Design principle 7 requires that national and local state authorities approve users' rights to self-organize (Ostrom, 1990 and Ostrom, 2010). Referring to McKean (1982), Ostrom (1990) notes that government authorities granted users of mountain forests commons rights to self-organize in the Tokugawa period (1600–1867) in Japan and the community-based forestry management was sustainable (Shimada, 2014). Similarly, the Tokugawa government developed community-based fisheries management to allow fishers to self-organize and self-govern their fisheries commons (Makino and Matsuda, 2005 and Yamamoto, 1995).