The Guassa Area originated as a community-based natural resource management system known as “Qero” over 400 years ago. It is one of the oldest known conservation areas in Sub-Saharan Africa. The Qero system is organized by two formally elected chiefs who oversee the beneficiary communities to ensure equitable resource distribution, and enforce the bylaws protecting the common property resources. Based on traditional tenure patterns, rules of protection and utilization as well as enforcement are essential aspects of the Qero system. Further organization of the user community into parishes gave the Guassa area the status of consecrated land, under the protective patronage of the parish, which reinforced the Qero system with the prestige, power, and authority of another important local level institution. In the process, the Guassa common property resources became a kind of sacred entity. Following the 1974 popular revolution, the government nationalized all rural land in the country, disbanded all local level land tenure and common property natural resource management institutions. This agrarian reform destroyed the functionality of the Qero system and the Guassa area was turned into an open access resource, which resulted in extreme decline of natural resources in the area.