Master thesis

3.3Method

This study represent social, agro-ecological, climatically and agrarian systems in the arid and semi-arid Rajasthan. Both Qualitative and quantitative data was collected through research instrument developed for this purpose during field work. The research relies on the active participation of the communities and local NGOs. In selection of the villages care have been taken to uses villages that represent the larger situation within the Districts such as socio-economic aspects, a high percentage of the population is Tribal or from Scheduled castes/tribes, past history of encroachment and to capture different types of common land.

The status of degradation of the natural resources within the regions cannot directly be compared due to the difference in climate but the management systems of the CPRs are comparable across the state and experiences from the local governance in one region can be learned from and used as an example in other regions, even though the environmental conditions are different.

Case Studies: Data collection and case studies have been conducted in seven villages in Rajasthan, in three different districts: Udaipur, Jaisalmer and Alwar; two villages in Udaipur, two in Jaisalmer and three in Alwar district. These three districts each represent a different agro-climatic and socio-political area within Rajasthan and will provide a state-wide insight to the CPRs and give a basis to generalize. The selection of villages was guided by the presence of local co-operators to help in the field work, in terms of local understanding, translation of the local dialect to Hindi and English as well as the logistic requirements have been a force to be reckoned with.

Udaipur district has a long history of local NGO work in the villages, in the case of Seva Mandir over 40 years, as well as the Joint Forest Management (JFM) project are found in many villages in Udaipur district. Jaisalmer has little to no NGO activity and the typography is completely dominated by the desert. The area size of the CPRs in Jaisalmer and the distance from village to village is another feature that brings a new aspect to the study. The study villages in Alwar were selected in relation to the Sariska Tiger Reserve to bring the conflict between traditional rights and modern wildlife and forest management to light. Alwar has a fairly long history of NGO work as well, but the main feature is the open conflict between villages and the government Forest Department and the cases of relocation of villagers out of the reserve forest.

Each village has been surveyed through walks of the CPR to give a visual estimate of the situation, land records and maps from each village have been compared to the field findings, and an interview based on Elinor Ostrom’s management principals was conducted in order to understand the local management systems and traditions, the importance of the local CPRs and the user- and access rights of the village commons.

NGO: The field work was done in cooperation with Seva Mandir, a non-profit organization located in Udaipur City. Seva Mandir has been working in the Adivasi³¹ belt in Udaipur District since the 1970s. The organization has been working with the marginalized tribal population through various natural resource management efforts such as, Agriculture, watershed development, afforestation on private and common lands, and through Joint Forest Management on forest lands³². Seva Mandir´s work in the field of natural resources is based on the premise that, improvement in the natural resource base leads to improvement in the land-based livelihood of the tribal communities³³.

Maps and land records

The land records (as of 1985) and land-use maps were obtained upon request from the Revenue Department of Rajasthan state. The villages were visited together with a village contact from local NGO’s to determine the status of all non-private lands compared to the land-use maps and records. The visited lands include pasturelands, revenue wastelands and barren and uncultivable lands.

Data compilation and representation

The recorded data fall into the following categories:

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  Total area (ha) (from land record)
  
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  State of grazing: open, closed (based on visual inspection for boundary walls)
  
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  Total area unoccupied (ha) (based on visual estimate)
  
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  Area of encroachment (ha) (based on visual estimate)
  
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  Age of encroachment: an estimate obtained from local stakeholders when available
  
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  Use of encroachment: (H) houses on encroached land, (A) agricultural field, (W) wasteland, (L) livestock enclosures, (U) unenclosed livestock areas (open for grazing)
  
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  State of vegetation: well-vegetated (WV), sparse (S), scrub vegetation (SV) (based on visual estimate)
  

Village interview

The management practices for the project have been researched on the basis of a questionnaire developed in reference to the guidelines of Elinor Ostrom³⁴. E. Ostrom identifies eight design principles of stable common resource management³⁵. These eight principles are:

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  Clearly defined boundaries (effective exclusion of external unentitled parties)
  
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  Rules regarding the appropriation and provision of common resources are adapted to local conditions
  
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  Collective-choice arrangements allow most resource appropriators to participate in the decision-making process
  
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  Effective monitoring by monitors who are part of or accountable to the appropriators
  
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  There is a scale of graduated sanctions for resource appropriators who violate community rules
  
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  Mechanisms of conflict resolution are cheap and of easy access
  
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  The self-determination of the community is recognized by higher-level authorities
  
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  In the case of larger common-pool resources: Organization in the form of multiple layers of nested enterprises
  

The last point of these design principles will not be part of the analysis as it applies to much larger scenarios than the village commons in Rajasthan. This could apply to the governance of CPRs in India in relation to the federal state´s policy, state policy and local/district policy.

These principals have undergone slight modification by Ostrom and Janssen in Working Together: Collective Action, the Commons, and Multiple Methods in Practice (2010), to include a number of additional variables believed to affect the success of self-organized governance systems, including effective communication, internal trust and reciprocity³⁶, and the nature of the resource system as a whole.

In order to get a more comprehensive understanding of the CPR’s in the villages, some sub-questions have been added. This is also done in order to turn the questionnaire closer to a real conversation, and thereby, simplifying and breaking up the questions into two or more sub-questions. Altering the way of asking, to the perspectives of the interview group(s), such as questions concerning dependency and leadership issues proved beneficial for the research. Both in order for the interview group(s) to fully understand the aim of the question and in order to bring the, sometimes technical questions, into the village sphere. The aim was to get more natural answers through, enhancing the villagers understanding of the project aims and increased their trust in the project and the researchers. Sometimes, to get a specific answer, a question focus point was approached from several different perspectives and asked in different ways, such as aspect of leadership, encroachment and dependency on the Commons.

The Questionnaire based on Ostrom’s principals

1. 
   What are the common property resources in the village and how are they used?
   

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  Is there a clear understanding of the boundaries around the CPR’s and boundaries in relation to who has access to the resources (user and/or owner right conflicts)
  
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  Are there any conflicts over access to the CPR, both internal (village) and external (between villages)
  
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  Overlap between village and resources location
  

2. 
   Who defines the boundary, rules, sanctions and access right of the CPRs?
   

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  Leadership, corruption, conflicts and familiarity with changing external environments
  
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  The homogeneity of identities, social norms and interests within the village
  
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  Social/economic independence between the different groups
  

3. 
   What are the main purposes of the CPRs in the village? (Grazing, fuel wood, timber, etc.)
   

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  What is the general level of dependence upon the CPR
  
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  Fairness in allocation of resources
  

4. 
   What is the role of administrative authorities in protecting the CPRs?
   

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  In relation to locally constructed rules of access and management
  
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  The ease of implementing and in enforcing sanctions.
  
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  The process of implementation and institutional management
  

5. 
   What are the methods applied by villagers for improvement of the CPRs?
   

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  Level of sanctions
  
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  Accountability in following the rules/norms
  
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  Past successful management experience
  

6. 
   Who play the pivotal role in the development of CPRs and what is the level of participation in decision making?
   

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  Decision making is independent from external governance
  
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  Accountability of officials towards the community
  

7. 
   What is the source of water in the village and how it is maintained?
   
8. 
   What are the institutions for development activities in the village and what is their role in the same?
   

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  Levels of aid/compensation from external governance to the community for conservation activities.
  
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  Local levels of assigning the process, provisions and general self-governance
  

9. 
   What are the coping mechanisms used by the villagers in difficult situations?
   

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  Change in conduct and management in times of drought and other hard situations.
  

10. 
    What is the cropping season in the village?
    

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  Relation between harvesting and the regeneration in the resources
  

Limitations: The case studies will only represent three different agro-climatic regions in Rajasthan, although these three represent different cases in regards to climatic, cultural, topography and law -related impacts on the CPR's, they do not represent the state as a whole, but will give a fairly good understanding of the state. Within the district 2-3 villages have been selected for the study, although they were selected due to certain parameters, such as tribal population, they are not representing the district as a whole and cases of success and failure could have been overlooked. But due to time limitation and the sheer expanse of the state of Rajasthan, the districts and the areas of CPRs themselves, districts and villages were selected.

Regarding the land records and maps there are some limitations both due to the fairly old records (1985), in some cases no representative from either the Forest Department or the Revenue Department had visited and adopted the land records in a village for over 50 years, and due to the use of on-site estimations. The use of GPS was not available, which in use with Google Earth could have provided specific and exact land records.

Topography limitations: Due to the steep mountains, forest and sheer size of the areas it was not always possible to walk or view the entire area to estimate the situation. The walks of the areas was in those cases planned to cover most of the area and to include specific sites, such as water conservation efforts, areas of conflict and sites with a good overview of the area in order to make a valid estimate of the status.