Concepts from the literatures on common property resources (CPRs) and social ecology a branch of systems theory, are integrated to explain how many contemporary crises of resource exploitation develop and how they might be avoided. An expanded interpretation of CPRs provides a basis for identifying different classes of resource appropria tors and for illustrating how CPR systems evolve into critical, unsus tainable states. Emery and Triat's concept of environmental textures suggests that population growth and technological advance bring increasing pressure to bear on CPRs. The authors of the present article suggest that this pressure provokes unsustainable use. In response, a special set of stakeholders, called primary appropriators, with an in trinsic interest in the sustainability of CPRs may be able to construct a social boundary about the resource system that contains resource ap propriation at a sustainable level. Other adaptive responses by primary appropriators to avoid crises of exploitation are discussed. These in clude altering property rights regimes and fostering shared communi tarian values.
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