This study examines, in a developing-country context, the contribution of community forestry to household income with particular emphasis on group heterogeneity and equity in benefit distribution. The economic analysis of household-level benefits reveals that poorer households are currently benefiting less in absolute terms from community forestry than less poor households. In terms of the contribution of forests to total household income, the study results suggest that the poor are actually less dependent on forests than the rich, a finding that is somewhat contradictory to results from other similar studies. The average ‘poor’ household obtains Nepalese rupees (Nrs) 7,756 gross income from community forest annually, while the more ‘rich’ households obtain on average Nrs 24,466 per year. In terms of the contribution of forests to net household income, the study results seem to suggest an inverted U-shaped relationship – as income increases dependency on forest resources may decline. Econometric analysis suggests that income from the community forests is related to socio-economic attributes and private endowments of households. Households with land and livestock assets and upper caste households gain more from the commons, while better-educated households depend less on forest resources. Female-headed households benefit less from community forests, further aggravating the inequity in distribution of benefits. The study makes a number of recommendations to improve community forestry in Nepal.

Against the backdrop of a community-based fishery management institution called kadakkodi, this paper addresses the question of how institutions evolve, innovate, or disintegrate. It explains how institutional evolution is determined by factors like relative resource endowment, technology, cultural endowment, and inherited institutional structures. The strength of such informal institutions in facilitating effective resource management admitted, the paper argues that in the wake of increasing resource-related, technological, cultural and institutional heterogeneities, they may fail to perform and hence are no panacea to the problems of resource management. Such predicaments may call for complementary formal institutions whose supply, however, would depend on the cost of collective action.

Greater ecosystem complexity is recognized by studying a two species predator–prey model under two property rights regimes: free entry and a system such as individual quotas which execute an economically optimal solution. A bottom-up management experiment is discussed in the context of Lake Victoria fisheries.

This paper examines the response of herders to increased shortage and degradation of land in an arid and semi-arid land setting in Kenya, under changing property right regimes using both survey and secondary data. We argue that the responses adopted are livelihood strategies to improve herder's welfare. We explore the determinants of three different strategies: crop cultivation, investment in land improvements, and migration with livestock. We employ the probit regression framework to explain each strategy. The main findings of the study are that private property rights, educational attainment, and availability of water are major determinants of the three strategies. We recommend policies that favour privatization of existing common property resources, improve education levels, and increase supply of water in the district.

This paper examines the implications of tenancy legislation and privatization of community lands in Goa on the supply of local public goods for soil conservation. In the post-tenancy period our survey reveals an increasing number of farmers being affected by salinity ingress. These findings support the hypothesis that when community institutions break down, individual agents who become new resource owners do not have sufficient incentive to undertake supply of local public goods, which leads to a decline in productivity and affects long-term sustainability.

This paper examines the property rights of the Cochin estuarine fisheries in India, which in spite of having well-defined access and conservation rules imposed by the state, have failed to ensure proper resource management. Considering the resource characteristics and the causes for state's failure, co-management, which requires a redefinition of management functions by state as well as users, has been proposed as an alternative. Analysis of user characteristics, using the two-stage estimation procedure, throws policy signals that under co-management the state can strengthen the licensing system to restrict access to fishing and to impart awareness regarding conservation rules. The logit analysis on users' role indicates that, although certain types of heterogeneities contribute towards the critical mass needed for a collective action, the distributional implications may lead at least some to oppose co-management. This implies that, even if users initially get to agree to co-operate and share any rents from conservation, significant prisoner's dilemma will soon occur returning the resource to its current state, and co-management will have to still grapple with lack of well-defined property rights.