This phenomenon has been explained by several
disciplines throughout the years but two that have been highly influential are
the resource curse and the tragedy of the commons as proposed by Garret Hardin
and Elinor Ostrom. Hardin was an ecologist from the United States that studied the
issue of overpopulation in relation to the pressures it represented to the environment
leading him to suggest that the use of common resources is doomed to
overexploitation since the lack of ownership also implied a lack of regulation
and accountability. Ostrom, through her work, rebutted this thesis to an extent
by suggesting that, in practice, there are some mechanisms that help governing
the commons to avoid their destruction.
Since these theories emerged, plenty
of discussion has ensued especially around who should govern the commons, who
should participate, what should be governed, and which is the best model to do
so. This resource explores these challenges through the lens of the complex but
dynamic region that is Latin America. The resource uses the examples of two
case studies of forestry management in Central America, specifically in
Guatemala and Costa Rica to exemplify that there is not one recipe for
successful governance but just a constant process of negotiation and adaptation
to the context and its changes.
