Property Rights and Natural Resources: Socio-Economic Heterogeneity and Distributional Implications of Common Property Resource Management

Poverty, property rights and distributional implications of community-based resource management havebecome major topics of discussion and debate in recent years. This study tries to examine the contributionof community forestry to household-level income with particular emphasis on group heterogeneity andequity in benefit distribution. The assessment of household level benefits suggests that poorer householdsare currently benefiting less in absolute terms from community forestry than less poor households. Interms of the contribution of forests to household income, the study results suggest that the poor are notnecessarily more dependent than the rich, a finding that contradicts results from other similar studies.Econometric analysis suggests that income from community forests is related to socio-economic attributesand private resource endowments of households. Households with land and livestock assets, as well asupper caste households gain more from the commons, while better educated households depend less onforest resources. Female-headed households benefit less from community forests, further aggravatingthe inequity in distribution of benefits. The study makes a number of recommendations to improvecommunity forest management in Nepal, which include, due consideration for community needs inselecting species for community forestry, transferability of user rights, which would allow less endowedhouseholds to benefit more, and more and equitable representation of women and disadvantaged groupsin forest management committees (JEL Q2, Q23 ).