Tragedy-of-the-Commons

The “tragedy-of-the-commons” is a phenomenon which can be used to describe the situation. As coined by Hardin, such behaviour is seen from an individual’s point of view. The consumption of a natural resource by many individuals will eventually lead to the destruction of it. The logic behind this is the pursuit of individual self-interest in which each person gains financially by consuming a resource. Here, everyone assumes that their action will not have a big impact on the resource because the resource is huge.

Using the “tragedy-of-the-commons” to explain the current situation of the threats faced by the orang-utans, each person sees the forest as a resource appropriate for the establishment of commercial activities such as the palm oil or timber industry. They see this as a money making industry because there is a demand for such goods. Each individual sees this benefit from their point of view, thinking that their action will not make a difference on the forest because their action is small in comparison to the amount of forests found. Thus, if they do not take advantage of the resource to maximise their money making opportunity, others will seize the opportunity if they do not. As a result, everyone shares the same mindset and go ahead to consume the resource. This leads to forests vanishing at an alarming rate each year as people are clearing the forests at a rate that they are unable to replenish itself.

Similarly, this applies to the orang-utan population. Though it is against the law to sell, capture or kill orang-utans, the locals are still doing it. People used this chance to earn a living by capturing and killing the orang-utans before selling them in the black market because it is easy money. Similarly, everyone pursuit this in their self-interest and hence if a person forgoes the opportunity to sell the orang-utan, others will do so if they do not. Therefore, people still choose to go ahead with their actions because they want to maximise their own financial earnings.

Everyone pursuit their own self-interest and maximize their own financial earnings without considering the impact that they have on the resource. This results in large amounts of forests being cleared, destroying the habitats of the orang-utan. It also leads to the decline of the orang-utan population as they are being poached and traded in the black markets. Furthermore, the female orang-utans only give birth once in 8 or 9 years, making the reproduction process extremely slow. This means that it takes a long time for the orang-utans to recover from population declines.

This illustrates that if everybody thinks the same way and engaged in the pursuit of self-interest, it exceeds the rate of the forests and orang-utans are able to replenish itself, it leads to severe consequences.