Historical paper: ‘The tragedy of the commons’

How do we allocate natural resources in an equitable way? For many, Garret Hardin's 'The tragedy of the commons' published in Science in 1968 became a parable of its time, giving succour to both environmentalist and capitalist alike. The intervening years have seen developments in environmental economics, participatory planning, environmental regulation, governance and resource efficiency, all strands that Hardin would recognise. New multi-disciplinary fields have emerged in topics such as socio-ecological systems theory, environmental cognition and resilience, all things that Hardin alludes to. The new science of ecosystem services is providing a robust framework for natural resource evaluation as it starts to underpin exactly what nature provides to us all in common. As we face the challenges of a changing climate and other ‘wicked‘ problems, is Hardin's analysis of a ‘class of problem with no technical solution‘ still a useful one? Followers of the debate over sustainable communities and the ’big society‘ may think so. This paper aims to introduce the reader to Hardin‘s now classic tragic scenario of natural resource use, place it within an evolving corpus of environmental literature, explore a little of the author's own life and attempt to asses its impact and relevance today.