Nagendra, Harini
(2014)
Reflections.
The Commons Digest, Spring (15).
pp. 16-18.
Abstract
It is a great privilege and honor for me to
write this essay for The Commons Digest as a
recipient of the 2013 Elinor Ostrom Senior
Scholar Award for Collective Governance of the
Commons. As I write, I am sitting in my office
on the 9th floor of a tall building in an academic
campus in the incipient megapolis of
Bangalore, with a magnificent view of the city.
To the west, I can see a 6-lane high-speed
highway choked by traffic, full of people
frenetically commuting from their homes in
city to their jobs in the globally famous
Information Technology campuses located just
outside. To the east, I am fortunate to witness
a completely different picture. A tranquil
marshy wetland and freshwater lake, with
dozens of cows grazing and cooling down in
the water while the mid-day sun blazes
overhead, companiably accompanied by
hundreds of cattle egrets feeding on the
insects that annoy the cattle. This idyllic
picture of cooperation, mutualism, and rural
bliss has evolved and been sustained over
centuries in Bangalore (Bangalore's lakes are
not natural, but were historically created and
maintained by local communities, with a
history that can be traced as far back as 450
AD). Yet even this picture is marred if you
slightly turn your head to the left, by the
obvious presence of construction (presumably
of a high rise building) next to the wetland,
which has already resulted in the dumping of
large mounds of debris into one side of the
lake.
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