This work presents the results of framed field experiments designed to study the joint problem of managing harvests from a common pool resource and protecting the resource from poaching. The experiments were conducted both in the field with TURF users and in the lab with university students. Our study has two objectives. First, we designed our experiments to study the effects of poaching on the ability of common pool resource users to coordinate their harvests when encroachment by outsiders is unrestricted and when the government provides weak enforcement.

This project will use the tools of experimental economics to study behavioral issues related to both the protection of a common-pool resource from poaching by outsiders, and the enforcement of rules and norms to maintain compliance within a group.  The experiments are motivated by the Chilean abalone (loco) fishery and will be conducted in the field with members of local artisanal fishing organizations.

A critical issue in the design of incentive mechanisms is the choice of whom to target. For forests, the leading schemes: [i] target locations with high ecosystem-service density; [ii] target additionality, i.e., locations where conservation would not occur without the incentive; or, at least effectively, [iii] reward previous private choices to conserve forest. We use a field experiment to examine the changes in contributions to forest conservation when we introduce each of those three selection rules.