Common Property Resource Management

The grazing of animals on common land and associated property rights were the original basis of the concept of "the tragedy of the commons". Drawing on the classic work of Elinor Ostrom and the readings of political ecology, this book questions the application of exclusive property rights to mobile pastoralism and rangeland resource governance. It argues that this approach inadequately represents property relations in the context of Mongolian pastoralism. The author presents an in-depth exploration and analysis of mobile pastoral production and resource management in Mongolia. The country is widely considered to be a prime example of successful and resilient common pool resource management, but now faces a dilemma as policy advocates attempt to adjust historical pastoralism to a modern property regime framework. The book strengthens understanding of the complex and multilateral considerations involved in natural resource governance and management in a mobile pastoralist context. It considers the implications for common pool resource management and pastoral societies in Africa, Russia and China and includes recommendations for formulating national policy.

From a number of perspectives on the current debate around managing common property resources, this volume discusses a variety of topics, including forest rights, sacred groves, deforestation at high altitudes, e-governance issues, concerns over industrialization, and agro forestry produce as well as a host of other issues that underline forestry and its implication to economic growth in India. Arguing that the challenge lies in enabling new institutions and strengthening traditional ones that have worked well, this book offers a better understanding of the concepts governing property rights and demonstrates how they are central to the manner in which markets develop in today’s universe of inclusive growth.

This popular technical paper is currently in its sixth reprinting (10/97). Many development projects require that people be involuntarily resettled to other locations to live and work. Governments need adequate policies to minimize the negative effects of this relocation both on the individuals involved and on the national economy. This report presents policy guidelines and procedures for World Bank-financed projects requiring involuntary resettlement. Designed for development specialists, social anthropologists, and sociologists, this volume discusses past Bank projects to illuminate the responsibilities of the governments and the needs of resettlers and host populations during resettlement. Among the topics addressed are types of involuntary resettlement; basic sociological principles in approaching resettlement; policy objectives and strategies; reconstruction of the resettlers' homes, production bases, and social organizations; and the effects of resettlement on the environment. Annexes to this report contain technical checklists for preparing and appraising resettlement plans in projects and for monitoring and evaluating rettlement. Michael M. Cernea has published and editied several books on the sociological aspects of development. Among these books is Putting People First: Sociological Variables in Rural Development , which describes culturally sensitive approaches to the preparation, planning, and implementation of development projects. Other books include Social Organization and Development Anthropology; Social Assessments for Better Development: Case Studies in Russia and Central Asia ; and Urban Environment and Population Relocation .

Managing the commons—natural resources held in common by particular communities—is a complex challenge. How have Asian societies handled resources of this sort in the face of increasing marketization and quickly growing demand for resources? And how have resource management regimes changed over time, with state formation, modernization, development, and globalization? Community, Commons and Natural Resource Management in Asia brings clarity, detail, and historical understanding to these questions across a variety of Asian societies and ecological settings. Case studies drawn from Japan, Korea, Thailand, India, and Bhutan examine fisheries, forests, and other environmental resources held in common. There is a tendency to imagine that traditional communities had socially equitable and environmentally friendly systems for managing the commons, but natural resources in Asia were often under free-access regimes. Resource management developed in response to social and economic pressures, and the state has been at various times both a beneficial and a negative influence on the development of community-level systems of managing the commons. The chapters in this volume show that a simple modernist framework cannot adequately capture this process, and the institutional changes it involved.

Common Property Economics defines and clarifies the theoretical distinction between open access and common property and empirically tests the adequacy of resource allocation under common property in comparison with private property. The book presents theoretical models to demonstrate overexploitation under open access. Seven necessary and sufficient conditions differentiate common property from open access. Swiss alpine grazing commons are contrasted with grazing in the English open field system. Statistical work using Swiss data compares the performance of common property with private property. Whether it be fisheries, grazing land, oil and gas pools, groundwater, or wildlife, group use of natural resources has long received the blame for overexploitation and mismanagement. In this book two types of group use are identified: open access and common property. Open access refers to resource utilization without any controls on extraction rates, a situation in which resource overexploitation often occurs. On the other hand, "common property" is a term that ought to be reserved for group use in which outside access and user extraction rates are controlled.