Resource Tenure: How do property rights enhance or restrict the ability of poor people to derive environmental income? In particular, what is the role of resource tenure in enabling the poor to transform nature into an economic asset? How crucial is security of land tenure to the poor’s ability to benefit from natural resources? How important to the poor are community-based forms of tenure?

Decentralization: What effect do institutions such as national forestry or fishery departments, district governments, or village councils have on the ability of the poor to access or sustain environmental income? What is the role of the state in natural resource management, and how does the transition to decentralized and community-level institutions (such as tribal structures, local levels of government, cooperatives, user groups, or watershed committees) affect the poor? When is decentralization the solution to poverty, and when does decentralization work against the poor?

Participation, Information, and Justice: How does political disenfranchisement prevent the poor from utilizing their natural endowments for more than mere subsistence livelihoods? Conversely, what is the role of democratic rights in ensuring that poor people benefit from natural resources? How can poor people use better access to information, public participation through their representatives, and access to the courts when their rights are violated to increase their capacity to earn environmental income? What are the challenges of providing appropriate information, participation opportunities, and real judicial or administrative access to poor communities?