There are several examples of collective action/social movements for the environmental cause in India. The literature on environmental governance and environmental economics, identifies a significant role of the nature of environmental goods with respect to the twin classifying criteria of rivalry in consumption and excludability. The common pool resource and public good nature of environmental property require varied governance approaches. These economic theory-based classifications can be associated with diverse types of property rights regimes in the legal realm. By developing an analytic narrative, this article attempts to identify how common individuals related with environmental movements, identify some of these nuances with respect to nature of environmental goods and associated property rights regimes and develop strategies for improvements. This article utilises secondary qualitative data to examine the perspective of common individuals, groups, and leaders of environmental movements to infer theoretical learnings from a few cases in India.