ABSTRACT
The political economy and governance of wild resources is not static, but has passed through five phases. Unfortunately, a history that includes slavery, colonialism, and one-party dictatorships, combined with the public model of forest, wildlife, or fishery management adopted in the early 20th century, has resulted in the absence of effective rules and rights (‘deinstitutionalisation’) in many forests and drylands inhabited by local communities. These ‘ungoverned spaces’ are the arena for the current biodiversity-poverty crisis. Using the economic history of the Western world as a backdrop, the author describes the importance of political institutions for shaping economic outcomes and human prosperity, and suggests that these same rules apply to ungoverned wild species and spaces.
