ABSTRACT
The research presented in this book is premised on the understanding that cultural assumptions concerning the value of common land are not stable but have changed across the centuries, with profound consequences for the law, for land management and for the exercise of common rights. The distinctive legal status of ‘common’ land poses a puzzle for a society in which concepts of private property are dominant, giving rise to a series of tensions that have emerged at different times: between public and private rights and interests; between concepts of common rights as appurtenant to property and as personal rights; between limitations on their use based on necessity and commercial exploitation. The sustainable governance of common land therefore presents us with a complex set of problems reflecting many conflicting interests – public and private, national and local, recreational and economic, ecological and agricultural, to name but a few. Common land is, in this sense, a truly ‘contested’ resource. The ‘stakeholders’ of today – whether land users, policy-makers or the public – are the inheritors of this complex cultural legacy, and must negotiate diverse and sometimes conflicting objectives in their pursuit of a potentially unifying goal: a secure future for the commons.
In drawing this study together, this chapter will argue for a wider public debate on the sustainability of our commons – an important facet of the British landscape – and how it might be promoted. It will also look beyond the narrow focus of the English and Welsh commons, and consider the potential impact of the research presented in the earlier chapters on the wider debate about the institutional governance of common pool resources.
Several key themes emerge from the case studies presented in Chapters 6 to 9. The first is the persistence of custom and its importance in the governance of the commons. Related to this is the role of ‘good neighbourhood’ as a key ingredient in good common pool resource management. Custom is often expressed differently at different times,
and its relationship with governance institutions is sometimes complex and shifting. Another theme linking the case studies is the complex interrelationship between the changing nature of customary land-use practices, on the one hand, and the legal and/or institutional form in which they are captured, reflected and (in some cases) shaped by governance institutions and norms, on the other.
The complexity of these interrelationships can be very clearly seen if we consider the relationship between customary land-use practice and the property rights captured by the Commons Registration Act 1965, and reflected in the contemporary commons registers. The 1965 Act has been described as the true ‘tragedy’ of the commons, in an English context, and its impact upon the sustainable management of the commons was almost wholly negative (Rodgers, 2010, p436). The relationship of the commons registration process to customary land management practices that were prevalent, prior to 1965, in many different parts of England and Wales was, however, highly complex, as was its impact.
