Recent posts tried to cover the damage being caused by Washington through its opening of previously protected lands to exploitation and destruction by commercial interests. Specifically, the formalization of the “Tragedy of the Commons”.

In the last article posted on this topic, we saw how land owners/users in the west have viewed that Federal Government’s actions as a form of taking in the sense that they can no longer do whatever they want with large swaths of land. This article on the Airbnb model is an interesting twist. It is not new in my mind, the Nature Conservancy has used a financial model of sorts for decades.

What is interesting is tying the land to the value of the environment and encouraging landowners to do what we know makes sense through financial incentives rather than proscriptive regulations. Why not do both?

It is important to distinguish the fact that many ranchers and energy companies seem to view the common good as only that which makes money for them, but I do think that this model could somehow be incorporated into the current regulatory system.

What do you think?

Read the full articles:
Using the Airbnb Model to Protect the Environment
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