Common property resources (CPRs), also known as the commons, are resources, held in common, with great ecological and socio-economic significance. For the poor and the marginalized, the commons have always been a vital source of livelihoods. Traditionally, examples of commons included forests, pasturelands, fisheries, groundwater, etc., although increasingly, the term commons has been used to refer to a broader set of domains, including knowledge commons, digital commons, and so on. While the commons have historically been under threat (the “enclosure of the commons” being a classic case), they have become much more vulnerable today, with increased privatization of natural resources under neoliberal capitalism. In an earlier avatar, I spent six years with an environmental NGO, Foundation for Ecological Security (www.fes.org.in), working on restoration of degraded commons. At FES, I led a multidisciplinary team of development professionals, scientists, and grassroots workers in Udaipur, Rajasthan, that worked on biodiversity conservation, sustainable rural livelihoods generation, and, most importantly, restoration of degraded forests and pasturelands through village level institutions. The commons continue to be an area of my research and teaching interests.