PDF 3.08 MB

The greater dependence of poor households on CPRs can be attributed to
several factors :
[1] The land-man and land-animal ratios for poor households are typically low. In
such circumstances, access to CPRs provide an important means to adjust the
factor proportions.
[2] During drought, or other crisis periods, when productivity of rural resources fall
drastically, the richer households depend on their cash reserves for sustenance.
Poorer households lack such reserves and have to depend upon CPRs for their
subsistence.
[3] The extraction costs of CPRs are generally low and require only labor power.
Since poorer households have surplus labor (with low opportunity cost),
dependence on CPRs is consistent with their labor endowments, and is economically
rational.
[4] The value of products from CPRs may be quite low. In that case it may not
be profitable for the richer households to exploit the CPR. But poorer households
having surplus labor with zero alternative cost can exploit the resource, specially as
the nature of most of CPR-based activities is such that they can be indulged in
without sacrificing alternative employment.
Section 1.4: Decline in CPRs
Decline of CPRs can occur in three ways :
[a] Physical loss of resources, due to construction of infrastructure.
[b] Detoriation of physical productivity (i.e. quality) of the resource.
[c] Changes in the usage and property rights of CPRs.
For the moment we concentrate on only the third cause. In a village level study in
Karnataka (Pasha, 1991) it was estimated that the area under CPRs declined
from 6999 acres (35.6% of the geographical area of the villages covered) to 4654
acres - a decline of 23.7%. The main cause of this decline was privatization, by both
the rich and the poor. About 52% of the land lost, was appropriated by the rich
5