Question

7. Some villagers in Benin, Africa were observed to manage fishing in the local lake as follows: To open the fishing season, elders of the village performed ritual tests at the lake. If the fish were large enough, fishing was allowed for two or three days. If they were too small, all fishing was forbidden, and anyone who secretly fished the lake at this time was outcast, excluded from the formal and informal groups that formed the village’s social structure. Those who committed this breach of trust were often shunned by the whole community; no one would speak to the offender, or even acknowledge his existence for a year or more. Please discuss what economic problem the village elders were trying to prevent. Do you think they have a workable solution ?

Answer 1

The villagers were trying to prevent economic problem called as tragedy of commons.

The tragedy of the commons is an economic problem in which every individual has an incentive to consume a resource at the expense of every other individual with no way to exclude anyone from consuming. It results in overconsumption, under investment, and ultimately depletion of the resource.

Fisheries provide the classic example of the tragedy of the commons, which occurs when property rights are incomplete and access to a resource is open. The migratory nature of most fish species makes it difficult to establish and protect rights to fish in the sea, so the rule of capture prevails. The result is often overexploitation of the resource .This could be avoided if individual property rights are created for common pool resources.

This solution is workable but not concrete. Some other steps have to be taken to protect fisheries. Reform, subsidies, and declaring certain areas of the lake off-limits to non-sustainable fishing are probably the best ways to combat overfishing. Individual consumer choices, like purchasing fish from sustainable fisheries and fish farms, are also a great way to encourage the growth of sustainable fishing.