Hardin (1968, 1974a, 1974b) published an essay on the fate of common property resources in the face of population growth. His ‘tragedy of the commons’ argument was that people will tend to overuse commonly owned resources, in all probability destroying them, because without overall agreement each user seeks to maximise short-term interests and does not assume sufficient responsibility for stewardship (Box 4.1). Hardin’s views have been widely attacked on several grounds, one being that he was describing more of an open-access resource situation than most common property resource exploitation. Harrison (1993) noted that seldom is use of commons a free-for-all; communities do generally have some controls and manage things.