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We analyse the results from a longitudinal natural field experiment that provides an environmental nudge by reinforcing positive environmental norms. Posters asking individuals to use less paper are pasted on printers (Times) and in office cubicles (Umendall) of two information technology firms around New Delhi, India. A third firm (India Mart) does not get the nudge and serves as our control. During the nudge period, employees of the firms that get the conservation message on average expend a significantly lower number of sheets per day as compared to the pre-nudge period, measured both in terms of paper used and paper wasted. Furthermore, after the nudge is removed, the per capita paper wastage for one of the firms that received it (Times) does not increase significantly over the next month and a half, whereas for the other firm (Umendall) it does but remains significantly lower than the per capita wastage in the pre-nudge period. In terms of total paper used, the nudged firms show a reduction in the number of sheets used several weeks after the nudge is removed. For the control firm, the wastage and usage of printer paper does not change significantly over the duration of the experiment. A robustness check with no nudge intervention done by computing per capita wastage and usage for the same dates exactly one year later does not show a reduction over the same time period and offers support for our conclusions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Project Tiger has been India''s premier case of conservation success. Since mid 1990s select Project Tiger Reserves in India were chosen for intensive funding by the Global Environment Facility, the International Development Agency (IDA) and the Government of India under the ‘India Eco-Development Project’. This project marked a modest shift towards debt based funding. The GEF Project has become a benchmark for tiger conservation in India both in terms of management outcomes and scale and scope of funding. However in the absence of large-scale budgetary support or self-generating income flows, it becomes difficult for the GEF type of project to be replicated in other tiger reserves of the country. Debt instruments hold promise as enablers of conservation finance. The paper proposes issue of ‘tiger bonds’ to meet the financial requirements of tiger reserves. Though attractive as a debt instrument, a ‘tiger bond’ could nevertheless entail interest rate and default risks. Bioprospecting activities form good revenue sources for tiger reserves to pay off their debts. However bioprospecting activities do not provide assured returns to tiger reserves. Pharmaceutical companies that prospect for genetic resources and practice ‘real options’ approach to R&D investment planning, adopt multi-phased investment systems and sequential searches that gives them the flexibility to abandon R&D projects. From the point of view of genetic resource providing entities like Project Tiger Reserves, the ‘postponement value’ generated by real options, enables a drug company to tap substitutes for the genetic resources that form the subject matter of bioprospecting contracts. To obviate possible repayment risks by tiger reserves, the paper advocates the institution of ‘put bonds’ as a risk management tool for Project Tiger Reserves in order to hedge themselves against loan defaults arising from possible loss in bioprospecting income. The paper also brings out the mechanics of the issue of tiger bonds in the Indian context. It is argued that a put bond not only hedges default risks but would also aid ‘value discovery’ and payment for ecosystem services as far as the Project Tiger Reserves of India are concerned. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The paper critically examines institutional outcomes in conservation of village commons against the backdrop of rural power relations in two villages of Rajasthan (India). While one of the villages could achieve highest institutional outcome in terms of equity, the other one failed to do so. It failed because renovated institution reproduced same relations of unequal power and authority as a pervasive feature of social relations. The paper shows how the locally renovated institution in the other village sustains while managing its village common pastureland, despite perpetrating discrimination against the subordinates. It, however, does not suggest institutional practices under the authoritarian leadership that might collapse in the context of changing power equations in rural areas. The paper argues that primary condition for equitable entitlement to the improved resource base to emerge, as an institutional outcome is the removal of dependency syndrome of the subordinates on the powerful. It capacitates them to make claims. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The choice of domestic fuel is a matter of great concern for households and policy makers in India. This paper investigates the demand for domestic fuels when households face four choices: Fuelwood, Coal, Kerosene and LPG. The study is based on a survey of 500 households in Kolkata, India. The demand estimates are conducted using a two-stage process where the first stage investigates choice and the second the quantity used. Determinants of fuel demand are identified and their relative importance shown. Extending the study, the paper also analyses the choice of the main cooking fuel in terms of the households'' stated rankings of six fuels for five attributes. The policy discussion indicates that subsidies have less potential to reduce polluting fuels such as coal and fuelwood due to weak cross-price elasticities, while increased availability of LPG and potentially also increased awareness of indoor air pollution have greater prospect. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: A growing body of research points to the fact that capital markets react to environmental news and thus create incentives for pollution control in both developed and emerging market economies. In this paper, we conduct an event study to examine the impact of environmental rating of large pulp and paper, auto, and chlor alkali firms on their stock prices. We find that the market generally penalizes environmentally unfriendly behaviour in that announcement of weak environmental performance by firms leads to negative abnormal returns of up to 30%. A positive correlation is found between abnormal returns to a firm''s stock and the level of its environmental performance. These findings should be viewed as further evidence of the important role that capital markets could play in environmental management, particularly in developing countries where environmental monitoring and enforcement are weak. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The fertilizer intensive technology so long promoted in agriculture produced a green revolution but has brought long-term damages to soil quality. The technology now appears unsustainable for future agricultural development in India both on account of its ecological implications and the burden on the budget. There is now a need to revisit the traditional methods once used in agriculture and to look for a judicious blend of chemical fertilizer based technology with organic manure.Since manures are relatively less productive in the short run there is an alarm that a shift in technology away from the chemical fertilizer towards organic manure may mean a compromise in production or may hurt the incomes of farmers. This paper emphasizes the environmental benefits of a possible shift in agricultural technology, while keeping in view the importance of sustaining crop yield levels and protecting farmers'' incomes. Considering two major crops in India in specific states the paper finds that over time while fertilizer use intensified several times over, the use of manure in agriculture either stagnated or declined. The manure market remained localized, limited and unorganized and its price was significantly higher than fertilizer in terms of nutrients in contrast to the organized and state supported fertilizer market. The paper estimates quadratic yield functions based on cross-section household level data and using the prices faced by farmers as reported by official survey finds that in majority of the cases there will not be any financial loss resulting from a small shift in technology towards organic manure. Such a shift can however be considered feasible if the losing households are compensated and if manure price is kept in control by promoting a more dynamic manure market. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The forest history in India is fraught with struggles between the forest dwelling communities and the state. While the state usurped power over forests, excluding the communities and privileging commercial interests; the alienation of communities from their own land and homes resulted in mobilization across different sites. The movement for protection of forest commons assumed significance through the decade of 1970s that saw the famous Chipko movement in Uttarakhand and other forms of resistance across the country. The demand upon the forests that had intensified with subsistence, commercial and urbanization pressures, further enhanced with pressures of globalization. The consequent environmental degradation and dispossession of the communities of their resources resulted in varieties of environmentalism. In the arena of environmental conflict, Central India has been a hotbed of contest with forcible evictions, increasing base of extractive industries and steady militarization. The tribal communities in Central India faced serious threat from a monolithic state as it prioritized 'national development' goals over social equity and environmental justice. Rooted in this inequity was widespread discontent and social mobilization across the forested landscape. The local mobilization in Baiga Chak area of Central India clearly marked recognition of their socio-cultural embeddedness in their natural setting, particularly forest. What was unique in this movement was the uprising of Baiga women to assert their rights over the forest contrary to their traditionally defined role. It gradually led to collectivization of demand for recognition of Baiga communities' historical relationship and claims over forest resource. Using the framework of Feminist Political Ecology, this paper examines Baiga women's movement against Forest Department's unlawful practices in Baiga Chak region of Central India. Using a case-based approach, the paper addresses the following questions: What factors led to the feminized grassroots environmental movement? How have women's bargaining power and gender relations evolved at the local level consequently? What effect does women's resistance have on community governed forest systems? In response to state usurpation that threatened the livelihood and household well-being, Baiga women collectively struggled to regain control over local forest resources. The analysis of this gendered environmental movement establishes an intersection between local structural, economic and ecological concerns and signals possibility of several gendered social movements in contested resource geographies. • Establishes link between gendered resource politics and commons. • Feminist Political Ecology Framework used to discuss indigenous women's forest mobilization. • Drivers of women-led movement analyzed. • Analyzes outcomes of a women-led environmental movement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many developing countries, many households, especially in rural areas, are still heavily reliant on solid biomass as a cooking fuel, despite its negative health and environmental implications. Liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) is a clean alternative, but its higher cost implies that its use is often limited to the richer, urban areas of a country. This paper focuses on the Indian context and investigates, over a relatively long time-frame, whether social spillover effects might have played a role in a household's decision to use LPG, and how these effects varied across different sub-populations. Using data from several waves of the National Sample Survey (NSS), the recent ACCESS survey, and the India Human Development Survey (IHDS), this paper provides multiple strands of evidence that, taken jointly, suggest that positive social spillovers are present. Spillovers are also found to be stronger for households that belong to social networks, than for households that do not belong to any network. Our results provide partial evidence on convergence in LPG use rates across subgroups of the Indian population, and have strong implications for policy-makers around the world who could leverage lessons from social learning to encourage consumers to switch to cleaner sources of energy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Little statistical evidence exists on the effects of forest management regimes and wealth on forest access rates in South Asia. To determine the magnitude and significance of these effects, this paper analyzes a dataset of communities from Himachal Pradesh, India, with a fractional logit model. The investigation considers three specific forest management regimes including a regime under complete state control, traditional community regime and a co-management regime known as Joint Forest Management. Communities with higher incidence of land poverty have lower forest access rates for grazing and fodder extraction, whereas communities with a higher incidence of land-rich households have higher forest access rates for fodder extraction. Forest access rates for fuelwood collection are lower under traditional and co-management regimes. However, the interaction between land-poverty and co-management regime increases forest access rates for fodder collection and livestock grazing. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

To ensure efficient water allocation and use, policy designers have adopted various strategies, including price setting, decentralising irrigation water management or improving water rights. Most of these strategies have been applied individually, without considering the complementary relationships between them. This paper uses a discrete choice model to analyse the scope for combinations of tools for irrigation water demand management and farmers'' acceptance of these. In terms of local irrigation water governance, the presence or absence of collective irrigation water management, in the form of a Water Users Association, is considered. Water rights are specified in terms of the duration and quality of the entitlement and its transferability. Finally, four types of water pricing methods (area, crop, block and volumetric pricing) are considered. Using a choice experiment, we elicit the most preferred water pricing method, under different water rights situations, at different price levels and under various contexts for local irrigation water governance. Our results indicated that under conditions of improved water rights, preference for volumetric pricing increases, whilst the presence of a Water Users Association reduces this preference. Furthermore, it was found that using an appropriate combination of water demand management tools considerably increases the willingness to pay for a change in scenario. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper analyses the different activities within the value chain of organic cotton production in India to understand where, and how, value is added at each stage. Transforming a cotton crop into a textile and then into a final item of clothing involves many stages of processing, using many skills and technologies. We examine the activities and the prices achieved at each stage of this chain, from the farming of the cotton crop to its eventual sale in clothes'' retailers. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper seeks to identify and analyze the factors that explain differential outcomes of joint forest management (JFM) in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. Factors affecting the performances of JFM communities are analyzed using an ordered logit model. The results indicate that JFM communities are more likely to perform well when they are smaller in size and when forest resources in the JFM community are scarce. Presence of social capital and high value forests are also likely to promote good forest growth. Effective protection of forests is likely to contribute to the growth of forests. JFM communities that were initiated by NGOs are more likely to manage forests effectively than the one initiated by the Forest Department. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper studies mechanisms to compensate local government for the public provision of environmental services using the theory of optimal fiscal transfers in India. Especially, we analyzed the role of intergovernmental fiscal transfers in achieving the environmental goal. Simply assigning the functions at appropriate levels does not ensure optimal provision of environmental services. Optimality in resource allocation could be achieved by combining the assignment system with an appropriate compensation mechanism. Intergovernmental fiscal transfers would be a suitable mechanism for compensating the local governments and help in internalizing the spillover effects of providing environmental public goods. Illustrations are also provided for India. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Untreated or partially treated wastewater, which is a negative externality of urban water use, is widely used for irrigation in water scarce regions in several countries including India. While the nutrients contained in the wastewater is considered as beneficial to agriculture, the contaminants present in it pose environmental and health risks. This paper examines the morbidity status, its determinants as well as the cost of illness for households living in the areas irrigated with wastewater in comparison with those using normal quality water. Primary data collected from six villages irrigated with wastewater along Musi River which is fed with wastewater and one control village where normal quality water is used for irrigation has been used for the analysis. It is seen that higher rates of morbidity exist in the wastewater irrigated villages when compared to the control village. Specifically, adult and female morbidity rates are significantly higher than child and male morbidity rates. From the logit analysis it is seen that exposure to wastewater and engagement in activities based on it places the households in higher risk groups to report morbidity. Small and marginal farmers incur higher economic cost of illness. However, it has been difficult to ascertain the cause and effect relationship as most of the households have reported more common illnesses like fever, head ache, skin itching, stomach ailments, etc. The study points out the need for a comprehensive risk assessment and adoption of risk management measures including setting standards for treatment and discharge of wastewater and regulations on the type of uses etc. to prevent unplanned use of untreated or partially treated wastewater while taking into account local conditions. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Would enhancing women's presence in community institutions of forest governance improve resource conservation and regeneration? This paper focuses on this little addressed question. Based on the author's primary data on communities managing their local forests in parts of India and Nepal, it statistically assesses whether the gender composition of a local forest management group affects forest conservation outcomes, after controlling for other characteristics of the management group, aspects of institutional functioning, forest and population characteristics, and related factors. It is found that groups with a high proportion of women in their executive committee (EC)—the principal decision-making body—show significantly greater improvements in forest condition in both regions. Moreover, groups with all-women ECs in the Nepal sample have better forest regeneration and canopy growth than other groups, despite receiving much smaller and more degraded forests. Older EC members, especially older women, also make a particular difference, as does employing a guard. The beneficial impact of women's presence on conservation outcomes is attributable especially to women's contributions to improved forest protection and rule compliance. More opportunity for women to use their knowledge of plant species and methods of product extraction, as well as greater cooperation among women, are also likely contributory factors. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Forest use rules determine what products are extracted from community governed forests, in what quantity, by what methods, and by whom. The nature of rules and the process by which they are formulated (e.g. who participates in formulating them) can impinge critically on institutional sustainability (given their potential impact on the commitment and incentive to protect), and on equity and conservation outcomes. This is well recognized in the substantial literature on institutions governing common pool resources (CPRs). It is also well recognized, although in relation to other types of institutions, such as legislatures and village councils, that there can be notable differences in women's and men's policy priorities. Yet there is surprisingly little existing work on, or statistical testing of, potential gender differences in rule making in institutions managing natural resources such as forests. This paper, based on the author's primary data for India and Nepal, seeks to fill this conceptual and empirical gap. It examines why we might expect women to favour different rules from men, and statistically tests whether the gender composition of the executive committees (ECs), the main decision-making bodies of community forestry institutions (CFIs) in South Asia, makes a difference to the strictness of forest use rules. This is analyzed both by specifying a strictness index which aggregates rules across products and by examining rules for selected products, and both for all sample districts together and for each district separately. Gender is found to make a significant difference to the rules specified but not always in the expected direction. Given their substantial and daily dependence on local forests, especially for firewood and fodder, rural women may normally be expected to veer toward lenient rules of extraction. In fact, groups with more EC women and especially with all-women ECs tend to make stricter rules than other groups in most of the sample districts, except one district where they tend to make less strict rules. Greater strictness is attributable especially to the resource constraint faced by all-women groups (i.e., CFIs with all-women ECs) which receive smaller and more degraded forests than groups with men. Less strict rules among CFIs in the exceptional district are attributable especially to the disproportionate presence of landless women on their ECs. In other words, not simply women's presence in rule making but also their economic class can matter. Strictness also varies by type of product, forest and population characteristics, the EC's average age and dominant caste, and monitoring constraints. The potential implications for equity, institutional sustainability and forest conservation are also discussed. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: In this paper, we account for forest wealth in India. Changes in the timber and carbon wealth embodied in these forests are related to important green national accounting aggregates such as genuine saving and the change in wealth per capita. Important accounting issues include the timing of carbon releases that occur when forests are disturbed, as well as the valuation of these releases. Our empirical findings suggest that while India''s forest wealth is substantial, net changes in this wealth are arguably not so large at least in relation to GNP. However, when viewed in the context of the wealth-diluting effects of population growth this implies a far larger additional savings effort is required to cover the (net) loss in forest values than otherwise appears to be the case. Finally, we examine ways in which the accounting approach that we adopt can be reconciled with approaches which stress conserving forest wealth. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: In semi-arid conditions in Northwest India, smallholder agriculture has made increasing use of subsidised mechanisation and energy inputs to reduce short-term risks. However, detrimental environmental consequences have occurred, not least a rapidly falling water table, and energy-intensive production is threatened by the prospect of increasing scarcity and expense of energy supplies, especially as urban demands are forecast to grow rapidly. This paper describes the energy flows through four subsystems of smallholder agricultural villages: the crop system; non-crop land uses; livestock systems; and households. It employs a multi-objective programming model to demonstrate choices available for maximands either of net solar energy capture or financial surpluses. Applied to three villages selected to represent major settlement types in the Saurashtra region of Gujarat, the results demonstrate that both energy conservation and financial performance can be improved. Although these results need qualifying because of the reductionist, linear character of the model used, they do provide important insights into the cultural role of mechanisation and the influence of traditional agricultural practices. They also underline the need for local energy conservation strategies as part of an overall approach to improved self-determination in progress towards rural sustainability. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Due to inequality in distribution of private wealth and market imperfection if individual members in the society have access to different technologies for extraction of common property resources (CPR), resolving ‘collective action dilemma’ for efficient use of CPR through voluntary participation becomes a difficult task. To lend concreteness to the problem, in the context of Indian semi-arid rural society, this paper has chosen one among those very well-known CPR management problems, viz., conservation of water resources, for irrigation. With the help of a two-stage bargaining game model—with stage one, related to water harvesting and stage two, related to agricultural production—it shows in terms of an asymmetric Nash solution that different types of community programmes based on (i) equal entitlement right to water and (ii) switch over to less water intensive agricultural production cannot ensure successful equitable and efficient water management through voluntary participation. In the presence of inequality and market imperfection, the incentive mechanism to increase efficiency in water use for the purpose of conservation will enhance inefficiency outside the commons water periphery. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]