maintenance of a favorable microclimate). It has been well-documented at least for India's dry regions that CPRs are of particular importance for the rural poor. Based on a survey of 82 villages in 21 districts of seven states26, Jodha (1986, 1995) showed that 70-80 per cent of total fuel and grazing/ fodder requirements were met from CPRs for poor households, compared with no more than 30 per cent for non-poor households with better access to private land holdings. While 130-200 days of employment per year were met from CPRs for poor households, the corresponding figure for non-poor households was around 30-60 days. In total, an estimated 1423 per cent of household income was met from CPRs for poor households, compared with only 1-3 per cent for the non-poor.

Although the household was taken as the unit of analysis in Jodha's survey, other studies have shown that women (in non-poor as well as poor households) depend relatively more on commons than do men, owing to socially assigned roles for meeting household fuel and food requirements and for raising at least some livestock (Agarwal 1989). The degree of dependence on commons tends to be inversely related to the extent of private land holdings. Nonetheless, access to CPRs complements private land and other asset holdings such as livestock, and allows asset-poor households to diversify livelihoods and reduce risk, as Chopra et al. (1990) demonstrate for the lower Shivaliks of Haryana and Punjab.

Numerous studies have documented the dramatic rates of depletion and degradation of commons in rural India over recent decades (Jodha 1990; Chopra, Kadekodi and Murty 1990; Arnold and Stewart 1990). In Jodha's seven-state survey, it was found that the area of village commons declined on average by around 31-55 per cent over the period 1950-52 to 1982-84. The share of total village area accounted for by CPRs fell from an average of 18-41 per cent in 195052 to 10-24 per cent in 1982-84 (Jodha 1986). Given their relative and absolute dependence on CPRs, this harms the poor and other socially excluded groups more than it does the non-poor. Longitudinal assessments of the degradation (as opposed to depletion) of commons in India are harder to come by, owing to the absence of adequate baseline data, but are suggested by indicators of declining biodiversity, such as the number of products derived from commons, the number of tree and shrub species, and the relative shift from cattle to sheep and goats.

Various institutional factors underlie this decline in the extent and quality of CPRs over recent decades, and the relative shift in the distribution of benefits from commons (or former commons) from the rural poor to non-poor groups. Some highlight the manner in which land reform legislation has been implemented, the transfer of 'wastelands' and other common lands to the jurisdiction of panchayati raj institutions (Bromley and Chapagain 1984, Shanmugaratnam 1996, Blair 1996). Others have documented the weakening of customary CPR management practices at village level over recent decades, including levies on CPR use, penalties for transgressions of agreed rules, seasonal restrictions on harvesting, requirements on community members to contribute labor for the upkeep of commons, provision of watchmen, etc. (Wade 1988, Chopra et al. 1990, Blaikie et al. 1992). With isolated exceptions (Saint 1993, Singh 1995), attempts to introduce formal management regimes through state- or NGO-initiated watershed development or community forestry schemes (sometimes in partnership with panchayati raj institutions) have generally been rather ineffective to date in providing an adequate institutional basis for endogenous forms of collective action in natural resource management. Common

> 26 Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Kamataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu.

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