Tragedy of enclosures

The concept of a "tragedy of enclosures" is attributable to Reid et al. (2014) who defined the concept in a scientific publication titled "Dynamics and Resilience of Rangelands and Pastoral Peoples Around the Globe." In the article, the authors describe the "tragedy of enclosures" as "when common lands become privatized and fragmented by boundaries, such as fencing." The authors state that "settlement of nomadic pastoralists and intensification of livestock production were promoted in the past to exert political control over mobile populations, collect taxes, provide health and education services, and increase productivity."^[1] Additionally, the authors wrote that "comparing livestock weights on commercial ranches and pastoral common lands gave the impression that commercial ranches are more productive. But the opposite is true because high labor inputs and opportunistic grazing over large landscapes gives common land pastoralists the edge in production per unit area over commercial enterprises."^[1][2] The overarching concept of a "tragedy of enclosures" is similar to Hardin's "Tragedy of the Commons" (which Reid et al. believe would be more aptly named "The Tragedy of Open Access") except rather than land degradation occurring by mismanagement on common land, it is the product of mismanagement and a resulting consequence of land fragmentation.^[1]

See also

Rangeland management

Rangeland

Land fragmentation

References