Making the Commons Work: Conservation and Cooperation in Ireland

Commonage represents land held under common property which incorporates a system of local cooperative arrangements and rules to conserve and manage the Irish uplands. However, there are concerns that recent agricultural and rural policies may have negatively affected commonage governance and conservation. We analyse the institutional and economic factors which influence the behavior of commonage farmers under a common property regime using a recursive bivariate probit model. Results show that (1) cooperation has a positive and important impact on commonage conservation; (2) agricultural policies by way of livestock premia increases the level of degradation; whilst (3) farm financial support through agri-environment measures positively affects commonage conservation and encourages cooperation between farmers.