Reviews: The Commons in the New Millennium: Challenges and Adaptations, Cities

Abstract

Based on papers given at the 2000 conference held in Bloomington, Indiana. Globalization, population growth, and resource depletion are drawing increased attention to the importance of common resources such as forests, water resources, and fisheries. It is critical that these resources be governed in an equitable and sustainable way. The Commons in the New Millennium presents cutting-edge research in common property theory and provides an overview and progress report on common property research. The book analyzes new problems that owners, managers, policy makers, and analysts face in managing natural commons. It examines recent findings about the physical characteristics of the commons, their complexity and interconnectedness, and the role of social capital. It also provides empirical studies and suggestions for sustainable development. The topics discussed include the role of financial, political, and social capital in deforestation, community efforts to gain political influence in Indonesia, the Maine lobster industry, outcomes of the implementation of individual transferable quotas in New Zealand and Iceland fisheries, and design of multilateral emissions trading for regional air pollution and global warming. The challenges of the commons / Nives Dols̆ak and Elinor Ostrom -- Changes in the territorial system of the Maine lobster industry / James M. Acheson and Jennifer F. Brewer -- Transition in the American fishing commons : management problems and institutional design challenges / Susan Hanna -- The relationship between resource definition and scale : considering the forest / Martha E. Geores -- Privatizing the commons ... twelve years later : fishers' experiences with New Zealand's market-based fisheries management / Tracy Yandle and Christopher M. Dewees. Stakeholders, courts, and communities : individual transferable quotas in Icelandic fisheries, 1991-2001 / Elinar Erythórsson -- Multilateral emission trading : heterogeneity in domestic and international common-pool resource management / Alexander E. Farrell and M. Granger Morgan -- Shaping local forest tenure in national politics / Rita Lindayati -- A framework for analyzing the physical-, social-, and human-capital effects of microcredit on common-pool resources / C. Leigh Anderson, Laura A. Locker, and Rachel A. Nugent. Using social capital to create political capital : how do local communities gain political influence? A theoretical approach and empirical evidence from Thailand / Regina Birner and Heidi Wittmer -- Adaptation to challenges / Nives Dols̆ak, Eduardo S. Brondizio, Lars Carlsson, David W. Cash, Clark C. Gibson, Matthew J. Hoffmann, Anna Knox, Rugh S. Meinzen-Dick, and Elinor Ostrom.