摘要：There is increasing interest in privatizing natural resource systems to promote sustainability and conservationgoals. Though economic theory suggests owners of private property rights have an incentive to act as resource stewards, fewstudies have tested this empirically. This paper asks whether private rights-owners were more conservative with respect to theirmanagement opinions than nonrights-owners in five Australian abalone (Haliotis spp.) fisheries. Multiple regression analyseswere used to link opinions to demographic, economic, and attitudinal variables. In contrast to standard economic assumptions,nonrights-owners suggested more conservative catch limits than did rights-owners, confirming qualitative observations ofbehavior in management workshops. Differing views about the condition of the resource and differing levels of experiencecontributed to these results. The first of its kind, this study directly demonstrates that private rights do not necessarily promotethe greatest level of stewardship. This has substantial implications for how natural resources are governed globally, but alsowarns against applying simplistic behavioral assumptions to complex social-ecological systems
