Changes in in "customary" land tenure systems in Africa

Across rural Africa, land legislation struggles to be properly implemented, and most resource users gain access to land on the basis of local land tenure systems. Although such systems claim to draw their legitimacy from “tradition” and are commonly referred to as “customary” (and for easier reading we will follow this terminology), they have been profoundly changed by decades of colonial and post-independence government interventions, and are continually adapted and reinterpreted as a result of diverse factors like cultural interactions, population pressures, socio-economic change and political processes. Such land tenure systems are extremely diverse, possibly changing from village to village. This diversity is the result of a range of cultural, ecological, social, economic and political factors.