INTRODUCTION
This chapter is concerned with property regimes and property relations as they pertain to development projects undertaken in the interest of improving the management of natural resources. Development projects represent new streams of income and associated benefits to a local community, and sometimes to the nation-state in which these communities exist. But most development projects bestow the bulk of their beneficial (and harmful) effects on those in closest proximity to the development intervention. Sometimes these new circumstances will have been sought by those in the local community. Sometimes the development project will appear without local initiative.
The major difference in the long-run performance of these two types of projects can be profound indeed. One thing we know with almost striking certitude is that when local citizens have played a role in the conception of a development project, the chances for success are usually better than when projects simply appear from outside and are seen either as gifts, or as impositions. While this matter is not central to the issues I wish to raise here, the point bears mention because it addresses a fundamental issue in the domain of "ownership" - whether we think of ownership in relation to land and related natural resources, or in relation to alterations in the social and economic circumstances among local people arising from development projects.
Perceptions of ownership arise in the domain of property relations in and around the community into which development projects appear. These property relations will dominate the probability of success of all projects concerned with land and related natural resources. The centrality of property relations arises not because property relations connect people to land and other physical objects. Rather, property relations are central in development because they connect people to each other with respect to land and related natural resources. Notice that the emphasis is not on people and objects, but on people in relation to objects or circumstances. Property relations are simply socially constructed contractual arrangements among a group of people with respects to objects and circumstances of value to them. Property relations are created by human communities to mediate individual and collective behaviors regarding objects and circumstances of value to the members of the community.
It often happens that development projects are less successful than they would otherwise be precisely because the existing property relations have been ignored. Or, just as frequently, failure arises because the existing property relations have been misunderstood.
My purpose here shall be to address property relations in the context of developmental efforts. Some of these developmental efforts will have as their purpose the mitigation of natural resource degradation. Other such efforts will be primarily concerned to increase agricultural production and other income-earning possibilities. And of course some projects will seek to do both of these things. In my discussion I will try to summarize what we have learned over the years in the domain of property relations in the developing world. I will call attention to what has worked and what has not worked with respect to project design and implementation. And I shall draw implications for policy reform and institutional design. In essence, I shall try to emphasize those things that are necessary components of a development program focused on land use and land management in the developing world. To help the reader focus on the essential issues here, I shall begin with a section on the lessons learned. I will then turn to an elaboration of why these particular findings are - or seem to be - true.
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