The tragedy of the commons and fishing

Harvest the new game

We played a game this week. A very interesting game. It was about teaming up with several classmates and playing the fishing game representing the tragedy of the commons. In this fishing game, every team has a boat and can fish for a year. Every year, the team gives there wanted amount of fish they want to extract from the sea and give that number to the professor. The professor then distributes the fish among the abouts in a random order. If there aren’t enough fish over at the end, the last boats don’t get any fish. The rules of playing the game are as follows. Maximum fish population is 50. Every fish produces one offspring each year. Following from this, in total 25 fish can be fished every year without compromising anything. Fishing more than 25 fish each year will result in 0 fish and fishing less doesn’t maximize profits for the teams. Each team can in turn fish 25 fish divided by the amount of groups. In class, we had 6 teams so each group could maximally get 4 fish each year. However, this game is designed to represent the tragedy of the commons. And every time this game is played, the same thing happens. The only goal is to maximize profit. You can try to relativize what profit means, but in the end the core meaning stays maximizing your own profit. This means your team needs to get more fish than the other teams. If you fish 50 in the first year and the rest don’t, you win. If you fish 4 every year, it’s just a matter of time before someone else hits the above 4 mark and drains the fishing population in which case, you lose because he has more. Very simple and straightforward things that show that maximization of profits can lead to unsustainable situations, or aka the tragedy of the commons. This is a game made up to reflect what happens in reality and to create insight. But how do you change the rules to get to sustainable ‘harvesting’ techniques? In other words, which rules will change the outcome of the game from overfishing to a sustainable fishing system? There are a few options that immediately come to mind. 

Some sociologists believe total and verifiable transparency in the actions people undertake and which consequences these actions have, will persuade them to do the ‘right’ thing (Wognum et al., 2010). In school, a method to achieve this in the game was already proposed. A very sensible way to go about it is to create a board in which all players are represented. This board could be made up of one person of each team. After every round they would come together to assess the fish population and the individual fishing of each team. The board would come up with quota and try to divide the fish capacity over the individual teams. This would provide ultimately a sustainable fish population of which a portion can be harvested every year. However, there are some remarks to be made. The board in the end will not be feasible as every team is equally large and has equal power, arguments will erupt if a team tries to gain more power. If no team tries to gain more power the system will immediately balance and every boat will fish 4 fish for the rest of eternity. Furthermore, there is no governance agency that can make teams obey the quota set out for them, which in hindsight can give the extra variation needed to keep the game interesting. Finally, something as complex (game wise) as setting up a board eventually doesn’t serve the purpose of the game. In such a simple setting as a classroom, total control of the players will eventually lead to the wanted result. But then it is no longer a game. Also, something as simple (reality wise) as setting up a board does not reflect reality where not all actors are willing to participate in such boards and where information about the fish population or the individual profits of companies, by revealing how much they fish, will never be available. It could reflect the complexity of reality but than other factors need to be taken into account and where do you stop? This first proposition already reflects the complexity of setting up new rules. 

So it could seem acceptable that we have to look rather at simple rules that are implementable in the game and that will change the game towards the desired outcome. I personally believe, that if simple rules create complex behavior, it are also such simple rules that can provide straightforward correlations with emanating effects. For example, simple new rules could be that the game should go on for more than 10 rounds or that on average teams should fish 4 fish. However, I still see this going wrong. Let us go back a step. Transparancy could still be a plausible concept to work around but then without a board. Telling people everything that happens with the fish population and what other teams harvest are one of the few options to create transparency in this simple game. However, this will probably lead to a very stable game if the players are willing to see it to the end, or very disruptive if people want to gain profit. Which actually are the same outcomes as in the original game. I’m not even mentioning how boring this will be.

One interesting thing that was noticeable while playing the game was that nobody fished really an extreme amount of fishes. Four fishes was the sustainable way of fishing. Five could still be sustainable if all other teams chose 4. In the end, most teams chose for something in between 4 and 10. After going to mild extremes like 8 or 10 they immediately lowered the year after. Let’s say this is because of guilt. Some even lowered to 2 or 3. This is what makes the game interesting. Although the range to choose goes from 1 to 50, most stayed within the sustainable range but a bit higher in order to gain profit. A most obvious new rule that could be constructed based on this observation is that you tell them there are only 50 fish, but in the end there are 200. Of course, this wouldn’t be a game and lying on this scale in reality is ludicrous. Another way of looking at the observation is that people need some ‘range’ to choose from. Not the only physical range (1 to 50), but also a range in which they think they can easily maneuver and make a change for themselves. They need to be able to ‘fluctuate’ or stand out as you will.

Therefore, I propose to conduct following experiment based on:

·         That transparency is golden in achieving really sustainable situations.

·         The believe that the rules of the game need to be simple in order to get something comprehensible out of it.

·         That people need some range to play with or compete within.

·         And finally, that people need to have some sort of natural variations to get a ‘feeling’ with the gravity of the situation. 

I propose the following changes:

• Teams would be told that the maximum fish population lies between 600 and 900. Thus, the sustainable harvest would be between 300 and 450 or 50 and 75, team wise. However, the actual maximum fish population would be 750 which gives a sustainable harvest of 375 fish or 62 fish per team. However, the teams would not know it is 750. Translating this to reality, it would be giving a standard deviation on the real number. Actors know they should stay in between, but are given a warning every year by a facilitator. This is part of the next rule.
• The second rule, would be the facilitator that provides transparency. After each round, just before teams get their fishes back, the facilitator would say if the total harvest of all the teams is sustainable (below 375) or not (above 375) without giving any numbers. 

It might be interesting to see if increased variation in the choices the teams have would create enough fluctuations as to come to an average fish harvesting number. The only downside of this is that the motivator is still guilt. Teams feel some sort of guilt if they hear it is not sustainable and then adjust their fish harvesting. This might thus, still end up in an unsustainable fishing system as guilt is a disputable motivator. Furthermore, as before there needs to be only one team that goes for maximum profit every time. At least now, with providing a range, they get enough warnings that would stimulate them to back down without disrupting the game entirely right at the beginning. 

Wognum, P.M.N., H. Bremmers, J.H. Trienekens, J.G.A.J. Van Der Vorst, and J.M. Bloemhof. 2011. Advanced Engineering Informatics Systems for sustainability and transparency of food supply chains – Current status and challenges. Advanced Engineering Informatics 25(1): 65–76. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.aei.2010.06.001.

Social networks and production

Analyzing a regional network and identifying constraints

As the network of production I have chosen the network surrounding Google, Inc.. The focus will be primarily on the smartphones developed by Google, the Google Nexus line. In terms of this production line the network is actually already named as the Open Handset Alliance (OHA). This is the network that currently develops and uses the android operating system. This alliance came to live around Android and Google. A bit of history.

Android, Inc. was founded in California in 2003. It initially set out to make an operating system for digital cameras. The scope changed very rapidly and they made an operating system for smart phones. Not long after this Google took over Android, Inc. (2005) (1). At Google the system gets further developed and eventually Android gets unveiled as a new open standard (!) mobile device platform. Surprisingly, it is not Google that makes this revelation, but the OHA. This consortium of Google, HTC, Sony, Samsung, Sprint Nextel, T-Mobile and many more are the ones bringing forth this operating system (3). From the website of OHA (4):

“Each member of the Open Handset Alliance is strongly committed to greater openness in the mobile ecosystem. Increased openness will enable everyone in our industry to innovate more rapidly and respond better to consumers’ demands. Our first joint project as a new Alliance is Android™. Android was built from the ground up with the explicit goal to be the first open, complete, and free platform created specifically for mobile devices.”

A year later, in 2008, a smartphone by HTC, the HTC dream gets revealed as the first Android operating mobile phone (2). In 2010, Google released its first smart phone with the Nexus One. This phone was developed mainly in cooperation with HTC. Other Nexus devices were developed together with cooperation’s from the OHA like LG Electronics, Asus and Motorola Mobility.

It seems conceivable that the OHA is more a production network than an actual open standard platform to enable all actors in the industry to innovate. As the OHA was very rapidly created, in 2005 Google bought Android, Inc. and in 2007 a global consortium of more than 20 companies was created which would stimulate openness in their sector and create a vast knowledge database, so to say. A first concept from organizational networks is already becoming visible here. The entire OHA is actually centered around Google. In the two years’ time it took to fully the develop the Android system and setup the network no other company could have created the same knowledge about the operating system as Google. Granted that afterwards everybody was able to access the code, no other actor actually had this knowledge and it is still Google that develops Android. So although the transparency and the openness looks very fancy and attracts a lot of people, it is a way for Google to distribute its operating system. It went even further than that. Google designs, develops, markets and sells the Nexus line, but has original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) in the OHA behind it to do the manufacturing. Although, these are not a 100% loyal to Google, as HTC also has a windows phone for example, the OHA does provide an openness and coolness factor to a lot of these Android operating phones while it seems more like Google trying to provide itself with security (5).

Of course, it is not just Google trying to secure its position. The other companies also had a lot of benefits from this. It enabled them to use a good performing operating system and easily develop hardware around/for it. They also have the security that it will keep getting worked upon in order to give their customers a reliable system. These organizations are mainly hardware developers and thus, now have more time to spend on their specialty while having stable relationships within the industry.

Dependency on others because of  knowledge sharing and rapid developing/innovating is more important because it is an open source system. The developing of Android and coupling it to loyal customers is very important because Google and the members of the OHA do have competitors. Nowadays, most people (globally) actually do not use google’s android services. Amazon uses its own version of android (2.3 Gingerbread) on its own tablet (the kindle fire). Also on the Asian market there are more and more smartphones and tablets manufacturers, for example the current leader in the Chinese market Xiaomi, that are not in the OHA but do provide quality devices based on Android.

As a final remark, I want to make clear that this centrality around Google is actually very beneficial. It is a new way of cooperating and it definitely creates more economic value for the actors involved. The ‘lack’ of openness is not a hypocritical point, as has been pointed out that competition is able to use Android as well, and the power centrality around Google Nexus line is not as straightforward as the other companies (like HTC) sell these Nexus devices and make a profit on it.

References

(1)    Markoff, John (November 4, 2007). "I, Robot: The Man Behind the Google Phone". The New York Times. Retrieved February 15, 2012.

(2)    Mark Wilson (September 23, 2008). "T-Mobile G1: Full Details of the HTC Dream Android Phone". gizmodo.com. Retrieved December 27, 2013.

(3)    "Industry Leaders Announce Open Platform for Mobile Devices" (Press release). Open Handset Alliance. November 5, 2007. Retrieved February 17, 2012.

(4)    http://www.openhandsetalliance.com/oha_overview.html

(5)    Electronista (may 3, 2010). Leak: Google’s Open Handset Alliance a “myth”. http://www.electronista.com/articles/10/05/03/open.handset.alliance.said.solely.for.google/.

Social Ecological Systems and barn swallows

The concept of socio-ecological system gives way of viewing ecological systems not as separate entities but as being part of a larger entity which also includes societal actors (humans or organizations) and the governing actors. Elinor Ostrom’s updated framework for analyzing SESs includes four core subsystems, namely the resource system (RS), the resource units (RU), the governance system (GS), and the users (U). These subsystems consist of various variables such as quantity, size, mobility, amount of interactions, economic values, various activities, etcetera. Finally, they also interact with the social, economic and political settings (S) and with related ecosystems (ECO). 

As an SES to analyse with this framework I propose to look at the Hageland area in Belgium. This area is renowned for its picturesqueness and agricultural industry which has been present for many centuries. My parents have a house there which used to be a farm so I’m most definitely connected. My family is a user of the land as we grow some vegetables and breed fish. Additionally, I make long hikes and mountain bike rides through the country side. Furthermore, I’m connected to the local GS as I vote for the local municipality. Concluding, I’m a multilevel user (U). 

In case of industrial ecology we look more at sustainability problems than any other. Here, I shall take the occurring problem that less and less barn swallows are present in the region. How is this possible and what can be done about it? In order to answer this question I shall use the framework. First, we have the (RU) which is the barn swallow. The RS is the geographical area, Hageland (but can actually be extended to cover entire Belgium and the Netherlands). The RS contains several rivers, woodland, open farmland, (industrial) farms, small towns and medium sized towns. A related ecosystem (ECO) close to this one is the entire region of Flanders and even Belgium and the Netherlands with it. In the entirety of this region the barn swallow is having trouble, so this related ecosystem also influences the outcome of the interactions by/with the subsystems. 

The RS is the area between four major cities, Aarschot, Leuven, Tienen en Diest. The GS, therefore, encompasses the federal Belgium government, the Flemish regional government, the province of Brabant and Limburg and several municipalities. The GS, thus, is very segmented with a lot of different responsibilities.

Finally, we have the users. There are many farmers (industry) and regular citizens (housing) in the area, other users are tourists, tourist agencies (e.g. Regionaal landschap Hageland and Tourisme Hageland) and last but not least, the non-profit association Natuurpunt (nature reservation). The resources that get depleted are not the swallows, but these are not ‘used’ as such by the users. They are an attraction for tourist and do have an economic benefit in that way, but they are not necessary for farmers (main economic activity) to grow their crops or animals. 

The federal government does not address issues as small as the disappearance of the sparrows but it does provide money and some additional resources. The municipalities often work together with the provinces and in some cases have their own programs. The case of the disappearing swallows is something that gets noticed only by two instances. The direct users (in the beginning even only these ones), like farmers and tourists and Natuurpunt. It is Natuurpunt in this case which has noticed the reasons behind the disappearance.  The barn swallow uses mud, twigs and leaves to create its nests. It also specifically searches very dark and dry places to put its nests. This has evolved throughout the centuries. The ideal site used to be houses and farms. The past centuries the houses in the area became more airtight. The past decades the farms also became more clean, with less manure, less twigs, less mud and also, more airtight. Furthermore, specifically in the Hageland, cow farmers declined which gave rise to less barns in total, but more centralized ones with bigger farmland. This very much narrowed down the breeding spots for the barn swallow. Analyzing this system it is obvious that the farmers (U) are the cause for the decline, but may also have been the cause for the rise and creation of this niche swallow in the first place. No blame is given, but solutions have to be found.

Therefore, several organizations and municipalities, with Natuurpunt leading ahead, are searching for foster families. These foster families can be farmers or private owners who get informed about swallows and in some cases get a nest to hang up somewhere. These nests have to be paid for, but are quite cheap made because of some funds from the government. It seems that in this case the interactions (I) between the users of the resource system and the social, economic, and political setting (S) created the problem. It disrupted the normal interaction between the resource unit and the users by demanding more sterile conditions and more centralized/industrialized farms. Further analysis with variables like mobility, size and economic value is not included here. Finally, the solution to the problem seemed to be the reestablishment of the initial interaction between the users and the resource unit which got disrupted by the S. 

The principle of Friedman (‘The business of business is to make profit’) could be  constructive here. The use of the swallows as a tourist attraction seems obvious. Here, making shelters and nests for the swallows can be an activity. Even voluntary work might be able to increase some tourist activities, even though it would only be in the food service industry used by the voluntaries. Furthermore, the construction materials of the nests and everything surrounding the building increases sales in the economic system. The farmers specifically can increase profit by coupling tourist work with their farming activities. This is already being done to some extent.