Common Pool Resources: An Institutional Movement from Open Access to Common Property Resources

1998 ◽  
Vol 20 (4-5) ◽  
pp. 317-332 ◽  
Author(s):  
GOPAL K. KADEKODI
Keyword(s):  
Open Access ◽  
Common Property ◽  
Common Pool Resources ◽  
Common Property Resources ◽  
Common Pool

scholarly journals The Different Meanings of Land in the Age of Neoliberalism: Theoretical Reflections on Commons and Resilience Grabbing from a Social Anthropological Perspective

Land ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (7) ◽  
pp. 104 ◽  
Author(s):  
Haller
Keyword(s):  
Open Access ◽  
Political Ecology ◽  
Land Tenure ◽  
Common Property ◽  
Private Property ◽  
Common Pool Resources ◽  
The State ◽  
Common Pool ◽  
Land Acquisitions ◽  
The Commons

Recent debates in social anthropology on land acquisitions highlight the need to go further back in history in order to analyse their impacts on local livelihoods. The debate over the commons in economic and ecological anthropology helps us understand some of today’s dynamics by looking at precolonial common property institutions and the way they were transformed by Western colonization to state property and then, later in the age of neoliberalism, to privatization and open access. This paper focuses on Africa and refers to the work of critical scholars who show that traditional land tenure was misinterpreted as customary tenure without full property rights, while a broader literature on the commons shows that common-pool resources (pasture, fisheries, wildlife, forestry etc.) have been effectively managed by locally-developed common property institutions. This misinterpretation continues to function as a legacy in both juridical and popular senses. Moreover, the transformation of political systems and the notion of customary land tenure produced effects of central importance for today’s investment context. During colonial times a policy of indirect rule based on new elites was created to manage customary lands of so-called native groups who could use the land as long as it was of no value to the state. However, this land formally remained in the hands of the state, which also claimed to manage common-pool resources through state institutions. The neoliberal policies that are now demanded by donor agencies have had two consequences for land and land-related common-pool resources. On the one hand, states often lack the financial means to enforce their own natural resource legislation and this has led to de facto open access. On the other hand, land legally fragmented from its common-pool resources has been transformed from state to private property. This has enabled new elites and foreign investors to claim private property on formerly commonly-held land, which also leads to the loss of access to land related common-pool resources for more marginal local actors. Thus, the paper argues that this process does not just lead to land grabbing but to commons grabbing as well. This has furthermore undermined the resilience and adaptive capacity of local populations because access to common-pool resources is vital for the livelihoods of more marginal groups, especially in times of crisis. Comparative studies undertaken on floodplains in Botswana, Cameroon, Mali, Tanzania and Zambia based on a New Institutional Political Ecology (NIPE) approach illustrate this process and its impacts and show how institutional transformations are key to understanding the impacts of large-scale land acquisitions (LSLA) and investments in Africa.

scholarly journals Emergent sustainability in open property regimes

2018 ◽  
Vol 115 (51) ◽  
pp. 12859-12867 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Moritz ◽  
Roy Behnke ◽  
Christine M. Beitl ◽  
Rebecca Bliege Bird ◽  
Rafael Morais Chiaravalloti ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Open Access ◽  
Resource Use ◽  
Common Pool Resources ◽  
Theoretical Models ◽  
Common Pool ◽  
Social Ecological Systems ◽  
Social Ecological ◽  
Sustainable Resource Use ◽  
The Commons ◽  
Property Regimes

Current theoretical models of the commons assert that common-pool resources can only be managed sustainably with clearly defined boundaries around both communities and the resources that they use. In these theoretical models, open access inevitably leads to a tragedy of the commons. However, in many open-access systems, use of common-pool resources seems to be sustainable over the long term (i.e., current resource use does not threaten use of common-pool resources for future generations). Here, we outline the conditions that support sustainable resource use in open property regimes. We use the conceptual framework of complex adaptive systems to explain how processes within and couplings between human and natural systems can lead to the emergence of efficient, equitable, and sustainable resource use. We illustrate these dynamics in eight case studies of different social–ecological systems, including mobile pastoralism, marine and freshwater fisheries, swidden agriculture, and desert foraging. Our theoretical framework identifies eight conditions that are critical for the emergence of sustainable use of common-pool resources in open property regimes. In addition, we explain how changes in boundary conditions may push open property regimes to either common property regimes or a tragedy of the commons. Our theoretical model of emergent sustainability helps us to understand the diversity and dynamics of property regimes across a wide range of social–ecological systems and explains the enigma of open access without a tragedy. We recommend that policy interventions in such self-organizing systems should focus on managing the conditions that are critical for the emergence and persistence of sustainability.

scholarly journals The Anti-Politics Machine of Green Energy Development: The Moroccan Solar Project in Ouarzazate and Its Impact on Gendered Local Communities

Land ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (6) ◽  
pp. 100 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ryser
Keyword(s):  
Solar Energy ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Common Property ◽  
Common Pool Resources ◽  
Local Communities ◽  
Scientific Discipline ◽  
Green Energy ◽  
Common Pool ◽  
The Government ◽  
Land Water

The Moroccan Agency for Sustainable Energy (MASEN) established one of the largest solar energy projects in the world through a public–private partnership. It is on communal land previously owned by a Moroccan Amazigh (Berber) clan in the Ghessate rural council area, 10 km away from Ouarzazate. The land for the energy project comprises a surface area of more than 3000 hectares. This large-scale land acquisition has led to the loss of access to common-pool resources (land, water, and plants), which were formerly managed by local common property institutions, due to its enclosure, and the areas themselves. This paper outlines how the framing of the low value of land by national elites, the state administration, MASEN, and the subsequent discourses of development, act as an anti-politics machine to hide the loss of land and land-related common-pool resources, and thus an attack on resilience—we call it in our scientific discipline a process of ‘resilience grabbing’, especially for women. As a form of compensation for the land losses, economic livelihood initiatives have been introduced for local people based on the funds from the sale of the land and revenue from the solar energy project Noor Ouarzazate. The loss of land representing the ‘old’ commons is—in the official discourse—legitimated by what the government and the parastatal company call the development-related ‘fruits of growth’, and should serve as ‘new forms of commons’ to the local communities. The investment therefore acts as a catalyst through which natural resources (land, water, and plants) are institutionally transformed into new monetary resources that local actors are said to be able to access, under specific conditions, to sustain their livelihood. There are, however, pertinent questions of access (i.e., inclusion and exclusion), regulation, and equality of opportunities for meeting the different livelihood conditions previously supported by the ‘old’ commons.

scholarly journals Open Access, Open Systems: Pastoral Management of Common-Pool Resources in the Chad Basin

Human Ecology ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 351-365 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Moritz ◽  
Paul Scholte ◽  
Ian M. Hamilton ◽  
Saïdou Kari
Keyword(s):  
Open Access ◽  
Open Systems ◽  
Common Pool Resources ◽  
Chad Basin ◽  
Common Pool ◽  
Pastoral Management

scholarly journals Assessing Food Systems and Their Impact on Common Pool Resources and Resilience

Land ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 71 ◽  
Author(s):  
Horacio Augstburger ◽  
Fabian Käser ◽  
Stephan Rist
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Management ◽  
Food Systems ◽  
Common Property ◽  
Cultural Landscapes ◽  
Ecological Integrity ◽  
Common Pool Resources ◽  
Ecological Impacts ◽  
Service Capacity ◽  
Common Pool ◽  
Ecological Problems

The ongoing expansion of agro-industrial food systems is associated with severe socio-ecological problems. For a closer look at the socio-ecological impacts, we analyze the capacity of six food systems to provide farm-based agroecosystem services with the Agroecosystem Service Capacity (ASC) approach. At the same time, we analyze how food systems affect the management of common pool resources (CPR). Our findings show that indigenous peoples and agroecological food systems can have up to three times the ASC-index of agro-industrial food systems. Through their contribution to the sustainable management of cultural landscapes with robust institutions for the management of CPRs, food systems contribute to socio-ecological integrity. On the other hand, regional and agro-industrial food systems with a lower ASC-index contribute less to socio-ecological integrity, and they undermine and open up common property institutions for robust CPR management. As a result, they appropriate (or grab) access to CPRs that are vital for food systems with higher ASC-indexes resulting from a robust management of CPRs. Strengthening a robust management of CPRs could put a halt to the ongoing expansion of food systems with a low ASC-index by replacing them with a high ASC-index to prevent an exacerbation of the current socio-ecological situation.

scholarly journals The Economics of Common Pool Resources

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Bhim Adhikari
Keyword(s):  
Common Property ◽  
Institutional Economics ◽  
Empirical Work ◽  
Common Pool Resources ◽  
New Institutional Economics ◽  
Common Property Resource ◽  
Common Pool ◽  
Local Commons ◽  
Property Regimes

The paper analyses open access and common property resource systems drawing insights from new institutional economics, especially property rights theory and policy analysis. This analysis of common pool resources (CPRs) under common property regimes indicates that local communities devise formal and informal institutions in managing the local commons. The paper further discusses how N. S. Jodha’s empirical work on the economics of CPRs has enhanced our understanding of the role of CPRs in the livelihood strategies of the poor in the developing world. Devolution of authority to local resource users is emphasized as an institutional imperative in designing appropriate forms of governance structures for CPR management.

scholarly journals Innovative Management of Common-Pool Resources by Smart Contracts

2020 ◽  
pp. 265-273 ◽  
Author(s):  
Prause Gunnar ◽  
Hoffmann Thomas
Keyword(s):  
Common Property ◽  
Private Property ◽  
Common Pool Resources ◽  
Added Value ◽  
Smart Contracts ◽  
Legal Certainty ◽  
Common Pool ◽  
Blockchain Technology ◽  
Sustainable Logistics ◽  
Legal Perspective

The access to common-pool resources, i.e. to resources in limited common property, are legally distributed in a far more diverse way than limited private property resources. In transportation, a critical case for common-pool resources appear in Green Transport Corridors (GTC), that has been coined by European Union as being «sustainable logistics solutions for cargo transportation’ with a shared pool of resources aiming for multimodal trans-shipment routes with a concentration of freight traffic between significant hubs». Although there are already existing implementations of GTC concepts, there are still a lot of open questions concerning GTC governance and ownership models hindering easy marketing of the GTC approach. This paper discusses how and to which extent smart contracts in combination with blockchain technology as innovative solutions are able to facilitate GTC governance and how smart contracts can be applied to provide legal certainty by managing and allocating distributed access to common-pool resources. Smart contracts can be considered as computerised transaction protocols for the execution of underlying legal contracts, and they do not only target reducing transaction costs by realising trackable and irreversible transactions through blockchain technology for distributed databases, but also show high potential to strengthen cooperative business structures and to facilitate the entrepreneurial collaboration of cross-organisational business processes. From a legal perspective, it is controversial whether the use of smart contracts to distribute access to resources in terms of both general common-pool resources. GTCs implies an added value automatically for legal certainty and fair balance among different forms and degrees of access granted to different members of the cooperative. In cases of incorrect performance, change of circumstances or unduly induced contracts smart contracts fall considerably short on the protection of weaker parties, which the paper illustrates at the example of GTCs to be a decisive detriment of the cooperative members. The paper analyses these potentials and risks of smart contracts for the case of GTCs and showcases from both business and legal perspective in terms of their potential as viable means of distributing access to common-pool resources comprising infrastructure. Keywords common-pool resources, cooperative governance, blockchain, smart contracts, Green Transport Corridors.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document