Question

Can property rights preserve endangered species? Yes or No, support your claim.

Answer 1

Ans) Yes.

Common goods are those which are non excludable but rivalrous in nature. Eg- fish in pond. Due to their non excludable nature, they can be used by anyone and their rivalrous nature leads to their overuse. It is because people have more incentive to get as much as they can, while they have less in incentive to maintain their population. But this can be prevented by assigning property rights.

A classic example of this is, cows are not extinct while elephants face the risk of extinction. Cows live in ranchers, which are privately owned and all the benefit from cow goes to the farmer alone and not anybody else. While elephants roam in jungle freely, no one owns them. So, humters have more incentive to kill as many elephants as they can for their tusks. While they have less incentive to main their population as any hunter can reap the benefit by killing the elephants. So, if property rights are assigned for elephants as well, they might not face the risk of extinction.