Communal Governance of Land and Resources as a Sustainable Property Institution

Abstract

In this chapter, Professor Godden investigates the potential of communal ownership of land and resources as a source of possible models for a sustainable property system. She does so by examining the often-made claims that communally held land and resources are less sustainable and more vulnerable to overexploitation than private property forms. She draws on several years of research that examined conflicts over common land and resources, and the introduction of private property, as a regulatory mechanism, in areas as diverse as indigenous peoples' communal land title, water rights trading, and native vegetation and biodiversity offsets.