Question

1. What happened to the English village commons, and what are the lessons for managing common property resources?

Answer 1

English village commons is a green land or common grassland for grazing with a ponds of watering for cattles and other stocks. Suppose there are two cattles using the graze of a common place, one cattle is used major portions of the place for grazing that means overexploitation of common resources. That resources can also used for other cattles.. But here the owner of the cattle for his self interest use major share the resources. Similarly urbanisation and modernization will destruct the village green common area.

Common property resources (CPR)

CPRs are the natural resources collectively owned and managed by the society or community rather than any individual in the society. In other words It's not a private good. Its a public good. For example : public park, fishing grounds, forest etc. But CPR is entirely different from open access. CPR is regulated and the latter is unregulated. The over use of common resources lead to many economic problems that is the self interest of the user destruct the resources in the long run."tragedy of commons"is an example of this.

We can manage common property resources by the following forms

1. Group boundaries must be clearly defined.

2. Monitor and match the rules which governs the use of common property resources to local needs

3. Make sure that the rules affected people can participate by modifying rules.

4. Ensure that the rules making power of the community should be from the outside authorities.

5. Over exploitation of resources for self interest should be curtailed.