The tragedy of the commons.

• Author: Binnings, Tom
• Position: THE ECONOMIST

I arrived in Colorado just more than 40 years ago.

Like so many of us, I was awed by the beauty and loved the accessibility of the mountains. For me, it was a decision to attend college in paradise. Little did I know this would become my permanent home.

At that time, off-road mountain access meant you either hiked, skied or entered the backcountry via horseback. There were about 2.5 million residents--less than half of today's population. Exploring the outdoors was 20 minutes away and the Continental Divide was 90 minutes from home. In the mid-1980s, mountain bikes were introduced and off-road-vehicles became popular--replacing the horse for longer excursions and adding thrills to short rides. My preference was the mountain bike, and later I purchased a motorized dirt bike. Until about 1995 everything was either single track or forest roads. Then it all changed. The single tracks eroded and grew in width, and forest roads increasingly became an entry point into a maze of trails throughout national forests.

The change was a classic case of the "tragedy of the commons," where a resource open to everyone becomes so overused that its quality becomes minimalized over time. The textbook case of this tragedy is ocean fisheries, where more and more people get into commercial fishing when the resource is abundant, but later find the fisheries unproductive thanks to overfishing. Without intervention or cooperative effort, a valuable resource is lost for a long time.

This is where we are today with the playgrounds of Colorado. The state's population is forecast to double by 2050, and while most of us appreciate the "low impact" ethic associated with our wilderness areas, it is largely dismissed for our outdoor recreation. I recall someone once saying, "We are all environmentalists until we have to personally sacrifice." Unfortunately, this appears to be true. There are many "greenies" widening single track and cutting new trails in every direction.

So what are the solutions? How do we preserve what makes Colorado so remarkable? Typical solutions for addressing the tragedy of the commons include: 1) privatization; 2) regulation; and 3) developing an ethic for the commons. Heavy doses of restoration and perpetual maintenance or conservation will be required. Privatization is an effective option...