Tragedy+of+the+Commons4

First introduced by Garrett Hardin in 1968: [] The tragedy of the commons refers to the tendency for human’s own economical greed to take over rational environmental awareness resulting in exploitation of common property resources to a point of near extinction.

Each Common has a maximum yield quantity, yet at this point returns to scale are still increasing and those gaining from the returns are unlikely to halt production without any governing policy to say so. It is not until negative returns to scale are experienced that economic forces will willingly back off. At this point, the harm done on the supply of a common resource is irreversible. This relationship is expressed in the below graphs. 

Banff National Park is no exception from this theory. The park has been developed and marketed way beyond its MSY and the effects are now more than obvious. Development in the town of Banff is ongoing to accommodate the increasing numbers of tourists that visit the park each year and more and more wildlife populations are declining while others are rapidly increasing. The Elk are a perfect example, due to a lack of predators their numbers have risen at an un-natural level and it is as though these animals have exploded upon the park. The Elk are now unreasonably domestic. People from all over the world travel to Alberta to experience the natural beauty in Banff National Park, although the effects of all these visitors is not immediately clear, we are starting to see major changes in the ecosystems within the park’s border’s.