Common Pool Resources as a Source of Environmental Income

Much of the environmental income earned in the developing world comes from common pool resources (CPRs). Common pool resources are forests, fisheries, reefs, waterways, pastures, agricultural lands, and mineral resources that no individual has exclusive rights to. They are typically owned and administered by the state, a village, a tribe, or other social grouping, with the idea that the benefits will accrue to many people rather than one person or family. Local and distant residents go there to collect fire wood, graze their cattle, gather nontimber forest products like medicinal herbs or mushrooms, hunt, fish, collect water, or make use of a variety of other services such as visiting sacred groves. Because these “commons” or “public domain” lands are such a rich source of environmental income, they are a crucial element in the livelihood strategies of the poor, particularly those who do not own land themselves (Jodha 1986:1169).

Just how important are they? Research over the past two decades has amassed a fair amount of evidence on this topic, particularly in India. N.S Jodha, in his pioneering study of 80 villages across seven semi-arid states in India, found that the poor make extensive use of common areas, with CPRs contributing 15-25 percent of household income (Jodha 1986:1177). Other studies from different states in India have found that CPRs contribute up to 29 percent of the income of poorer households (Adhikari 2003:5). Altogether, CPRs contribute some US$5 billion a year to the incomes of India’s rural poor, according to one estimate (Beck and Nesmith 2001:119).

Fewer studies have been done in other parts of the world, but there are indications that many of the rural poor derive a similar or higher percentage of their income from the commons (Beck and Nesmith 2001:119). In Botswana, researchers found that the poorest 20 percent of the population earn 51 percent of their household income from CPRs (Kerapeletswe and Lovett 2001:1). In southeastern Zimbabwe, households (both rich and poor) get 35 to 40 percent of their income from the commons (Cavendish 1998:7). Over 90 percent of Cambodians reported they make use of common property fish resources from lakes, rivers, flooded ricefields, and even flooded forests (Ahmed et al. 1998 in UK DFID 2000:31).

Without access to these resources, poor families would be virtually unable to support themselves. For example, poor households in Jodha’s study met 66-80 percent of their fuel requirements from CPRs. Common areas also contribute a great deal of fodder, allowing poorer families to raise more livestock than they would otherwise be able to support (Jodha 1986:1173).

The Commons as a Safety Net and Employment Source

Even where dependence is not as high, CPRs function as an irreplaceable safety net for the poor. When farm and financial assets are scarce, the commons can provide secondary income and sources of food and fuel for basic survival. Researchers in western Africa have found that common pool resources are of particular importance to the poor during seasonal food shortages and times of crisis. According to one study, the poorest households rely on “bush” sources to supply 20 percent of their food requirements during the lean time before harvest, when food supplies are low. Wealthier families relied on the bush for only two percent of their food during this period (Dei 1992:67).

The dependence of poor households on the commons is typically highest after crop production has finished and when other alternatives for wage labor are unavailable (Jodha 1986:1177). Indeed, CPRs can generate significant selfemployment opportunities, and often serve as an important and flexible source of secondary income for poor households. Jodha found that collection activities alone provided 36-64 days of work annually per worker in poor households in his study area (Jodha 1986:1175). In Haryana, India, collection of foods and other products, stone quarrying, and livestock grazing in common areas generate an annual average of 88 days of employment per household. Importantly, the numbers break down very differently by socio-economic class, with wage laborers working an average of 213 days per year in the commons, and higher-class households only 25 (Quereshi and Kumar 1998:350).

Gender also strongly influences reliance on the commons. Women head a disproportionate number of poor households, and their reliance on wild income is higher than men, who often have more schooling and greater wage-earning capacity. Studies show that women are often the primary gatherers and sellers of non-timber products such as fruits, medicinals, and handicraft materials (Shackleton et al. 2001:583; Shackleton et al. 2002:135; Shackleton 2005).

The Commons in Decline

A combination of factors, including privatization, agricultural intensification, population growth, and ecosystem degradation have caused common property areas to dwindle in size, quality, and availability to the poor in much of the world (Beck and Nesmith 2001:123). In some areas, common lands are converted to private parcels as a form of land reform or decentralization, or to spur development. Or common property resources may be leased out to private enterprises in the form of fishing or timber concessions. In either case, the poor may lose access to resources they once relied on.

Jodha estimates that in the areas covered by his study the extent of common lands has declined by 31 to 55 percent since the 1950s, mainly because of privatization through land reform (Jodha 1995:23). He estimates that in 1951 the average number of persons per 10 hectares of CPRs ranged from 13 to 101; by 1982, that number had risen to over 47,000 per 10 hectares in some villages. The increased pressure this has put on the remaining commons has led to overexploitation and a decline in the quality and quantity of services they yield (Jodha 1995:23). Degraded common lands undoubtedly make up a large part of the 75-130 million hectares of India’s land that has been classed as “wasteland”—land that is both unproductive and ecologically depleted (Chopra 2001:25, 29).

Such declines in the ecosystem quality of public-domain lands are increasingly hard on rural livelihoods. A recent study in Ethiopia found most of the commons there in a state of either exhaustion or stress. Depleted grazing lands there have led to ethnic clashes and a decline in total livestock numbers, while the growing scarcity of woodfuel from common areas has forced more households to depend on purchased fuel (Kebede 2002:133-134). (See Box 2.1.)

Degradation from overuse is not inevitable, however, and examples of collective action to manage the commons are growing in number. In Caprivi, Namibia, good management and sustainable harvesting techniques of palm fronds from common areas have enabled local women to supplement household incomes by selling woven palm baskets to tourists. As one of the few sources of cash income for women, the market has grown from 70 producers in the 1980s to more than 650 by the end of 2001, a jump that the resource has been able to sustain thus far (Murphy and Suich 2004:8-9). In another example, rural harvesters of marula fruits in Bushbuckridge district of South Africa have planted marula trees in their home gardens and fields and selected for those with greater yields in the face of the dwindling number of marula trees in the communal lands (Shackleton et al. 2003:12, 13). (For more examples of sustainable use of the commons by poor households, see Chapters 4 and 5.)