Previous studies have shown that collective property rights offer higher flexibility than individual property and improve sustainable community-based forest management. Our case study, carried out in the Beni department of Bolivia, does not contradict this assertion, but shows that collective rights have been granted in areas where ecological contexts and market facilities were less favourable to intensive land use. Previous experiences suggest investigating political processes in order to understand the criteria according to which access rights were distributed.

We examine the efficiency, distributional, and environmental consequences of assigning spatial property rights to part of a spatially-connected natural resource, a situation which we refer to as partial enclosure of the commons. The model reflects on a large class of institutions and natural resources for which complete enclosure by a sole owner may be desirable, but is often institutionally impractical.

Published papers were reviewed to assess ecosystem impacts of individual transferable quotas (ITQs) and other dedicated access systems. Under ITQs, quota shares increase with higher abundance levels, thus fishers may request lower total allowable catches (TACs) and pay for monitoring and research that improves fishery sustainability. Mortality on target species generally declines because catches are closer to TACs and because ghost fishing through lost and abandoned gear decreases.

In order to reduce the rate of human-induced biodiversity loss of wild species, it has become increasingly important to stem this loss on private and tribal lands and to find effective policies to do this. Some writers believe that granting landholders commercial property rights in wildlife might be effective in dealing with this matter and result in the sustainable use of wildlife. This paper explores this view using economic theory. In doing so, it takes into account the total economic valuation concept.

A good deal of research has highlighted the surge and development of rural land sales and tenancy contracts in West Africa. However, the commoditization of land, especially through sales, does not appear to be obvious, as land transactions appear to be a major source of tenure insecurity and land conflicts. This issue is linked with the broader issue of identification and recognition of both the land rights that are being transferred and people holding them.

Recent environmental assessments have highlighted the extent of land degradation inAustralia and the significant costs involved in addressing it. With projected investment costsrunning into tens of billions of dollars, it is not surprising that greater attention is now beingfocussed on who should pay. One idea gathering significant momentum has been theimposition of an environmental levy.

Many Europeans are concerned about the living conditions of farm animals because they view animals as beings that possess interests of their own. Against this background the introduction of an animal welfare label is being intensively discussed in Europe. In choosing a market-based instrument to take these concerns into account, normative judgments are made about the formation of preferences, the value system that is implicitly assumed, and the distribution of property rights.

This paper discusses the internal processes and decisions that characterized thetransition from collectively held group ranches to individualized property systems amongthe Maasai pastoralists of Kajiado district in Kenya. It addresses the question of whygroup ranch members would demand individualized property systems, but then turnagainst the outcome. In addressing this puzzle the paper discusses the process of landallocation and distribution during group ranch subdivision.

Wind power generation is growing rapidly in the United States, doubling nearly every three years since 1998. Yet, wind is an open access resource, and past experiences with open access resources suggest that tragedies of the commons may occur. While the engineering literature has focused on turbine siting within a wind farm to maximize profits and minimize interaction effects, the economics literature has overlooked interaction effects between windfarms. We provide a qualitative framework for measuring wake externalities and use simulation modeling to determine their magnitude.

One of the crucial questions which emerges in the context of REDD+ is how the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities will be protected. These rights include the rights of sharing in the financial benefits of REDD+, the rights to participate in decision-making around REDD+ schemes, and the rights to have their knowledge about forestry resources respected. Each of these issues depends on the extent to which they have some sort of claim to, or tenure over, tropical rainforests.

This manuscript examines the member-agricultural cooperative relationship from the point of view of the agency and the property rights theories. The sample analysed includes 277 personal surveys completed by members of agricultural cooperatives in the Region of Murcia (Spain). Results show that in all questions related to objectives and level of satisfaction, members value them with an average of 6.9 out of 10 or higher in all cases.

This article studies the influence of local knowledge on the impact of science on institutional change in ecological and environmental management.