Understanding «commons» and «anti-commons» in different economic contexts

Many common resources are managed under private property rights based systems. Privatizing these resources leads to segmented property rights and fragmented decisions. Gathering all these rights could lead to higher private and social costs. Heller has described this phenomenon as anti-commons tragedy, with the resources underused and limited of possibilities of innovation and development (Heller, 1998). The concept of anti-commons has been highlighted in the fields of intellectual property, media and business. Nevertheless, few studies have attempted to shed light on anti-commons in the field of fisheries. The present article attempts to introduce the concepts of commons and anti-commons, in light of previous studies focusing on the importance of property rights and access modes, for fishery resource management. The access rights management is the main problems that threaten the sustainability of fishery resources. The fisheries involve many interdependent economic stakeholders influencing the decisions of the resource utilisation. In this context, the coordination failure leads to a chaotic situation where the fishery resources are underused