and where because of institutional conditions there is a commons dilemma. State intervention is sometimes thought necessary and desirable to correct the externalities arising from the conflict between short-term needs to extract a resource from the common-pool and the long-term need for preserving the ecosystem for its renewability and its capacity to provide other indirect ecological services.