Regeneration and sustainable management of CPRs can contribute to increased benefit for the livestock‐dependent poor

Based on two Good Practice Notes

• INGP31: Community Ownership and Institutional Mechanisms to Develop CPRs' and Enhance Livelihoods  - The Kavalas way;
• SAGP13: Securing Community Tenure over Common Lands.

Decentralized, collective and sound management of CPRs‐livestock leads to three major impacts, which are recurrent throughout both the above mentioned GPs.
• Increased fodder availability, in both quantity and quality all over the year. For example, in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, the average standing tree biomass in regenerated commons averaged 53 ton/ha versus 20 ton/ha in non‐regenerated CPRs.
• Increased water availability, in terms of both spread and time. In Thoria village, Rajasthan, water levels in open wells increased by around 10 feet following CPR regeneration; in the Ladwan watershed of Madhya Pradesh, water levels were found higher in 63 out of the 83 wells surveyed,
• Increased people’s capacity to manage CPRs, such as shown by the variety of organisations and institutions which have been formed by CPR users and non‐users alike.

Depending on the agro‐climatic conditions and the socio‐institutional framework, good CPRs‐livestock management can also bring about positive spill‐over effects, such as:
• environmentally responsible management practices on private land parcels and other common properties (e.g. road side grasses; ponds),
• diversification of household livelihood portfolio, including changed number and type of farm animals,
• bio‐diversity conservation and regeneration, such as saving endangered species and reviving traditional crops and tree species/ flora.

Priority areas of investments for CPR development pertain to three domains:
a) Bio‐physical investments, i.e. interventions which are necessary to regenerate and sustain the increased productivity of CPRs;

Learnings

The lesson is that programs aiming to improve fodder production and productivity should make biophysical investments in CPR namely in land demarcation, and soil and water conservation measures, whereby giving adequate appreciation to appropriate / traditional technology and know‐how. The costs and returns to these investments can be calculated ex‐ante.

b) Social‐institutional investments, i.e. actions which help local people to establish organizations and institutions, namely the rules and regulations which provide incentives / disincentives to users (and non‐users) of CPRs;

Learnings

The lesson is that CPR programs should be people centred whereby institutions can facilitate collective decision‐making, access to know‐how, technology options etc. Thus, CPR programs should avoid being prescriptive but only provide the broadest thrusts. It is best left to local people, local government bodies and facilitating agencies to figure out what are the most appropriate institutions / methods to facilitate broad‐based participation and collective decision‐making in a given context.

A problem for program design is that whereas the cost of establishing some institutions can be calculated ex‐ante, it is difficult to budget the time and resources necessary to capacitate and empower those institutions in order for them to perform their role effectively.

c) Facilitation investments, i.e. actions which allow and enable local people and
authorities to appreciate the importance of CPRs for livestock production and start
working on their regeneration and management.

Learnings

The lesson is that CPR programs should allocate part of their budget to seemingly peripheral activities, which are critical for the efficacy of both bio‐physical and socio‐institutional investments. It is in fact fundamental that users are taken on board from the very beginning and that both users and non‐users fully appreciate the potential positive impact on CPR development on fodder production and productivity and, in general, on livestock sector growth. Budgeting for such tangential activities is however difficult, as many options are available which have to be further tailored to local
circumstances.

The policy lessons are that programs/schemes should be built around an appropriate combination of investments in these three domains =bio‐physical, social‐institutional, facilitation=, which only ensures the regeneration and sustainable management of CPRs‐livestock.

For more details, Download the full document Drawing Policies, Programs & Institutional Lessons out of Good Practices: “Common Property Resources - Livestock”. (550KB)