Lack of Clear Property Rights Contributed to Mexico's Storm Tragedy Sergio Sarmiento - Reforma
go to original September 27, 2013

The rain that has drenched our country over these last weeks would have caused serious flooding regardless of the circumstances. The precipitation has been enormous. According to David Korenfeld, general manager of Conagua [National Water Commission], this has been the most rainy September in Mexico over the 100 years for which records exist. Much of the damage suffered, nevertheless, would have been lessened if our country had a real rule of law, with full respect for property rights.

... The lack of clear property rights over the mountain ranges of our country–that in good measure are in the hands of the federal government or indigenous communities–generates perverse initiatives for neighbors and locals to deforest them. That which belongs to everyone, as the common saying tells us, belongs to nobody. Mexican forests suffer a repetition of old England’s “tragedy of the commons.” The “commons” were lands that, belonging to nobody but the community, deteriorated from an excess of shepherding. Economic incentive and human nature drive us to overuse that which is everyone’s and care for only that which is ours.

... It should not surprise us that the worst damages from natural disasters occur in countries like ours and in places like Guerrero. The cause is the same as that which produces poverty: the lack of property rights.

Read the rest at Mexico Voices

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