The importance of common property resources (CPRs) to rural communities is no longer in question. An exercise that is, however, necessary is a disaggregated analysis of CPR use across different agro-climatic zones that addresses certain unexplored issues in greater detail: (1) variations in CPR use in diverse agro-climatic zones, (2) differential dependence on CPRs between farmers of different operational size holdings, and (3) legal access to CPRs. Our contention in addressing these concerns is that they are critical to informed policy on the commons that explicitly addresses the potential of CPR-based livelihood strategies and implicitly conservation as well. The pa­per is largely based on the National Sample Survey 54 th Round data on CPRs as it presents interesting insights into the above-mentioned concerns based on a survey of 78,900 households across agro-climatic landscapes of the country.