Understanding the perception of environmental resources by the users is an important element in planning its sustainable use and management. Pastoralist communities manage their vast grazing territories and exploit resource variability through strategic mobility. However, the knowledge on which pastoralists’ resource management is based and their perception of the grazing areas has received limited attention.

This paper investigates how Borana pastoralists of southern Ethiopia have adapted resource use and livestock mobility practices amid multiple constraints including rising population, loss of rangeland to other pastoral communities and changing access rights, among others. This study uses an innovative multi-scalar methodology to understand how herders' grazing management decisions are made within a context of communal regulations governing access to resources.

Date: juin 2017

Source: Foncier & Développement

Par: Serge Aubague, Nasser Sani Baaré 

Le Niger est probablement le pays sahélien disposant du corpus juridique et du dispositif institutionnel le plus élaboré pour prémunir les pasteurs contre l’accaparement des terres pastorales. Ceci ne suffit hélas pas à endiguer le phénomène.

This study examines the effects of different grazing systems in two neighboring regions with similar biotic and abiotic factors, Nalan Soum in Mongolia and Naren Soum in Inner Mongolia, China. We employed the quadrat sampling method and remote sensing to set three perpendicular lines that dissect the boundary between the two countries, and seven lines parallel to the boundary to form a rectangular shape as a means to compare plant community response to different grazing systems under natural conditions. NDVI data is included in discussing the causes of Mongolian grassland degradation.

The rising conflicts between farmers and pastoralists threaten Nigeria’s food security, economic stability and ecological balance. Instead of ‘silently’ resolving the issues, the Nigerian government should intensify all means to end these crimes against livelihoods and address the root causes, like climate change, displacement and appropriation of grazing reserves.

Analyses the configuration of land rights among different users of land and discusses the implementation of Tanzania’s land policy reform. The key rights explored include those of small-scale producers (farmers and pastoralists) and large-scale investors. Explores how the state defines, allocates, protects and compensates for land when it appropriates such rights. Looks at the formal, informal and procedural rights that provide for and protect the rights of small-scale producers and investors, and the compensation offered to those who give up their land for investment.

Includes land alienation in the case study sites; impacts of land alienation; coping strategies; conclusions and policy recommendations. Found that livestock numbers are declining dramatically in the area, land degradation is increasing, people are becoming more vulnerable to drought and famine, and resource-based conflicts are increasing in severity. The traditional pastoralist way of life is increasingly making way for sedentary farming and enclosed private grazing land.

Findings of an investigation into the eviction of pastoralists in Loliondo, Ngorongo District, Arusha, northern Tanzania. Involves conflict with the Ortello Business Corporation of Dubai.

A brief on the need to secure land rights for the world’s pastoralists, who manage rangelands that cover a quarter of the world’s land surface but have few advocates. Covers the different paths pastoralists take; resource scarcity in the face of uncertainty; pastoralism and land use; loss and fragmentation of pastoralist lands and blocking of livestock routes; managing climatic variability and climate change; initiatives for securing pastoralists rights to land (Niger, Tanzania, India, Ethiopia).

A wide-ranging valedictory lecture by the veteran radical land guru. Offers glimpses of the role of law in Tanzania’s jump from the frying pan of state nationalism into the fire of corporate neoliberalism. Argues that the creation of ‘free’ labour and of land as capital were central to the colonial project. Examines the changing status of customary titles and the series of Land Acts from 1999. Argues that De Soto’s current Mkurabita project will in effect mean registering large chunks of village land in preparation for their alienation through force, fraud, and corruption.

Looks at criteria for assessing the bills, problems of definition, alienation of land, titling and management of village land, dispute settlement, and validation of villagisation.

Pastoral and agro-pastoral areas in eastern Africa and elsewhere have long been regarded as peripheries in economic terms and in terms of social and cultural accomplishments. Although biased perceptions of the ‘unproductive’ uses of pastoralism have become outdated, government policies still do little to formally recognise or integrate pastoral lands as critical parts of rural livelihood systems and economic development models.