Blog
Home » Blog »
-
- August 14, 2016
Share Your Office Space With Us
As land prices in urban areas surge it is not impossible to think of new ways of sharing space. Today, several offices have pooled their resources together and are sharing office space and infrastructure. In much the same way several livelihoods in rural India share Common Property Resources temporally and spatially.
For instance under pastoral productions systems land, like water, the oceans and air are viewed as being part of the larger commons and to be used collectively rather than individually. Thus grazing is a collective activity shared by many families in an area.
Grazing is not limited to one species but multiple species can graze in the same area at the same time. This is because different species have different grazing patterns and prefer different varieties of plants. Sheep and cattle graze, while goats browse. Camels eat the leaves from tall trees. Livestock can also share space with wildlife where different species of herbivores, domesticated and wild can graze in the same area. In fact, there are several examples from Africa and India to show that this can actually be mutually beneficial.
The same land can also be used by different communities for different uses. While pastoral production makes use of edible grass and forage species, other species found in the commons such as bamboo, roots and tubers may be utilized by tribal communities’ in the same area at the same time.
Resource use may also be seasonal. Agriculture is practiced for one season and the same land in another season is used for grazing by pastoralists thereby supporting many more families and production systems. Likewise, a water tank in dry lands stores water in one season, serves as a grazing resource in another and could be under agricultural crops in the third. Several people share the resource in collaborative and supportive ways.
Think about it. It makes sense doesn’t it?