Do Institutions Affect Wetland-Dependent Livelihoods? Experience from Deepor Beel, Assam, India

Institutions are essential in shaping laws, rules, incentives, and governance structures for enhancing the livelihood of wetland dependents. Institutions not only raise public awareness for conservation but also play a crucial role in livelihood generation and improvement. Deepor Beel, recognized as a Ramsar site and designated as ‘Wetlands of International Importance,’ with significant portion of the local population dependent on the wetland for their livelihoods. The paper focuses on the role of institutional quality on the perception of livelihood of the people residing near Deepor Beel using Logistic regression and to validate whether people’s perception match with their observed livelihood assets Generalized Linear Model (GLM) is used. Quality of institutions has been assessed through Adjusted Adaptive Capacity Wheel (AACW) comprising of five dimensions namely- fair governance, learning capacity, resources, leadership and room for autonomous change. Analysis of 288 sample household reveals that robust institutions have the potential to uplift livelihood. Individual’s livelihood improvement, gauged by the livelihood asset index, reflects institutions’ ability to enrich people’s livelihoods.