BORN in 1933, Elinor Awam Ostrom’s perspective of the world was shaped in an era impacted by economic depression and global war, resulting in a lifelong, deep awareness of the limited nature of the earth’s natural resources, and the importance of sustainability. Her first-hand experience of the scarcity of important natural resources such as water and food was shaped through involvement with practices such as urban farming with her mother in Los Angeles during an era of widespread economic hardship during the war (Zagorski 2006). Through this, she developed an unshakable belief in the importance of frugality for sustainability, and in the capacity of communities to come together in times of difficulty, cooperate and provide a helping hand to those in need.

Ostrom’s PhD thesis further focused these ideas, as she worked on water management in water-starved areas of southern California, closely observing water associations as they grappled with the complex challenges of managing water scarcity. These beliefs were purposeful in shaping a career of path-breaking research demonstrating the importance of collective action for sustainable use of natural resources, for which she received the 2009 Economics Nobel Prize (the only woman until now to ever have done so).

Ostrom strongly believed in the power of the local, but her impact and influence was global. She had a particular interest in understanding traditional practices for sustainable natural resource management in the densely populated landscapes of Asia, personally conducting field work in Nepal, and working with a number of colleagues and students on issues of collective action in urban and forested contexts in Nepal, India and many other countries in Asia (Nagendra 2012). Her research on the commons has fundamental implications for the governance of common pool resources in India.

Ostrom’s research challenged the then dominant view of the commons – areas such as grazing pastures, forests, fisheries and river networks with shared ownership, accessed by large numbers of people – as areas that were inevitably fated to overuse and degradation, as suggested most famously by Garret Hardin (1968). This rather pessimistic and gloomy view of the capacity of local users of a resource to self-regulate remained dominant and largely accepted as a self-apparent truism by scholars, managers and policy makers across the globe, invoking the need for imposition of private ownership, or that of a benevolent, paternalistic government, for conservation.

 

Ostrom did not agree with this view of human nature as naturally selfish and uncooperative. Her research on water basins in Los Angeles had convinced her of the ability of groups of people to discuss challenges, negotiate access, and come up with a set of rules to limit the overuse of natural resources, adaptively and innovatively. She later turned her attention to local institutions of natural resource governance, putting together a carefully curated database of existing research, conducted by other scholars across the world, on local institutions that had successfully persisted for over a hundred years (Ostrom 1990), identifying what conditions shaped how ‘a community of citizens can organize themselves to solve the problems of institutional supply, commitment and monitoring.’

These case studies came from countries and contexts as varied as Nepal and Japan, and Switzerland and Spain, encompassing a diversity of resource systems that included lands used for grazing, forest product harvest, fishing and irrigation. Impatient with the predominant focus on the search for ‘simple’ solutions, she argued for the need for distinction between complexity and chaos, often pointing to the importance of complexity in biological systems to challenge political scientists to go beyond the formulation of simple, one-size-fits-all rules. Thus, rather than develop a set of rules that presumed to dictate how communities would respond in all contexts, she articulated a set of eight design principles, conditions that could facilitate sustained, self-organized management of the commons (Ostrom 2005).

 

These design principles were deliberately formulated to avoid falling into the trap of being prescriptive and definitive, as were other institutional rules propounded by other scholars in political science literature. Instead, Ostrom paid attention to the importance of context and variation, pointing out that it was difficult to explain sustainability of institutions for the management of the commons based on the presence or absence of particular rules (Ostrom 1990). Rather, it is the ability of the rules in use to effectively deal with the physical attributes of the natural resource system (for instance, to deal with the issue that water flows from upstream to downstream, and can be easily polluted downstream by a distant, upstream polluter – while trees in a forest are immovable and can be protected within a relatively defined boundary), cultural relationships between users and ecosystems, and socio-economic and political settings that was important. She stressed that it was the great variety in rules that permitted adaptation, innovation and flexibility, ultimately enabling sustainability.

The Ostrom Design Principles are simple, yet profound. For instance, one design principle – often ignored by policy makers – states that it is important for communities to have a ‘Minimal Recognition of Rights to Organize’, i.e. to ensure that the rule-making rights of a local community are respected by external government authorities. Unless this is provided, any group – such as a polluting industry – who wants to break the rules about sustainable use created by local user groups, only has to turn to the government to be able to bypass or overturn these community rules. This design principle has profound implications for the long-term sustainability of Indian commons – as is obvious from the many recent instances of clashes between industry and indigenous communities across India over access to commons.

 

Before the publication of Governing the Commons, several authors had already documented the importance of local governance for managing the commons in India (e.g. Jodha 1986, Wade 1988). India had taken steps towards decentralization of forest management through Joint Forest Management initiatives. However, this programme, largely government initiated, has not been as successful as many had hoped (Springate-Baginski and Blaikie 2007). Ostrom’s work is helpful in understanding how future policy improvements can better support conservation and livelihood development outcomes. Thus, she warned policy makers and planners of the dangers inherent in rapid, top-down decentralization without effective community involvement or control, pointing out that most governmental policies aimed at decentralization fail because of their simplistic, prescriptive and inflexible design.

Yet, rather than pitting community against state, her research called for closer interaction between governments and communities, with importance being given to opportunities for participation at an equal footing. Communities may be better suited for local monitoring, for instance, while government intervention may be required to deal effectively with issues such as industrial pollution. Ostrom thus argued eloquently for the need for multi-level institutions, with various levels of administration and decision making, national to local, government to community – working in synergy for better management (Ostrom 2005; Nagendra and Ostrom 2012).

 

A key factor in Ostrom’s research was the development of the Nepal Irrigation Institutions and Systems (NIIS) database, which collated and organized information on farmer-managed irrigation systems in Nepal. Following a request from the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO) to prepare a similar database to study forest governance, Ostrom and her colleagues at The Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis at Indiana University then initiated the International Forestry Resources and Institutions (IFRI) programme, providing over-time data on peopled forests to link information on socio-economic, institutional and ecological aspects. Now active in a number of countries across multiple continents, IFRI was founded and tested using a small set of sites that included locations in India and Nepal, and continues to contain active programmes in these two countries.

Research from IFRI locations in India has been fundamental in demonstrating the importance of self-governance and local monitoring for sustainable management of community forests in critical wildlife habitats in central India (Ghate 2004; Ostrom and Nagendra 2006; Ghate et al. 2012) and the eastern Himalayas (Agrawal and Chhatre 2006). Local monitoring, sanctioning and enforcement of rules seem to be important predictors of forest condition in several IFRI studies (Ghate and Nagendra 2005). A complete reliance on government monitoring through forest guards is difficult in the Indian context, where guards have to patrol large areas, are lightly armed, and have to deal with social challenges that make it difficult for them to enforce rules.

In fact, as Agrawal and Chhatre conclude from IFRI studies in India and elsewhere, government involvement may be negatively associated with forest condition in some contexts, while community managed forests may be better suited to cater to local needs (Agrawal and Chhatre 2006; Chhatre and Agrawal 2008). Thus, warning against a misinter-pretation of the need for monitoring, Ostrom and Nagendra (2006, pp. 19230-19231) stated that, ‘We do not advocate using fences and guns to protect government forests… Unless one ensures the livelihoods of those living around or within a forest, a major investment in monitoring alone is not a sufficient, long-run management strategy and may even be counterproductive.’

 

Through a careful examination of forest change in the Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve in Maharashtra, Mahananda Wildlife Sanctuary in West Bengal, and the Chitwan National Park in Nepal, Ostrom and Nagendra (2006) found that the official designation of a forest as government, community, or co-managed did not appear to impact forest conservation as much as the legitimacy of ownership and degree of local monitoring. Corroborating this, data from 42 forests in multiple countries established that the type of ownership did not have a statistically significant impact on forest quality as measured using assessments of tree density or tree size. What emerged as most significant was the involvement of communities in regular monitoring, with this study concluding that ‘when users are genuinely engaged in decisions regarding rules affecting their use, the likelihood of them following the rules and monitoring others is much greater than when an authority simply imposes rules’ (Ostrom and Nagendra 2006, p. 19224). Local forest users can also provide reliable, low cost assessments of changes in forest density that can be significant inputs for monitoring ecological change (Nagendra and Ostrom 2011).

 

Research done by Ostrom and her colleagues holds great significance for Indian forest policy, in particular to discussions around the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act of 2006, which provides traditional forest dwellers with rights over forest land traditionally used and managed by them. Presently, debates around implementation of the FRA are centred on questions such as: Are communities capable of monitoring and managing such a valuable resource? Will transfer of authority result in large-scale deforestation? Are traditional norms of sustainable harvesting and equitable benefit sharing effective in traditional communities?

Generally assumed in these discussions is the fact that access to markets and commercialization has affected local communities’ attitudes and behaviour regarding forests, making them less inclined to cooperation, and more likely to engage in destructive practices of over-harvesting. Ostrom and her colleagues examined this issue in detail using field experiments conducted in two predominantly tribal communities in the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra that address some of these issues (Ghate et al. 2011). The experiments clearly demonstrate that communities with strong previous traditions of shared norms and mutual trust, tend to be non-exploitative, non-commercial, and cooperate towards prioritizing, planning, and managing forest resources sustainably, demonstrating the potential for indigenous communities to create conditions conducive for forest protection and restoration through initiatives like the FRA.

 

Commons or common pool resources form critical components that supplement and support rural communities dependent on agriculture, livestock and forests in large parts of India, but especially the dryland and tribal areas. The Supreme Court of India in Jagpal Singh and Others vs State of Punjab and Others (civil appeal no. 1132/2011 @ SLP (C) no. 3109/2011), recognized the importance of the commons, stating that, ‘Since time immemorial there have been common lands inhering in the village communities in India… These public utility lands in the villages were for centuries used for the common benefit of the villagers …They were generally treated as inalienable in order that their status as community land be preserved.’

A recent study by the Foundation for Ecological Security (2012) documents the dependence of rural livelihoods on the commons. Conducted in seven states – Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Odisha – this comprehensive study spanned 3000 households in 100 villages in arid, semi-arid and sub-humid parts of the country. Dependence on the commons was very high, with 98% of households accessing the commons for different types of use, including for grazing, fodder collection, agriculture, food, fuelwood, and non-timber forest products. Dependence on forests and on community sources of water was especially high. Resources from the commons contributed to a substantial proportion of household income, about 31% of net income, for the landless.

Thus, continued access to the commons provides stability and security in an unpredictable environment, especially critical for landless households, but also important for large rural landowners. Yet, there is overall institutional apathy, leading to neglect of traditional institutional arrangements and the customary rights of people in the institutional solutions proposed under different Government of India and state policies and programmes. Although there has been a shift in the policy paradigm towards more participatory forms of development in general and natural resource management since the 1990s, as reflected in the 73rd amendment of the Constitution enabling a greater role to Panchayati Raj Institutions, the introduction of the Joint Forest Management arrangements, and recent acts such as the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) and Forest Rights Act, several challenges remain at the institutional terrain in order to realize the potential of this shift.

 

In particular, effective formal and informal institutions have not been crafted to protect, develop and manage common lands. India has a long history of a variety of traditional and indigenous institutions for commons management, including van panchayats, gramya jungles and community forestry. Van panchayats are long-standing village forest institutions in Uttaranchal, with a documented history of existence over a century, that have been successful in many parts of the Kumaon hills in protection and sustainable management of village forests. Gramya jungles are village forest institutions recognized in the state of Odisha, consisting of village forest areas managed for communal and developmental purposes within the village boundary. Similarly, there are a variety of long-standing indigenous community institutions that have evolved locally to manage forests in different parts of the country, such as the Mundari Khuntkatti in Chotanagpur, indigenous Community Forest Management in Odisha and Maharashtra, sacred groves (Devara Kaadus and Gunda Thopus) in Karnataka, and similar institutions in many other states. In most instances these have been insufficiently recognized by formal administrative rights, with national programmes largely focused on approaches such as Joint Forest Management (JFM).

 

Yet, JFM has largely failed in providing access to non-timber forest products for local communities. Panchayati Raj Institutions have, on the whole, shown limited capacity to manage and develop common lands and to prioritize MGNREGA and other developmental funds for restoration and protection of the commons. At times, these have also come into conflict with community-led initiatives. The key, therefore, is to move from a piecemeal approach for the management of natural resources towards long-term policy and programmatic action, including building capacities of the local communities through appropriate institutional mechanisms.

There is also a need to strengthen information systems and create a database on common land and water resources to assessing the extent and status of resources that are generally considered as common pool in nature as well as the nature of property rights governing the same. Currently, common and public lands cover an estimated 45 to 60 million hectares – almost a fifth of the geographical spread of India. Such land, if brought under the ambit of local self-governance institutions, could contribute substantially to the rural economy, providing critical ecological functions besides meeting various needs such as fodder, food, medicine, firewood, etc., benefiting large rural populations significantly and equitably.

 

Progress in this direction is slowly being made in many states. A collaborative arrangement between the rural development department of the Government of Andhra Pradesh and NGO networks has been established in 2009 for strengthening the efforts to conserve, develop and protect common lands through community involvement under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) in Andhra Pradesh. The Government of Rajasthan was the first to formulate The Draft Rajasthan Common Land Policy (2010), following it up by developing Operational Guidelines on the Implementation of Grazing Land Development under MGNREGA, both with the involvement of FES. The Supreme Court of India in a significant decision in the Jagpal Singh and Others vs State of Punjab and Others mentioned above, directed the state governments to draw up schemes to evict encroachments on common lands and restore them to panchayats and gram sabhas.

Following the apex court’s direction, there have been five high court orders either admitting cases against taking over of village commons or rescinding such takeovers. 29 judiciary pronouncements and 29 government orders on the commons have been issued since the apex court order last year (Mahapatra 2012). The 12th plan of the Planning Commission of India has also recognized the importance of the commons, creating a working group on Natural Resources Management and Rainfed Farming and a subgroup on ‘Institutions and Commons’ for the 12th plan preparation, in which the need for favourable land tenure arrangements, institutional design and programme architecture was highlighted for effective governance and management of the commons. Following direction from the Lok Adalat of Karnataka, two districts in Karnataka have also embarked on a programme to improve the management of commons.

 

These new directions for commons regimes, while being discussed for land here, hold promise for other commons of importance to India such as fisheries, water and ground water in particular, genetic sources such as agricultural seeds, and patenting of traditional knowledge systems, traditional health practices and medicines. The directions of the Supreme Court, and the policy and programmatic level decisions of the central government, many state governments, and the Planning Commission provide a way forward, but there is a lack of overall integrated effort to address the issue of governance of the commons at a country level. In this context, a model common lands bill at the national level could provide a way forward, enabling direction to state governments. One approach could include tethering the MGNREGA with a ‘commons regime’, such that the institutional dimensions currently found wanting alongside the financial investment through MGNREGA could be filled. The right to employment and right over resources combined together can have a significant impact in creating durable assets, both as biophysical resources and as institutional regimes.

In conclusion, Elinor Ostrom’s research has tremendous implications for the sustainable governance of the commons in India, which has a rich quality and diversity of common pool resources ranging from forests to grazing lands, and fresh water to marine areas, with widespread dependence of rural and urban communities on these invaluable resources for economic, social, cultural and spiritual inputs. Her theoretical and empirical observations of the commons provide a framework for governance that respects diversity and rights to local self-governance, while at the same time recognizing the need for multi-level governance that require governments to fulfil their social responsibilities towards equity and sustainability.

 

India has a long standing diversity of traditional systems of common property regimes, with new forms of innovative commons governance evolving in areas such as patent rights, and in urban commons. Recent initiatives by the Supreme Court, coupled with state government initiatives in some states, and the national policy changes brought about by the Forest Rights Act indicate signs of progress that are promising, but much remains to be done. Large-scale changes must be taken keeping in mind the pillars of Ostrom’s vision – the need for self-governance of the commons at a local level that permits flexibility, adaptation and innovation, with the ultimate goal of ensuring equitable and sustainable access to the commons for all citizens.

 

References:

Agrawal, A., Chhatre, C., 2006. ‘Explaining Success on the Commons: Community Forest Governance in the Indian Himalaya’, World Development 34, 149-166.

Chhatre, A., Agrawal, A., 2008. ‘Forest Commons and Local Enforcement’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA) 105, 13286-13291.

Foundation for Ecological Security, 2012. A Commons Story: In the Rain Shadow of Green Revolution. Foundation for Ecological Security, Anand, Gujarat.

Ghate, R., 2004. Uncommons in the Commons: Community-Initiated Forest Resource Management. Concept Publishing Co., New Delhi.

Ghate, R., Nagendra, H., 2006. ‘Role of Monitoring in Institutional Performance: Forest Management in Maharashtra, India’, Conservation and Society 3, 509-532.

Ghate R., Ghate, S., Ostrom, E., 2012. Indigenous Communities, Communication and Cooperation: Taking Experiments to the Field. SANDEE Working Paper.

Ghate R., Nagendra, H., Mehra, D., 2012. Is JFM Really Helping Communities and Forests? Need to Focus on Institution Building. In J. Bandyopadhyay, K. Chopra and N. Ghosh (eds.), Environmental Governance: Approaches, Imperatives, and Methods. Bloomsbury, New Delhi and INSEE.

Hardin, G., 1968. ‘The Tragedy of the Commons’, Science 162, 1243-1248.

Jodha, N. S., 1986. ‘Common Property Resources and Rural Poor in Dry Regions of India’, Economic and Political Weekly 21, 1169-1181.

Mahapatra, R., 2012. ‘Uncommon Swing for Commons’, Down to Earth, 15 June 2012.

Nagendra, H., 2012. ‘Elinor Ostrom: 1933-2012’, Current Science 103, 433-434.

Nagendra, H., Ostrom, E., 2012. ‘Polycentric Governance of Forest Resources’, International Journal of the Commons 6, 104-133.

Nagendra, H., Ostrom, E., 2011. ‘The Challenge of Forest Diagnostics’, Ecology and Society 16, 20. [online] URL: http:// www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol16/iss2/art20/.

Ostrom, E., 1990. Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Ostrom, E., 2005. Understanding Institutional Diversity. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ.

Ostrom, E., Nagendra, H., 2006. ‘Insights on Linking Forests, Trees, and People from the Air, on the Ground, and in the Lab’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA) 103, 19224-19331.

Springate-Baginski, O., Blaikie, P. M., 2007. Forests, People and Power: the Political Ecology of Reform in South Asia. Earthscan, London; Sterling, VA.

Wade, R., 1988. Village Republics: Economic Conditions for Collective Action in South India. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Zagorski, N., 2006. ‘Profile of Elinor Ostrom’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA) 103, 19221-19223.