| Summary: |
Common property has often been regarded as an obstacle to development
and best-or inevitably-replaced by private or state ownership.
However, there are now many well-documented examples of
successful management of open-access resources, and experiments in
'co-management' by users, owners, and government officials. The idea
that the government should intervene to remedy the defects of
common property, perhaps by registration, is now contested by a
celebration of indigenous systems of self-management (Bromley 1989,
Bromley and Cernea 1989). Government intervention may sometimes
make things worse. Common property claims are also part of
indigenous peoples' defence and reaffirmation of political sovereignty.
The following chapters offer perspectives on common property
from different academic disciplines, and from different islands and
regions within and around the Pacific ocean. The disciplines include
Geography, Economics, Anthropology, Law, History, and Political
Science. The Pacific region includes settler societies like Australia,
New Zealand and Canada, where indigenous systems were marginaUsed,
and islands like Papua New Guinea and Fiji, where they were
conserved, and even strengthened during and after colonial rule. The
word 'governance' in the title recognises the political context of
property rights, and refers to the idea that order, including systems of property, is the outcome of interactions between governments,
markets and communities (Larmour 1996a, 1996b).
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