THE UNIVERSITY OF LEIPZIG

and his claims. Hence it is the function of the state to restrain those with duty. The puzzle here
is: what happens when the state is unable ensure compliance to duties? What happens in an
instance where a community’s local laws are more self enforcing than formal state laws
relating to the environment?
Bromley argues that much of the confusion in environmental policy stems from a fundamental
misunderstanding of possible resource regimes. The “tragedy of the commons" idea has
helped confuse scholars and prevents meaningful understanding of resource management
regimes. 327 Among these possible regimes, common property carries the misplaced blame for
"inevitable" resource degradation that really lies with both open access and closed regimes.
Freeny et al. added that Garrett Hardin's tragedy of the commons has been remarkably
durable. Many users confuse an open access regime with a free-for-all common property
regime which specifies behavioral rules. 328 This observation however, ignored the possibility
that resource users can act together and institute checks and balances, rules and sanctions for
their own interaction within a given resource environment. This actually presents us with yet
another point of concern.
At issue is the need to find out whether communities particularly in Kakamega have had any
specific behavioral rules governing the use of their common resources? And if they exist, we
endeavor to understand how the current institutional framework encompasses these
communally built regulations. We also wish to establish the place for community regulations
regarding biodiversity within the national resource management regimes.
Bromley further recounts that at the most fundamental level, biodiversity as a public good is
similar to private good in the sense that non-owners are excluded from use and decision-
making. Along with this exclusionary similarity, we also find that each of the co-owners in a
common-property regime has rights and duties inside the regime. 329 A true common resource
regime requires the same thing as private property; exclusion of non-owners. While we know
that property-owning groups vary in nature, size, and internal structure across a broad
spectrum, they are all social units with definite membership and boundaries, with certain
common interests, with at least some interaction among members, with some common
cultural norms, and with their own endogenous authority systems. 330 For instance, ethnic
groupings, sub villages, neighborhoods, small transhumant groups, kin systems, or extended
families are possible examples of meaningful authority systems. In many societies, these
groupings hold customary ownership of certain natural resources such as farm land, grazing
327
Bromley, D.W and M.M, Cernea. 1989. The management of common Property Natural Resources : Some
Conceptual and operational Fallacies. Washington D.C: The World Bank.
328
Freeny, D. Berkes, F . McCay, B.J and J. Acheson. 1990. The tragedy of Commons: Twenty years Later.
Human Ecology 18:1-19
329
Bromley,D.W. 1989. Property Relations and Economic Development.The Other Land Reform. World
Development 17(6): 867-877.
330
Agrawal, A. 2001. Common property, forest management and the Indian Himalaya Contributions to India.
Sociology 35(2):181–212.
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