Even after years of degradation and neglect, forests, grazing land, community ponds, water holes for cattle and other domestic animals continue to play an important role in rural livelihoods. Communities depend significantly on these resources for a variety of benefits. In degraded areas, in the absence or limited availability of alternate sources of livelihoods or agriculturally productive land, communities are all the more dependent on these common natural resources. Such dependence is higher in the case of the poor, and grows more pronounced during times of stress, such as droughts or crop failures.

Degradation of land and depletion of water resources are among the most serious problems being faced in many parts of the world including India. Such a trend is all the more severe on lands that are customarily held as commons or owned by the State. Conventional development initiatives have for several years, failed to realize the importance of and the need to protect and nurture these lands. A perspective that could appreciate the positive interdependencies that exist amongst various resources and production systems in a physical context is imperative. Besides providing many benefits to the surrounding communities such lands serve the critical purpose of maintaining biodiversity and act as sinks for recharging ground water. In many parts these are the only places that remain as habitats for a variety of plants and animals.

The failing ecological health of these commons has led to a complex spiral of adverse economic and ecological consequences. While farmers with larger land holdings can adapt to meeting their grazing, fuel wood and water needs from their own private resources, the poor, particularly women, are significantly affected by the crises, as commons remain the last physical and political space for them. Often, as we have experienced in the semi arid areas of the country, following continuous years of drought, the poor communities do not have any recourse but to continue to extract whatever biomass is available, down to the last blade of grass, from the commons, for their animals. And as things get worse such communities are forced to migrate. On the other hand where situations permit, it is also observed that deeper aquifers are tapped by those who can afford. This overuse of the land results in an ecologically and economically detrimental cycle.