Managing common pool resources

Common Pool Resources (CPRs) (or natural resources used by people in common) constitute a significant proportion of the earth's total endowment. Most such resources, as everyone's cradle and nobody's baby, are over-exploited and neglected, subject to what Garrett Hardin in 1968 expressively termed the 'tragedy of the commons'. India has nearly 100 million hectares of common pool land, about 30 million hectares of common pool forests, and the bulk of its water resources and fisheries are CPRs. Their restoration and management is crucial to the well-being of millions of the rural poor who…