Contribution of Common Property Resources for Sustainable Rural Livelihoods in Odisha: Prospects and Constraints

Common Property Resources (CPRs) play a significant role in the life and livelihood of rural poor, for whom income and employment generation opportunities from private land are limited. In this paper, an attempt has been made to determine the contributions of CPRs to rural household income and their fuelwood and fodder requirements in four villages in Keonjhar district of Odisha from 1 April, 2012 to 31 March, 2013. The study covered 200 households (120 poor households and 80 nonpoor households) comprising landless and agriculture labourers, marginal and small farmers (poor households), and medium and large farmers (non-poor households) from four villages of two different sample blocks. The study reveals that encroachment, implementation of various developmental programmes and over exploitation resulted in degradation of CPRs, leading to livelihood crisis situation for the rural poor. Even now apart from their shrinkage and degradation, CPRs meet substantially the total requirements of fuelwood and fodder of both poor and nonpoor households. It has been found that the income and employment opportunities from CPRs among poor households are more than non-poor households in the study area, but not in absolute terms. Measures are required to ensure retention, regeneration and sustainable utilisation of CPRs to provide livelihood security to the CPR-dependent rural communities.