The Evolution of Cooperation at Saigata Commons: A Game Theoretic Interpretation

Abstract

"The foregoing discussion interprets the community action to cooperate for conservation and management of CPR at Saigata, which they have now come to identify as 'my forest', as a Prisoner's Dilemma game, thereby reflecting individual choices in public goods interactions. It illustrates how cooperation among the members of the resource community can emerge in a population dominated by non-cooperators. Cooperation, however, fails to get a foothold if an individual or a scattered aggregate of cooperators attempts an interaction with the defectors. It can emerge and become established through interactions between a cluster of cooperating individuals using a nice strategy like the TFT and the unconditional defectors, provided these individuals have approximately 5% of their interactions with each other. Such an interaction results in an invasion of the entire environment by the cooperators, making cooperation to conserve CPR thrive at Saigata."