Abstract
Using ground truth and remote sensing data this paper tries to demonstrate once again that commons as well as privately owned pastures are managed by their appropriators in such a manner that sustainability as a goal can be approached, while areas not recognized as controlled by one or more legitimate persons and hence open to all may well be overexploited. The analysis of pastures which are recognized as commons in the western Liddar valley in Kashmir (India) shows that these lands are not overexploited by the nomadic and transhumant pastoralists using them. On the whole, individually owned pastures were also not found to be overstocked. Those plots, however, through which all herders transit on their bi-annual migration and which are not recognized as being owned by any authority are highly degraded.
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Casimir, M.J., Rao, A. Sustainable Herd Management and the Tragedy of No Man's Land: An Analysis of West Himalayan Pastures Using Remote Sensing Techniques. Human Ecology 26, 113–134 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1018701001793
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1018701001793