Interesting Times

by Alex Tabarrok on March 18, 2010

In 2000 Zimbabwe began to forcibly redistribute land from private but predominantly white-owned commercial farms to much poorer black farmers who toiled on communal lands.  Stunning pictures from Google Earth collected by Craig Richardson show the result.   

Take a look at the Before picture.  The communal land on the left is dry, dusty and unproductive compared to the private farmland on the right which is green and dotted with blue ponds and lakes.  Why?  There were two theories to explain this difference. 

• The Tragedy of the Commons – the farmers on the communal lands did not have the incentives to invest in the land and thus the land eroded and turned to desert.

• The land on the right (which was owned mostly by whites) was better quality land.

Both theories could be true.  Regarding the latter explanation, however, notice that the dry communal lands on the left are sharply delineated from the green private farms on the right--so sharply that soil quality and rainfall alone are unlikely to explain the difference.

So what happened after the land was redistributed beginning in 2000 and all of it made communal?

Click on the arrow to progress between before and after photos

After reform the land quality worsened everywhere. In particular, note that the blue lakes and ponds on the right became dry and empty as farmers no longer had an incentive to invest in maintaining these resources. The tragedy of the commons.

This excellent visual look at the tragedy of the commons was produced by Todd Moss at The Center for Global Development based on pictures and ideas from Craig Richardson.  Of course Zimbabwe had many problems before and after this forcible land redistribution.  You can find more pictures, background information and a lengthier discussion of this episode here.

Posted by Alex Tabarrok on March 18, 2010