Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia.
The ProSocial Institute, Canberra, Australia.
J Environ Manage. 2021 Feb 15;280:111801. doi: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2020.111801. Epub 2020 Dec 23.
Ecosystems (natural capital) produce a range of benefits to humans. Natural capital is best thought of as common property since many of the ecosystem services it helps produce are non-rival and/or non-excludable. Private property regimes and markets alone are ineffective and inappropriate institutions to manage them sustainably. These systems can be better managed as commons, using more nuanced private and community property rights and Common Asset Trusts (CATs), with legal precedent in the Public Trust Doctrine. Effective CATs embody a generalized version of Elinore Ostrom's eight core design principles for sustainable commons management: (1) shared identity and purpose; (2) equitable distribution of contributions and benefits; (3) fair and inclusive decision-making; (4) monitoring agreed behaviours; (5) graduated responses; (6) fast and fair conflict resolution; (7) authority to self-govern; and (8) collaborative relations with other groups and spatial scales. Here, we describe a few existing and proposed systems that approximate effective CATs. We also suggest how Costa Rica can transform its existing payment for ecosystem services (PES) scheme into a national CAT. Finally, we describe how CATs can facilitate more fair and effective public/private partnerships (PPPs) to invest in natural capital and ecosystem services.
生态系统（自然资本）为人类提供了一系列益处。自然资本最好被视为共有财产，因为它所帮助产生的许多生态系统服务是非竞争性和/或不可排他性的。仅靠私有财产制度和市场是无效和不适当的管理可持续发展的机构。这些系统可以作为共有资源更好地管理，使用更细致的私有和社区产权以及共同资产信托（CAT），这在公共信托原则中具有法律先例。有效的 CAT 体现了埃莉诺·奥斯特罗姆（Elinore Ostrom）可持续共有资源管理的八项核心设计原则的广义版本：（1）共同的身份和目的；（2）公平分配贡献和利益；（3）公平包容的决策；（4）监测商定的行为；（5）渐进的反应；（6）快速公正的冲突解决；（7）自治权；（8）与其他团体和空间尺度的合作关系。在这里，我们描述了一些现有的和拟议的系统，这些系统近似于有效的 CAT。我们还建议哥斯达黎加如何将其现有的生态系统服务支付（PES）计划转变为国家 CAT。最后，我们描述了 CAT 如何促进更公平和有效的公私合作伙伴关系（PPP），以投资于自然资本和生态系统服务。
