Institutional Development for Local Management of Rural Resources Anis A

Institutional Development for Local Management of Rural Resources Anis A. Dani, Christopher J.N. Gibbs, and Daniel W. Bromley THE INTERNATIONAL CENTRE FOR INTEGRATED MOUNTAIN DEVELOP• MENT (ICIMOD) was established in 1981, based upon an agreement between His Majesty's Government of Nepal and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The Centre was inaugu• rated in December 1983 and began its professional activities in September 1934. The Centre is located in Kathmandu, Nepal, as an autonomous, interna• tional organization with regional membership from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Burma, China, India, Nepal, and Pakistan. The chief objective of ICIMOD is to promote integrated mountain develop• ment in the Hindu Kush-Himalaya, which means seeking comprehensive ap• proaches to reconciling socioeconomic needs with environmental harmony and productivity. This region, the largest mountain area in the world, directly sustains 100 million people; the population of the adjacent river basins and plains is estimated to be 350 million. The specific objectives of the Centre are multidisciplinary documentation and information dissemination, training and applied research, and provision of consultative services on resource management and development activities.

THE AGA KHAN RURAL SUPPORT PROGRAMME (AKRSP) is a private, nonprofit company, established by the Aga Khan Foundation to help improve the quality of life of the villagers of northern Pakistan. It was established in 1982 with a mandate to focus on income generation in collaboration with government departments, elected bodies, national and international develop• ment agencies, and commercial institutions. Although AKRSP's own em• phasis is on income generation, it is also expected to assist other agencies in promoting social sector programs. AKRSP is expected to perform as a catalyst for rural development so that the company itself can withdraw from the project area, as local structures are gradually developed to sustain the development process. AKRSP works in Gilgit and Baltistan districts of the Northern Areas and in Chitral District of the North West Frontier Province, Pakistan. These three districts have a combined population of 750,000, living in more than 1,000 villages scattered over 70,000 square kilometers. The region is rugged and heavily mountainous at the intersection of four of the world's highest moun• tain ranges—the Himalaya, Karakorum, Pamir, and Hindu Kush. All of the region is above 1,200 meters with numerous peaks above 7,000 meters. The population of the region embraces three Islamic traditions, and five local lan• guages are spoken. A century ago, the region was the flash point of Asia; today it is the northernmost boundary of Pakistan with Afghanistan to the north and west, China to the north and east, and India to the south. INSTITUTIONAL DEVELOPMENT FOR LOCAL MANAGEMENT OF RURAL RESOURCES

INSTITUTIONAL DEVELOPMENT FOR LOCAL MANAGEMENT OF RURAL RESOURCES

by Anis A. Dani, Christopher J.N. Gibbs, and Daniel W. Bromley

This report is based on presentations and discussions at the workshop held in Gilgit, 19-24 April 1986. Cosponsored by the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development, Kathmandu, Nepal; the East-West Environment and Policy Institute, Honolulu, Hawaii 96848, USA; and the Aga Khan Rural Support Programme, Pakistan.

East-West Environment and Policy Institute Workshop Report No. 2 1987

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments vli

Overview and Rationale 1

Hill and Mountain Areas 2 The Aga Khan Rural Support Programme 4 Gilgit and the Northern Areas 4 Goals, Objectives, and the Workshop Process 8 Workshop Design 10 Structure 12

What Makes Common Property Regimes Efficient Managers of Hill and Mountain Resources? 13

Defining Common Property Regimes 14 Membership, Rights, and Duties in Common Property Regimes . 16 The Dynamlos of Common Property Regimes 19 Functions of Common Property Regimes 21 Evaluating Common Property Regimes 23

Field Trip and Discussions 24

Group Discussions 27 Ethical Implications 34 Feedback on the Field Trip Process 35

Conolusion 37

Tasks of Common Property Regimes and Their Performance 38 Priorities for Research 40 Strategy of the Workshop 43

Appendices:

A. Summaries of Presentations 45 B. List of Participants 57

References 59

v

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We would like to thank a number of people who made the Gilgit workshop a success and who made the preparation of this report possible. First, we must thank the members of all three sponsoring organizations for their active support and successful collaboration in bringing together participants from Asia and America to the Northern Areas of Pakistan. We particularly thank the Aga Khan Rural Support Programme (AKRSP), our hosts in Gilgit. We would like to acknowledge their useful contribution in enabling participants to understand the intricacies of their program and in making the workshop and this report possible. Second, we must thank those people who helped to prepare the report, in particular the chairs of the four working groups: Nek Buzdar, Michael Dove, Ram Yadav, and Robert Yoder. Material from their summaries has been incorporated directly into the main text. Presentations by participants are summarized In Appendix A of this report. We would also like to thank Hermann Kreutzmann, Lecturer of Geography, Free University, West Berlin, for his permission to reproduce the map of Hunza-Nagar. We are grateful to the participants of a June 1986 seminar at ICIMOD in Kathmandu, where feedback on the workshop and the workshop process were provided. Special thanks are also due the secretarial and editorial staff of the East-West Environment and Policy Institute in Honolulu, Laura Miho and Helen Takeuchi, for their oareful work. Finally, we must thank the AKRSP1s Village Organizers, Mohammad Iqbal and Noor Mohammad, who introduced us to the villagers of Hunza and Nagar. To these villagers we owe the greatest debt of all for generously sharing with us their time, experience, and many details of their daily lives in the mounts!ns.

vli

OVERVIEW AND RATIONALE

Resources provide benefits for people, and institutions in the form of property rights establish people's claims to resouroes. Based on property rights, organizational arrangements evolve to articulate individual and collective entitlements. In rural Asia the resources of most Importance are natural resources, including land for cultivation, water for irrigation, and pasture land and forests as sources of fodder and fuel. In coastal areas, fisheries close to the shore may be added to this list. These are all renewable resources in the sense that they may yield a continuous stream of benefits over time if appropriately managed.

Responsibility for managing renewable resources rests with the resource "owners" who may be individuals or groups, private or public When private property is recognized, the identity of the "owner" and the rights of "ownership" are usually unambig• uous. However, in rural Asia many renewable resouroes are collectively owned and managed in a variety of ways, and complex forms of individual and group property coexist. To outsiders especially, resource ownership may appear to be far from clear, and rights to own, possess, and use resouroes by individuals and groups may overlap. In many instances legal rights to ownership and actual use do not ooinclde. Complexity in property rights and the collective management of renewable resouroes are especially Important in hill and mountain areas. In these areas livelihood systems are typically based on the careful management of several integrated components, none of which may be especially productive. In particular, cropland, water, forest, and pasture are simultaneously managed as systems to produce food, fiber, energy, and forage. However, little is known about the institutional and organizational arrangements people employ to manage these resouroes. What are the arrangements? How are they applied? How well do they

1 2 perform? Can they be Improved upon? And what can we learn from them? In order to draw attention to these questions, a small workshop was convened in Gilgit, the headquarters of the AKRSP. The main purpose of the Gilgit workshop was to develop a framework for analyzing institutional arrangements for collective management of renewable resources at an operational level in a mountain region, to apply the framework in the field, and to develop implications and a research agenda for understanding Institutional change. The presence of AKRSP in the Northern Areas of Pakistan permitted the workshop to function in an area rioh in existing and new forma for resource management. A framework for analyzing these arrangements begins with the components of the ecosystem, which become resouroes when managed through Institutional rules and conventions to produce benefits for people. The interaction of people and resources creates a pattern of social and ecological outcomes that can be assessed, leading to further direct investment in the resource or Institutional and organizational change.

Hill and Mountain Areas By their very nature, hill and mountain areas are typically inaccessible and often remote. Hill people in Asia find themselves frequently on the periphery, at a distance from centers of power in the lowlands and often astride boundaries or on frontiers between powerful rivals. Hill and mountain areas may be characterized as seoondary regions that are economically, institutionally, and spatially marginal (Koppel 1981). This contrasts with primary regions focused around cities in the rich agricultural plains formed by river systems. In addition to marginality, a further characteristic of hill and mountain areas is their sooial and ecological diversity that contrasts with the relative homogeneity of the plains. Hill and mountain areas exhibit large changes over 3

relatively abort distanoes, both horizontally and vertically. Soil, rainfall, and temperature vary considerably with elevation and aspect, shaping both the natural and man-made environment. Mountain ecosystems and agricultural ecosystems also frequently tend to be unstable, unresillent, and of low productivity. As a result, mountain livelihood systems are often at the extensive margin of production! generating limited surpluses and subject to sudden shocks, maintaining mountain peoples In relative poverty. Politically, hill and mountain communities are often of low priority, being scattered, small in number, and beyond the effective reach of oentrallzed administrations. The fact that upland and mountain people include numbers of small tribes with distinot cultural and linguistic characteristics also serves to maintain their secondary status. While upland and mountain areas have served lowland economies as sources of forest products, minerals and water resouroes, upland people have often resisted incorporation Into lowland soolety. Muoh decision making about hill and mountain resources continues to take place in the lowlands without participation from the upland communities, although the incorporation of upland peoples into lowland societies is proceeding at an aooelerated pace. Incorporation of hill and mountain communities is characterized by processes of annexation and alienation that frequently result in underdevelopment (Dani 1986). Through annexation, hill and mountain cultures, economies, and societies become formally attached as secondary units to that of the plains, and through alienation people in the mountains become separated from the resources they formerly managed. The result is underdevelopment, the negative consequence of development actions designed primarily for the benefit of mainstream soolety or entire nation-states and the peoples of the plains whose interests they usually represent. Such undesirable consequenoes oan be avoided by consciously designing and implementing development programs aimed at 4

benefiting the rural poor. One suoh effort is that being carried out by the AKRSP in Northern Pakistan.

The Aga Khan Rural Support Programme AKRSP is a private, nonprofit organization seeking to Induce sustainable community-based economic development in the Northern Areas. The program was initiated in December 1962. The basic principles followed by AKRSP include establishing Village Organi• zations (VOs), providing assistance for productive physical infrastructures, and developing trainlng-extenslon-and-supplles infrastructures for continuous provision of agricultural services and for looal initiation of new projects by the VOs (Khan and Husain 1983)- The basic planning tool is the Diagnostic Survey, a series of diagnostic dialogues carried out with villagers. Planning is thus done Inductively (Uphoff 1982) and Is made location-specific (Coward 1985). For extension, AKRSP relies on Social Organization Units consisting of a Social Organizer and a Subenglneer who reoeive technical support from headquarters in Gilgit.

AKRSP is stimulating institutional innovations directly through the formation of VOs and indirectly through its facili• tating role, which enables VOs to invoke existing Institutions and oommon property regimes for managing land, water, and plant resources, as deemed appropriate by the villagers. The Northern Areas therefore provided an ideal location for a workshop on Institutional development in part because the evidence of exist• ing common property regimes Is still strong, and in part because, thanks to AKRSP, active institutional innovation is in progress. Before going on to discuss the workshop process, design, and structure, it will be useful to present a brief introduction to the field area where the workshop was convened.

Gilgit and the Northern Areas Gilgit is the administrative center of the Northern Areas, 5

610 km north of Rawalpindi-Islamabad on the Karakorum Highway. The Northern Areas lie on Pakistan's northern border with Afghanistan, China, and India (see Map 1). Soviet Central Asia Is also only 29 km away northward beyond the Hakhan Corridor. The Northern Areas are extremely mountainous, incorporating the westernmost limit of the Himalaya Range to the southeast, much of the Karakorum Mountains to the east, and the Hindu Kush to the west. The Karakorum alone contains 19 peaks exceeding 7,500 m lnoluding K2, the second highest mountain in the world (Staley 1982). The Indus River rises in Tibet 900 km to the east and flows through the Northern Areas before draining southward to feed the plains of the Punjab and Slnd. Through this region the Silk Route threaded its way, and among these mountains the legends of Shangrila are set even though the reality of life is harsh.

In deep valleys among high mountains, Northern Area villages are strung out like oases in high deserts. The villagers display a variety of ethnic origins, characteristic of the regions that border the Northern Areas in all directions. Some of these people came as travelers, some as invaders, and many as refugees from the foothills and plains. The result Is a diversity of racial, linguistic, and oultural groups who number approximately 750,000 people. Over this diversity rests the unifying force of Islam, but even in religious affairs, three major sects are represented: Sunnl, Shla, and Ismail1. Climatically the Northern Areas exhibit a dry continental Mediterranean climate with significant variation in temperature and precipitation caused by altitude and topography similar to parts of Nevada in the United States and the eastern side of the southern Andes in Chile and western Argentina (Vhiteman 1985)* Average temperatures range from -12°C in January to 35°C in July, with high summer temperatures accentuated by the effect of the mountain mass. Rainfall reaches only 100 to 200 mm/year in most areas at 1,000 m above sea level, but these levels can be doubled 6

Map 1. Project area of Aga Khan Rural Support Programme (adapted from Staley 1982).

7 at 3>000 m. Most precipitation actually falls as snow. Glaoiol- ogists estimate that above 6,000 m the equivalent of 2,000 mm of rainfall ocours in the form of snow. It is in fact the high mountain snowfall that sustains human settlements in the valleys when glaciers and snow melt and where streams and springs arise. Farming systems are based on a combination of annual crops, tree crops, and livestock typical of mixed mountain agriculture. The'major annual crops are wheat, maize, and barley, which are inoluded in double-cropping systems with peas, turnips, and potatoes up to about 1,850 m (Vhlteman 1985). Above this alti• tude, double cropping becomes marginal and single cropping extends from 2,300 to 3t300 m. Wheat is the preferred staple and is a major crop in the double- and single-oropping zones. Maize is a significant crop in the transition zone, but at altitudes above 2,500 m, it is replaced by wheat In combination with barley. Tree crops lnolude apricots, almonds, and apples grown inside villages and on lower valley slopes as sources of food and cash. Like grains, pulses, and root crops, fruits and nuts are stored for winter use.

Livestock kept include goats, sheep, cattle, donkeys, horses, and poultry. Yaks are maintained at elevations above 3,000 m. Winter forage for livestock Is grown in the form of alfalfa in irrigated fields close to settlements and provided from crop residues. However, during the cropping season most livestock are taken to meadows in the mountains where they remain until the harvest is in. Livestock are largely unimproved and numbers tend to be larger and more important in areas at higher elevations where crop production possibilities are more limited. During the harsh winter months, livestock conditions tend to decline progressively and some animals are slaughtered to match livestock numbers to fodder availability. Meat, which is only occasionally eaten in summer, becomes available in winter. Because cultivable land and irrigation water are scarce, crop production is limited. Overall productivity of the farm 8

system, however, is high. Farmers of the Northern Areas have learned to manage a limited array of resources to create sub• sistence from an Interdependent and closely balanced set of enterprises. Inoluded In these resources are alpine pastures and forests managed collectively, privately owned arable lands, and irrigation systems, which are developed and managed collectively by villagers through oommon property regimes. Because of population pressure and limited economic opportu• nity, there is considerable emigration of male workers to urban centers in the plains, particularly to Peshawar, Islamabad, and Karachi, a few even finding their way to the Middle East. An increasing number of males hold government Jobs while significant cash incomes come from seasonal wage labor in agriculture, con• struction, and trekking, in addition to work in growing townships within' the districts. Few rural families contain male members who have not engaged in wage labor away from home.

Goals, Objectives, and the Workshop Process Significant levels of human and financial resouroes are now being invested by national and International organizations In the management of rural resouroes in Asia. In particular, attention has recently been turned upstream into hill and mountain areas in programs and projeots focused on forestry development, watershed management, and fragile lands. Stimulus for these Important efforts frequently originates from conoerns for the biophysical effects of deforestation, soil erosion, and hydrologic changes on downstream populations through Impacts on irrigation, power generation, flood control, and trade in primary products. How• ever, efforts to address these Issues tend to run quickly into institutional and organizational questions that become stumbling blocks for program design and Implementation. All too frequently institutional and organizational arrangements for rural resouroe management in hill and mountain regions are given limited atten• tion or are based upon models imported from the lowlands where 9

patterns of property rights tend to be simpler and more predict• able. In hill and mountain regions, property rights and resource management tend to be complex and Introduced patterns frequently confllot with those that preexist. Against this background, the goal of the Gilgit workshop was to Increase our understanding of institutional and organizational arrangements for managing renew• able resouroes as common property in hill and mountain areas, with an Initial focus on the Hindu Rush-Himalaya Region. Common property regimes, like other management systems, can be conceptualized at three levels—an operational level of sanc• tions and incentives for resource management, an organisational level structuring the regime and Its members, and a policy level determining the purpose, mandate, and limits of the regime. By looking at the operational level of sanctions and incentives and examining the institutional rules and conventions that link these three levels to each other, this exercise aimed at making a con• tribution to the polioy level, determining what is to be done. Specific objeotives of the workshop Inoluded:

• Developing a framework for institutional analysis of common property resouroe management systems in hill and mountain areas.

• Testing the framework by application to specific renewable resouroe management issues in the Northern Areas.

• Establishing an agenda for systematic research and testing across a number of resources in the Hindu Rush-Himalaya Region.

To meet these objectives, the workshop proceeded in five steps. The first step required the Identification of a small group of researchers from several disciplines interested in com• mon property management systems and actively engaged in applied rural social science research in the region. The second step required the assembly of this group in a place where institu• tional innovation for the management of renewable resources was 10 proceeding. Gilgit was chosen as It is the headquarters of the AKRSP, a private development agency actively engaged In Institu• tional development. The third step was the presentation and discussion of a framework for analysis of common property resouroe management systems and the application of this framework in the field to land development, irrigation management, commu• nity forestry, and livestock and grazing land management in the context of the AKRSP. The fourth step was the critical evalua• tion of the framework and feedback to AKRSP program managers in the light of field experience. The final step was the identifi• cation of a research agenda for Implementation by researchers in the region.

The workshop process, therefore, inoluded three interrelated activities: development of a framework for analysis, its rapid application in the field, and feedback for further refinement of conoepts and application to programs. Accomplishing these three tasks in a short space of time was made possible by access to, and cooperation from, AKRSP. The workshop attempted to develop a better understanding of the institutional rules defining rights, obligations, and access to resouroes and the organizations used by the looal population to manage resouroes in the Hindu Rush-Himalaya Region. The work• shop aimed specifically at testing the validity of the concept of common property regimes in the field and at identifying useful parameters for subsequent analysis. The long-term aim was to derive polioy Implications and practical conclusions for develop• ment.

Workshop Design Although workshops often bring together researchers and project implementors, they are rarely designed to integrate the two different perspectives. Implementors and researchers have a lot to offer each other. Unfortunately, development programs are often so concerned with Implementation that implementors feel 11 researoh may slow them down and may even hinder their work. They are also so involved in day-to-day matters within their rela• tively looalized field area that they rarely find time to sit baok and reflect on the overall direction of their programs. They do not often have easy aocess to comparative experience from programs being implemented elsewhere. When they do, they may feel the lessons learned elsewhere are not relevant to their field area.

Researchers, on the other hand, can be so removed from the realities of Implementation that their concerns remain theoret• ical or Impractical. Through fieldwork, comparative research, and analysis, researchers can be of assistance to development programs. However, unless they are closely involved in imple• mentation, they can only suggest what ought to be done and how It may be done. Years of hands-on experience leave implementors In a better position to Judge the feasibility of programs than scholars. When it oomes to implementation, the practitioners have the final word slnoe they are accountable for the results. Those directly involved in implementation are also in a muoh better position to receive feedback from the field and to make necessary adjustments accordingly. However, it is Imperative that the dlstanoe be narrowed between researchers and program Implementors. A second shortcoming of a number of resouroe management workshops organized In the region has been that field trips, when organized as part of a workshop, have often been conceived as sight-seeing tours aimed at familiarizing participants with the topography or culture of the area where the workshop happens to be convened, thereby reducing the participants to what has been called "eoo-tourists" (Fanday 1985)* Alternatively, the field trip has been organized as a guided tour of a project site, planned carefully to show the positive results of the project with very little, If any, opportunity provided for serious questioning or critical understanding of the issues involved. 12

This strategy is understandable from the viewpoint of the hosts who may be defensive about errors made and who may wish to use the opportunity to publioize their work. Such visits, however, make virtually no substantial contribution to the workshop or to the project visited. In fact they are not designed to do so. Rarely is the field trip an Integral part of the learning process of the workshop. The Gilgit workshop was consciously designed to take aocount of these two shortcomings. The two distinguishing features of this workshop thus were (1) the focus on a rural development projeot— AKRSP—as a case study for analysis, and (2) the close integration of the field trip into substantive concerns of the workshop.

Struoture Workshop participants came from different disciplines and with varying degrees of familiarity with the field area in which the workshop had been organized. They worked through the week with three different sets of knowledge: (1) the basic concepts necessary to understand the common property issues encountered in the field; (2) the nature of the AKRSP; and (3) the data encoun• tered during the field visits. The first two were presented on the opening day of the workshop, the second day being devoted to presenting other programs and common property issues from the region. The field visit conducted on the third and fourth days of the workshop had three purposes: (1) to familiarize participants with a range of common resouroe management regimes lying along an altltudinal gradient with diverse mioroecological and oultural conditions; (2) to provide the opportunity to apply, test, and refine the concepts introduced at the beginning of the workshop; and (3) to critically examine the common property regimes being established by AKRSP in the course of their development work. The last two days were devoted to reflecting over the field 13

experience and organizing field data for providing feedback to AKRSP, and to refining the conoepts for future research and 'application.

WHAT MAKES COMMON PROPERTY REGIMES EFFICIENT MANAGERS OF HILL AND MOUNTAIN RESOURCES?

Mountain agricultural systems in the Hindu Kush-Hlmalaya have evolved in relative isolation for many centuries. Contact with the outside world has been limited to trade in essential commodities such as salt or metals, or to warfare. Although trade between neighboring valleys was significant, by and large these societies have had to survive on their own. Subsistence agriculture in the mountains is not necessarily self-sufficient. Some communities directly exploit a series of micronlches or eoozones at different altitudlnal levels through agropastoral transhumance, while others specialize In agricul• tural or pastoral activities within particular zones, developing trade relations with those exploiting complementary zones (Rhoades and Thompson 1975:547). Symbiosis between specialized groups suoh as herders and farmers, or traders and farmers, is still evident but limited. With contemporary development, many of these communities no longer exist in isolation. Their Incorporation (Dani 1986) within national cultures emanating from downstream metropoles has many positive as well as negative effeots. One of the effeots is that local resouroe management institutions are being eroded and replaoed by others whose viability in those conditions is still untested and highly suspect. The special nature of mountain agroeoological systems has led to the development of a multiplicity of mechanisms for optimal utilization of these resources, based on the available technology and on conoomitant institutional rules developed for applying that technology. Some resouroes have been privatized 14 but many, for historical reasons or otherwise (efficiency, lower transaction costs, greater labor requirements), have been managed as common property. As modernization takes place many of these oommon property regimes are being ignored by development programs or questioned, to be replaced by privatization that is considered to be more efficient or more progressive. Tet, the fact that these regimes represent long-standing socioecological adaptations that have been culturally acceptable warrants a oloser look at their viability. The critical task is to begin searching for a conceptual and empirical understanding of common property regimes that have served and could, perhaps, continue to serve as effective means for managing mountain resources. A resource can be regarded as "something that offers a stream of benefits to humans over time" (Bromley 1986). An entity becomes a resouroe when people develop the physical ability to harness that benefit stream, and institu• tional arrangements are developed to define its management and control, and hence the nature and allocation of its benefit stream. In different places, or at different times of the year, resources may be controlled by individuals, households, or groups and the institutional arrangements may be complex.

Defining Common Property Regimes The essence of individual control over resouroes is that socially recognized and sanctioned rules and conventions exist that make clear who is the "owner" of the resouroe in question. The Individual's interest in a resouroe has been recognized as a olalm, and then has been given more formal identification as an entitlement. For example, although agricultural land in villages of the Northern Areas may be owned by anyone who participates in constructing the hydraulio system Irrigating that land, irrespec• tive of lineage or even religion, alpine pastures are owned by lineages. Villagers may grow potatoes, barley, and onions on small plots of land in these pastures but only members of the 15 owning lineage are entitled to do so and only with the consent of other members of the lineage. A collective good is defined as a resource that is managed and controlled by a group. Collective goods will have trans• action costs, that is, costs of (1) gaining information about the resouroe and what other users are doing with it; (2) reaching agreements with others In the group with respect to Its use; and (3) enforcing agreements that have been reached. In private property settings, the scope of these transactions Is established by the legal system and is paid for largely in oash. In group property settings, these costs are part of the collective decision-making process. Transaction costB in group settings are often concerned with assurance (Runge 1981) regarding the actions of others, and their tendency, or failure, to adhere to the arrangements that have been made. Adherence to a set of agreed-upon rules constitutes the collective good of the group; if there is full compliance the goals of the group as a management entity will be met, while if there is anarchy the goals are confounded. Within a group, two extreme forms of reciprocal behavior are possible: positive reciprocity where Individuals contribute to the collective good expecting other group members to do likewise, and negative reciprocity where individuals do not contribute because they expect others will not. Successful management regimes for shared resources can only persist if positive reciprocity characterizes the nature of group interaction and compliance. Conversely, group situations with negative reciproc• ity amount to the complete absence or breakdown of institutions for managing common property. This situation is found In extreme cases of open access referred to by Garrett Hardin (1968) in his oft-quoted paper and is quite different from common property situations prevalent in most of the Hindu Rush-Himalaya. Various claims on a shared resource are adjudicated and given formal protection by rules and conventions that bestow 16

entitlements on each decision unit. Sometimes shared claims are recognized by law. For example, the rights of villagers to use forest resources from reserved forests in the Northern Areas have been recognized in the Forest Laws of 1927 as concessions to 1 coals. Entitlements entail a socially recognized struoture of institutional arrangements that regulate individual behavior with respect to resouroe use. As such, institutions are at the core of group management regimes over renewable resources. Because property represents a secure claim or expectation over a future stream of benefits arising from a resouroe, such collective management systems can be referred to as common property regimes. A common property regime oonslsts of a well-defined and recognized group of users, a well-defined resource that the group manages and uses, and a set of institutional arrangements regulating its use. Enduring common property regimes may even formalize these relationships in the shape of an organizational struoture for system management, although such formal structures are not a necessary condition for the viability of these regimes. The literature has, in the past, referred to shared resouroes as common property resources. This usage Implies that certain resouroes are always managed in common. In fact, there are no "common property resources" Just as there are no "private property resources." Resources are simply managed as private property in one place, and as common property In another. To avoid such oonfuslon the term common property regimes (Bromley 1986) will be used when referring to common property situations.

Membership, Rights, and Duties in Common Property Regimes Institutional arrangements perform the same role in common property regimes that the underlying property grid Is said to perform in hydraulic systems (Coward 1985:7), a specialized common property situation. In hydraulio systems, people who invest in initial development and periodic maintenance acquire 17 entitlements to water that conform to a persistent pattern of property rights. In other common property regimes where a comparable initial investment may be absent, the mutual recognition of claims as entitlements and the acceptance of responsibilities toward the rights of other members and toward participation in maintenance of the regime create the notion of, and define, the property relationships. Under common property regimes, recognizing an individual's entitlement as a right implies the existence of corresponding duties on the part of others. Simultaneously, the existence of rights also creates a pattern of duties toward others. Three situations are possible. First, similar common property regimes may coexist in proximity with each other (e.g., managing adjacent alpine pastures). Although these regimes have restricted membership, since they are usually present to deal with resources common to that ecological zone, similar regimes are usually found in neigh• boring villages over considerable areas in the uplands. The viability of these regimes depends on a mutual recognition of each other's rights within their respective boundaries. Second, common property regimes dealing with different domains—land, water, forest, pasture—may be present In the same area. These regimes tend to be constitutionally different as well. They may or may not overlap with each other's boundaries, yet they must coexist. Both for similar and dissimilar common property regimes, the mutual recognition of rights is a necessity and creates duties on the part of others. During the field trip, participants observed that common property regimes are not solely confined to land under communal tenure. In the Northern Areas visited, all agricultural land and orchards are privately owned. let, as in a hill village in Uttar Pradesh (Moench 1966) and the Peruvian Andes (Mayer 1979)» resource use is characterized by interdependence and cooperative management. Common property regimes governing irrigation, summer 18

pasture use, and livestock management—particularly winter grazing of livestook on agricultural lands—curtail the freedom of individuals desirous of modifying existing cropping patterns. For example, in Hunza, the lower priority given to trees for irrigation water prevents people from replacing subsistence cultivation of wheat with more luoratlve but risky commercial fruit production. Agricultural innovations thus must take account of interdependent common property regimes if they are to be Integrated within the existing farming system. Third, some individuals or households may effectively be nonmembers in some or all common property domains. This may be because they never had membership (oaste specialization), have been excluded from membership as a punitive measure (repeated failure to participate in maintenance) or due to nonconformity with the membership orlterion (laok or loss of land or live• stock) , or have opted out of membership because the oost of participation outweighs the benefit to them in comparison- with other opportunities (e.g., alternative souroes of inoome). Unless the nonmembers are no longer using the resouroe that the regimes manage (i.e., unless they are completely out of the system), their nonmembership does not eliminate them from the web of rights and duties. It is In the interest of members of the regime to provide sufficient Incentives and, sometimes, even to apply sanctions to ensure that these nonmembers respect the domain of the regime. In some oases this may amount to co-opting oertain households within the common property regime even if they do not conform to the full-membership orlterion. Membership within common property regimes is not always equal. Some members may have junior rights in comparison with others. Responsibilities may or may not vary accordingly. The relative weighting of rights may vary not only between members but also between resources. For example, certain orops may have priority In water allocation while others may be relegated to a Junior status, or rights to different parts of a pasture may also 19 be divided among different speoiea of livestock. These grada• tions of rights may also vary seasonally, rotatlonally, or according to hydrologies! conditions. However, while the range and complexity of common property regimes found in the uplands have to be recognized, there is one common thread: The rules of the game—rights and duties—are known to members of the regime and to those In neighboring similar or dissimilar regimes as well as to nonmembers who are close enough to make an Impact on the regime's resouroes. In oontrast, open aooess regimes do not recognize anyone's olaim as a right. Consequently, there are no duties on the part of others. Individuals may use the resource in question but these actions amount to privileges that do not have corresponding duties. With a right an individual is protected against the claims of others by their duty. In turn the individual has duties toward the rights of others. An individual with privilege is free to do as he or she wishes sinoe the other party has no rights. An open aocess situation is one of mutual privilege and no rights, a situation uncharacteristic of common property regimes.

The Dynamics of Common Property Begimea The long-term viability of common property regimes depends on their ability to adapt to changing conditions. The patterns of interaction and the eventual nature and level of resource use will generate certain outoomes that, over time, will be regarded as "suitable" or "antlsooial" (i.e., not conducive to long-run success for the association). This assessment or evaluation of outcomes can be seen as an inquiry into the suitability of real• ized behaviors and thus ultimately as a concern for the accepted rules and conventions that are referred to as institutions. These rules and conventions create the Incentives and sanctions that both liberate and constrain individual and group behavior; they define opportunity sets for members of the group. 20

The result of the assessment process Is a constant effort to refine the ecosystem and the social system to provide the out• comes desired with the least possible commitment of scarce labor and oapital, broadly defined. Adjustments made in the ecosystem can be called "investments" and include the introduction of new techniques or the application of existing ones for improvements in the ecosystem, such as by improvements in the irrigation struoture. The seoond dimension of changes prompted by assess• ment of the regime involves institutional obange (i.e., ohanges In the rules and conventions that define patterns of interaction within the regime). When eoonomlo conditions change, or when values change, or when new technologies become possible, existing structures of entitlements (institutions) must be reevaluated to ensure that they are not antisocial. These entitlements may then be changed by mutual oonsent or by some interests within the group who are then said to exercise power over others within the group. Inter• ests over whom suoh power cannot be exercised are said to have Immunity against others. In practioe, changing Institutional rules in response to ohanges in the environment often requires entrepreneurial initiative and activism. Dynamic common property regimes attempt to co-opt suoh initiatives (the exercise of power) for the benefit of the group. Individual initiative is thus not always a divisive element. Viable preexisting common property regimes revise entitlements and related rules and conventions in a oollectively acceptable manner. Their acceptance by members of the group implies that all parties have benefited from the revision or, at least, that no member is significantly worse off than before. This situation prevails as long as the regimes are Immune to the power of external parties. When external parties such as the state exercise power over the regime's resouroes, these positive effects cannot be ensured because the decision-making unit is no longer confined to the members of the common property regime and 21 acceptanoe by the community Is no longer a valid criterion for the revision. That is why ignoring preexisting institutions may be counterproductive.

Functions of Common Property Beglmes Whether common property regimes are dedicated to managing a single resouroe or several resouroes, they will only be success• ful if they perform certain functions. First, membership in the group must be clearly specified, indicating who is a resouroe user and who is not, who is a decision maker about resouroe use, and how these roles will change over time. Some members may have higher priority access (senior rights) than others, and for some shared resouroes, acoess to benefits may change or rotate rapidly within a few days, or a single season. For others, access may change over a longer period from one year or generation to another. Some common property regimes will allow transfer of membership while others will not, and those that do allow it may restrict the scope of transfer to people In certain geographic areas, castes, or lineages. Second, it is the task of the regimes to formulate rules that define the limits and scope of the regime and the behavior of its members. To be most effective these rules must be clear, unambiguous, and predictable in their effects. In addition, some common property regimes will develop clear rules for how and when existing rules may be changed. A "constitution" may be developed specifying procedures for ohanglng rules and defining what con• stitutes agreement—unanimity or some form of majority. The rules for ohanglng the rules (polioy) will obviously differ both In their nature and in the means for obtaining deoisions regard• ing them, from the day-to-day application of rules (administra• tion) dealing with routine implementation matters. Third, a common property regime must address the question of the locus of control and authority with respect to other 22

decision-making units, including the individual, household, and lineage, other VOs, villages, and government entitles. Fourth, the common property regime will be required to set an agenda for both short- and long-run activities. In partic• ular, this will lnolude what may or may not be addressed by the group and whether the regime has a single purpose or is multi• purpose. Fifth, the common property regime must identify ways and means for obtaining compliance with group goals and objectives. This may include self-imposed Incentives and sanctions directed at members of the regime who exercise rights to the resouroe, and incentives and sanctions directed at outsiders who have duties to respect the rights of resource owners. Disputes may arise both within common property regimes and between user groups, such as In the competitive use of pasture or forest for supporting live• stock. Part of the process therefore must include a mechanism for dispute settlement. Sixth, common property regimes must define relations between groups: horizontally, between similar regimes; and vertically, between regimes that are functionally and constitutionally dis• similar, and between members of the regime and nonmembers. In practice these relations may be formally defined by the common property regime (de Jure) or remain unstated but historically accepted (de facto). In either case they have to be efficacious. Seventh, and finally, common property regimes need to make. dynamio adjustments in response to new opportunities, internal growth and ohanglng externalities, and to institutional disso• nance. Institutional dissonance occurs either when contradic• tions develop between technical possibilities and institutional rules or when two institutional rules contradict each other. Adjustments then must be made either through investments (tech• nical changes, or capital and labor Investments) or through institutional change. The exact nature of these seven functions will depend on the 23

nature of the regime and will also, most likely, be culture- specific. They will, however, all be present In some form in viable regimes. A proper understanding of these functions Is vital, even though the results may be location-specific. Assess• ing these functions to understand the relative efficiency of different regimes may not be easy and oould easily lapse into ethnocentrism.

Evaluating Common Property Regimes Regimes can be evaluated by a different set of criteria. Successful regimes will be characterized by (1) shared percep• tions of equity both in its operation and of outcomes; (2) fewer disputes and adequate mechanisms for dealing with them when they do arise, indicating group ooheslon and agreement with the means, as well as ends, of the regime; (3) the ability to deal with unexpected perturbations in the short run; and (4) the ability to deal with new scarcities, new problems, new priorities, and new teohnlcal and institutional Interventions of either a voluntary or an imposed nature over the long run. The purpose of this conceptual review has been to famil• iarize the readers with institutional arrangements and modes of institutional innovation, to sensitize them to the functions and performance criteria of common property regimes, and to enable them to distinguish between suitable and antisoolal outoomes. During the workshop, participants encountered a multitude of resource management systems organized as common property regimes. Some of these were vernacular, others had been organized by the AKRSP. The latter regimes are quite young and are still In the development process. The Institutional structure of these regimes at birth is different from the appropriate struoture as the regimes adapt to new situations and develop into mature regimes. In the early stages there is a lively process of ohange and adjustment stimulated by the entrepreneurial activity of village activists who appear to provide the key dynamic element 24 spearheading institutional Innovation. Subsequent interventions are necessary only when antisocial outcomes emerge. Workshop participants were encouraged to apply the foregoing concepts toward an understanding of the common property regimes they encountered during the field trip. The next section is the outoome of that exercise.

FIELD TRIP AND DISCUSSIONS

The workshop was conducted in Gilgit, the headquarters of AKRSP, and the field trip was organized in the Gilgit District, which is one of the three districts covered by AKRSP. Five villages (Chatorkhand, Sumayr Khal, and Broshal in Nagar; and Khaibar and Aliabad in Hunza), each representing a different common property regime, were selected for field visits (see Map 2). Although all these villages have a mixed agropastoral eoonomy, there is considerable variation among them. The altitude varies from slightly more than 2,000 m at Aliabad and Chatorkhand to nearly 3,000 m at Broshal. Accordingly, the villages are located along a continuum from the double- to the single-cropping zone with progressively greater dependence on livestock.

Cllmatlo conditions vary considerably by aspect and alti• tude. In general, Nagar gets more precipitation than Hunza and, faoing north, also retains moisture longer. This also accounts for a later spring in Nagar than at equivalent altitudes in Hunza. Natural vegetation—forests and pastures—is more abundant in Nagar than in Hunza. To meet their fuelwood and timber needs, villages in Hunza have to maintain irrigated forest and fruit plantations, which also make an important contribution to their diet. Consequently, vegetation is more regular and visibly the result of human endeavor in Hunza. Farmers in Hunza have smaller landholdings than in Nagar. To compensate for 25

Map 2. Field area covered by workshop participants (adapted from Kreutzmann 1986; reprinted with permission).

26 harsher conditions, cultivation is also more intensive in Hunza. There is a sharp altitudinal gradient as villages looated higher have a later spring and earlier autumn. At the time of the workshop, spring was virtually over in Gilgit (1,454 m), apricot and almond blossoms were in full bloom in Chatorkhand and Sumayr Khal but were Just beginning at Broshal. Walnuts were just beginning to bud in Chatorkhand and were still dormant at higher altitudes. In Hunza, spring was well underway In Aliabad but was Just beginning in Khalbar. Starting from Gilgit and oovering these villages in two days were thus equivalent to spending half the summer at one site. Also, participants were able to get snapshot views of a number of microecological niches, which facilitated subsequent discussions.

The following description of the seleoted villages high• lights the salient common property regime focused on in each village. Although these common property regimes are not the only ones existing in Gilgit, for management of these resouroes, they are not unusual and were selected for consideration by the work• shop because they provide a good sense of the range of common property regimes to be encountered In the project area. Partici• pants were divided Into four working groups, each of which was assigned the task of Investigating one of these four common property regimes although, for comparative purposes, they were encouraged to look at the others as well. Each group was provided with a summary description of the villages investigated.

• Chatorkhand Is more concerned about its dwindling forest trees and about the need to expand and diversify its considerable stock of apricot and pear trees to inolude other more lucrative fruits, such as apples and pomegran• ates. With AKRSP assistance, the village has recently established a collective village nursery for this purpose. The village shares a oommon natural forest with five neighboring villages that is rapidly being depleted. Villagers are seeking help in afforestation and forest management.

• Broshal is a high altitude village with extensive alpine pastures. Livestock make the most Important contribution 27

to their economy. Transhumance Is supplemented by hay• making for winter consumption* which has to be done almost concurrently with wheat harvesting, and picking and drying of apricots for the winter. Effective mecha• nisms for -livestock and pasture management are needed to ensure efficient use of the short growing cycle and to ensure completion of these tasks before the first snow• fall when the livestock must be back in their winter stalls.

• Khaibar has recently constructed a 2.4-km-long irrigation channel with financial assistance from AKRSP. in order to develop 40 ha of old river terrace for cultivation. This land will be shared by all households of Khaibar. The land development process is being managed collectively under a new common property regime.

• Allabad is a relatively large village (501 households) with one major water source, the 01tor Glacier. This source is being tapped to the limit through several irri• gation channels (kuhl), which are being managed through a sophisticated Irrigation management system. The village still experiences water shortages and is now constructing a larger kuhl from another source, Hassanabad Nala, with AKRSP assistance.

• The fifth village, Sumayr Khal, was selected not because of its resource base but because the villagers had developed a new organizational struoture, which was an addition to the VO mobilized by AKRSP. The collective good here was the organizational struoture itself that had been assigned group functions beyond those of VOs elsewhere. Since this was an atypical oase, all groups were asked to look into this institutional development to see how they could relate it to their findings about the common property regimes assigned to them.

Group Discussions The working groups were provided with an opportunity to disouss their findings before presenting them to the plenary for open discussion. Some of the more Interesting observations made by the working groups that have implications for both AKRSP and a general audience are presented below.

Forestry Natural forests. With the shift of legal authority over the 28 forests from the Hlrs (looal rulers) to the national government, whose administration of these remote areas is not strictly enforced, administrative control over forest use has weakened. This situation has been exacerbated by the construction of new roads into the area, which has made commercial exploitation practical for the first time. AKRSP could make a valuable contribution by interceding with the government to return these forests to the status of locally held commons, to be managed by an organization—complete with enforceable sanctions—established by AKRSP. Suoh measures would be appropriate at least until the national forest department oan extend effeotive protection and management oontrol to them, if the forests are to survive the results of the incorporation process.

Farm forestry. The planting of trees on privately owned land is another activity in which AKRSP is already involved and perhaps should become more involved in the future. With apparently increasing out-migration in search of wage labor and with a corresponding deorease in Interest in traditional agri• culture In some areas, tree crops that protect tenure, require little labor, and yield a valuable return are likely to become more and more popular. Relevant research. The Impact of certain development aotlvitles, in particular tree planting, under common property regimes needs to be thoroughly understood. Given the increasing value of trees, people may start planting them on their cropland. What will this mean for the ourrent practice of opening such land to free grazing during the winter fallow? What will happen if the increasing value of trees leads to the planting of seedlings on communal pasture land? Since everyone agrees that planting a tree establishes ownership, this could lead to the division and privatization of the pasture. What would the impact of this be on the cultural ecology of the village? And would particular groups in the village lose out as a result of these changes? 29

Livestock

Pastures as ooipmnn prnperty. in the field areas visited, summer pastures can be characterized as the private corporate property of groups, which are managed as common property. In- depth studies of the rules and conventions regulating resouroe use in the commons are needed. In particular, the Impact of *AKRSP-sponsored VOs on traditional institutions needs to be examined. Binding constraint. The overuse of pastures appears not to have occurred because total livestock numbers are reportedly constrained by winter feed, which is privately owned. If this Is true, then It would appear that the common property regime has not been called upon to regulate resource use except in relation to the opening and closing of the grazing season. However, the regime has evolved rules for managing labor to tend herds and for distributing livestock products during the grazing period. The actual shortage of winter feed has to be understood in relation to labor availability, quantity of summer feed in the pastures, the livestock market, and the nature and oonditlon of animals being produced. As these change through AKRSP's intervention, the current binding constraint may no longer be the critical one, and the common property regime may have to perform additional resource management tasks if the system is to remain viable. • Developmental impact. The introduction of new techniques suoh as vaccination, artificial insemination, and feed/ nutritional Improvements will modify the equilibrium of the agricultural system. Problems may arise if these Induced secondary effects are not anticipated. Production techniques cannot be considered In isolation, and appropriate Institutional adjustments will be required. Pr©grammatically, there has to be a second generation of schemes to deal with such problems.*

•AKRSP now has a comprehensive Strategy Paper for its Second Phase. 30

Land Development The state and land management. The Northern Areas are dominated by an agropastoral economy. Land is central to the culture, custom, and tradition. However, the physical and institutional aspects of land are equally important and must evolve together. At present AKRSP is operating in a partial vacuum because of the absence of an effective public land policy. This will probably change soon with the growth in administrative capacity of the Northern Areas' government. While villagers can accept variation, the state prefers uniformity. The crucial question is, What is the future of common property regimes after the resource systems they managed have been annexed through the incorporation process? There is clearly a need to understand oustomary law with respect to land and to compare it with oivil law. There may even be a critical role for "public interest law" and advocacy for continued local management of rural resouroes in the uplands.

Land and the farming system. Resources such as land cannot be dealt with in isolation. For example, to understand the uses of cropland In the Northern Areas, one has to look at the pro• cesses whereby rocky river terraces, alluvial fans, and scree slopes are made arable: first the site, then the nursery, then the trees or deep-rooted alfalfa, then the forage, then soil development, and only then cereal crops. In order to develop the land, one has to identify which factor is the most limiting: water, land, labor, or peak season labor. However, when that constraint is removed, another appears in its place and land development will only proceed to completion if the successive constraints are removed one by one. These constraints will vary from place to place, and priorities for land development will vary also. Approaches to the process. One of the most revealing observations concerns the multiplicity of approaches permitted for land development sponsored by AKRSP." Some VOs have chosen to 31 distribute land within the new command area to individual members (Passu), while others have opted for land development collec• tively, leaving the allocation for later (Khaiber), to ensure equitable division of land. Given the relatively low inequality found in the Northern Areas, it has proved provident to leave land allocation to the respective VOs. Nevertheless, If these experiences are to have an Impact on future land policy and on other development programs, there Is a need to understand and disentangle the complexities of "ownership.• What form or forms of allocation are considered equitable: plots of equal size? plots of equal quality (assuming similar cropping pattern)? or plots of equal productive potential (accounting for alternative cropping patterns)? Are these allocations permanent, temporary, or rotational? And what are the Implications of these for future land polioy?

Irrigation Equity. As expansion and Intensification of irrigated agri• culture takes place, a change occurs In the property relationship among water users. It is necessary to examine the issues involved in reallocating water. The Issue of equity In water allocation must be examined from a historical perspective. When an irrigation channel is constructed and land developed, land is distributed equally and access to water tied to the land. This access may be modified through fragmentation of holdings, expan• sion of the command area, or land transactions. In some areas with acute water shortages, water rights may even be alienated from land rights. Developers, in subsequent efforts, will need to understand these historical changes and reconoile them with their objectives. Structural ohanges in irrigation management. Sophisticated organizations have developed to carry out irrigation tasks Inoluding resource mobilization and oonfliot management. With expanding systems, structural ohanges need to take place in the 32 organization. As an intervening agency, AKRSP will need to take these changes into account and may have to assist VOs in recon• ciling existing irrigation management institutions with the demandB of the modified hydraulic system. Concomitant ohanges In management practioes may have Implications for the size and composition of VOs and may even have an effect on social strati• fication, all of which will need to be dealt with. Failure analysis. AKRSP has frequently been asked to assist in constructing projects that had previously been attempted unsuccessfully by villagers and even by government agenoies. Analysis of past failures would provide useful Information on the limitations of techniques and resouroes used, pointing to the input required from outside the community for success. For example, lack of financial resources has been one of the reasons cited for past failure of village projeots. AKRSP's savings program is addressing this problem. On the other hand, exter• nally funded projeots have failed largely for institutional reasons than for laok of technical or financial resouroes. Government engineers laok knowledge of local conditions, and contractors simply do not have the incentive to complete the job as do local farmers who will benefit from the irrigation channel. A proper analysis of such failures could enable a thorough comparison of AKRSP's approach with earlier ones and could help future planning.

Social Organization Filling a power vacuum. With the abolishment of the Kirdoms and the relatively low efficacy of government institutions in these remote areas, villagers laok an effeotive extra-village power base. Those villagers with external employment opportu• nities use extra-village economic power and sometimes even political power to disregard accepted village norms and sanctions. With the power vacuum, other villagers lack an effeotive counterpoint. AKRSP is stepping in to fill this vacuum 33 temporarily, and by doing so is bolstering existing systems of village sanctions. Proof of this lies in the fact that some villages are not just passively receiving AKRSP's VOs, rather they are modifying and molding them to better address the existing problems within their villages. A certain flexibility allowing villagers to build the AKRSP onto traditional institutions could increase the likelihood of their effectiveness and survival. Optimal scale. Villages in the Northern Areas range In size from 20 to 500 households. Some irrigation systems are shared by two or more villages. Additionally, summer pastures are allo• cated on a lineage basis, which is not coterminous with a village boundary. Pastures are frequently shared by several villages. There is a need to understand what are the minimum and maximum sizes of organizations that oan efficiently manage resources as common property. The size of AKRSP*s VOs usually ranges from 50 to 100 house• holds. Larger villages have subdivided themselves into smaller units to form VOs. These subvillage VOs are visibly less effective than VOs formed within smaller homogeneous villages. Perhaps a second level of organization to ooalesce these sub- village VOs into a village level of organization is needed for larger villages. Clearly development agenoies need to learn from the structure of existing organizations if they are to be effica• cious. The activities of the development agenoies typically lead to modifications In physical systems; therefore, management practices must change also. These changes must be documented or the opportunity to learn from the strengths and weaknesses of the innovation will be lost. Lowland pressure on upland. Uplands have usually remained as hinterlands under oonstant threat or pressure from the low• lands. Perhaps that is why the earlier inhabitants of the Northern Areas preferred the remoter and harsher extremities of the valleys they inhabited, where the very remoteness served as 34 sufficient disincentive to discourage marauding armies. In the past two deoades, however, the pace of lowland impaots has aocelerated dramatically, perhaps the most significant for the Northern Areas being the construction of the Karakorum Highway. Cultural and technological diffusion has also reached fairly sophisticated levels with the Introduction of the electronic age. The market economy is well entrenohed and Is beginning to make its presenoe felt on the looal cropping pattern. These changes will undoubtedly have a major impact on looal institutions and previously effeotive organizations for managing resouroes as common property. Unless properly monitored and accounted for, the efforts of programs like AKRSP to strengthen the economic base of the looal population could be overwhelming.

Ethloal Implications Common property regimes are often means whereby the weaker sections of a human association can be protected; after all, the aggressive and better-off sections can usually do quite well on their own, particularly if they can gain the acquiescence of the weaker members through pressure or bribery. A oommon property regime Is a necessary condition for this protection, but it Is not sufficient. A regime will only succeed In that protection if its constitution is structured accordingly. In that regard, the Rawlslan notion of justice (RawIs 1971) comes to the fore. In its strict form, a theory of Justice requires that social arrangements be formulated in a way that the rules of the game are fashioned prior to any member of the group knowing their particular position after the "game of life" starts. This prior specification is what RawIs oalls creating institutions behind the "veil of Ignoranoe." Second, Rawls discusses the concept of actions that will benefit the least-advantaged members of a society. Specifically, a regime might operate in such a manner that no action will be adopted unless the least-advantaged Individual (or group) receives net gains (benefits) at least as 35 large as the benefits flowing to all others. Although AKRSP makes no specific attempt to change resouroe ownership patterns, the program appears to have adopted a modi• fied version of these Ravisian principles. In theory AKRSP is reconciled to outoomes where the gains from development are proportional to asset ownership, as happens with the small credit and livestock vaccination programs, but-only those activities are supported where all or most households can participate. No threshold separates the beneficiaries from the nonbenefioiaries. The most significant benefit to date has been land development. In this oase, most VOs have divided the new land equally, the least advantaged thus receiving benefits at leant as large as the benefits flowing to others.

As scientists we must recognize that this particular objec• tive function of the AKRSP is neither right nor wrong in a scientific sense; it is only good or bad in an ethical sense. Given this ethical agenda, to which most of us would lend our personal endorsement, our disciplinary contributions have been directed toward helping the program go about Its task in a rigorous manner.

Feedbaok on the Field Trip Process On return from the field trip, there was some discussion regarding its format. Although the participants had been orga• nized into four working groups, by design, they all visited the villages together. While one group played the dominant investi• gative role in each village visited, others had the opportunity to listen in and ask questions, either as separate groups or through supplementary questions after the leading group had asked most of theirs. In effect, this amounted to moving into the selooted villages in turn, as one large group of 25, for a few hours of discussion before proceeding to the next village. The limitations and advantages of this approach are compared in the next seotlon. 36

Assessment of the Field Trip

Limitations

1. Some of the participants felt that 25 was too large a group with interests that were too diverse for meaning• ful disoussion during a field visit. Homogeneity of Interest oould have been useful for a more detailed understanding of the common property regimes encoun• tered.

2. The available time to eaoh working group for its inves• tigations was also felt to be insufficient. It was suggested that perhaps it might have been more produc• tive to allow the working groups to visit one village each on their own, allowing them sufficient time for investigation instead of taking everyone to visit all the villages. A number of interesting Insights, which could not be adequately probed, were obtained during the field visit. As a general prlnoiple, the number of participants should be small or the groups should be allowed to go off to villages on their own.

3* The trip might have been more productive if the partici• pants had spent some time together as working groups before the trip and In the field.

Advantages

1• The presenoe of different disciplines among the partici• pants was useful for perceiving all dimensions of the concepts involved in oommon property regimes and for a more thorough understanding of AKRSP. For some, this amounted to a loss of time but the questions of interest to others helped raise Issues that may not have been raised in smaller groups with more specific interests.

2. The major aim of the field trip was not collection of primary data but preliminary application of the conoepts developed in the first two days of the workshop to the field. It was assumed that the participants had some knowledge of common property regimes and the region, and this was supplemented by a basic data sheet on each village to be visited and by an introductory briefing at each village. The fact that, thus equipped, partici• pants aotually managed to colleot and analyze some primary data was a bonus that cannot normally be expeoted from such brief visits. If anything, this was a vindication of the common property regime approach to 37

understanding suoh societies and programs attempting collective development.

3* The field trip was productive In that it enabled amend• ments and refinement of some of the conoepts introduced earlier in the week. For example, it olearly emerged that the four categories of property—state property, common property, nobody's property (open access), and private property—were useful distinctions for under• standing tenure but that they did not oolnoide with the distinctions between regimes. Common property regimes can thus be found in different forms of property.

CONCLUSION

At the conclusion of the Gilgit workshop, the participants were encouraged to comment on the usefulness of the terms and conoepts used to describe common property regimes, to Identify researohable questions to which these terms and ooncepts could be usefully applied, and to refleot on the researoh strategy em• ployed in implementing the workshop. In addressing these tasks, the participants were encouraged to draw conclusions and make recommendations based on a limited exposure to certain analytical concepts and to a unique area in Asia. All participants recog• nized the danger inherent in agreeing to discuss these three concluding issues given their limited exposure. However, by the end of an intensive week of activity, which had been carefully designed to oreate many opportunities for learning, both individ• ual and collective understanding of common property regimes had grown significantly in the context of AKRSP's activity in the Northern Areas. During the limited time available, the participants were able to identify a number of critical measures that could further enhance AKRSP's contribution for developing the area through the use of common property regimes. These Inoluded natural forest management, where the recommended strategy involved social forestry through the return of government forests to local 38

management; Intensified pasture management to cope with increas• ing pressure as some of the binding constraints of livestock numbers are removed through inoreased winter fodder production and diffusion of new technologies; development of public interest law to reconolle existing land allocation practices with oivil law; reconciliation of existing Irrigation management institu• tions and organizations with the requirements of Improved hydraulio systems; and finally, organizational flexibility allow• ing villagers to build AKRSP's VOs onto traditional institutions to 1norease the likelihood of their effectiveness and survival.

Tasks of Common Property Regimes and Their Performance Property represents a secure claim on the benefits to be derived from a resource, and a common property regime exists when a well-defined and recognized group manages a particular resouroe through an established set of institutional rules. A successful common property regime requires rules that define membership; regulate members' aotlons; establish the locus of oontrol; set an agenda for action; identify means for obtaining compliance with the rules; define relations between groups, including those who do not belong to common property regimes; and allow adjustment in response to change. If common property regimes address at least these seven tasks or functions, their performance may be Judged by four principal orlteria—productivity, stability, attainability, and equltabllity—which are analogous to the four interconnected system properties of agroecosystems.*

•Aooording to the original formulation (Conway 1982) and in the subsequent application of these orlteria to agreeoosystems analysis at the AKRSP (Conway 1985), productivity is defined as the net Inorement of valued product per unit of resouroe, suoh as land, labor, energy, or capital; stability is the degree to which productivity remains constant despite normal, small-scale fluctu• ations in environmental variables, suoh as climate, or in the economic oonditions of the market; sustainability Is the ability of the system to maintain its productivity when subjeot to stress 39

The first orlterion is the productivity of the common productivity regime, which may be judged by the efficiency with which the group achieves compliance with its rules. A productive common property regime achieves a high level of compliance at low cost. The second orlterion of performance is the stability of the regime that may be judged by the level of cohesion of the group over time, the degree of turnover in group membership, and the sense of pride expressed in belonging to the group. An addi• tional dimension to this concept of stability is predictability in performing the common property regime and consistency in action over the short run. When faced with a series of opera• tional questions, were they addressed and resolved in conformity with previous practice? The third criterion of performance is sustainabllity. which measures the resilience of the common property regime over time when faced with stress occurring suddenly and unexpectedly. Can the regime avoid stressful situations, or can it face up to them and bounce baok? The fourth and final orlterion of performance is equita- bllltv. a shared perception of fairness in distributing benefits and costs associated with the common property regime. In the absence of perceived equity, it may be hypothesized that the regime will weaken and eventually self-destruct. Discussions with program personnel and field visits revealed that AKRSP Is conscious of these four performance criteria for common property regimes. VOs receive help in developing rules to

(note continued) or perturbation; and equitability is a measure of how evenly the productivity of the agroecosystem is distrib• uted among its human beneficiaries. When applied toward an understanding of common property regimes, these definitions must be modified to indicate viability of the regimes (soolal institu• tions) rather than properties of agroecosystems. There is a conscious parallel in the two formulations. We acknowledge our intellectual debt to Gordon Conway. The terminology used in discussing common property is perceived as an extension of his formulation. 40

make then productive, stable, and sustainable. Particular emphasis, however, is placed on equitability and a Rawlsian sense of Justice. Rules for VOs are fashioned, as far as possible, without giving prior recognition to particular members who could direet the rules for their particular benefit. Furthermore, these organizations are encouraged to operate in such a way that no aotlon will be adopted unless the least-advantaged member receives benefits at least In proportion to his or her assets, and preferably no less than the most-advantaged member.

Priorities for Research Following discussion of ooccepts and terms relevant to understanding oommon property regimes, and following field visits and feedback to AKRSP, workshop partiolpants discussed priorities for research. The subjects.raised oovered three main questions: What research toplos should be addressed; how researoh should be undertaken; and the linkage of research to aotlon by villagers and organizations supporting development. Research toplos identified by the workshop related to Improving understanding of the origin, ourrent status, operation, and performance of oommon property regimes. Participants reoognlzed the need for such research in the short run because many oommon property regimes appear to be under pressure from forces of commercialization and privatization, and because significant investments in rural resources in mountain areas are being made or planned in the apparent absenoe of well-founded information about local institutional and organizational arrange• ments. Researoh results are urgently needed to inform planners and implementors, and opportunities for appropriate research are being oreated In many programs and projeots being Implemented. Specifio topics identified by the workshop relevant to oommon property regimes in upland and mountain areas inoluded: 41

i • How do different oommon property regimes funotion, and bow well do they perform? • Do oommon property regimes have a universal funotion and work in more or less the same ways to achieve the same ends for resouroes and locations?

• How are decision rules developed and modified, and are they resilient enough to remain viable when confronted with the processes of incorporation?

• Under what circumstances do oommon property regimes survive, and what prevents them from breaking down?

• As oircumstanoes change and incorporation proceeds, are common property regimes of continuing value for rural resouroe management, and what criteria are appropriate for appraising their validity?

• When existing oommon property regimes confront contem• porary law and the nation-state, what problems are typloally oreated, and how can these oonfllots be minimized?

• What does resource "ownership11 mean and how do percep• tions of ownership differ between the state and looal resource users? • Will villagers invest in common property regimes if they do not have legal rights to resouroes and recognized status as a resources user group? e Under what circumstances can oommon property regimes be established in situations where they did not previously exist?

• Are oommon property regimes likely to produce more equitable management systems than systems based on private rights and market mechanisms?

Researoh questions raised with respect to how researoh on property regimes should be undertaken inoluded:

• To what extent is interest in oommon property research driven by Western perceptions of collective versus private action? 42

• How can members of common property regimes become actively involved in defining the research agenda?

• To what extent are changes in common property regimes created by research activities originating from outside the regime?

With respect to linking research to action, questions raised by participants Inoluded:

e Where is the appropriate locus of researoh for common property regimes? And if It does not exist, where should the capacity for understanding common property regimes be built: in universities, resouroe management agencies, donor organizations, or elsewhere?

• How can new knowledge about oommon property regimes and their Importance be communicated to decision makers at all levels?

• How can research results about locally managed resouroe systems be communicated to elites?

• How can Intervening agencies learn what aspects of common property regimes are best left alone and when to Incor• porate Innovations or adaptations?

One particular subject that attracted a great deal of attention by participants concerned the types of information needed for understanding oommon property regimes and the means of obtaining it. There was some disagreement between participants who favored action research on both Institutional and biophysical questions by relatively rapid means, and those who believed careful, long-term research on basic concepts and relationships was Indispensable. Those favoring action research argued for a learning process approach that promoted action with research built in to develop more effective common property regimes through rapid methods. The action research process is at the heart of a steering mecha• nism advocated for project implementation where managers learn to facilitate action by resource owners and project staff most often 43 in the field. Action research encourages communicating negative feedback by simple and oost-effective methods and helps to build effectiveness as a prerequisite for improving efficiency or expanding scope. A growing body of literature suggests rapid, action-oriented research methods can produce accurate, cost- effective, and timely results. Those favoring more conventional research with implications for aotlon argued for a more basic understanding of the social and ecological systems underlying common property regimes. The rich cultural and agroecologlcal picture needs to be built up slowly and carefully as a foundation for subsequent action. This divergence of views was not resolved in the time available. However, the participants agreed that researchers need to make better use of the basic researoh that already exists and to invest in making research methods more reliable and more acceptable.

Strategy of the Workshop • With a few reservations, participants generally agreed that the workshop strategy, which called for the establishment of an analytical framework and its rapid application to a field site, was successful. This strategy suooeeded because the framework proposed was In large part appropriate, the field sites were well chosen to test conoepts and terms, and the participants were prepared to "follow the rules of the game" laid down for the workshop. Pitting these three elements together required a lot more knowledge of the particular place and the Individual players than is true of many workshops. One of the workshop organizers spent the three months before the workshop conducting research in the field area and planning the workshop In collaboration with AKRSP. Without this preparatory work and the looal knowledge gained through several years of implementation by AKRSP, fitting the three elements together would have been difficult, particu• larly because of the laok of an adequate service Infrastructure 44

in this remote corner of Pakistan. However, the workshop could have been improved by making the overall process less intensive and by reduoing the size of the field groups, in particular. At times participants felt they were unable to appraise the value of what they were learning because of an absence of well-established reference points and experience. The danger Inherent In seizing upon information gained rapidly was real. However, the value of working quickly and oost-effectively in the field was also recognized. The group agreed that the conditions under which and the methods whereby rapid appraisals may be appropriately used to attempt to under• stand rural resouroe management systems need to be better established. APPENDIX A Summaries of Presentations

Conceptual Papers:

1. On Common Property Regimes, by Daniel V. Bromley*

2. Annexation, Alienation, and Underdevelopment of the Watershed Community in the Hindu Rush-Himalayan Region, by Anis A. Dani**

Field Examples from the Region: 3. The Role of Institutions in the Management of Commonly Owned Rangelands in Baluchistan, by Nek M. Buzdar* J|. Community Forestry in Bangladesh: An Overview, by Quamrul Ahsan Cbaudhury

5. Common Property Resouroe Management in Pakistan: Garrett Hardin in the Junglat. by Michael R. Dove and Abdul L. Rao*

6. The Aga Khan Rural Support Programme, Pakistan, by Shoaib Sultan Khan, Hussaln Wall Khan, and Najma Siddiql 7. Integrated Rural Development Experience in Nepal, by Ram P. Tadav and Navln K. Ral 8. Hill Irrigation in Nepal, by Robert D. Yoder*

•Revised versions of these papers are forthcoming in a book on looal Institutions for rural resource management. Queries may be addressed to the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development, P.O. Box 3226, Kathmandu, Nepal.

••See REFERENCES for citation of published paper.

45 46

1. On Common Property Regimes

Daniel W. Bromley

In this paper, Bromley establishes the basic terms and concepts essential for discussing common property management systems. Terms covered include resouroe. interest. olalm, entitlement, privilege, property, collective good, institutional arrangements, and oommon property regimes. When claims to resouroes are given formal protection, rules and conventions are established that bestow entitlements to resouroes on particular individuals or groups. Entitlements entail a socially recognized struoture of Institutional arrangements that establish the rights of resouroe owners and resouroe users. For collective goods, those provided by groups for their own benefit, management systems require not only appropriate Institutional arrangements (property rights) but also organizational arrangements (group management structures), which together create common property regimes. Rights to resources for certain individuals or groups create duties in others to respect those rights. Four general types of property management regimes are recognized: state property regimes exercised in national parks and forests; private property regimes exercised by individuals and corporations over individual goods; common property regimes exercised by groups over collective goods; and open aocess regimes where no one has property In the form of a secure claim to the resouroe. The distinction between common property and open access Is sharply drawn. The paper recognizes particular functions of common property regimes in defining who is a member of the group, what are the group's rules of conduct, where the locus of control rests, what is the group's agenda for action, how the group achieves compli• ance, and how the group makes decisions. Four criteria for success of common property regimes are recognized: the degree to which views on outcomes and equity are shared by members; the 47 amount of effort expended to achieve oomplianoe; the oapaoity to oope oolleotlvely with unexpeoted perturbations in the short run; and the oapaoity to adjust to new soarcities, problems, and priorities over the long run.

2. Annexation, Alienation, and Underdevelopment of the Watershed Community In the Hindu Kuah-Himalayan Region

Anis A. Dani

Major decisions about, the resources of the upper watersheds of the Hindu Kuan-Himalayan Region tend to be made in lowland cities without consulting the watershed community. However, the complexities Involved in resource utilization at the watershed oommunity level are rarely understood by decision makers. This lack of understanding has led to legislation and administrative interventions to control resource utilization that, in fact, displace the watershed oommunity to even more fragile areas where they are blamed for the careless utilization of resources. Deci• sions about dams, reservoirs, roads, mines, and reforestation have significant impacts on the watershed oommunity, frequently In the form of costs of lost resouroes, relocation, and incorpo• ration. Incorporation can be explained in terms of annexation, alienation, and underdevelopment. Annexation in this oontext means attaching the watershed oommunity to mainstream soolety but as a subordinate part. Alienation means estranging people from their resource base. In upper watersheds in Asia, this fre• quently takes the form of nationalizing land, water, forest, and pasture resouroes that were previously common property. Aliena• tion of the watershed oommunity from the resouroe base results in alienation of responsibility for its maintenance. Traditional resource management systems break down when local people realize they have lost control over their resources. Responsibility shifts to the state, which laoks the oapaoity to replace the looal community as a resource manager. The result of annexation 48

and alienation is underdevelopment* union means the watershed oommunity falls to perform up to Its potential. In the Hindu Kush-Himalayan Region, the balance between the watershed oommunity and the mainstream of lowland soolety must be restored if ecological* soolal, political, and economic progress are to be made both upstream and downstream. The watershed is an entity Integrated eoologically through the interrelationship of its biophysloal resources. However, it is also integrated socially by the utilization patterns of those resources. For. this reason, the ecological balance that has been disturbed oannot be restored without also restoring the balance In human relationships.

3* The Bole of Institutions In the ItoagoBont of Commonly Owned Rangelanda In Baluchistan

Nek H. Buzdar

Buzdar's paper describes the institutional arrangements employed by seminomadlo past oral 1st s in parts of Baluohistan who share ownership rights to common rangelands. In arid lands where rainfall is erratic and unpredictable over time and spaoe, groups of livestock owners employ the mobility of their herds and flocks to harvest the limited available forage of the rangeland as and when it Is available. The ranges continue to be managed as common property, with oolleotively agreed rules and conventions over livestock numbers and pasture use, in preference to privatization. Goats and sheep form an essential part of a subsistence economy, providing milk, meat, hides, and a store of wealth. Livestock management is organized within families among lineages over tribal areas. Family herds and flocks range in size from 50 to 250 heads. Institutions for managing livestock and rangelands stem from both religious and economic origins, which complement eaoh other. Most important among these are institutional arrangements governing the opening and dosing of the rangelands, 49

the number of animals on the range, the types of animals on the range (goats are argued to have a less depleting effeot on arid rangelands than sheep), and the procedure for reducing animal numbers when grazing pressure Is in danger of exceeding carrying oapaoity. After describing in detail the Institutional rules employed for managing animal numbers and rangeland conditions, Buzdar compares the productivity of traditional and nontraditional livestock systems. Tribes observing traditional systems limit their stocking rates and olose pastures in the Interests of sustailiability of the system. In nontraditional systems, the common property rules are breaking down and livestock are managed In the Interests of individual families. Under these regimes, while short-term productivity of the rangelands may be higher than In traditional areas, their long-term sustainabillty is questionable. The paper makes recommendations for range management policies that build upon the underlying property rights and preexisting organizational structures.

4. Community Forestry in Bangladesh: An Overview

Quamrul Ahsan Cbaudhury

Bangladesh is an agrarian soolety with urban population densities. Ninety-eight million people occupy a mere 145,000 km2, and population pressure on all natural resouroes is intense. Sixteen percent of the total land area is designated as forest, Inoluding mainly hilly forests, tidal or mangrove forests, and unstocked forestland. Little state forest exists in the plains. Less than 2 percent of the country's land area Is private forest; however, this accounts for 70 percent of the country's timber production, 90 percent of the fuelwood, and 90 percent of the bamboo. Since much of the state forest is occupied by the rural poor and is inoapable of providing adequately for fuel, fiber, and 50

forage requirements, experimental programs in oommunity forestry have been adopted. Community forestry has made use of wastelands unfit for agriculture because of low Inherent productivity, and uncultivated lands along highways, railway lines and oanals, and In the compounds of schools and religious organizations. On wastelands property rights tend to be uncertain, in dispute, or defined informally, while on uncultivated lands ownership is dear but vested in the state, an identifiable entity. Several approaches to community forestry are followed in Bangladesh by government and nongovernment organizations, but most tend to emphasize looal organization and self-help. In some cases landess rural people have been organized to develop community forestry on uncultivated public lands and in unstocked forestland. However, the question of tenure security for community forestry organizations over the land and trees they cultivate is frequently unolear. While the source of many forestry problems in Bangladesh is shifting cultivators In forestlands, the initial target of community forestry programs appears to be the relocation of landless lowlanders into forestlands, exacerbating the problem of people in the forest.

5* Common Property Resource Management in Pakistan: Garrett Hardin In the Junglat Michael H. Dove and Abdul L. Rao

Garrett Hardin's Influential article "Tragedy of the Commons'1 (1968), which suggests that common resouroe ownership inevitably leads to overexploitation of resouroes, Is analyzed in the context of three case studies from South Asia. The analysis suggests that Hardin's arguments are incorrect since, in Bromley's terms, it applies to open access resources, not common property. The results of the analysis are applied to two sooial or farm forestry projects in Pakistan, which faoe difficulties in creating new institutional arrangements. Dove and Rao suggest that an approach to solving these difficulties is to utilize 51

extant, traditional but still powerful institutions, which include both formal and folk religious beliefs. Three oase studies in traditional oommon property management systems are described briefly. These lnolude Buzdar's analysis of livestook and rangeland management in Baluohistan (see Summary 3, this report), Jodha's (1985) analysis of livestock systems in Rajasthan, and Berth's (1959) classic study of tribal tenure in Swat. All three cases demonstrate the capacity of common property management systems to promote sustainable use of envi• ronmental resouroeB when supported by strong, traditional tribal sanctions. When the traditional institutional arrangements are removed, people abandon the balanced use of their natural resouroes and overexploit and destroy them. The sanctions supporting the survival of the commons are removed when societies are in transition from traditional tribal or feudal states to nation-states. During this transitional period, the power of the emerging state is usually sufficient to weaken or destroy the preexisting system, but it is usually insufficient to enforce its own replacement system. Analysis of World Bank and USAID experience in forestry projeots in Pakistan reinforces the conclusions that, whenever possible, natural resource management projeots should build upon existing property relations and organizational structures and maintain sanotlons that protect long-term sustainabillty over short-term depletion. Special attention is given to the role of religion in the protection of trees, especially In Islamic countries where the value and protection of trees are recognized In the Holy Koran.

6. the Aga Khan Rural Support Programme. Pakistan

Shoaib Sultan Khan, Hussaln Wall Khan, and Najma Siddlqi

The three presentations formed complementary parts of an introduction Into the methodology and activities of the AKRSP; 52

therefore, they are summarized in this description. AKRSP initiates its activity in a village through the Diag• nostic Survey used to mobilize all villagers into a collective Village Organization (VO) and to identify a productive physical infrastructure (PPI) scheme with the VO's help that would bring the most benefit to the VO. VOs are expected to meet regularly, and each member is expected to contribute money toward a collec• tive VO fund. Each individual's savings is recorded in a passbook. The PPI identified is surveyed and a cost estimate prepared. After open negotiations with the VO, an agreement is signed between the AKRSP and the VO with olear terms of partnership. A grant Is then provided to the VO for constructing the PPI. The VOs receive an average grant of Rs 147,200 (less than US$10,000), which inoludes the cost of materials and a negotiated wage rate (usually two-thirds of the market rate) as a labor subsidy. AKRSP assumes that labor has an opportunity cost and that labor, goods, and servioes used in village development should be paid for. The entire construction Is done by the V0 with occasional technical advice provided by AKRSP, If required. This reduces the construction cost to a fifth of equivalent government schemes undertaken through contractors (Hussein et al. 1966:24). The grant generates looal employment and enables the construction of a PPI intended to provide long-term benefits to the VO; however, only one grant is provided to each VO. All subsequent activi• ties, including maintenance of the PPI, must be paid for out of their savings. AKRSP arranges soft loans from banks against the collective savings as collateral. The total savings of the 500 VOs formed to date amount to more than Rs 10 million. Two-thirds of the PPIs involve constructing or improving small-scale irrigation channels (kuhl) without which nothing would grow In these high-altitude deserts. The next most frequent PPI is constructing link roads, which provide a vital means of communication with the market. The irrigation PPIs 53 enable developing an average of 0*71 na additional land per household, thereby almost doubling the average landholdings (0.77 ha previously) in Gilgit District. Formerly suoh schemes were initiated with the sanotion of the Mir (looal ruler). Mirdom was abolished in 1974, leaving a hiatus for a deoade when no such BOhemes were undertaken because legitimacy attached to the Mlr's sanotion was not replaced by an effeotive alternative. In addition, the government's presence was too small to enforce its olaims. By default, AKRSP filled the vacuum left by the Mlrs primarily by leaving the decision regarding benefit sharing from the PPIs to the VO, which invoked existing norms and conventions. AKRSP insists that the VO always meet in plenary so all house• holds are fully aware of its work and oac participate in all decisions. AKRSP also insists that new schemes being undertaken should not inorease Inequalities and, If possible, should seek to reduoe them. Developing newly irrigated lands requires investment of capital and labor; thus, the major sequel to the PPI is land development. AKRSP arranges for medium-term loans against VO savings for this purpose, and the VO takes collective responsi• bility for repayment. The land development method adopted Is ohosen by the speolflo VOs. Some VOs have used their loan to acquire a traotor for the use of all members; others have disbursed the money equally among all households for use toward land development; still others have opted to develop the land collectively and to distribute the land later. Other major activities supported by AKRSP are agricultural development, livestock development, collective marketing, special programs for women in development, and Introduction and dissem• ination of labor- and enery-saving technologies. All these programs are paid for by the VOs except training, whioh remains AKRSP1s major Input. As of June 1986, AKRSP trained 712 villagers In 29 courses. AKRSP now has training programs in plant protection, livestock vacolnatlon, poultry management, 54

nursery development, marketing, and bookkeeping. After training, these para-professionals service their own VOs and are remunerated for their servioes by beneficiary households.

7. Integrated Rural Development Experience In lepal

Ram P. Tadav and Navln K. Rai

The presentations of Tadav and Rai both described rural development projects in Nepal, focusing on approaches to decen• tralization in design and implementation. Tadav's presentation described the Small Farm Development Programme (SFDP), an example of a suooessful multlseotoral project that organized local groups for group saving, providing credit, and initiating looal economic and soolal development projeots. The SFDP has been functioning for the last ten years with funding from the Agricultural Devel• opment Bank (ADB) of Nepal. In ten years with financial assistance from the Interna• tional Fund for Agricultural Development and other agenoies, this program has aided 50 of the 75 districts in Nepal, benefiting 42,000 households organized into 4,554 homogeneous groups. The key elements of this project are (1) identification of a target group, that is, farmers whose family income Is less than Rs 1,200 per oaplta, calculated at 1983 prices; (2) organization of small farmers into homogeneous groups with members from 10 to 15 house• holds; (3) appointment of a Group Organizer by the ADB to work as a development agent, whose tasks are to identify eligible farmers, assist them in group formation, and act as an interme• diary between the small farmer groups and development agencies; (4) organization of regular monthly meetings of the groups; (5) introduction of a Group Savings Scheme, to be used primarily for their emergency needs; and (6) provision of oredit by the ADB as a collective loan on group guarantee basis. The Dhading District Development Project described by Rai is considered a successful integrated rural development projeot in 55

Nepal, which was initiated in 1983 west of the Kathmandu Valley. The project went through a two-year planning and orientation phase to identify a process whereby 450 individual wards could be helped to plan and implement looal projeots in 50 panohayats within the framework of Nepal's Decentralization Act of 1982. The projeot has three components designed to strengthen looal management processes: institutional support, human resouroe development, and identification of new opportunities. The project will provide small grants for ward projects, but these funds are channeled through the government to user groups at the panchayat ward level. These user groups are responsible for actual Implementation. The main problems faced by the project stem from wards defining "projects" almost exclusively in terms of publio works that do not generate further income directly and from the view that integrated rural development projeots are merely sources of grants. In introducing decentralization, concessional transfers of resouroes are made by international donor agenoies to government departments. These departments are constantly experimenting with the organizational arrangements for rural development in their attempts to decentralize planning and implementation in response to donor requirements. However, little power has yet devolved from the center to the periphery.

8. Hill Irrigation In Hepal

Robert D. Toder

The analysis of farmer-managed hill Irrigation systems in Nepal has three related dimensions: control structure activities, water use activities, and organizational activities. Each of these activities has four dimensions. Control structure activi• ties typically include design, construction, operation, and maintenance; water use activities inolude acquisition, alloca• tion, distribution, and drainage. Organizational activities 56

Inolude deolslon making, resource mobilization, communication, and oonfliot resolution. Organizations of irrigators must be capable of performing all these related activities. Water rights influence all these activities. Irrigation systems require considerable labor investments for system devel• opment and maintenance, which oreate individual rights in the common property represented by hydraulic works (Coward 1983; Dani and Siddiqi 1986). In hill Irrigation systems, access to water can be difficult sicoe small amounts of water must be conducted over long distances through hazardous terrain. Labor investment in system construction and maintenance by water users therefore tend to be excessive. For these reasons, shares in water delivered to farmers' fields tend to be even more orucial than in systems where acoess to water is easier. In hill irrigation systems, water tends to be allocated based on the size of the land area irrigated or on original investment In constructing the system. In hill irrigation in Nepal, a form of prior appropriation exists: New users oannot take water if by doing so they diminish the quantity available for existing users. In practice this translates into a prohibition against tapping into streams less than 300 m above any existing intake. The performance of these systems can be appraised by comparing the quantity of water arriving in a farmer's field to the farmer's allocation. Research in Nepal suggests that for systems where the maintenance requirement is high, the performance Is also high; and where the maintenance requirement is low, the performance is low. When absolute water shortages ooour, the likelihood of oonfliot is greater; thus, preolse, workable Institutional rules are required if the system is to survive. APPENDIX B

List of Participants

Alnasir BABUL Christopher J.N. GIBBS Programme Veterinarian Researoh Assooiate Aga Khan Rural Support Programme Environment and Polioy Institute Babar Road, P.O. Box 506, Gilgit East-West Center Northern Areas, Pakistan 1777 East-West Road Honolulu, Hawaii 96848 Daniel V. BROMLEY Professor Dept. of Agricultural Economics FarIda HEWITT University of Wisconsin Researoh Assistant Madison, Wisconsin 53706 49 M-1 Lalazar Rawalpindi, Pakistan Nek Mohammad BUZDAR Researoh Fellow Environment and Polioy Institute Tariq HUSAIN East-West Center Programme Economist 1777 East-West Road Aga Khan Rural Support Programme Honolulu, Hawaii 96648 Babar Road, P.O. Box 506, Gilgit Northern Areas, Pakistan Quamrul Ahsan CHAUDHURY Associate Professor Department of Sociology Mallha H. HUSSEIN University of Dhaka Evaluation and Researoh Officer Bangladesh Aga Khan Rural Support Programme Babar Road, P.O. Box 506, Gilgit John Cole COOL Northern Areas, Pakistan Assooiate Wlnrock International APRQSC William F. HYDE P.O. Box 1312 Resouroe Eoonomlst Kathmandu, Nepal Wlnrock International NANA P.O. Box 1172 Anis Ahmad DANI Bankgkok, Thailand Social Scientist ICIMOD Mohammad IQBAL P.O. Box 3226 Social Organizer, Hunza Kathmandu, Nepal Aga Khan Rural Support Programme Babar Road, P.O. Box 506, Gilgit Mlohael Roger DOVE North Areas, Pakistan Project Anthropologist Forestry Planning Aroona Mustafa KAMAL and Development Projeot Marketing Manager USAID Louis Berger International Ino. 18, 16th Avenue, Ramna-5 60-A Margalla Road, F-8/2 Islamabad, Pakistan Islamabad, Pakistan

57 58

Hussain Wall KHAN Robert Daniel Y0DER Deputy General Manager Resident Solent1st and Programme Senior Engineer II MI Aga Khan Rural Support Programme Water and Energy Commission Babar Road, P.O. Box 506, Gilgit Secretariat Northern Areas, Pakistan Lazlmpat, P.O. Box 3975 Kathmandu, Nepal Shahrukh Rafi KHAN Researoh Economist Pakistan Institute of Development Economics P.O. Box 1091 Islamabad, Pakistan

Shoalb Sultan KHAN General Manager Aga Khan Rural Support Programme Babar Road, P.O. Box 506, Gilgit Northern Areas, Pakistan

Noor MOHAMMAD Sooial Organizer, Nagar Aga Khan Rural Support Programme Babar Road, P.O. Box 506, Gilgit Northern Areas, Pakistan

Navln K. RAI Reader Centre for Nepal and Asian Studies Trlbhuvan University P.O. Box 3757 Kathmandu, Nepal

Fatima Asad RIZVI Consultant Aga Khan Rural Support Programme Babar Road, P.O. Box 506, Gilgit Northern Areas, Pakistan

Najma SIDDIQI Coordinator Women in Development Aga Khan Rural Support Programme Babar Road, P.O. Box 506, Gilgit Northern Areas, Pakistan Ram Prakash YADAV Deputy Director ICIMOD P.O. Box 3226 Kathmandu, Nepal REFERENCES

Barth, Fredrik. 1959. Politloal Leadership Among Swat Pathans. London Sohool of Economics, Monographs on Social Anthropology No. 19* London: Athlone Press. Bromley, Daniel V. 1986. On common property regimes. Paper presented at the ICIMOD/EAFI/AKRSP workshop on Institutional Development for Local Management of Rural Resouroes, 19-24 April, Gilgit, Pakistan.

Conway, Gordon R. 1982. A guide to agroecosystem analysis. In Khon Kaen University-Ford Foundation Cropping Systems Project. Conway, Gordon R. 1985* Rapid rural appraisal and agroecosystem analysis: A oase study from Northern Pakistan. Paper presented at the International Conference on Rapid Rural Appraisal, 2-5 September, Khon Kaen University, Khon Kaen, Thailand.

Coward, E. Walter, Jr. 1983- Property in action: Alternatives for irrigation investment. Paper prepared for the Workshop on Water Management and Policy, September, Khon Kaen University, Khon Kaen, Thailand.

Coward, E. Walter, Jr. 1985. Property, persistence, and participation: The state and traditional Irrigation systems. Paper prepared for Meeting of the Soolety for Economic Anthropology, The Development Process, Paper 84, 11-13 April, Airle House, Warrenton, Virginia.

Dani, Anis A. 1986. Annexation, alienation, and underdevelopment of the watershed oommunity in the Hindu Kuan-Himalayan Region. In Watershed Resources Management: An Integrated Framework with Studies from Asia and the Paoiflo. eds. K. William Easter, John A. Dixon, and Maynard M. Hufschmidt, 145-58. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

Dani, Anis A., and Najma Siddiqi. 1986. Institutional innovations in irrigation management: A case study from Northern Pakistan. Paper presented at the International Conference on Public Intervention in Farmer-Managed Irrigation Systems, 3-8 August, International Irrigation Management Institute, Kathmandu, Nepal. Dove, Michael R., and A.L. Rao. 1986. Common property resouroe management in Pakistan: Garrett Hardin in the Junglat. Paper presented at the ICIMDD/EAPI/AKRSP workshop on Institutional Development for Looal Management of Rural Resouroes, 19-24 April, Gilgit, Pakistan.

59 60

Hardin, Garrett. 1968. The tragedy of the commons. Solenoe 162:1243-48.

Hussein, Mallha H., with H.W. Khan, Z. Alam, and T. Husain. 1986. An Evaluation of Irrigation Projeots Undertaken by AKRSP in the Gilgit District of Northern Pakistan. Gilgit: Aga Khan Rural Support Programme, July.

Jodha, N.S. 1985. Population growth and the decline of oommon property resouroes in Rajasthan, India. Population and Development Review 11(2):247-64.

Khan, Shoaib Sultan, and Tariq Husain. 1963- Principles and implementation for small farmer development. Chapter 1 in The Aga Khan Rural Support Programme. First Annual Review. 1-23. Gilgit, Northern Areas, Pakistan: AKRSP.

Koppel, Bruce. 1981. Food polioy options for secondary regions: A framework for applied researoh. Food Polioy 6:33-46 (February).

Kreutzmann, Hermann. 1986. A note on yak-keeping in Hunza (Northern Areas of Pakistan). Production Pastorale et Sooiete 19:99-106 (Automne). Mayer, Enrique. 1979- Land Use in the Andes: Ecology and Agrioulture in the Mantaro Valley of Peru with Speoial Referenoe to Potatoes. A Social Scienoe Unit publication. Lima, Peru: International Potato Center.

Moenoh, Marcus. 1986. Cooperative resouroe management in an Indian mountain village, iv, 42 pp. East-Vest Environment and Policy Institute Working Paper, WP-87-3, Honolulu, HI. Panday, Krishnakumar. 1965. Watershed management in the Hindu Kush-Hlmalaya Region: An overview. Paper presented at the ICIMOD/CISNAR International Workshop on Watershed Management in the Hindu Kush-Hlmalaya Region, 14-19 Ootober, Chengdu, China.

Rawls, John. 1971. A Theory of Justioe. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Rhoades, Robert E., and Stephen I. Thompson. 1975. Adaptive strategies in Alpine environments: Beyond ecological particularism. Amerioan Ethnologist 3(2):535-51.

Runge, Carlisle Ford. 1981. Common property externalities: Isolation, assurance, and resource depletion In a traditional grazing context. American J. Agricultural Economios 63(4):595-606 (November). 61

• Staley, John, 1982. Words for My Brother: Travels between the Hindu Rush and the Himalayas. Karachi: Oxford University Press. Uphoff, Norman T. 1982. Contrasting approaches to water management development in Sri Lanka. In Third World Legal Studies 1982. 202-47- New York: International Center for Law and Development.

Whiteman, Peter T.S. 1985. Mountain Oases: A Teohnioal Report of Agricultural Studies In the Hunza. Ishkoman. and Yasin Valleys of Gilgit Distrlot. Gilgit, Pakistan: Department of Agriculture/FAO/UNDP, PAK/80/009-

\

THE EAST-WEST CENTER is a public, nonprofit educational institution with an international board of governors. Some 2,000 research fellows, graduate students, and professionals in business and government each year work with the Center's international staff in cooperative study, training, and research. They examine major issues related to population, resources and develop• ment, the environment, culture, and communication in Asia, the Pacific, and the United States. The Center was established in 1960 by the United States Congress, which provides principal funding. Support also comes from more than 20 Asian and Pacific governments, as well as private agencies and cor• porations. Situated on 21 acres adjacent to the University of Hawaii's Manoa Cam• pus, the Center's facilities include a 300-room office building housing research and administrative offices for an international staff of 250, three residence halls for participants, and a conference center with meeting rooms equipped to provide simultaneous transition and a complete range of audio• visual services.

THE EAST-WEST ENVIRONMENT AND POLICY INSTITUTE was estab• lished in October 1977 to increase understanding of the interrelationships among policies designed to meet a broad range of societal needs over time and the natural resources on which these policies depend or which they affect. Through interdisciplinary and multinational programs of research and training, the Institute seeks to develop and apply concepts useful in iden• tifying alternatives available to decision makers and assessing their impli• cations. Progress and results of Institute programs are disseminated in the East-West Center region through research reports, books, workshop reports, working papers, newsletters, and other educational and informational materials.

Norton Ginsburg, Director Environment and Policy Institute East-West Center 1777 East-West Road Honolulu, Hawaii 96848