Indigenous governance structures for maintaining an ecosystem service in an agro-pastoral community in the Indian Trans Himalaya

Figures & data

Figure 1. Diagrammatic representation of the first-tier variables of the SES framework used to study the governance system for pasture plant-biomass removal from communal pastures in Kibber village, a high-altitude agro-pastoral system in the Indian trans-Himalaya. The Resource System (RS), which is the grazing pastures, gives rise to the Resource Unit (RU), plant-biomass. The interplay between Actors and Rules leads to the Primary Interaction, plant-biomass removal, which leads to Outcomes in the resource system. The socio-economic and political setting impacts the resource system. Adapted from McGinnis and Ostrom (2014)

Table 1. First- and second-tier variables of the SES framework (McGinnis and Ostrom 2014) used to describe the social-ecological system for the governance of forage in the pastures in the high altitude village of Kibber, Spiti Valley, Indian Trans-Himalaya. The situation in Kibber for each of the second-tier variables is described. The variable number corresponds to the variable number in the SES framework (McGinnis and Ostrom 2014)

First-tier variables	Second-tier variables and definitions	Situation in the study village Kibber, Spiti Valley, India
Resource system (RS)	Sector (RS1)	The resource system is represented by the grazing pastures belonging to the village Kibber in Spiti Valley, Indian Trans-Himalaya
	Clarity of system boundary (RS2)	The boundaries of the pastures are clearly recorded in the village and district-level land documents and understood by all within the village and neighbouring villages.
	Productivity of the system (RS5)	Low productivity, high altitude arid system, where plant growth is limited to a short growing of about 4 months (Kohli et al. 2021).
	Location (RS9)	The study site was located in a region 4200 m above mean sea level in Spiti Valley, in the Indian trans-Himalaya. (32°37’ – 32°27’; 77°96’- 78°05’)
Governance system (GS)	Government organisation (GS1)	The main government organizations of relevance in the study site included the Forest department, the Revenue department, the Public Works Department, and the Tourism department
	Non-government organisation (GS2)	A single conservation-focused NGO, the Nature Conservation Foundation, is working with the community on issues of conservation of biodiversity and conflict management with large carnivores including snow leopards and wolves over livestock depredation.
	Property-rights system (GS 4)	The property-rights are strong and recorded in official land documents. The primogeniture system involves property being largely transferred to the eldest son. The second son is usually sent to the monastery. The others are encouraged to take up employment. The eldest daughter inherits all the jewellery, while the younger ones don’t inherit. If a family doesn’t have a son, property is given to the husband of the oldest daughter.
	Operational-choice rules (GS5)	Operational choice rules exist in the study system with decision making rules around the use of the pasture. Decisions such as where to graze the livestock based on the availability of forage or presence of predators are made everyday. In case the designated herders are unavailable on a particular day, decisions on which of the other households would take over the responsibility are made.
	Collective-choice rules (GS 6)	Collective-choice rules exist within this system which are collectively made by the community. Collective-choice rules related to pasture management include the system of assigning herding responsibilities. The herders are chosen on a turn-wise, rotation basis amongst all the households in the village. Collective-choice rules determine the period during which plant-biomass can be collected from the pastures. Collective choice rules also determine the selection of the village leader (nambardar) and his assistants (chota nambardar) annually. The nambardar is chosen from the original 21 households with the largest landholds on a rotation basis. There are two chota nambardars who are chosen from the remainder of the households, on a rotation basis.
	Constitutional-choice rules (GS 7)	Men have the decision-making power in this system. One man from every household is involved in the decision-making process. Women have a limited power in decision-making, limited to decisions on certain resources from the pastures such as the collection of Arnebia, which is used as a dye.
	Monitoring and sanctioning rules (GS 8)	There are several rules that exist around monitoring and sanctioning. They include monitoring collection of plant-biomass from the pastures, as well as monitoring of the daily herding duty. Violators are punished by imposing fines.
Resource units (RU)	Resource unit mobility (RU1)	The resource unit of examination, pasture plant-biomass, is immobile.
	Growth or replacement rate (RU2)	The arid, cold system, implies a slow growth rate of plants, and annual replacement during the short spring and summer.
Actors	Number of relevant actors (A1)	The actors in this system are the c. 80 households who reside in the Kibber village and are users of the grazing pastures surrounding the village.
	Socioeconomic attributes (A2)	The actors are agro-pastoralists with their main income derived from the sale of green pea. Some of the actors are engaged in other employment opportunities such as taxi drivers, shop-keepers, hotel owners, or are employed with the government. They are related to each other by blood. Spatially, the households in the village are close together. A minority of the households are considered to be of ‘lower’ caste, traditionally responsible within the village for butchery, and music. They have access (right to enter) rights to the pastures. They also have collective-choice rights as they take part in village meetings that devise operational level rights governing plant-biomass removal from the pastures.
	History or past experience (A3)	Kibber village has traditionally been agro-pastoral, growing barley for consumption and rearing livestock. The current generation have inherited the traditional systems for governing the pastures.
	Location (A4)	The majority of the actors are located within the village. Some have jobs in the nearby township of Kaza about 20 km away, but they tend to spend the weekends, or considerable part of the year, in the village. With improved access and transport, many travel back and forth on a daily basis.
	Leadership/entrepreneurship (A5)	The village elders are also leaders, who are frequently consulted for decision-making. Entrepreneurship includes setting up of stores, home-stays, tourist guides, and taxi drivers.
	Social capital (A6)	Most households in Kibber are related to each other by blood. There are frequent meetings and informal interactions between all members of the community.
	Knowledge of SES (A7)	The actors interact closely with the ecological system, with almost all actors visiting the grazing pastures for either herding duties, or collection of animal dung, fodder, and wild plants. The actors are also intimately aware of the social structures in the system.
	Importance of resource (A8)	The resource importance is moderate since over the last three decades they have come to predominantly depend on agriculture. Yaks have a direct role in ploughing and livestock dung serves as manure. Traditionally, they were an agro-pastoral society and barley was grown for human consumption . However, over the last 25 years there has been a transition from a livestock based to a predominantly crop based livelihood, primarily due to the successful adoption of green pea as commercial crop.

Table 2. Secondary interactions from the SES framework (McGinnis and Ostrom 2014) used to describe the primary interaction, plant-biomass removal in Kibber, a high-altitude agro-pastoral village. The secondary interactions were described by the mechanisms in the system that facilitated these interactions. The presence/absence and the frequency of the mechanisms are given in column 3. The strength of the secondary interactions was quantified through deliberative group discussions with key informants and the scores are given in column 4. The scores range from 1 to 5, with 1 valued low and 5 valued high. Information sharing, monitoring, conflict resolution, and self-organization scored high, while investment activity, networking activity, and lobbying activities scored low

Secondary interactions	Mechanisms	Measure	Deliberative discussion score (1–5)
Information Sharing	Formal mechanisms to ensure that people receive information.	Present	5
	Are these presently active and in use?	Yes
	Is it easily accessible to all members of the community?	Yes
	Formal meetings.	1–2 meetings/week.
	Formal key focal point for information sharing.	Present (nambardar or village head).
	Informal interactions around plant biomass removal.	Twice a day.
	External input into the systems by other actors.	Minimal. Seeds for fast growing forage planted but not effective.
Conflict resolution mechanism	Are there conflict resolution mechanisms present?	Present	4
	Are they presently active and in use?	Yes
	Is it easily accessible to all members of the community?	Yes
	Number of conflicts in the last year.	1
	Number of conflicts in the last 5 years.	1
	Number of unresolved conflicts.	0
	Time to resolve a conflict in the last five years.	1–4 weeks
Monitoring	Are there systems for monitoring present?	Present	4
	Are they presently active and in use?	Yes
	Type of monitoring.	Collective. Community-based.
	Formal meetings.	1–2 times/week.
	Formal visits to the pasture.	1/week
	Informal visits to the pasture.	Everyday
	Informal meetings.	Twice/day in the morning and the evening when livestock left the village and when they came back, respectively.
	Punishment for non-compliance.	Present
	Type of punishment.	Monetary fines
	Size of village.	80 HH
Self-organization activity	Are there systems for self-organization.	Present	4
	Are they currently active and in use?	Yes
	Are they inclusive of the whole community and are they easily accessible?	Yes
	Leader	Present
	Designated groups who are accountable.	Present
	Formal activities that are self-organized.	8 (celebrations around festivals).
	Self-organizing activities around plant biomass removal.	Once/week: decisions on where to move the free-ranging livestock for grazing based on the information that was shared.
		Once/day: Daily decisions on where to graze.
		Once/year: Vaccination for the yaks.
	Self-organizing activities around plant biomass removal.	Everyday. Decisions about where to graze the livestock. Once/week –
	Formal meetings.	1–2 times/week.
	Informal meetings.	twice/day in the morning and the evening before herding and after herding when they come back from the pastures.
Investment Activity	External input into the system by the community.	Nil	1
	External input into the systems by other actors.	Minimal. Seeds for fast growing forage planted but not effective.
Networking activities	Networking events organized amongst actors in the system.	Nil	1
	Networking events organized amongst the local actors and other stakeholders.	Nil
Lobbying activities	Formalized lobbying activities to influence decisions related to pasture management.	Nil	1

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Kohli M, Mijiddorj TN, Suryawanshi KR, Mishra C, Boldgiv B, Sankaran M. 2021. Grazing and climate change have site‐dependent interactive effects on vegetation in Asian montane rangelands. Journal of Applied Ecology. 58(3):539–549. doi:10.1111/1365-2664.13781.

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