A Thai Beach And Shared Resources

It's no Picnic Was this forwarded to you? Subscribe to [this newsletter]( and to [our podcasts](. [NPR] "The Beach" And What It Teaches Us --------------------------------------------------------------- by Darian Woods Maya Bay is a tiny cove on the west coast of Thailand. In past years, you’d get to it by these little motor-driven boats called long-tails. Epic limestone cliffs rise up over turquoise waters completely untouched … until the tourists came. For years, thousands and thousands of tourists fought to relax on the tiny beach beneath the cliffs. Maya Bay is also the star of The Beach, the 2000 movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio, about a dark paradise. It was a huge draw, bringing tourist dollars to the economy of Maya Bay, and the wider Phi Phi islands, of which Maya Bay is most popular. A quarter of all money spent in Thailand’s national parks is spent in the Phi Phi Islands. But not anymore. In 2018 Thai authorities closed Maya Bay. And it’s staying closed until 2021. Because of Maya Bay’s popularity, 90% of its coral has been destroyed. Its mangroves are dying, and with them, all the fish they support. Thai authorities are giving the reef time to recover from all the trash, boat anchors, sunscreen, and urine, all of which damage coral. Stephen Shaver/AFP/Getty Images The Tragedy of the Commons Thai economist Thanyaporn Chankrajang studies land use in Thailand. She said Maya Bay had run into a classic case of the “tragedy of the commons.” That’s a phrase economists use when people aren’t paying the full cost of using a shared resource. The phrase “tragedy of the commons” was coined by ecologist Garrett Hardin in 1968. He was worried about overpopulation. To illustrate his fears, he brought up an example by an English economist William Foster Lloyd, who in 1833 wrote about land held in common in English villages. Farmers could overgraze the land: this would be each individual farmer’s rational, self-interested course of action. To Hardin, this problem with cattle overgrazing could be applied to families growing too much and eating more food than the planet could support. It could also be applied to tourism. In the Phi Phi islands, anyone could register a boat and take a bunch of tourists into Maya Bay, as long as each tourist paid a fee of about 400 baht or $12 US to the Thai government, who owned the bay. Each long boat operator had an incentive to take as many people to the beach as possible. If the boat operator wanted to cut back on their tours to give the coral time to recover, their rival boat operator would just pick up the business. The tourists were like cattle in an English commons, but instead of munching on grass they were peeing on the coral reef. The fee was too low to take into account the damage each tourist was causing. Chankrajang said that at one point 10,000 tourists were visiting the beach every day. The crowded photos from that time do not look relaxing. The Price of Paradise Chankrajang listed a bunch of measures she’d consider to solve this tragedy of the commons. First, a quota. Restricting numbers. Second, regulation. More stringent rules on tourist behavior. Third, price. “I think the price has to be larger,” she says. “The cost that I impose on the island is more than 400 Baht.” Chankrajang says that authorities are considering new rules on tourist behavior, like a specific route that tourists have to stay on. They’re also seriously considering a quota: a ticketing system for far fewer than the thousands of people a day who used to hit the beach. For now, the ban appears to be working, at least from the point of the view of the waters off the beach. Chankrajang says the blacktip reef sharks are coming back. It’s a start. On Our Podcasts --------------------------------------------------------------- Hong Kong — In 1960, a 12-year-old boy left mainland China, hidden in the bottom of a fishing boat. 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