Title: Common pool resources and communal control: empirical evidence from Himachal Pradesh, India

Authors: Emmanuel Bon

Addresses: Centre de Sciences Humaines, 2 Aurangzeb Road, 110 011 New Delhi, India

Abstract: The Sirmour district, Himachal Pradesh, India, lies in the western Himalayan range. Mixed-farming is the main occupation in the mid-hills and basically consists of agriculture, livestock and forest produces. Hence, communal forests (mushtarka), common grazing lands (ghasnies) and gravity-flow irrigation systems (kuhl) were found to be the three major common pool resources in the villages of Dhamla and Chauras which we have studied. Community-based resource management cuts across natural resource sectors, it is therefore important to move beyond specific resource sectors to comparative analysis of ||the spirit of the rules||. Instead of focusing on the formal characteristics of any particular set of rules or typology of rights, one should look out for an overall coherence of socio-political nature. This study focuses on the role of ||norms, rules, social status and socially shared visions|| governing access to and use of resources. It also attests for the resilience of the ||village republic|| spirit in response to the insensitivity of public management and control.

Keywords: collective action; CPRs; India; institutions; social capital; Western Himalayas.

DOI: 10.1504/IJW.2001.002071

International Journal of Water, 2001 Vol.1 No.3/4, pp.343-359

Published online: 15 Aug 2003 *

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