The title says it all, and makes a staggering impact to all Filipinos. Photographs of a truck full of smuggled dead sea whips corals, preserved hawksbill and green turtles,and black corals spread on the internet and on TV. Tweets fly everywhere carrying this one line which says -- "Only 1% of country's coral reefs remains pristine. -- WWF".
The government responds with increased marine patrols and imprisonment of smugglers. The P35 million worth of marine life would've justified death penalty (for me), but heck, this country does not support killing of killers. Well, at least not anymore.
As an Economist, I have been trained to think that rational people act on incentives. If it's not that chinese-filipino trader/smuggler, it would be someone else. It's a gold mine. A business where you don't have to pay for production costs, yet profit like you did.
An article by Garrett Hardin, published in 1968, explains this whole she-bang: The Tragedy of the Commons. Hardin writes that a dilemma arises when individuals, acting independently and rationally to their own benefit, ultimately depletes a shared limited resource because it is not in their responsibility to maintain the resources' condition, nor is it in their interest to spend for long term sustainability.
A likely solution offered to combat the Tragedy of the Commons is to give a single person the authority to profit from the entire business. Because he has monopoly over the business, and will then have extraordinarily high profits, then it is in his best interest to think long-term, maintain the condition and prevent exploitation to an unsustainable level of his resources.
I'm sure a lot of money grubbers would want to protect the seas in exchange for exclusivity.
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http://beta.abs-cbnnews.com/nation/05/29/11/only-1-countrys-coral-reefs-remains-pristine-wwf
http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/10681/chinese-filipino-trader-tagged-in-smuggling-of-black-coral
