Rural common property resources: a growing crisis

Abstract

In India, common property resourcesinclude community pastures, community forests, wastelands,common dumping and threshing grounds, watershed drainages, village ponds, rivers, rivulets, their banks and beds. These CPRs are among the most neglected areas in development planning. To all but the poorest they are almost invisible. Thispaper, by focusing on CPRs in India, documents micro-level evidence on the contribution of CPRs to poor people's livelihoods, their steep declines in area and production over the last 40 years, the collapse of traditional management systems, and the consequent pauperisation of the poor. Inconclusion, the author suggests courses for immediate action to offset some of these alarming trends