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Synopsis This book provides a fresh perspective on the linkages between distress out-migration, poverty and environmental degradation in India. The authors’ hypothesis is that the establishment of properly constituted property rights through institutional intervention is the key in mitigating poverty and to stemming distress out-migration from rural to urban areas. They provide conclusive evidence concerning the impact of institutional changes on environmental upgradation and socio-economic improvement. The authors begin by assessing the magnitude of the problem of degraded common property resources in the country as a whole and in arid and semi-arid regions in particular. They supplement their macro survey by field level data and information. Using econometric techniques, desegregated levels of analysis are employed to test the basic hypothesis in various ways and to explore the relationship between variables. This account is supplemented by an analysis of the processes underlying the evolution and working of two organisations representing different paradigms with respect to rural development. Finally, the authors derive policy implications from their multi-pronged analysis, placing them in the context of current trends in development in India. Based on their research, the authors conclude that institutional change, induced mainly by non-governmental organisations, positively influences the productivity of natural resources by creating well-defined property rights as also mechanisms for enforcing them. This then decreases out-migration from rural areas.