commons in y

commons was originally applied to a group of herders grazing cattle on common land. Each herder only gains overexploit or pollute), because cheating brings economic advantages to the individual, whereas costs are distributed among all individuals (Box 1). The lesson drawn from these studies is that solving the dilemma often requires nego-tiation and sanctions on disobedient individuals. This changes the payoffs, so that group-beneficial behaviour also becomes optimal for the individual: an example would Review TRENDS in Ecology and Evolution Vol.22 No.12 entire population (i.e. extinction) if the resource was essential. Component tragedy: a tragedy of the commons in which escalated competi-a benefit from his own flock, but when a herder adds more cattle to the land to graze, everyone shares the cost, which comes from reducing the amount of forage per cattle. If the herders are driven only by economic self-interest, they wil