Common Property and Natural Resource Management: A Michigan Perspective

Michael Anthony Lawrence, Michigan State University College of Law

Abstract

In the thirty years since the publication of Garrett Hardin’s classic essay, The Tragedy of the Commons, academics have debated how to overcome the problems created for the environment by overpopulation and overtaxed natural resources. This essay discusses how one state – the State of Michigan – has dealt with the issues posed by the “the tragedy of the commons.” Through state legislative means (with, e.g., the Wetlands Protection Act and the Sand Dune Protection and Management Act), through local legislative means (zoning), and through judicial interpretation of common law and the United States and Michigan Constitutions, a body of law has emerged in Michigan that addresses issues of environmental degradation, and provides for the preservation of the state’s natural resources. This is fitting, in light of the lofty language set forth in the Michigan Constitution declaring that “[t]he conservation and development of the natural resources of the state are hereby declared to be of paramount public concern in the interest of the health, safety and general welfare of the people.”