The endangered status of the commons in South Asia

The forces ranged against CPRs are too many and too powerful. Despite recognition of their economic and environmental contributions, the role of CPRs in maintaining and building ‘social capital’ and in providing sustenance to the rural poor has been decreasing in recent decades. Ironically, whereas concern for CPRs is on the increase in terms of research and advocacy, the situation is almost the opposite when it comes to policymaking and work on the ground. The communities of Southasia are losing their common property resources even as we speak.

Excerpted from a very interesting interview of N S Jodha, who worked until recently at the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) in Kathmandu, and ex-President of the International Association for Study of Commons. Interviewed by Himal Southasian, a Nepalese regional magazine. Read the whole more extensive article here.

Could you describe the characteristics of common property in rural Southasia?

Rural common property can be broadly defined as natural resources in which a group of people share equal rights of usage. Membership is typically conferred by being part of some other group, such as a village or tribe. In the Southasian context, common property can apply to a wide variety of resources: village woodlands, pastures, uncultivable (‘waste’) lands, irrigation tanks, watershed drainage, waterflows and their banks, and fisheries, among others. CPRs are vital for income and employment generation through off-season activities, for drought-period sustenance, additional cropping, handicrafts and petty trading. There are also larger social and ecological gains, such as resource conservation, space for rich biodiversity, drainage stability and groundwater recharge, sustainability of diversified farming systems, low-cost sustenance support to poor households and renewable resource supplies.

We must appreciate the diversity of CPRs. If we look at rural Southasia, apart from the better known community forestry user groups and joint forest management initiatives in India, CPRs range from the self-initiated, customary forest user groups in different parts of Nepal (for instance, in Pythuan district), and the community-planned and -managed irrigation systems in the mid-hills of Nepal; the collective sokshing system in Bhutan, where forests with broadleaf trees are protected and promoted to provide litter as a key source of organic manure for increased crop productivity; community-managed forests in Dir-Kohistan in Pakistan; combinations of CPR and PPR (private property resources)-based natural resource use and management covering the haors in Bangladesh, which are bowl-shaped low-lying land that usually go under water during the monsoon; CPR management regimes characterised by stake-net fishery and small irrigation in Negombo Lagoon in Sri Lanka; and the village tanks in south India. I could go on and on …

What are the implications of this diversity?

It means that one cannot use a one-size-fits-all approach to rehabilitating these CPRs. One has to understand their role within the overall farming system and community life, and understand the political and socio-economic factors that have influenced the evolution of CPR management systems. CPRs are not static, they go through phases of decline and rejuvenation, and the system of management similarly evolves.

One also has to take a holistic approach – not study the CPRs piecemeal, separated from other parts of the farming system, given that they have evolved as part of the overall system. This is something that our research institutions have difficulty comprehending. For instance, in the 1980s, ICRISAT initially refused to support my research on CPRs, arguing that they are a crop research institute. Similarly, the approach was piecemeal when I moved to ICIMOD in 1987, though things are much better now. When I started at ICIMOD, I realised another implication of diversity. Mountain areas have specific characteristics: Inaccessibility, fragility, marginality and wide diversity. All research on agricultural systems, including CPRs, had hitherto been dominated by plains-areas perspectives. We had to develop a mountain perspective.

What is the condition of the commons of Southasia and what are the main threats they face?

Despite their valuable economic, social and environmental contributions in most parts of Southasia, CPRs show a decline in terms of the extent, quantity and quality of their products, as well as their biophysical health. The community-level supply, diversity and dependability of products has declined, and the area covered by CPRs has also decreased due to the transfer of community-held lands to other uses. Reduced area accompanied by increased population pressures (both human and livestock) on these resources has led to over-extraction and degradation. Typically, this is due to the changed approach of rural communities themselves towards CPRs. Public policies and legal provisions curtailing the ownership and usage rights of the communities over these resources have further reduced traditional obligations and usage practices directed to conservation – and, within limits, the usage of these resources by communities. Finally, the tendency towards over-exploitation of CPRs has been accentuated by the gradual displacement of the community’s collective concern for CPRs by the individual members’ propensity to maximise private gains through over-exploitation or by grabbing the commons as private property.

The agencies of the state, market and communities themselves have contributed to such trends, of which the state is perhaps the most significant offender. In the past, historically evolved customary arrangements for use and management of natural resources of rural communities remained largely outside the formal, legal framework. However, during the colonial and immediate post-colonial periods, in most countries of the region the state’s revenue collection became relatively more organised, extending its legal provisions to the natural resources used by the rural people. The first step involved various forms of nationalisation of different CPRs, particularly forest and water resources.

But hasn’t there been a trend towards returning control to the communities?

Having realised the ineffectiveness of state control, most countries have revised legal provisions towards a gradual harmonisation of customary arrangements and legislation affecting the access, ownership and usage rights of communities over CPRs. Despite such attempts at ‘harmonisation’, however, the state remains overwhelmingly the powerful entity. It retains the ability to change the terms and conditions of harmonisation, thus rendering the community into mere users rather than owners of CPRs.

Then, having failed to get surplus land for the landless through effective implementation of land-ceiling laws, governments have instead encroached into CPR lands. Field studies have shown, however, that the bulk of the land acquired through curtailing CPR areas actually went to those who already possessed enough land. More importantly, the official regularisation of illegal encroachments on CPR areas has encouraged community members to grab CPR lands.

A related problem is the attempt to generate financial revenues from CPRs, such as in community forestry. Under the name of ‘harmonisation’, revenue-sharing arrangements are incorporated, through which the government can enhance its own share by cutting the community share. Indeed, this was tried in Nepal recently, raising state share in community-forestry revenues, though this was invalidated following protests and an appeal to the Supreme Court.

What about the trend towards privatisation of resources, and the thrust towards economic development?

The new mantra of public-private partnerships, economic globalisation and a variety of welfare and development initiatives has led to the introduction of several provisions adversely affecting CPRs throughout Southasia. For example, governments have opened up CPRs for mining, or for the establishment of specific industries. From another direction, bringing many CPR areas under ‘protected area’ regimes – biodiversity conservation areas, for instance, wildlife sanctuaries, special tourist zones and public parks – has hurt the interests of local communities.

Finally, two factors have colluded to induce governments to disfavour CPRs: Rising

Amruta Patilindifference and neglect of CPRs by the communities themselves, and pressures from the private sector. The former, in addition to public interventions and an enhanced role of market forces, is the result of rapid economic, social and political differentiations within rural communities in recent decades. Apart from the increased population pressure on land, accentuating the land-hunger, public policies have enhanced both legal and illegal opportunities for privatising CPRs. This was further complemented by rising values in land markets throughout the region, even for relatively marginal lands, which were earlier left as CPRs.

As a result of economic development, availability of new technologies and public subsidies, market considerations have become an integral part of farmers’ decision-making processes. This has led to economic differentiation on class lines within the traditional CPR user communities and weakened collective approaches to natural-resources management and risk-sharing arrangements.

How can one work towards recovering and rehabilitating the commons?

The most important point is to consider who needs CPRs. We must listen to the farmers and local communities. If well-designed, CPRs can serve as a compromise able to resolve many of the conflicting perspectives. However, while attempting revisions in CPR situations, there are a few other key requirements. The first is to recognise the diversity of CPRs. Second, based on the understanding of these diversities, one has to identify how the three agencies – communities, markets and the state – act and what guides their actions. These two steps can help in the identification of areas of potential convergence.

Economic-development programmes can be facilitated by low-cost options generated by CPRs. Conservation and productivity of natural resources, suffering due to forest officials’ obsession with revenue generation, can be overcome by giving people the power to manage natural resources. The ignorance of private corporations and their and insensitivity to natural-resource depletion could be reduced by involving local CPR users and their traditional knowledge systems wherever private industry has been given access to the commons. The key requirement for realistically designing and effectively operationalising such programmes is the mutual trust between the involved agencies and communities.”

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