Tragedy of The Commons

Cattle in the desert. That’s a whole other discussion from High Country News.

At a well-known archaeological site, we recently found a fire ring.

I don’t think the couple we met shortly afterward built it, but seeing one at a cultural site felt disheartening enough.

This wasn’t merely a fire near a cultural site. Someone built it inside the alcove, below pictographs and mere feet from an 800+ year-old structure that holds significant meaning for the descendants of the people who lived here generations ago.

Not merely ignorant, but potentially damaging and beyond disrespectful.

Then we saw the couple nearby with an unleashed dog.

I asked Joan, “Do we handle this Midwest Nice or Northeast Blunt?”

Midwest Nice won. Joan spoke to them while I glowered in fluent Rhode Island.

They claimed neither the BLM website nor their online permit prohibited dogs. When they saw the trailhead signs and then realized their printed permit prohibited dogs, they apparently asked, “What could we do?”

They also said they take their dog everywhere.

For the record, dogs are prohibited throughout this canyon and at archaeological sites. Once they saw the signs, they could have turned around. And despite their claim, the website very much states that dogs are prohibited.

The couple seemed a little too rehearsed in their response. I sincerely doubt they learned about the dog restriction only after reaching the trailhead. They even said that Rec. gov showed no other backpackers in the canyon.

Regardless, they saw the trailhead sign and chose to ignore it. They didn’t reconsider and went anyway.

One of them wore a Patagonia Bears Ears hat, too, because sometimes life writes its own satire.

When the person wearing the hat told Joan, “We’re on the same team,” I’m sure my lack of a poker face became even more pronounced.

Neither person spoke directly to me during the entire encounter. Ha!

As far as I know, the fire ring and the dog were separate incidents. Together, however, they captured something disappointing about how damage accumulates.

Everyone has a reason their exception is different: Their dog is well-behaved. Their fire is small. Their visit won’t hurt anything. No one is around. And one individual choice probably doesn’t seem consequential.

Multiply those choices by everyone who comes through, though, and you get the tragedy of the commons.

Protecting the land seems important until it interferes with personal convenience or some misplaced romanticism.

So it goes.

(We reported the fire ring. The dog people? To quote my people: “Waddaya gonna do?”)