ABSTRACT
Contrary to conventional wisdom, economic instruments are neither foreign to non-Western cultures nor new to developing countries. Traditional societies, especially in developing countries, have a wealth of economic instrument-like incentive-building systems such as customary use rights, communal management systems and customs that provide incentives for efficient use and management of natural resources. These range from water rights in India, to communal forests and land rights in Papua New Guinea (Panayotou, 1993c), to customary fishing rights in Brazil, Sri Lanka and the Ivory Coast.
