Common Property as a Response to Variability

The spectrum of property ownership spans four distinct types: open access, state, common, and private property ownership. Open access means that there are no restrictions on the property use, and the benefits of open access go to whomever exploits it first. State property is managed by government agencies, and often require permits to take advantage of the resource. Common property is managed communally with rules to resource usage as determined by the group. Finally, private ownership is managed by an individual who controls their portion of a resource. Prior to this trip, I didn't realize that property ownership doesn't always fit neatly into one of these four categories. 

terraces. 

The Cinque Terre is a unique example of property ownership that eludes narrow categorization. The agricultural terraces carved into the region's landscape have several levels of ownership. First, individuals own small tracts of land that they take responsibility for maintaining. Once families owned much larger areas of land, but much of the agricultural property has since been abandoned. Second, the state has claimed the area as the Cinque Terre National Park and has imposed rules that the owner must comply with. Finally, there is an aspect of communal property management in that the whole region relies on tourism driven in part by the historic and beautiful landscape of the terraces carved into the hills. This provides incentive for the community to get involved in the terraces' maintenance as we see in the "voluntourism" schemes that allow tourists to help build the stone walls that support the terraces. 

Of the four types of property ownership discussed, our article delved mainly into common property. Specifically, it postulated that in some cases, agricultural common property can be a rational decision made to mitigate risk by diversifying the location of crops. That is to say if storms or rainfall affect one area disproportionately, then common property ownership would allow for a higher average yield, and more stability for the farmers as a whole. We discussed the applicability of a common property system as it pertained to the people of Vernazza.  We concluded that true common property ownership would be beneficial in that it would provide more incentive for members of the community to pitch in with other people's terracing, especially since maintenance is at the mercy of storms and rains, which can have large variability in how they affect an  area. That being said, we identified the potential concern that, because the Cinque Terre is made up of five relatively small towns with little mobility from one to another, the variation within one village could be minimal and the ability to help farmers from other villages would be difficult considering the geographic constrains.