SECURING COMMON PROPERTY
REGIMES IN A GLOBALIZING WORLD

Synthesis of 41 Case Studies on Common
Property Regimes from Africa, Asia, Europe
and Latin America.

• PREFACE
• EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
• INTRODUCTION
• ACCESS TO RESOURCES VIA COMMON PROPERTY REGIMES
• TENURE SECURITY UNDER COMMON PROPERTY REGIMES
• THREATS TO COMMON PROPERTY REGIMES
  - Markets
  - Demographic Factors
  - Legal and Governance
    Frameworks
  - Conflicts and Conflict
    Management
• EXAMPLES OF REFORM AND INNOVATION
• CONCLUSIONS
• REFERENCES
• ANNEX A: LINKS & DESCRIPTIONS OF CASE STUDIES
• ANNEX B: CASE STUDY FRAMEWORK
• ABBREVIATIONS
• Other Useful Resources on Common Property

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Introduction

In many parts of the developing world, poor rural people depend on commonly-held resources for their livelihoods and to sustain their socio-cultural identities. This paper presents a synthesis of 41 case studies on common property, written from both community and national perspectives, from 20 countries in Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America . The studies considered a diversity of resources including forests, rangelands and fisheries.

While the paper is by nature quite broad, its purpose is to serve as a starting point for drawing out patterns and emerging concerns with regard to the broader goal of securing access and rights to resources through common property regimes. It also identifies policy-relevant lessons for poverty reduction strategies and sustainable management of natural resources.

Access to resources through common property regimes often sustains and enhances the livelihoods of poor families and communities. Secure access can:

• enable poor and vulnerable households to meet their basic needs, including resources for household consumption;
• serve as a 'resource safety-net' for vulnerable households during difficult times;
• provide a framework for generating income beyond the subsistence level, from small-scale commercial use of resources, and
• contribute to a more environmentally-sustainable use of natural resources.

At the same time, there are a number of threats to common property regimes, including:

• privatization for large-scale commercial development;
• expansion of smallholder agriculture;
• appropriation of common property regimes for conservation;
• ambiguities within legal frameworks, and
• non-recognition of customary law.

Access to Resources through Common Property Regimes

Common property systems remain a prominent means of providing access to resources by individuals, households and groups. Group membership, particularly based on lineage, plays a significant role in providing and managing access to the commons, although it may also be possible for non-group members to negotiate access to resources, provided they follow the rules of access. On the other hand, customary systems are vulnerable to non-recognition by the state and may fall short of being representative of the interests of all relevant community members. These are key issues to consider when evaluating options to improve tenure security within common property regimes, particularly the security of access rights for vulnerable groups and poor households.

The state can create, encourage or sustain community rights in various ways, with national legislation to recognize common property being one means. Through a more involved process of decentralizing authority and rights, states may provide a basis for creating or strengthening common property regimes. By mandating joint management, the state may also create access and legitimize local use.

However, access created through state programmes can also pose challenges. Without rules that are understood and recognized by a majority of the population, opportunities can arise for powerful groups or individuals to exploit the commons for a disproportionate gain. For individuals or households, 'elite capture' may occur when tenure systems - whether customary or state-supported - fail to treat more powerful and less powerful community members alike, in terms of applying rules and sanctions for resource use, or in ensuring that rights to the commons (particularly access rights) can be claimed. In addition, during decentralization, overlapping sectoral laws and policies need to be harmonized to minimize the risk of cross-sectoral conflict.

Such failures increase pressure, not only on natural resources, but also on the tenure regimes that govern their access. Moreover, issues of affordability, accessibility and sustainability of tenure regimes should be considered more fully in discussions on common property tenure security, drawing on resource users' own perceptions of the tenure systems that exist.

Systems of common property may also emerge through organized action by communities. Several cases demonstrated how community action, including that undertaken in alliance with supportive outside organizations, expands access even where legal frameworks are not supportive of collective rights. Communities are also increasingly pushed to organize themselves in the face of the threats of commercial resource exploitation, particularly by extractive industries.

Threats Facing Common Property Regimes

There is a range of pressures and challenges facing common property systems. Some of these are 'internal', i.e., coming from within a community; others are 'external', i.e., rooted in processes or institutions outside the control of local users. Often, these challenges - such as environmental degradation or privatization - reflect the interplay of both internal and external factors.

Individualization of the Commons Rural areas are increasingly connected to regional and national markets, and in many cases opportunities to earn income through commercial use of the commons are expanding. While this trend may help rural households improve their livelihoods by drawing on resources from the commons, it can also lead to disputes among different user groups or between the poorer and the better-off families within a community. Local-level commercialization may in some cases create new incentives for joint management of the commons. Still, this is a process that appears to have more costs than benefits. Environmental costs, including long-term resource depletion and degradation, may also result from the expansion of smallholder agriculture and more intensive commercial use of the commons.

Commercialization and External Investment Increasingly, outside investments are competing with local residents for access to the commons. These include capital-intensive investments in commercial sectors such as mining, logging, and ranching and plantation agriculture. Often where commercialization is instigated by external investment, the lion's share of benefits is enjoyed by those outside investors. Without access to capital, and lacking skills specific to these sectors, investment and work opportunities for local residents are limited.

Demographic Pressures Demographic factors such as population increases, migration and HIV/AIDS, are placing pressure on common property regimes. Population pressure is contributing to encroachment and degradation of forest resources, such as when migrant farmers compete for resources with pastoralist and indigenous communities; in these cases, newcomers may not respect local customary institutions, generating disputes. In regions where there are high and increasing rates of HIV/AIDS, access to land and resources managed as commons - particularly by women and female-headed households - is in jeopardy. This creates or exacerbates food insecurity, making it all the more difficult for families hit by the disease to sustain themselves.

Elite Capture The disproportionate use of and benefit from common property regimes by wealthier or more powerful households in a given area is not only a threat in areas where tenure regimes are weak or non-existent (as in open access situations). Elite capture also poses a significant threat where common property regimes are functioning, but in ways that allow more powerful resource users to gain control over the decision-making processes.

Legal and Governance Frameworks It is important to consider the threats described above as having relationships with government policies and actions, rather than being exogenous trends. Government policies that encourage commercialization of natural resources, marginalize indigenous and customary institutions, or simply overlap and create confusion among resource users, are all contributing factors to the pressures on common property regimes.

Resource-based Conflicts When disputes over the commons emerge, often the poor and marginalized are left no or little access to vital resources - such as grazing areas, water, wood or fruits - thus becoming even more vulnerable. As conflict itself generates more insecurity, disputes threaten to create a vicious circle in which pressure on the common property regime itself increases. For this reason, mechanisms to address conflict, including through facilitation by external organizations, are a necessary ingredient of strong common property regimes.

Reform and Innovation

Strengthening the security of access to the commons has taken different forms, including the development of new laws and policies, decentralization of state authorities, support to local-level institutions, and initiatives of collective action and local organizing. Other innovations seek to develop new socio-economic institutions or improve environmental sustainability.

Collective Action and Organizing The most common forms of response to pressures and threats to the commons are collective action and community organizing. Often the goal is to create more supportive local structures, including the re-negotiation of power arrangements between communities, the state and other actors. Partnerships between communities and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) or project-related institutions can also significantly increase support to local collective action.

Legislative and Policy Reforms Often state laws and policies do not provide adequate recognition of and support to common property regimes. At the same time, changes to the legal framework can create an 'enabling environment' in which rural people take part in decision making that affects them, including policy processes that concern the commons. Rural people's organizations and NGOs must have space to play a stronger role in policy and legislative reform, in ways that increase the leverage of those people dependent on the commons within such processes.

Decentralization and Empowerment of Customary Authorities Adequate support to decentralization or devolution processes is needed so that local communities or customary authorities are able to perform the tasks and responsibilities for which they are being empowered. This support may come from the state, from NGOs or other civil society groups, from international organizations, or from a combination of different sources. While devolution is seen as important, it is often complicated by the conflict between customary and state institutions, particularly if there is a lack of clarity on their roles and responsibilities. Traditional leaders often command respect on civic and cultural issues, and could still form a basis for promotion of sustainable, community-based natural resource management, within the context of decentralization.

Conflict Management For common property systems to effectively manage conflicts over shared resources there must be ways to enforce rules and provide all community members with access to dispute-resolution mechanisms. Negotiation processes must recognize the different users who have interest in common property, and that seek to increase the negotiating leverage of weaker or marginalized groups. Building the capacity of tenure institutions is critical for common property regimes to manage conflicts.

Conclusions

Many rural men and women rely on diverse products from the commons for subsistence, including during lean times. Access to the commons is particularly crucial for pastoralist communities, for whom food security is primarily, if not wholly, dependent on access to pastures and water sources. Few others rely on products from the commons to generate incomes beyond subsistence. However, these preferences are not uniform or static, and evolve when communities are faced with changing external and internal circumstances.

The incentives of governments with regard to securing common property rights are mixed. Most governments have a strong incentive to generate revenues through investment in extractive industries, or non-consumptive use, such as conservation and tourism. Common property is often a casualty, as governments are pressured to provide these resources, including a system of property rights (usually private and individual) suited to investors. In several cases, however, community organizing has successfully thwarted top-down, external allocation of the commons.

Customary systems remain an important authority, backing and enforcing common property. There are fewer instances where state legislation is the main source of legitimacy for common property rights, when compared to customary systems playing this role, in part because numerous countries still lack legal frameworks to recognize common property regimes. Customary systems of common property can remain vulnerable when they are not recognized by the state, particularly when governments take actions or establish policies that undermine the authority of customary institutions.

There is also a recent trend towards decentralized forms of governance and the formal and non-formal recognition of community rights. Despite this often well-intended attempt at decentralization and/or devolution, ambiguities in cross-sectoral legislation in the roles of responsibilities of local and customary authorities, has resulted in further insecurity for the commons management that are outlined below.

The role of projects in creating access to common property regimes appears to be increasing. These involve various negotiated arrangements between communities, the state and other development actors. Partnerships with non-governmental organizations, development project facilitators and the state can all provide important support to local institutions that manage common property, and facilitate adaptation to pressures and threats facing the commons.

Collective action can be an effective and robust approach to addressing many of the challenges that common property regimes face. Still, new legislation and policy reform are also needed to support common property systems. The challenge of developing and implementing laws and policies that support common property reflects, at least in part, the need to increase the visibility and voice of rural people who depend on the commons for their livelihoods. Increasing not just participation in, but also leverage over the processes and institutions that determine land tenure and natural resource management policies should be an important element of efforts to strengthen common property regimes.