The “Tragedy of the Commons” metaphor is a very good example of the potentialities and limitations of metaphors use in Economics. As Schlager and Ostrom (1992) remind, Political Economists’ understanding of property rights and the rules used to create and enforce them, shape perceptions of resource degradation problems and prescriptions recommended to solve such problems. Ambiguous terms blur analytical and prescriptive clarity and the term “common property” is a glaring example.
In the literature on Natural Resources it would be difficult to find a concept as misunderstood as commons and common property. Important researchers in the field of Natural Resource Economics do not distinguish between the concepts of common property and non-property. But, that distinction is crucial for the design of Natural Resources Management Policy.
The aim of our paper is to rectify this confusion and establish an adequate conceptualisation. A typology of property-rights regimes relevant to common property resources is presented. The reflex of this distinction between regimes on the design of the natural resources policy is discussed. In this context, the paper also discusses the legacy of recently Nobel prized researcher E. Ostrom. Her work is fundamental in the substitution of the “Tragedy” metaphor to the more interesting “Drama of the Commons”. Of course we’ll have tragedies (in the open access situation) but sometimes we’ll have also reasons to laugh. Ostrom stresses that a commons can be well governed and that most people, when presented with a resource problem, can cooperate and act for the common good. “Co-management” and self–regulation are the keys for sustainable resource management.