Redefining Property Rights for Sustaining the Wetlands Around Calcutta

By defining sustainable resource use as one with long-term economic viability besides having both ecological and social compatibility, this paper applies the property rights framework and the economics of fist production to bring out a comparative perspective on ownership and use pattern of the vast tracts of wetland around the city of Calcutta. Although these areas have traditionally been used for pisciculture irrespective of ownership by government or private bodies, the post-modern trend towards socio-ecological concern seems to have challenged the earlier wisdom of leaving large tracts of such land under purely government and/or purely private ownership with unstable and sub-optimal property rights. It also challenges the recent commercial trend to convert such open spaces into building constructions for industry and the housing sector. The paper reviews the legal framework for wetland use and also uses several live cases to highlight the fact that placing such wetlands for pisciculture and related activities and thus building up to ‘nature park’ with such resources with the help of active fishermen and their user-controlled organisations under a suitable and stable property rights regime is consistent with not only the ecological and social needs of the people, but also with the economics of alternative uses under a fairly realistic conditions. The paper highlights the need for property rights re-engineering alongside, if not preceding, ecological engineering of wetland and details the pre-conditions for evolving sustainable use of the wetlands around Calcutta. (Key words: property rights, residual control, residual return, Coase Theorem, complete contracting)