The term 'tragedy of the commons' describes a situation in which individuals, acting independently and rationally according to their own self-interest, ultimately deplete a shared resource, even when doing so is contrary to the long-term interests of the entire group. The concept, though rooted in older economic ideas, was popularised in a widely cited 1968 essay that used the example of a shared pasture: if each herder adds more animals to graze in pursuit of individual profit, the pasture eventually becomes overgrazed and useless for everyone, including the very individuals whose short-term self-interest drove the outcome. This dynamic has since been applied to a wide range of real-world resource management problems, including overfishing in international waters, air pollution, and the depletion of groundwater in regions where usage is not adequately regulated. Critics of the original framing have pointed out that historical communities frequently developed effective, informal systems of collective management for shared resources long before formal government regulation existed, suggesting that unrestrained self-interest is not necessarily the inevitable outcome many assumed. Nobel Prize-winning economist Elinor Ostrom's extensive research demonstrated that communities across diverse cultures have often successfully self-organised to sustainably manage shared resources, provided certain conditions, such as clear boundaries and community-enforced rules, are met. This body of work has significantly complicated the original, more pessimistic framing of the tragedy of the commons, suggesting that top-down government regulation and privatisation are not the only viable solutions to resource depletion.