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Abstract:
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"The paper is based on fieldwork conducted in Tigray Region, northern Ethiopia, which investigated the relationship between sustainable livelihoods and the sustainable management of common property resources. The overall research investigated in depth the variety of internal and external factors influencing the likelihood that community-based management can ensure both sustainability of natural resource utilisation and sustainable livelihoods.
"In contrast to many CPR studies, the research analysed management regimes governing a wide variety of natural resources: in the Tigray context different natural resource management regimes can be found within the same landscape. The variations between different property rights arrangements were investigated, with the aim of identifying external and internal determinants of these arrangements. In this respect, the research followed the more recent developments in CPR analyses of identifying determinants of co-operation/collective action in CPR management. This more recent development in CPR studies tends to focus on the conditions under which individuals will co-operate, either through specific incentives/ sanctions, or through the existence or construction of social capital to facilitate co-operation. Such studies are however often limited in the extent to which they model actual processes involved in determining co- operation or non-co-operation in natural resource management. It is important to elicit the actual perspectives and preferences of households involved in CPR utilisation as a basis for understanding the sustainability of the CPR regime.
"The analysis reported in this paper therefore involved multivariate analysis of households preferences for particular management and tenure arrangements governing different natural resources, as a contribution to understanding the complexity of factors which determine both the nature of specific natural resource management regimes, and the sustainability of the resources themselves. The multivariate analysis was based on the technique of logistic regression, and was applied to six different CPRs, where households expressed preferences for management regimes and tenure systems governing each of the six CPRs. Results of the analysis are reported in the paper. One key general finding is that, although there has been considerable construction of social capital in Tigray in recent years, clear differences in preferences for management regimes and tenure systems could still be observed. These differences in preferences which are related for example to differences in degrees of dependence on CPRs, in awareness of the extent of CPR degradation, and in broader commitments to co-operation need to be taken into account in analysing the relationship between households goal of attaining sustainable livelihoods, and the community-wide goal of sustaining natural resources."
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