“There are various definitions of commons at the present. If we use the terminology of commons as ‘common property’, it means the public sphere. The traditional context to define commons assumes that the form of existing community forests, the mutual utilization of forest areas, or the sacred forests (called Na Moo in the northern language) are indigenous peoples’ territory. On the other hand, commons points at a shared ‘public’ forest that everyone can access, use, and protect together. This concept of commons was inaugurated byoutsiders and capitalist investors invading indigenous land for exploitation. Additionally, the definition of commons extends to common rights or community rights. It’s not limited to the context of space or things anymore. And it is borderless: we now speak of the ‘global commons’ ” (Anan Ganjanapan, 2020).
Prof. Anan Ganjanapan explained commons as mutual utilization and participation in multistakeholder in each area. Commons is participatory management applied both in rural and urban areas. For example, forest community management is an obvious case in rural areas to present community right in shared responsibility for maintaining,
preserving, and utilizing or administrative laws in the city that is banning garbage incineration in the residential zones. Additionally, he considered commons as an unbounded entity, and complex rights including service, management, and possession, and commons will be a crucial mechanism that can diminish natural resource degradation at most in comparison with other mechanisms.
About Anan Ganjanpan
Director, Sustainable Agriculture Foundation, Thailand
