Common Property Resources as Village Ecosystem Service Center in Drylands of Rajasthan, India

Abstract

There is an enormous stress on livelihood analysis of rural communities and their economies. Village common property resources (CPRs) have played a substantial economic role for the sustenance in rural areas of the drylands. The CPRs of drylands of western Rajasthan shows a varied range of habitats due to strong functional disparities in topographic, geomorphological, climatic, edaphic and physiographic characteristics. The situation is aggravated due to severe biotic pressure on local ecosystem exists due to overgrazing and anthropogenic activities. There is an interplay between rural communities and their dependency for livelihood on the CPRs. It is a well-known fact that CPRs, more or less, act as a village ecosystem service provider in the life and economy of the rural communities of the drylands of India. The main objective of the present study is to make an evaluation of the role of CPRs as a village ecosystem, emphasizing its functioning as a service provider and the socio-economic repercussions of its degradation or loss. It has been revealed that CPRs have played a very important part in the economy of the surveyed villages and the reliance of landless, marginal and small households has remained much higher and critical for their subsistence. There is an urgent need for the sustainable management of CPRs by the village bodies with the active participation of communities.