The tragedy of the commons and the need to re-frame
The concept of the tragedy of the commons, first popularized by Hardin in 1968, posits that the short-term self-interests of individuals for common resources results in environmental catastrophes ranging from overfishing to the present climate change crisis (Hardin 1968). This idea has significantly influenced our understanding of human nature, natural resource use and governance, cooperation, hazard management, and a wide-range of scientific fields (Axelrod and Hamilton 1981, Wisner et al. 2005, Ostrom 2015). While Hardin suggests that the tragedy may be inevitable, applications of the tragedy of the commons often conclude that effective mechanisms to resolve resource conflicts prevent such collapse (Feeny et al. 1990, Milinski et al. 2002, Rankin et al. 2007). As such, there is a growing interest in identifying and understanding the major environmental challenges that intensify the tragedy of the commons and the traits that either exacerbate or mitigate the tragedy (Gersani et al. 2001, Cole et al. 2014, Berger et al. 2016).  
 
Ecologists apply the tragedy of the commons to our investigations of sexual selection and evolution, inter- and intra- specific competition, and social-ecological systems, improving our ability to understand mechanisms that influence system dynamics 
These challenges, including population growth, landscape fragmentation, urbanization, migration, and economic globalization, influence use of common pool resources across scales and impact our ability to avoid the tragedy.