Rainfall is available to everyone in most areas of the planet. In the tropical rain forests for example, the main source of rain as many are taught in high school, is the rain forest: therefore the more the forest coverage, the more the rain. If the forest cover were to diminish for a particular reason, say natural processes, then the amount of rainfall will reduce consequently and recover during another season: and if the reduction of forest over reduced to excessive logging, then the problem persists until action is taken to control the logging. The rainfall in this case is a common resource that people use and can be regarded as a common resource. It is available to all without restriction. However, the loggers in this case present an externality that affects the availability of the common resource; hence intervention is required to cap logging: intervention is within the jurisdiction of the government. The government therefore might put restrictions on logging that will ensure the sufficient rainfall is maintained. The example of rainfall and how it relates to logging is a typical real life example of a common resource and how it is affected by other issues indirectly. This however does not capture the essence of government intervention in a typical case which exhibits excessive use and eventually depletion of the common resource.
A good is basically provided for consumption of the buyer via the seller. If a good provided in the market can be depleted and is also consumed by more than one buyer at the same time, it introduces market forces into the picture: higher demand translates to low supply and vice-versa. However, the same cannot apply to goods that are available for everyone to see like a fireworks show in the sky. The fireworks show is a non-rival in consumption because it is viewed by everyone and therefore a public good. In the same wavelength, the sky is available for everyone to see and any attempts to say, cover it in order to exclude people from seeing the fireworks show utterly ridiculous and impossible. A public good therefore has two common traits: it is non-rival in consumption and non-excludable. A private good on the other hand is both excludable and rival in consumption – can be consumed by numerous buyers at the same time. When a good is excludable, the seller can prevent consumption of the buyer that does not pay for it. For instance a football game within the arena excludes everyone out of the arena from watching it.
Public goods suffer from free rider problems. For instance, if a farmer decided to divert the water from a large river to his/her farm for irrigation, other people in the same community living in proximity to the new stream of water will have access to it and therefore use, eventually relying on it heavily for their daily use. The farmer might therefore end up receiving less than the intended amount of water due to consumption by other parties. The users of the water along the way are therefore free riders of the resource . Goods that are non-rival in consumption translate into an efficient consumption price of zero. In reality, companies like Equator Bottlers that provide common resources like water get compensated very little for what goes into purifying the water and production of the bottle. Given that water is also readily available to most people, there is resistance to viewing water as a commodity yet it is readily available; the customer base of bottled water consumers is not very big (this is subject to product branding by different bottlers).
Public goods benefit everyone for instance disease prevention, National defense and scientific information . These services can be provided by private sector too; however, they are defective in their methods and therefore, the government steps in to provide it to all citizens equally. These goods are serviced financially for via taxes to cater for the military budget for instance to ensure border patrols by the border police and execute rescue efforts by police in a hostage situation.
The Lake Victoria is located in East Africa and is shared by five countries; Rwanda, Burundi, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. Being a natural and common resource, it supplies most of the water requirements for residents and towns in proximity. It also supplements water for irrigation schemes to farmers in its vicinity. In terms of economic benefits, residents, organizations, businesses and companies rely on it for fish production. The fish business has been a lucrative source of food for residents and business for fishermen. Given the fact the fish is a common resource to all the member countries, fishing is therefore an activity that is ventured into by all of the member countries. For over 500 years fishermen have been conducting catching fish without incident until recent times due to the dwindling common resource. The business boom invited investment from major food industries that carried out fishing without regard for future prospects. Pollution from industries dumping industrial waste into the lake further reduced the availability of fish. The increased costs of general fabric due to soaring oil prices also caused fish net production to incur more cost that was transferred to the end users, the fishermen: who resorted to using plastic government distributed mosquito nets to do fishing instead. The plastic mosquito nets have small gauges that capture all fish in different stages of development without prejudice which translates to periods of dry spells in the lake – no fish. The government of the five countries therefore stepped in to intervene on the case incongruent fishing methods to streamline the activity to a standard that can benefit all who use this natural resource and to restore and monitor their fishing capacity. They accomplished this by introducing policies that govern fishing in the lake by all member states, for instance, standard gauge nets were made mandatory and heavy penalties introduced to discourage fishermen from deviating from this policy. Curfews were introduced to limit the time fishermen spend in the water fishing in order to cumulatively give the fish more room to develop. Strict rules were imposed on industries that dumped industrial waste into the lake to discourage toxic exposure to the fish and enhance long term health protection of fish mongers: from toxic waste metals from the industries such as lead. Marine policing was introduced to monitor all stakeholders and ensure that the policies put in place by the government intervention were adhered to.
The intervention for the government was crucial to restore equality to all stakeholders involved without which, cartels would have risen up to take control of the situation. The re-introduction of the standard gauge nets and banning of ensure that only fish of a particular stage of development was harvested from the lake by fishermen. The hooks tended to reduce the breeding stock hence the ban.The nets would allow the eggs and the fingerlings to escape back into the lake and develop until such a time that they were of standard size ripe for fishing. The industrial waste enabled natural processes of fertilization by run-of water from the surrounding hill to continue optimally without catalytic chemicals slowing down the fertilization of the waters process. The curfews (and promotion of aquaculture) introduced that formerly contributed to exhaustion of the common resource was now curtailed and controlled by government officials who monitored that the lake was allowed time to rejuvenated what was lost due to aggressive fishing.
These interventions also ensured welfare by contributing to a reduction in rivalry at the lake shoes for more fish. The fishermen had more time on their hand to venture into the socializing with family and friends partly due to the curfews and also the rising fish population that eliminated the worry of missing out on the harvest due to the activities of other aggressive fishermen. A cap was also introduced on the daily average weight of fish allowed per fisherman in the waters. This cap on the quantity of fish harvested fostered peace and respect at the shores and among fishermen that was only possible due to equality. The high rate of prevalence of HIV among the fish mongers and the fishermen was due to desperation of hard economic times when the fish volume was low. This came about due to members trading sexual favors for more gain. As a result of the intervention and restoration on the fish population that is still ongoing, healthier relations can be nurtured as a result
Works cited
CHITAMWEBWA, D., et al. "The Present Status of the Hook Fishery and its Impact on the Fish Stocks of Lake Victoria." African Journal of Tropical Hydrobiology and Fisheries (2009): 78-82 .
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Miller, Roger LeRoy, Daniel K. Benjamin and Douglass C. North. The Economics of Public Issues. New York: Pearson/Addison-Wesley, 2008.
NYEKO, JOYCE IKWAPUT, et al. "Management of Fishing Capacity in the Nile Perch Fishery of Lake Victoria." African Journal of Tropical Hydrobiology and Fisheries (2009): 67-73 .
Ogello, Erick Ochieng, Kevin Obiero and Jonathan Mbonge. "LAKE VICTORIA AND THE COMMON PROPERTY DEBATE: IS THE TRAGEDY OF THE COMMONS A THREAT TO ITS FUTURE?" Lakes, reservoirs and ponds, (2013): 101-126.
Opio, Alex, Michael Muyonga and Noordin Mulumba. "HIV Infection in Fishing Communities of Lake Victoria Basin of Uganda – A Cross-Sectional Sero-Behavioral Survey." PMC (2013): 1-10.
RUTAISIRE, J., et al. "Aquaculture for increased fish production in East Africa." African Journal of Tropical Hydrobiology and Fisheries (2009): 74-77 .
Suber, Peter. "Knowledge as a Public Good." SPARC (2009).
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