Organizing for Endangered and Threatened Species Habitat Draft

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irrigation well. 2. Collective (public) properly/re;sources (See Figure 1) have exactly the opposite attributes as compared to private property/resources. They are characterized by zero rivalness and excludability. A given quantity of 'water flow contributing to quality plover habitat is a public property resource. Markets do not e;merge to provide these because the benefits that can be captured by an individual investor can be no greater than those available to non-investors (free riders). Healthy ecosystems capable of sustaining species listed under the Endangered Species Act, in the absence of public a. Private Rivalness high, Excludability high Investor -? / Benefits b. Common Rivalness moderate, Excludability nnoderate Investor Be?nefit ? c. Collective Rivalness zero, Excludability zero Investor -? E3enefits Figure 1 Types of Property policy and effective organizations to prevent private rationality from dominating the situation, will be degraded by people who in the course of pursuing private rationality in marketplaces simply exploit open access to the common heritage for private gain. One has to be a fool or major altruist to invest in things the benefits of which will escape away and cannot be denied to non-investors. Examples of collective or public include national defense, flood control, police and fire protection, forest and watershed protection and, of course, provision of high quality habitat for birds on the central Platte river. 3. Common property (See Figure 1) is characterized by moderate rivalness and excludability. For example, a given quantity of water flowing though an irrigation canal to a farmer's field represents a resource that moderately rival and excludable. It is rival in the sense that a delivery to one farmer cannot then be simultaneously delivered to the next farmer. However, an important fraction of the water delivered to the first user will run off as tail water or percolate into soils and otherwise move downslope to provide "return flows" to other users who thereby also shaxe benefits. Given leaky earthen ditches and modest field application efficiencies, a substantiial fraction of one user's water will flow to others in the imgation community and the other•s cannot be totally excluded at reasonable cost. Since many are benefiting from the investment;s of others in highly interdependent flow networks, there is no