Does securing the commons conserve resources and improve well-being?

The total amount of land around the world that is legally owned or designated as common property (‘the commons’) has been increasing since the 1990s. Estimates suggest that the area formally recognised as commons may have doubled between 2015 and 2020. Securing rights over the commons can incentivise external investment in their collective management. Such investment can strengthen a community’s ability to prevent non-community members from using the commons’ resources, support more sustainable management on behalf of community members, and increase the productivity of resources.

This paper explores the institutional conditions under which securing the commons can both conserve resources and improve people’s well-being. It analyses the Improved Forest Management for Sustainable Livelihoods Programme (IFMSLP) in Malawi, a community forest management initiative in a country where many people rely on natural resources for their livelihoods, and where forests serve as an important safety net for poor rural households. Under the IFMSLP, communities gained legal rights to manage and harvest forest products. The programme aimed to reduce poverty while also protecting forests.

The paper finds there are limits to the extent to which policies that emphasise support for resource extraction and the generation of environmental income can improve well-being and conserve resources.

Key points for decision-makers

• In 2020, at least 11.4% of all land across 73 surveyed countries was legally controlled as common property, with a further 7.2% having more limited community designation rights. Fully implementing existing legal frameworks could potentially double the total area legally owned by or designated for communities.
• Securing the commons for the benefit of local people and ecosystems is both challenging and complex. However, it is more likely to conserve resources and improve well-being when investments in resource production are matched by efforts to strengthen a community’s ability to regulate how much labour is devoted to resource extraction.
• In Malawi, evidence suggests that securing the commons through the IFMSLP neither conserved resources nor improved people’s well-being. Instead, the policy briefly reduced peoples’ well-being and did nothing to slow forest loss. Further analysis indicates that investments in resource production were ineffective and attempts to regulate how much labour people devoted to resource extraction did not work, at least during the period studied.
• The research model considers three separate components independently: exclusion, management, and access/withdrawal rights, which means it can be adapted to other policies that only involve one or two of the components, giving it relevance beyond individual policies like the IFMSLP or forest commons more broadly.
• The findings contribute to wider understanding of efforts to improve well-being among the roughly one billion people worldwide who depend on forests for their incomes and livelihoods, and essential needs such as nutrition, energy and housing.