Digital Library of the Commons

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'That's Not Right': Resistance to Enclosure in Newfoundland Fisheries
(1995) McCay, Bonnie J.
"The option of quasi-privatization of fisheries, or individual fishery quotas, is one case among many involving the use of market mechanisms to help manage common pool resources. As a Beijer Institute working group has emphasized, it is very challenging to develop market-based systems that not only achieve economic goals such as efficiency but also deal with distributional equity in ways that help foster resource stewardship. This paper reports on recent field research among Newfoundland fishers who are on the verge of adopting privatized fishing quotas but are resisting this change in property rights, as well as those who adopted such a system but with stringent limitations. The case study is part of an attempt to identity the role of 'community' and related social and cultural factors in resistance to enclosure of the commons."
Flexible Quotas as a Device in Fisheries Management: A Control System Based on Progressive Taxation
(1995) Berglann, Helge
"This paper introduces a new fisheries management scheme that might give a substantial improvement in rational fishery's exploitation. We have named it the 'flexible quota' system and it is based on the ideas to implement an individual progressive taxation for each vessel. The purpose of this taxation is to control total catch, and to make this system acceptable for the fishermen, the tax should be paid back to the fishermen. This pay out should be formed as a cash payment independent of the actual catch for each vessel, and should come from a cash register that is common for a certain number of vessels. This cash register is a part of a system organized as a number of hierarchical levels where the higher levels control the level beneath it subject to the same principle as the lower levels. In this outline of a pay back model, it will not make any difference for the control whether the fishermen work together or not, and a culture where cheating is improper can grow up. Numerical investigations with a model that embodies a logistic function for the recruitment of fish, and a simple harvest- and cost function, shows that progressive taxation both have better static and dynamic qualities than equivalent linear taxation. The investigations show further that there re two kinds of favorable choices for the degree of progressivity in the management scheme. Either the degree of progressivity should be small (but not too close to be linear), or it should be large. A small degree of progressivity generates more short-term profit, while more long-term profit can be initiated with a large degree of progressivity. Bad influence on the system from fluctuations in fish stocks, costs and prices can be avoided by omitting some medium choice of the degree of progressivity."
Biodiversity: Scientific Stakes and Inferences (The Case of Plants and Plant-breeding)
(1995) Monolou, Jean Claude; Fridlansky, F.
"Biodiversity perceptions are many and eventually contradictory. However the rising concern on its short-term evolution urges a significant investment in research and in the integration of new information into the decision making process. From a scientific point of view Biodiversity appears to be a loose concept and one needs to associate it with the impact of human activities on nature. This leads to several questions, two of which will be discussed : Is biotechnology a salvage or a scourge to the general biodiversity concern? Should we promote more stringent conservations or should we rely on an evolution guided by the caution principle?"
Fisheries Co-management in Bangladesh: Experiences with GO-NGO-Fisher Partnership Models
(1995) Ahmed, Mahfuzuddin; Capistrano, Doris; Hossain, Mokammel
"Failure in the past to ascertain responsible fishing practices and equitable distribution of benefits under traditional leasing systems has motivated the Bangladesh government to work in partnership with non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and fishing communities in recent times. Several models of interactions between governmental organizations (GO), NGOs and fishing communities have emerged out of the partnerships. This paper discusses the operational approaches that were used to identify the fishery commons and create institutions for increasing the participation of local fishers in the making and enforcing resource use rules. The group-based empowerment strategies of NGOs; their role in securing for the beneficiaries the access rights to waterbodies as well as provision of credits and inputs for employment and income generation activities showed some practical evidence of the concept of the poor as managers of the fisheries resources. The paper also discusses the policy issues involving the rights held by local community members to catch fish for subsistence purposes; practices and uses that affect the physical environment. There are also issues associated with the difficulties of reconciling differing government (GO) and NGO priorities and points of view with regard to target group identification and levels of responsibilities. The paper concludes that a non-obstructionist policy context and interests of the powerful groups as well as those dependent on the fishery resources are the critical factors for successful evolution of co-management models in countries like Bangladesh."
Community, Collective Action and Common Grazing: The Case of Post-Socialist Mongolia
(1995) Mearns, Robin
"This paper applies collective-action and transaction-cost theory to the theoretical debate around the management of common property regimes (CPRs), with supporting evidence from recent empirical research in Mongolian pastoralism. Rather than treating CPR management as an activity in isolation, as much of the existing literature tends to do, this study examines the use of common grazing in the context of other aspects of pastoral livelihoods. The more a given group of herders find reason to cooperate with each other across a range of activities, it is argued, the more likely it is that they will also overcome the transaction costs involved in controlling the use of the commons. The empirical analysis finds that incentives for cooperation were weakened under agricultural collectivisation (1950s-80s), with possible adverse consequences for the commons. Decollectivisation from the early 1990s has seen the re-emergence of autonomous cooperation among herders, accompanied by changes in intra-community dynamics, which together suggest contradictory trends for the future management of common grazing."
New Face for Traditional Commons: Forest Conversion and the Redefinition of Common Property and Individual Rights through Agroforest Development in Sumatra, Indonesia
(1995) Michon, Genevieve; De Foresta, Hubert; Levang, Patrice
"In Indonesia, conflicts between the State and local communities concerning utilization and control of forest resources are increasing. As a result of existing legislation, market regulations and financial policies, dispossession of local communities and deregulation of traditional common property systems are becoming common cases all over the archipelago. But, parallel to the present dilapidation of misappropriated common property resources in natural forests, there is, sometimes for more than a century, a movement towards restitution of these resources in farming systems. In many areas, forest resources have been appropriated by local communities through special management systems which transfer them to agricultural lands and into agricultural systems but do not look like agricultural management. As pure forest reconstruction enterprises, these remarkable 'agroforest' systems associate the ancient forest management systems with a logic of commercial agriculture. They overall allow farmers to escape the contradiction existing between a national institutional framework which sharply limits access to natural forests and an economic reality which pushes towards intensive utilization of their resources. Through the history of an agroforest in Sumatra, through the analysis of interrelations between natural and social processes which shaped and sustain it, we shall discuss how this 'agroforest' concept can contribute to debates on use and dynamics of common property resources in forest areas, emphasizing biological and human aspects which allowed more than the conservation of one or another forest resource, the restoration of the forest resource itself in all its biological and economic diversity, we shall discuss the validity of this 'agroforest strategy' for re-appropriation of the ancient forest commons in a context particularly unfavorable to their maintenance in present resource management systems. "Accent will be put on the special socio-cultural aspects -perception of forest resources, representation of the agroforest vs. representation of the forest- and local institutional characteristics - modes of access, control and transfer for different types of agroforest resources - which make the originality of the agroforest management mode. Discussion will follow on the perspectives offered by the agroforest model for future negotiations between national government and local communities on the use of forest lands and resources."
Attitude of the Citizens towards the Privatization of Land in Latvia
(1995) Rivza, Baiba
"The process of land privatization has two aspects - its objective necessity and the subjective attitude of the population. The point of view of the society about the fact, that the change of the property is necessary was created already before 1990, when on June 3 the Supreme Soviet the Republic of Latvia adopted the decision 'On the Agrarian Reform in the Republic of Latvia.' Thus our investigations carried out in 3 different rural districts of Latvia during the late 80-ies proved that the attitude of the people was mainly positive. Regarding Latvians the positive attitude varied from 67.8 to 81.7%, but from 57.3 to 73.4% for other nationalities. 25.0 to 31.5% of Latvians were ready to start fanning , 19.8 to 39.8% of the people of other nationalities. It was planed by the people of all ages. While continuing the investigations regarding the problems of land privatization 658 people working in agriculture were questioned in all districts of Latvia. Approximately only every fifth of the inquired had a definite point of view about the privatization. The main reason was the contradictory character of law of privatization. "4. In January 1995 there were 56748 farms. There are two large groups of population in Latvia countryside at present: (1) real and potential land owners; (2) hired workers or the people having no land. There are pagasts where 70 percent from the total number represent the second group. The attitude towards the land privatization of both groups is completely different. The potential land owners consider that the land privatization process is too slow. The second group - that it is too quick. The last group say that the main reason is that old economical structures have been often destroyed in a very short time, but the development of new structures is to slow. The result is a high level of unemployment that reaches 20% in some rural districts in Latvia. The people of the 2 groups questioned consider that an explanatory work as regards the official legislation bills has not been sufficient by the mass media. There are many proposals as regards the improvement of the legislation."
Common Land Renewal in Russia: Problems and Approaches
(1995) Levina, Tatiana
"This paper analyses hypothetically the new Land Code, and discusses the problems which land use planning, as a main mechanism of land resources management, is faced. Particular attention is paid to common land management, and certain actual materials are considered."
Optimality, Sub-optimality, Nirvana, and Transaction Costs Foraging on the Commons
(1995) Feeny, David
Published as Feeny, David, "Sub-Optimality and Transaction Costs on the Commons," in Edna Tusak Loehman and D. Marc Kilgour (eds.), Designing Institutions for Environmental and Resource Management (Cheltenham, Edward Elgar Publishing, Ltd., 1998), 124-141. "Much of the literature on the management of common-property resources is focused directly or indirectly on enhancing the evidential basis for the formulation of policy. Therefore the assessment of the effects of a variety of factors, including institutional arrangements, on outcomes associated with the exploitation of common-property resources is a common theme. "But how do we measure outcomes? How do we know how well we are doing? A number of relevant categories of outcome measures have been proposed or used in literature. Prominent among these are measures of economic efficiency, equity, and sustainability (see for instance Berkes, Feeny, McCay, and Acheson 1989; Feeny, Berkes, McCay, and Acheson 1990; Feeny 1992; Norgaard 1992; Oakerson 1992; Ostrom 1992; Ostrom, Gardner, and Walker 1994; Rothenberg). Each of these categories includes a diversity of measures and indicators. "A large number of challenging issues arise in selecting outcome measures including the choice of viewpoint from which to assess outcomes, time horizon, choice of normative system, measurement properties of the indicators selected (including reliability, reproducibility, validity, and responsiveness), and practical implementability of the indicators. For the most part, I will ignore these difficult issues. "To simplify the analysis, without implying any lack of legitimacy to alternative viewpoints (or special legitimacy to the viewpoint selected), I am going to assume an anthropocentric viewpoint. An outcome that matters is human welfare. I am assuming that a fundamental objective in managing common-property resources is to enhance the welfare of human beings [[florin]] both current and future generations. "Again without implying any lack of legitimacy for equity and sustainability as measures of outcome, I will focus my attention on the use of economic efficiency as an indicator of outcome."
Ownership Transformations in Polish Agriculture
(1995) Korzycka-Iwanow, Malgorzata
From Introduction: "During the period of communist regime, Polish agriculture retained domination of private ownership of land, whereby 3/4 of total arable land remained in private hands. The remainder was used mostly by State-owned farms and, to a lesser extent, by agricultural cooperatives. "The regional structure of farmland ownership in Poland is quite diversified. There exist regions with extreme comminution of farms and those where large, State-owned farms dominate. Structural transformations in farms depend mainly on the overall growth of the economy and, in particularly, on the ability of people employed so-far in agriculture, to undertake employment in other sectors. "Polish intervening policy includes, besides actions bearing market type features, also those ventures which intend to improve agrarian structure. The key to structural changes taking place is found in the widely taken economic environment; however, current macroeconomic conditions to not stimulate changes in this respect."

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