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previously assumed. Furthermore, this knowledge offers new models for
development that are both ecologically and socially sound.” 3
The acknowledgement that traditional resource groups may also be capable of
resource conservation has led to reclassification of the different property rights
system into the following divisions :
Table 1.4: Types of Resource Regimes
Property Rights System Characteristics
State property Individuals have a duty to observe use/access rules determined
by a controlling/managing agency; agencies have a right to
determine use/access rules
Private Property Individuals have a right to undertake socially acceptable uses and
have a duty to refrain from socially unacceptable uses and have a
right to expect that that only socially acceptable uses will occur
Communal property The management group (the owners) has a right to exclude non
members, and non members have a duty to abide by exclusion;
individual members of the management group (the co-owners)
have both rights and duties with respect to use rates and
maintenance of the thing owned.
Non property (Open Access) No defined group of users or owners and benefit stream is
available to anyone; individuals have both a privilege and no right
with respect to use rates and maintenance of the asset; the asset
is an “open access resource”.
Source : Bromley (1989).
The property rights school has argued that as open access resources gets depleted,
the need for attenuation develops. If economic conditions permit the establishment of
private property rights then the resource can be nourished; otherwise it is doomed to
be depleted. But, Berkes (in Berkes ed, 1989) points out, instead of establishing
private property rights, communal rights can also develop. Such property right
changes occur in a smooth trajectory – which may even follow a circular path (Fig.
1.1). Over time there has been an increasing number of case studies illustrating
instances where precisely such a trend occurred.
2 S.V. Ciriacy-Wantrup (1971) The Economics of Environmental Policy. Land Economics. Vol. 47, No. 1;
February, 1971. Qtd. in Clawson (in Haefale, 1974).
3 Posey, D.A. (1985) Management of Tropical Forest Ecosystems : The Case of the Kayapo Indians of the
Brazilian Amazon. Agroforestry Systems; 3[2], pp. 139-140/158. Qtd. in Warren, 1992.
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