Implications of trends in Access, Benefits and Status of

Common Lands in Karnataka

Sharachchandra Lele and Seema Purushothaman

December 2011

Outline
Stock taking mainstream thinking Why bother normative queries Common lands of Karnataka status and drivers New approach

Conventional Wisdom
Commons are important for rural livelihoods Particularly important for rural poor So better (=communitarian) protection and management of Commons is pro-poor and pro-livelihoods Win-win with larger conservation interests when it comes to forests

Challenges to conventional wisdom

Direct land grant is more pro-poor especially when poor are landless Dependence on Rural Commons is declining with development, so incentive to manage is less Opportunity cost to society higher when alternative land use is lucrative with some trickle-down (mining, wind farms, industrial development)

Why bother
Rural Commons (of the poor) vanish and urban commons flourish (social networks on internet, concern for urban ecology, evolving institutions of urban social commons) Timely to craft an institutional and policy mechanism (in the context of relook at land reforms, SToFD act, decentralisation thrust in governance)
Indirect services from commons are increasing in value Changing dependence may not mean declining dependence

Why bother
Rural sustenance
NBt = Net benefits over time

contd..
(1)

= f (Nat Res.) = f [NBt (OL + PL + CL + FL)] -----------------------

(2) NBt OL= f (Per capita holding size, Productivity) ---------------------------NBt PL= f (Average holding size, Labour input / unit area)----------------(3) (4) NBt CL= f (Extent & qlty of common lands/capita, Social commons)---------NBt FL= f (Qlty, de jure and de facto access, Human animal conflicts)------------ (5) Major constraints in maximising equation (1), as deduced from equations (2) to (5) Family size & health in marginal farm-holdings Productivity of own/operated lands Intensity of agriculture in large farms Conversion of common lands Rights and Access to forests Human- wildlife conflict Availability, Access, Quality and governance of common lands thus determine rural sustenance in general and NBt CL in particular

Questions that arise

What is the normative frame through which one looks at the Commons question?
poverty reduction? ecological sustainability or democratic decision-making?

How do we assess benefits of Commons? Is the standard economic calculus appropriate? What might be better options for CPLR governance?

S1

Slide 7 S1 the institutional failure givign rise to high discount rates and thus leading to a tragedy of commons is overlooked; when economists take a high r in all cases.
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Case study of Karnataka State, India

Definition of Common lands: all land resources to which public or part of public have de facto joint access (even if not held as common property) - CPLR Our focus: rural state-owned lands (because in postcolonial India no community ownership or even management rights) Two major categories:
Legally forest lands, mostly forest, but Legally non-forest lands, mostly grazing, but

Tenure regimes in Karnataka CPLRs

Although state-owned, much variation in extent of rights granted, to whom, administered by, and physical status Access: from open-access to specific groups to individuals to temporarily no-access Rights: from firewood & grazing to MFPs to timber Control: RD, FD, RD+FD Physical status: from dense forests to tree savannas to pure grasslands to barren

u2

Slide 9 u2 thr dynamics of caste and class in granting access : could be that lands to which access is caste specific (burial grounds, wells tank shores etc) may be class free and where access is completely open, money and political power provide access (beaches). The former appears to be better protected
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Physical extent of Karnataka CPLRs

Significant variation in per village extent, for both eco-climatic and historical reasons Shared commons across villages Significant decline in area over time Official figures do not reflect encroachments Nevertheless, ~10,000 villages with significant (>50ha) CPLR area

Percentage of various land use categories in different regions of Karnataka (Approximate CPLR extent)
Particulars Coastal and Mixed/Transit Ghat ional TGA 2004 Permanent Pastures 1986 1996 2004 Forests 1986 42.16 15.09 5.49 7.56 1996 42.14 15.08 5.54 7.56 2004 43.09 16.92 5.77 8.61 Permanent Fallows and Cultivable Wastes 1986 5.44 3.40 3.31 7.09 1996 5.06 3.79 3.35 5.98 2004 5.03 4.73 3.02 6.29 Cultivated Area and Current Fallows 1986 28.08 67.07 80.88 57.93 1996 28.36 67.19 80.54 59.76 2004 27.34 62.99 80.93 59.81 Source: Based on land utilisation data from Dept. of Economics and Statistics, GOK Table design based on Nadakarni (1990) 16.09 16.08 16.12 9.39 8.58 8.53 4.38 3.49 3.79 1.79 1.72 1.70 11.10 9.66 7.96 5.94 5.27 5.00 20.15 19.32 36.83 23.69 100.00 Regions Northern Maidan Southern Maidan State Total

4.56 4.39 4.70

60.94 62.26 61.17

Land Tenure type

Land use type Access (DES 9 fold)

Controllin Rights g dept. Fuel wood, fodder for self. cons. MFP , timber etc (FD/Contractors) Fuel wood, fodder for self. cons. MFP (RD)

Defacto situation

Location

Minor Forests Forests (RF)

Largely open FD

Rights curtailed someUK times, govt. allots housing sites Significant fractions DK encroached, otherwise degraded

Assessed Waste Lands

Misc.Trees & Groves, Pastures, Barren? Forests (PF)

Largely open RD

Soppina Bettas of UK

Private or groups of households

FD+RD

Fuel wood, fodder for self. cons. MFP (FD). Pepper cultivation allowed Fuel wood, fodder for self. cons. MFP (FD), but sold privately too. Pepper cultivation allowed Fuelwood, fodder, leaves, timber, MFP Fuelwood, fodder

Soppina Pastures, Private or Bettas of CM, Forests, groups of SHM misc.trees and households groves Haadis of DK, Misc trees & Udupi groves, forests, Gomaals Private or groups of households

RD

Varies from dense UK trees to tree savanna to pure grassland. Some joint patches are divided Vegetation varies. CM, SHM Some joint patches have been divided

RD+FD

Significant tree cover, DK, Udupi but some is cashew plantation Barren except if Most brought under Social districts Forestry; often allotted for developmental projects without

Pastures, Largely open RD Barren?, Misc.Trees and groves

Physical status of Karnataka CPLRs

(apart from encroachments and conversions)

collective use / open access confines to lake shores, burial grounds tree plantationsu3 hurt local livelihoods (and watersheds) in grazing lands visible productivity decline in forest lands under private management long-term sustainability - not likely

Slide 13 u3 social forestry and biofuel plantations

user, 1/11/2011

Cultivation on sloping erstwhile gomaal land

Kanvihalli (Harappanhalli taluka, Davangere dist)

Mining and cultivation in sloping gomaals

(Holalkere taluk, Chitra Durga)

Reasons for degradation

Mismatch of interests:
local vs state E.g. social forestry plantations of pulpwood; private vs common, landed vs landless/pastoral

Fuzziness of land records Social conflicts as barriers to collective action

Alternate explanations
Declining local dependence
Agricultural modernizationreduced use of draught animals, of organic manure, etc Reduction in livestock levels Abandoning agriculture

Alternative uses increasing in value

Wind power Quarrying/mining Urbanization

Indirect services are increasing in value; changing dependence Institutional/ governance failure causing free rides & high discount rates

Problem of measurement of dependence/value

Based on current condition of CPLR (mostly degraded) Based on limited access rights (e.g., no right to timber) or limited disposal rights (e.g., regulated NTFP markets) Based on poor information on indirect local services (e.g., pollination, long-term benefit of organic manuring, recharge patterns) Based on poor articulation of womens needs Dependence argument not relevant in the context of concern for democratization S4

Slide 18 S4 instituional failure hiking the discnt rate is overlooked and interpreted often as poor wont use sustianbly
Seemap, 12/28/2011

New approach to CPLR governance

Multiple normative concerns requires a multi-layered approach Focus on democratic governance and equity rather than specific physical outcomes 1st step: Rights reform in favour of landless and pastoral nomads 2nd step: Decentralization to hamlet level (for equitable democratic decisions) 3rd step: Regulatory powers at district-level (reflect concerns of larger social-ecological landscape) Land for distn - from ceiling pvt lands (Land acquisition laws do the opposite); CPLRs not to be taken as land banks

Questions that remain

For Policy and Institutions: adaptive efficiency
how to balance democratic, decentralized management with equitable benefits and conservation ?

For Academics: look beyond the blurring dichotomies present vs future (discount rates), local vs global (scale) or ecological vs social (strong vs weak sustainability) impacts