Dear All,

It is with great pleasure that I welcome you to the online-dialogue on Making Rangelands More Secure. This dialogue aims to bring together rangelands communities, governments, practitioners and other stakeholders from around the world. This dialogue is the result of a partnership between the International Land Coalition Rangelands Initiative and Land Portal. It is a common effort to reach a shared goal of improving information exchange and dialogue in an effort to make rangelands more secure.

We hope this dialogue will strengthen the network of global actors working in the rangelands, and will improve understandings of rangelands and rangeland tenure and governance in particular, whilst strengthening a critical masse of people concerned with these issues who can continue working together for positive change.

I very much look forward to learning more about rangelands and rangeland tenure from you together with sharing your experiences in your own countries and in places you have visited and worked. I am sure together we will produce a very rich and useful exchange. Please let the dialogue begin!

Fiona Flintan

Coordinator of the ILC Rangelands Initiative global component, for ILRI.

Having worked with a Non- Governmental Organization ( Ujamaa Community Resource Team- UCRT) for over 8 years and the experience gathered from 18 Years of UCRT’s working with rural communities particularly the Pastoralists in Tanzania, I am happy to share our experiences regarding the causes of conflict in areas hotspot of land use conflicts as follows;

Firstly, I must begin by saying that the alarming Growth in Human Population Globally creates a serious threat to rangelands. Over the years, human population increase has been scaring and the impact is directly felt by all of us including the rangeland users. In Tanzania for instance, the population increases at rate of 2.7 % meaning that, there will be a time soon, where individuals will be struggling to secure a piece of land for shelter which is a basic need and the areas that are set for rangelands today shall automatically disappear. This is why it is extremely important that rangeland communities should be concerned about the increase in human populations and therefore should meaningfully participate in these global debates about populations increase.

Secondly, Conflict and Contradiction created by Laws and Policies badly affects rangelands, especially because often, policies and laws are heavily biased and unfairly favor other forms of land use such as Agriculture and Conservation at the expense of rangelands. For instance in Tanzania, often lands set aside or used for grazing with or without title deeds are often characterized as either Corridor, Wildlife Dispersal areas, open areas, Game Controlled Areas, Hunting Block, Wildlife Migratory routes, Buffer Zones, Wildlife Management Areas (WMAs) etc – are well protected under Wildlife Conservation regimes which often do not support co-existence- or multiple land use plans- which then subjects rangelands to be very unsecure or potentially fueling the removal of rangeland users from their ancestral lands – often you here evictions and removal of rangelands communities or conversion of rangelands into conservation areas because of the confusion created by policies and laws – Majority of the National Parks/Game Reserves we have today in Tanzania were areas occupied and used by rangeland communities before they were converted into the national Protected.

Thirdly, Massive Land Grabbing by elites and power interests in the name of investment- the large land holding usually affects village’s land and to be more precise lands that are often prone to this are rangelands for sometimes lack of title deeds – If a village does not have a village land certificate or secured lands- such lands are treated as no man’s land- regardless of the presence of rangeland users in those areas- If you do not have a document – legal paper such lands are at a risk – lack of formal documentation often exposes rangeland users to serious legal consequences’.

By Lekaita

The coordinators have brilliantly set the stage in their introductory statements on the challenges rangelands face. Personally, I think the institutional challenges are more staggering – not to mean that the technical ones are not important. The key to sustainable rangelands management lies not so much in technical improvements, but rather in institutional / policy brief of negotiating multiple and complementary access/uses of resources. Good to know that there are initiatives like this one, where land/rangelands governance can be promoted.

Marginalized groups including women and pastoralist are not involve in decision making arenas as they are not elected in to post of responsibilities and therefore make their access to land and natural resource difficult if not impossible.  

Transhumance zone are usually the conflicts hotspots and mixed farming areas in particular during dry season. These conflicts are mostly caused by encouragement/ blockages of access roads to drinking points and transhumant corridors, destruction of crops by animals and non-demarcation of pastorals from farming zones. 

These are aggravated by the recent phenomena of land grabbing by political elites and multinational investors on natural resources. Climate change is also factor. http://www.landcoalition.org/sites/default/files/documents/resources/ilc...

In collaboration with ILC, the Mbororo Social and Cultural Development Association (MBOSCUDA) an ILC member, which I am the Vice President, recently did a study on ‘Making Rangelands More Secure in Cameroon.’ We will be very happy to share some of our experiences/lessons/recommendations in this online forum.

Musa Ndamba

Vice President MBOSCUDA

The "industrial" cashew and mango crops, grown in large areas, used by senior executives and wealthy traders divert stock roads. the associated infrastructures (eg irrigation) that accompany them reduce the space and use natural resources at the expense of livestock. The diversion of stock roads leads to a deep transformation of those by driving livestock to conflict zones (residential areas or areas with a high concentration of population, and therefore of crop fields)

Currently Central Asia region stile in adaptation phase in ongoing socio-economic, ecological and political challenges. Therefore  expansion of mining business has as positive effect in terms of economic development, but has also as negative effect for the pasture land use rights of herder’s in Central Asia. 

I view the issue of industrial crop production to be a new way to grab land. Many elites/political office holders in Nigeria go back to their communities to grab land. They go through the village chief to demand and acquire large hectars of land in name of orchards and ranch development. The environment/climate may not be suitable for such crops yet they will go ahead to plant the trees or import foreign cattle into the ranch. Few years later the so-called business is dead and the land is already fenced and title obtained from relevant authorities.

As a way out of this practice policies are needed to provide for regular assessment of such businesses, those that are found not viable, government should take the lands back to the poor farmers. So many of such 'farms' in Nigeria.

There is certainly a big issue with inadequate policies for pastoralists. I recommend reading this paper I got published last year: https://www.thesolutionsjournal.com/article/development-interventions-pa...

I see some issues raised on causes of conflicts and let me put my insight on this issue.

Generally, the causes of conflict in pastoral areas are: 

1. Absence or ineffective institutional arrangements for managing access to and/or control over variable and unpredictable pastoral resources

2. Absence or inappropriate policies and laws managing competing land uses– especially with conservation, agriculture, settlement and infrastructure.

3. Inappropriate development and natural resource management policies 

4. Weakening, marginalization or collapse of traditional institutions of resource management and conflict resolution

5. Intra-state crises of governance and insecurity in the Horn of Africa 

6. Proliferation of small arms in pastoral areas

7. Opportunism of political leaders in pastoral areas: pastoral political leaders are mostly selected not in a way of merit based

etc.

Yes, seasonal pastures in many cases as common resources, therefore participation of all parties (herder’s community, men and women, poor, youth, government and others) in its management is vital. However it depend from local traditions and culture.

So policy and management intervention is another challenge for pastoralists now.

    In reality on the ground, if herder’s and others support such co-management of rangelands, then it can be tool to overcome the pasture degradation, overgrazing and reduce poverty. But ,for this to happen , the roles and responsibilities of local communities, herder’s and governments need to be clearly established and agreed, and legal, policy support by national governments should be put in place with clear tenure arrangements.

However this is not always a case for rangelands

Dear Dr. Ian Manning, many thanks for your contribution and observations. 

I truly agree with you that "Tanzania’s local government is highly decentralized, which should make available a well-structured partner for villager welfare and investment, and for the care of land under customary tenure. Yet this appears not to be the case". Like you correctly said it, in other places in Africa the big change is absence of law that supports decentralization - but in Tanzania, the idea of decentralization seem to be ok under the - current law and policy but the implementation is seriously lacking. Sometimes it makes sense in my opinion when you do not see things happening/moving /progressing due to lack of properly drafted laws and policies - at least you will know the reasons but I think it is even more strange where there are laws and well-written policy documents but nobody cares - 

Again, there are a number of laws and policies that badly contradicts each other and often when it comes to interpretation of these laws, it is the rangelands users or villager who suffer the most- For instance  some of these laws include; The livestock identification, registration and traceability act, 2010, The grazing-land and animal feed resources act, 2010,The wildlife conservation act, 2009 and The village land act, 1999- as correctly pointed often you hear such language 'The government should take immediate steps to control pastoralists from neighbouring countries, which I find it strange because first of all, rangeland users are not part of these decisions - and besides the African Union Policy on Pastoralism expressily advocates for cross boarder mobility of livestock across - boarders .

We are now in process of writing a new National Land Policy 2017/2018? and I am eagerly waiting to see what changes are being proposed - the process began since 2016 and hardly difficult to tell what is the current status of progress - policy-making processes in Africa especially are often not very transparent- 

UCRT has up to now secured about 1 Million acres of lands under CCRO for pastoralists and hunter-gatherers communities. The Hannang Wheat Farms story did not go as we had expected but we managed to protect land under CCRO for Datoga community and we still have on-going projects in Hannang aiming at securing more lands and if possible try to argue strongly that former wheat land farms should be returned to its original owners/occupiers. 

Again, we also have under our advocacy program, a component that deals with research and identifies unfriendly policies which are biased or contradicting policies and laws and work with Parliament to get them changed. It is not easy always to work with Parliament but it is very essential -  

Dear Dr. Pablo

I really appreciate your way of opening issues for discussion;

Education is base for everything as we know, and it is very important for pastoralists too especially if it is designed based on the reality they are facing. For example, pastoralists are very familiar with livestock, pasture, water, rangelands, gender, health and related issues. So, we have to design the education system based on how to manage the resources found in pastoral areas. The education system designed for highlanders should not be applied for lowlanders/ pastoralists. If we continue uploading the western education (Solid science) on them; it is meaningless for them. Even it should not be expected to finish the whole curriculum from grade 1-12, college and university levels; sometimes matured training educations are enough to change the attitude of the people if it is applicable for them. The flavor of the education we are going to apply should be flavored as pastoral- pastoral. And the educational system should be practical based, easily applicable in their native environment. If it is shaped in this way it will not affect the pastoral production system and can be easily accepted by pastoralists.  

Nomadic education is a system of education specifically designed and implemented in Nigeria for pastoralists. It has worked for over three decades. Government set up an agency to provide basic ediuaction to closely 20 million pastoralists' children in their localities with makeshift tents and mobile teachers or fixed structures for the semi-mobile pastoralist group. But it is sad to report that the achievements recorded are far from the cost of the implementation of the programme. Changes in government, politics and conflicts all combined to stagnate the programme. Recently due to large scale conflicts between farmers and herders, policy makers are thinking twice on the programme. Some are of the opinion that the system should be strenthened while others argue that pastoralists are the problem why educate them.

Indeed it is a well articulated programme but the implementation is bedeviled with many problems beyond the control of the pastoralists. Further information on the programme can be provided for those interested.

Thank you Lekaita,

I was in Tanzania and Kena late last year, visited the Ujama community and some Masia villages in Kenya. I was so impressed with the explaination given to us on land use and land use planing by the experts in the learning routes.  In Nigeria, it is similar to what you have the only major difference is the role of the traditional institutions. While in you case they may help protect rangelands, in Nigeria they help to get lands out of the hands of the poor peasant farmers and of course you know pastoralists do not own land here. They more often than not connive with the elites to acquire lands via the use of "vitamin C".  They have the potentials to mobilise the poor to resist any attempt by government to take over their lands but with "vitamin C", that is not the case.

It may interest you to note that unlike in the east Africa here in West Africa pastoralists do not have titles to land and are not part of the variables in the rangeland rights equation. The few grazing reserves established in the 60s have been taken over by crop farmers and government projects. This is a major source of conflicts in Nigeria.

The rangelands in Morocco are in the collective domain or the forest domain. The former are managed by ethnic groups under the Ministry of the Interior and the latter are managed by Waters and Forests. Land challenges facing rangelands and their users are :

- Agreements inside tribes and among tribes, revealing customary law, are more and more abandoned; which create anarchy in the management of rangelands

- The new law on rangelands, it's the only one, came too late to certain regions, this law wants to secure the land by the mastery of the transhumance between regions, but is not interested in what is happening in collective pastures within a commune.

- Too many laws that govern the pathways, customary law and modern law;

-  No modern law on the encouragement of Agdals who are governed by the customary law.

- Tree clearing by right-holders;

- Women's land rights are not respected by customary law, which creates conflicts;

- Disappearance of stock routes for transhumance

- Irrigated Agriculture Projects

Firstly, it is good to remember that my participation at the Rangelands Initiative is within the ILC institutionally defined Semi-Arid Platform of Latin America. It is from this platform that we are part of Rangelands in its LAC version. However, we have always clarified that an important issue to be clear is that we do not always use the terms in the same way. Pastures, Shepherds, Semiarids, Family Farming, Agrosilvopastoralist, Cattle ranching, hunters and gatherers, etc.

We understand the enormous value of belonging to diverse groups that share similar ideas in terms of resource management, access to water, sustainable proposals, private and community lands, etc. as it is for example under the umbrella of the Rangelands Initiative, but this should not "standardize" concepts or try to see everything with the same lens. Trying this makes technical and political discourse unsustainable.

Concrete examples:

Organizations of the Central American Dry Corridor, the Northeast of Brazil, the Tri-national Chaco and Venezuela are represented in Semiaridos de América Latina. In these regions the systems are very diverse. In the CADC for example we speak of communities and individual producers of 0.5 to 2 has average, in Brazil and all the northeast of an average of between 5 and 8 has and in the trinational Chaco we can have communities ranging from hundreds of thousands of has to 50 has. This reality already definitively marks different ways of seeing the action plans and raising the issues. In some more for family farming, in others more for living spaces, in others with livestock proposals under the mountain, in others developing agriculture, etc.

The other concept to handle with care is that of "pastoralists". In general terms we can not say that all fit under that concept. It is more appropriate for us the concept "population that uses grasslands" and even understanding that in some cases they move along territories in search of water and grass as it happens more in highland valleys or in some hunter and gatherer communities. But it is something very different from pastoralism in Africa or Asia.

The issue of livestock farming or agrosilvopastoral systems is another chapter but very associated with criollo peasant communities that have their main interest in this activity.

The issue of access to land also plays a central role not only for what it means as a right but also for what it means in the consequences to the future. In general terms, due to our experience, access to land is a job that "fixes the territory" to communities and, of course, to livestock farmers. These successful land access processes strengthen concepts of "private property" in livestock keepers and in hunter and gatherer communities accelerate the process of "urbanization" in population centers with services. That is why it is important to clarify the concepts so as not to fall into traps ourselves because there may even be a reading that the work developed during decades for land access is contrary to the concepts of traditional pastoralism or traditional life systems. In short, what is sought is access to land, water and other natural resources where communities and ranchers can develop their life systems improving their production and ultimately their quality of life. But this means enormous cultural transformations in all the intervening groups.

About to finish: I find the discussion about livestock and its role in climate change extremely interesting. Discussion to which the use of cellulose by ruminants to transform the grass into meat, milk, wool, etc. should be added. I do not think the dilemma is for livestock to be or not to be, but for how we prepare the best argument to face the data and positions that try to discredit the production of meat in pastures. Almost like preparing rather the discourse "outward" than "inward" where I understand we will be in the majority coinciding on the value of this type of production management in these regions.

Finally, there are many good systematized practices in access to land, water, to organizational and political processes that can be shared. In fact, one of the actions planned between Semiaridos, Rangelands and other initiatives is to strengthen the exchange processes that generate greater social mobility and generation of knowledge. These cases are published in the global database of the ILC and if it is deemed necessary, we can attach them for consultation.

Rangelands challenges

The general investment trends in the East Africa region presents many challenges. Firstly; the absence of framework that provides the communities with information and the actual foreseen and unforeseen impact is lacking or weak. Secondly; mechanisms for strategic benefits from such investments by the rangelands users is absent or in situations where they exist, they favour the investor and governments more. Thirdly; weak institutions for securing the rangelands and resources therein.  Often the investments and investors do not reflect on the implications of the investment to the rangelands. In fact to the investors and largely to the government rangelands is and has no life!

The second set of challenges are around the capacity and coordination of interventions in the rangelands. Recognizing the different issues from conflict to climate change, weak governance systems and structures as well and socio-economic needs. There are as many actors. These actors often do not speak to each other and therefore interventions do not generate effective and complimenting linkages. But even as this is happening, structures and demonstrable capacities that understands the completeness of rangelands; people, resources and livelihoods within the rangelands is not adequate this simply translates to strategic structural challenges.

Just a couple of other bullets;

•Changes in land tenure rights and land use systems.

•climate change phenomenon

•changing land control systems, actors and institutional mechanisms for managing resources

•Increased Resources Based Conflicts in rangelands is an endemic phenomenon. It arises as a result of:

•Competition over access and control of scarce resources,

•climate change and emerging phenomena of sedentarization.

Dear all,

Sorry for joining the discussion thread late. Uganda as a country is undergoing land policy reforms. Despite the fact that rangelands fall under these land reforms it means that pastoral lands which happen to be highly customary and managed by community through traditional knowledge is clearly under threat by the current land reforms and so the land gazetted for livestock, wildfruit and vegatable gatherings is likely to be highly affected by the developments anticipated by the government hence threatening livelihoods opportunities for the pastoralist. 

Rangelands in Karamoja are also being over degarded and reduced by infrastructural developments; such as murram mining by road construction companies which have created big gullies and dishes within the rangelands, extractive/ mining companies have extended land under mining and exploration further into the rangelands hence reducing the rangeland sizes, emerging industrial parks in Karamoja has also resulted into the annexation of rangelands in Karamoja, Over grazing, and subsistence farming mainly performed by women and elderly men. 

Pastoralists Mobility has also been over looked as one the best means to claim land to be under utilized in Karamoja areas of Uganda. Meanwhile as the dry season come the pastoralist are pushed towards the conservation areas for access of pasture and water but the situation has also been overlooked as an opportunity to grab land left aside by pastoralists for regeneration/ next season grazing. The rangelands are also looked as the conservation land scapes for wildlife and forestry conservation hence isolating pastoralists access to pasture and water. 

In reality, rangelands are faced by negative perceptions depending on the land use needs and the first user of the rangeland will claim to be over exploited or violated by another user.

For example a pastoralist claims ownership of the rangeland claiming that they are the only rangeland users because his/ her visible daily activities in the rangeland. But it should be noted that rangelands world wide are some of the world herritage sites which play multiple roles than any ecosystem in this world such as contain pastoralism, wildlife conservation, drylands food crops and wild fruits, mineral explorations, clean water sources, a home to most terrestrial organisms and home to the world indigenous people. So when looking at such opportunities we should be ready to face and also mitigate possible conflicts resulting from such various ecosystem users.

Rangeland user conflicts always (can) arise when one user claims the ultimate ownership of one resource found in the rangeland. Why pastoralist communities claim ultimate ownership of the rangeland? It is because there main resource there is livestock, pasture, water, wild fruits, vegetable and woodfuel. However, the other users such as conservationists, Agriculturalists and extractive/ explorers are in need of the same land in this rangeland hence end up conflicting, or it is because of who colonised first than the other. In these regard the small uses listed above are also misleading the most of the experts in such fields of environment, Natural resources, livestock, climate change, Agriculturalist and ecologists to conflict hence fail to protect and also device holistic opportunities for coexistence of different users of the resource.

QN. Why are rangelands over discussed in regards to pastoralism in most cases instead of the main opportunities gain by different users?

I wanted to reinforce a central and definitive element when it comes to securing the rangelands. In Latin America in most of the forested areas where the Semi-Arid Platform of Latin America works, there is not only a problem of land and territory titles, but also serious problems of access to water for both family consumption and, of course, production. The underground water has problems of geological salinity, arsenic and the best layers if they exist at enormous depths of 300, 400 or 700 meters, which makes their extraction very expensive. But without water, it is no use securing lands and territories. Therefore, developing water access strategies in synergy with access to territories is essential to have a concrete action program to improve the quality of life. In this sense, many organizations in the continent have developed strategies for access to water under a "Basic Human Right". A great example has been Brazil and what was done in the Northeast with the One Million Cisterns program that gave water to 5 million Brazilians in the last 20 years. That experience today is being replicated throughout the continent. We consider then that Securing rangelands should go hand in hand with securing water first for families and their daily life but also for their life and production systems. There is a lot of experience of these systematized works that we can make available to those who require it.

You bring up a good point, Gabriel, about diversity across global rangelands. There is a danger in assuming that there are certain features that are *inherent* to rangelands and pastoralists (broadly defined), when in fact these are just characteristics of *particular* systems, and these specific differences have very real implications for how global-scale platforms and organizations should discuss and advocate for the right institutions and policies for rangeland governance. These differences really stand out to me when I try to situate my understandings of mountain pastoralism (my current focus is Tajikistan) in the dominant pastoralism literature, which has a strong Sahelian and East African focus.

To be more specific, when find that very often there are two pairs of words that problematically get conflated. The first pair is MOBILITY and FLEXIBILITY, often discussed as twin needs for effective exploitation of rangelands. In the particular mountainous areas where I have worked, there is a vital but predictable need for livestock to travel between lowland areas in the winter and high-altitude areas in the summer. Mobility is CENTRAL to pastoralism, but this mobility does not need to be flexible. This is directly tied to another pair of words that are often conflated: VARIABILITY and UNCERTAINTY, often discussed as universal features of rangelands. While weather is never 100% certain anywhere, the climates where I work produce four fairly predictable seasons. Fodder availability is highly variable within a single year, but pattern of its variability is quite predictable--very different from the non-equilibrium ecosystems of, say, the Sahel.

Just as the global export of Western ranching systems to non-equilibrium pastoral contexts was highly inappopriate and doomed for failure, there is ALSO a risk of universalizing the new pastoral paradigms based on non-equilibrium ecology and assuming that it is an accurate characterization of all pastoral systems. The differences between mobility vs. flexibility, and variability vs. uncertainty are vital to designing land policies that are context-appropriate as opposed to copy-pasting "portable policies" without sufficient research.

Dear Natnael,

Weeds are definitely a huge problem. Unfortunately when invasives get to a given threshold it is normally impossible (either technically or economically) to eradicate them. I am wondering if some alternatives for complementary income that can help controlling them are being implemented in Ethiopia or elsewhere. There has been some talk on making flour out of Prosopis pods, as well as using the trees to produce charcoal, which is so appreciated for import in the Gulf states. I also recently visited Mpala research centre in Laikipia, Kenya, and saw how Opuntia is being fairly controlled by cochineal, which has also value as high-value dye. This contrasted with horrendous infestations I witnessed in Somaliland.

Mongolia's extensive rangeland issues include: 

* Overgrazing due to increased number of livestock (66,2 million heads as of Dec 2017)

* Carrying capacity is exceeded and it leads degradation (there are statistic studies I can share)

* Limited access to markets, especially to export markets for livestock products. Due to animal disease such as FMD and PPR outbreaks there is a high restrictions and requirements to export meat. It impacts greatly the livelihoods of pastoralists. In other words animal disease - no markets - increased number of livestock - degradation and poor livelihoods and not resilient enough. Few companies are exporting heat processed and vacuum packed chilled meat products to Iran, China-Xinjiang, Russia, Japan and EU. Government of Mongolia announced that the meat export increased 7 times in 2017 which seems showing good result, however, there are still lot to do in terms of quality and sustain the markets. Government priority is to increase meat exports, however, there are still issues to solve in the animal disease. Therefore recently the Parliament has adopted two new laws: Animal Health Law and Animal Genetics Law. 

* There is no regulation of pasture land, no legal environment. More than 10 years of discussion and trial to get approval of law on pasture protection and still no result. 

* The biggest project in Mongolia focusing on pasture issues is the SDC's Greengold project. They conducted various research works and methodologies to identify carrying capacity, degradation status and developed options for alternative income generation based on livestock product marketing, mainly yak and camel wool as well as some meat value chains. 

* There is a customary rights issue in Mongolia in terms using rangelands. Although the above mentioned project is intended greatly to protect the pastureland and improve livelihoods of local communities, there are some practical concerns on their pilots of making tri-partite rangeland agreements. 

* Due to mining activities there also issues around conflict between herders and mining companies and impact on wildlife migration and habitat. 

* In some areas, in the north, which is the only fertile landscape for crop farming has conflict with herders due to land tenure rights.

Uganda’s Land Act recognizes community land under customary tenure and the National Land Policy 2013, contains a policy statement that the land rights of pastoralist communities will be guaranteed and protected by the State and a number of strategies for implementing provided therein.

The National Land Policy Implementation Action Plan 2015 – 2019, in the prioritized actions for implementation (Year 1 – 3) under legal and regulatory reforms states that Government would ''review and amend as necessary the laws governing land and resource access and tenure rights of pastoralist communities.”

However, as it has been highlighted in the discussions above, policy implementation remains a big challenge.

1.- Systems and structures that support customary communal resources management within the context of statutory structures including administrative boundaries. They ensure;
• Secured key pastoralism pillars of production, governance and security (Investment livestock, Natural Resources (water, pastures) and Social Institutions (people). Therefore; when investments are made on these pillars, sustainable and resilient pastoralism is achieved and supported). The Garbatula Case is example.

2. Community driven resource planning and participatory Resources management
• Concepts towards proper rangelands resources use and management are arguably becoming secure under planed space. Planning from the perspective and participation of community resource use, investment, practices helps develop a common vision and ground for sustainable rangelands resources and secure tenure.  They are pockets of such frameworks including the group ranches which have a legal planned mind but actualized by practices of customary and the Kajiado group ranches are cases of reference. Even though it is done in small zoning approach in a way it has secured resources and built stronger customary institution and group cohesion to realize the concept of common proper and resources right of use, access and management.
• Conservancies on the other hand has different and similar conceptualizations they are either community private and or a mixture of both sometimes government (Public) the case of Olpajeta in Nanyuki. They have somewhat secured or made rangelands more secure to the extent that they are protected.  
• Land use planning the Tanzania Joint Village Land use planning; this is also another case of success.  

3. policy, plans, frameworks  

• Rangelands and its resources are cross boundaries and so are the users. In order to secure tenure and property rights of and for rangelands appropriate structures, systems and plans must be in place to facilitate. Such include policies, facilitative legal frameworks, institutions and rangelands resource sensitive investments. There are regional policies and guidelines in Africa under the AU including the Framework on pastoralism.
• In-country laws and policies like in Kenya the Community land law and Arid and Semi-Arid Lands policy. These are good examples of existing frameworks and a recognition whether by external push or sense of realizing the extent to which rangelands spaces, resources and inhabitants can influence policy and governance including the AU is less important for now. What is important is how to operationalize them having recognized their usefulness.
• An example is the Niger Rural Code also the blend between statutory laws and customary practices. Recognizing the need to focus more on the strength of customary systems and or institutions more and address the components that are undermining progress.  
• Global: the EU consensus document. Recognizing rangelands at the European parliament level.

4. Learning from the communities
• Space for sharing in a mix of formal and informal is step building broader understanding of the importance of rangelands and its resources amongst divers stakeholders. The Rangelands initiative has used this and it is out of which the programme was born. The more learning and cross-cultural, institutions and regions the more lessons are learned.  
5. Technology in securing rangelands and its resources (piloted application of the Social Tenure Domain Model)
• Defined the impacts of such projects in the following areas;
    * Production and productivity
    * Sustainable natural resource/rangelands management
    * Empowerment
    * Innovations
• The process facilitated social and spatial data which both government and development partners can use to better service delivery, resource allocation, planning and implementation of County Spatial Planning and CIDPs (County Integrated Development Plans)
• Generated opportunities for reflection on the policy and institutional arrangements

Thank you Kgilin

In west Africa we are confused on these two terms too. While for pastoralism mobility is quite central to its practice, for the crop farmers and other land users mobility of livestock is seen as a big  problem. It is understood or misunderstood that it is the leading cause of conflicts in the region. Policy makers are at a cross- road on how to legislate on these issues. The other land users apart of pastoralists see a window in the western style of ranching. The ecology and history of western ranching are quite different from what is obtainable in the sahialian region. 

How else can you tell a landless pastoralists to ranch over 100 cattle. While he has no title to land and the land is so priced that he may need to sell all his livestock to pay for the piece of land to keep the livestock.

Recently some local policies have been put in place to put a ban on livestock mobility in Nigeria and the results of the implementation of the laws are so bad for a space like this.

Hi Hijaba, Thanks for your comments. Perhaps in the next few days you would like to share what you suggest are some of the practical solutions to reconciling the conflicts between mining and pastoralism in Mongolia. Best. Fiona

Thanks Gabriel for your comments - as you say though our contexts around the world are very different there are also some commonalities and relevant experiences to share and we look forward to continue working with you on how best to do this. In the next two weeks we will have the Rangelands Initiative website launched and here we will have a direct link to all the drylands/rangelands ILC Good Practices - and we also aim to produce a consolidated version of these that I hope you will assist us with (particulalry in relation to drawing out some of the key points from the LAC Good Practices!).

Hi Zakaria, The NLUPC is coming up with some interesting maps on hotspots for land conflicts - we are also supporting them as part of the Sustainable Rangeland Management Project. The one for Morogoro is almost all "red"!

Dear Munkhbolor - I hope in the next few days you will come back and tell us some ideas of practical solutions to these challenges!

Hi Natnael. Absolutely agree with your comments. I was only last night talking to someone about how Partenium is more of a problem now across much of Afar compared to Prosopis. Do get in touch via email - would be good to know what you are studying etc. Best, Fiona

Hi Gabriel, Could you explain a little more about the "One Million Cisterns" in Brazil. Assuming that with more water there as more livestock being produced.....so how did/do they stop the rangeland being degraded (i.e. it is not only water but also imrpoving the productivity of the rangeland that is needed)...or did/do they provide supplementary foods? In parts of Ethiopia we have seen how putting in cisterns (individiual in particular) the collective tenure system has been destroyed and land increasingly degraded as a result. I wonder how this issue was approached in Brazil?

Fiona, I understand, but one small question - Prosopis use does not work for small projects because it has to be handled with too much care, and the capacity/means/investment for that goes beyond what is available for communities or NGOs?

The absence or the weakness of the development of the territory favors these occupations. It is therefore urgent to have a strong action of distribution of the uses of the land with a view to securing the production areas for the benefit of small producers and transhumants.

The traditional activity of the people of Kazakhstan has been and remains pastoralism.

The older generation of Kazakhs perfectly mastered the methods of rational use of rangelands, and their knowledge, experience, and material and financial support of the state in the issues of traditional seasonal pastoralism in the Soviet period allowed to preserve rangelands from degradation. Currently, young villagers are engaged in livestock grazing who have neither knowledge nor skills in pasture rotation, nor financial and material resources. The non-systematic use of rangelands has already led to the disruption of 26.5 million hectares of these lands.

Factors that are threatening rangelands:

1. The main livestock is grazed around the village throughout the year without taking into account the livestock capacity of rangelands, which leads to overloading of rangelands and their degradation.

2. Lack of infrastructure, water wells on grasslands, remoteness from villages and their inaccessibility also limits the use of transhumance. Rural akimats [municipal governments] often do not have information on the status of grasslands.

3. A serious obstacle to the rational use of remote, more productive rangelands is that about 80% of livestock is kept in private farms that are reluctant to cooperate and create joint cattle to access grasslands. In order to solve common problems, only the organization of individual (small) livestock owners in various associations can preserve the productivity of pasture lands.

4. Lack of professional training courses for shepherds. Young people do not have knowledge about allowable load of livestock on rangelands, depending on the type and productivity of pastures (there are about 1,000 types of pastures in Kazakhstan), the rules for seasonal use of rangelands, the timing and norms of pasture use, methods for monitoring pasture productivity, etc. Small livestock owners do not have enough knowledge about their rights with regard to the use of land. The problem is related to lack of information and passive attitude of the population.

5. Non-renewability of pasture lands. Because pastoralists do not practice rotational grazing, they do not harvest enough feed for the winter period and do not allow rangelands to rest. There is a change in the rangeland vegetation, the biodiversity of rangelands is decreasing and poisonous and uneatable vegetation is increasing. The situation is aggravated by the aridity of the climate. Climate warming in Kazakhstan is occurring twice as fast as the global average. At the point, there is a temperature increase of 1.8 ° C in 100 years. This trend can lead to a shift in the natural and climatic zones and intensify the processes of land degradation and desertification.

6. The lack of hayfields leads to degradation of rangelands. Lack of rangelands and hayfields on the one hand, and an increase in the number of livestock, on the other, cause a shortage in the livestock feed supply. In severe food-deficit situations livestock owners are forced to buy hay and grains at a high price, that is expensive for their budget, especially for the budget of private small livestock breeders.

The Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan on Pastures adopted on 20 February 2017 can and should become a useful tool for uniting small livestock breeders to solve their own problems, not only with the use of land resources, but also upholding vital social and economic interests. In order to implement the law in villages, it is necessary to create public associations to explain the provisions of the Law, programs adopted by the Government, and to introduce young shepherds to the rules of rational use of rangelands.

On February 20, 2017, Kazakhstan adopted the Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan on pastures, which regulates public relations related to the rational use of pastures, and is aimed at improving the condition of pastures and their infrastructure, preventing pasture degradation processes. The law provides for the availability of pastures for individuals and legal entities; transparency in reporting and use of pastures and the participation of individuals and legal entities in the management and use of pastures. The Law prescribes the duties of: the authorized body - the Ministry of Agriculture; local executive bodies of the region, districts; akims, local governments and rangeland users. The law is simple, but in accordance with it, local government along with rangeland users should develop a pasture management plan and submit an annual report on the results of its implementation. To date, this is a major problem for small-scale livestock owners, and this problem can be solved by local non-governmental organizations. The role of local NGOs is very significant, both in explaining the provisions of the Law on Pastures, and in raising the awareness of rangeland users, including best practices for sustainable pasture management.

In recent years, a number of projects carried out in Kazakhstan have been aimed at solving problems for the improvement and rational use of pastures and reduction of the load on village pastures. Below are examples of some projects that have been carried out with the support of various donor organizations.

The purpose of the demonstration project "Zhanartu", initiated by the NGO "Foundation 'Farmer of Kazakhstan'" (Фонд «Фермер Казахстана») and implemented in 1998-2001 by the local community of the village of Zhangeldy with the financial support of the Small Grants Program (GEF / SGP), was the restoration of the biodiversity of the shrub and herb ecosystem on degraded lands around the village. As a result of the project activities, degradation of pastures was halted due to the implementation of activities in two main areas. The first of them is watering (restoration of wells) of remote (40-50 km) pastures and spring-summer-autumn grazing of a small part of livestock on them. The second - the creation of plantations forage alfalfa and the receipt of winter stocks of feed and, as a consequence, and the termination of winter grazing around the village. As a result of reducing the load of livestock around the village within 3 years, not only pastures, but also saxauls (Haloxylon ammodendron) were restored. At present, the project continues on the basis of self-financing.

In 2000, the NGO "Fund to Combat Desertification" («Фонд по борьбе с опустыниванием») with the support of Miliokontakt Oost-Europe carried out the project "Dissemination of new methods and acquisition of experience in creating a model for the sustainable use of degraded lands". 8 seminars were held in various areas of the Almaty region, and information on the methods of rangeland management was collected. The project has made a great contribution to raising the awareness of the local population about the processes and causes of land degradation, the aims and objectives of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification, and the correct methods of using pasture resources. Many farms upon the recommendations of the project began to create sowing mown pastures to increase the forage base of livestock and reduce the burden on village pastures.

The project "Degradation and rehabilitation of pastures in Central Asia using the example of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan" (2000-2003) was carried out jointly with the International Land Use Institute (Great Britain) and the Kazakh Institute of Forage Production and Pastures. The aim of the project was to identify the state of pastures from the methods of their use, the impact of pasture conditions on the yield of livestock products and the welfare of livestock owners. In Kazakhstan, the work was carried out for 3 years in Zhambyl and Almaty provinces. As a result of the project, the relationship between the yield of biomass, its feed quality and the increase in live weight, the quality of meat, and the shearing of the wool of grazing animals has been determined.

The project "Soil and Vegetation Rehabilitation for Sustainable Livestock and Veterinary Development" (2005) was funded through PAMS for 1 year. The participation of the project in the restoration of wells, the acquisition of yurts, pumps and generators enabled the members of the local community see that with certain equipment, it is possible to keep livestock in the remote pastures from the village. This made it possible to provide animals with a full grazing food and improve the commercial quality of livestock products. The structure of light gray soils was restored. The percentage of dust particles decreased from 83 to 56.

Short-term UNDP projects and the “umbrella” project GEF / SGP launched in 2006 helped restore the ecological potential of degraded pastures by ensuring optimal grazing loads (transferring livestock to new sites) and providing livestock with quality winter fodder. Choice of economic structures of the livestock sector was carried out in various natural and climatic zones and regions of Kazakhstan: Almaty (desert, semi-desert, dry steppe), Akmolinskaya (dry steppe), Semipalatinsk (semi-desert), Kyzylorda (desert). Using different approaches depending on the specific conditions of the state and use of pastures around populated areas, as well as the number of cattle grazing there, conditions have been created for remote pasture plots for normal living of people and providing animals with watering places.

The project "Restoration of traditional pasture use around the village of Korgalzhin" was implemented in 2007-2008. In the course of the project activities, a demonstration method for combating the desertification of the village pastures in the meadow-steppe zone of Kazakhstan was introduced by restoring one of the options for the traditional seasonal use of pastures-mobile grazing of members of the local community. A scheme was developed for rational grazing of livestock in remote pastures of the farm "Aishuak" and "Atamura" with the removal of a part of the cattle at a distance of 20 km from the village of Korgalzhin. The proposed technology and grant support for the GEF / SGP enabled members of the local community with a small number of livestock to organize the sharing of remote pastures with greater livestock. As a result of the project, the productivity of livestock raising was improved and conditions were created for restoring the pastures of the north-western part of the territory, which is adjoining to the village. A NGO was organized, whose members continue to use the implemented method in the post-project period.

The project "Implementation of optimal technologies for the creation of hayfields and pastures in degraded fallow lands in central Kazakhstan" was implemented in the village of Korgalzhin, Akmola region in 2009. Project goal: conservation of village pastures from degradation by combining methods of transhumance (summer / winter) and establishment of sown hayfields on degraded fallow lands in the conditions of the dry steppe zone of Central Kazakhstan.

The project "Revival of transhumant livestock and localization of pasture degradation in the dry steppe zone of Central Kazakhstan by the example of the village of Aktobek". The goal of the project is the revival of transhumance and the return of junk land to agricultural production to prevent pasture degradation and irrational use of fodder land using environmentally friendly technologies and alternative energy sources.

Projects "Restoration of desert degraded pastures of eastern Balkhash region" and "Adaptation of grazing livestock in the local Lepsy community to climate change" were implemented in the village of Lepsy, Almaty region in 2011. The village is located in a desert zone in the south of Kazakhstan. Up to 60% of the village is sand. The main objective of the project was to reduce the vulnerability of the local population to climate change and preserve pastures of sandy ecosystems. The possibility of decreasing the degradation of village pastures was demonstrated by sowing wheatgrass (Agropyron) on a degraded site, transferring a part of the animals to pasture grazing and applying the system of seasonal rotation of pastures, as well as restoration of water wells on the pastures.

The project "Development of new pasture areas of the desert zone of the Almaty region through their watering and seasonal use" is carried out in the village of Aydarly, Almaty region. Project goal: To reduce the burden on village pastures by restoring pasture water supply and developing new pasture areas. The Aydarly Village was chosen as a typical village located in a desert zone and included in the Alatau-Pribalkhash natural pasture complex. The local community has quite extensive pasture areas-summer grassland and herbage sites of the Shu-Ili mountains, spring and autumn-plain wormwood-ephemeral pastures between the Shu-Ili mountains and the Taukum sands and winter-forbs and shrubs in the sands of Sarytaukum. The main source of life for members of the local community of Aydarli Village is now pastoralism. The livestock of the local population grows uncontrollably from year to year. All livestock of the inhabitants of the village- more than 16 thousand MDC, 1200 cattle, 300 heads of horses before the project - grazed on summer watered pastures and on pastures around the village. The load on the pastures was much higher than the ecologically permissible load. Pastures of the Ministry of Defense, taking into account the lands acquired and leased by the rural population, make up 13564 hectares, of which 7-8 thousand hectares fall on summer pastures. The project restored 14 mine wells and watering holes for watering summer and winter pastures, aqueducts were purchased, and due to this, grazing areas with a higher productivity were expanded by 70,000 hectares.

The project "Adaptation to the growing climate aridisation through the use of a climatically sustainable pasture management scheme" was implemented in the village of Mukana Tulebayeva in the desert zone of the Southern Pribalkhash of the Almaty region. The project has introduced systems for sustainable management of forest resources through saksaul (Haloxylon) sowing and improved productivity of haymaking and limestone lands through the introduction of mineral fertilizers.

The project "Expansion of the fodder base by creating limestone and dry meadow hayfields" was implemented in the village of Zhumai, Akmola region (dry steppe zone). In recent years, community residents have given preference to livestock. However, the development of cattle breeding (cattle, sheep and horse breeding) is constrained by low productivity of fodder lands and their degradation. This problem has been solved by creating haymaking areas, sowing perennial grasses, re-profiling the arable land for cultivation of grain crops. In the course of the project activities, 4 dams were rebuilt and built. The first dam - a water mirror 2 km long and 100 m wide. Water, which accumulates due to the dam, is used to irrigate the garden, watering cattle, as well as to create a meadow area of ​​30 hectares. The second dam, 25 m long and 3 m high, provides 360 hectares of flooded meadows with water. The third dam, 300 m long and 1 m high in snowy winters, will allow the accumulation of water to create 300 hectares of meadow meadows. In the spring of 2007, seeds were purchased and planted on an area of ​​300 hectares. At the end of May 2008, the height of the gill reached a height of 45-50 cm in this field. In the spring of 2008, another 300 hectares of arable land were sown with arable land. Near the first dam are planted 150 seedlings: willow, apple and stone fruit trees. Increasing the number of livestock and improving the quality of livestock products, and as a result, improving the well-being of local residents - all these are real prerequisites for the sustainable development of the village. The implemented project is a good demonstration base of the technology of increasing feed production for farmers of the steppe zone of Kazakhstan.

The project "Autumn and early spring irrigation of fields and pastures, as an adaptation mechanism of rational use of water resources in Southern Kazakhstan" was implemented in the village. Sadu Shakirov of the Talas district of the Zhambyl region. The main objective of the project is the introduction of alternative methods of water and land resources management that allow to adapt to the changing climate. The method, which is implemented within the framework of the project, is the conduct of autumn-early spring water recharge irrigation lands along the canal. In fact, water, the demand for which is absent in the autumn, is allocated to pasture lands of members of the local community, where it imbues the soil, replenishes the lack of winter precipitation and increases the period of accumulation of moisture in the root-forming layer of the soil. As a result of the project, the productivity of pastures and livestock of the members of the Ministry of Defense has now been improved by foraging for the winter stall period.

Thus, all carried out and conducted projects show that in Kazakhstan, where, unlike in other regions of the world, there is a huge variety of types of pastures (more than 1000), rational use of pastures is possible only with seasonal migration of livestock. This is due to the fact that pasture ripeness of vegetation of various types of pastures occurs in different seasons.

It should be noted that monitoring of implemented projects after the completion of their financing showed that local communities continue to use developed technologies during the project activity.

In all projects aimed at improving and rational use of pastures, attention was paid to the legal side of the issue. At seminars, meetings and gatherings of local communities all these legal issues were reflected. Shepherds were explained the basis of land legislation, the conditions of the organization of farms, the rules for the proper organization of seasonal grazing.

Cessation of pasture degradation, their restoration and preservation of productive longevity is possible with ensuring people's access to remote village pastures, watering these pastures and creating conditions for the shepherds staying there for a long time. The legal basis of all this is prescribed in the Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan on pastures. The main direction -training users of grazing land to properly use the provisions of the Law.

Livestock rearing had always been the backbone for livelihood for most of the Sudanese population especially in East Sudan. Butana plains in Gedarif State in Eastern Sudan constitute rangelands with open access to more than 6 million heads of livestock from more than 4 surrounding states. It had undergone devastating land degradation, and loss of most of its rangeland seed varieties, in addition to the encroachment of agricultural private schemes investment and cultivation north of the rangeland line. The most important new threat is mining activities, which had severe impact on rangelands and pastoralists as well.

In Kyrgyzstan there are 9 million hectares of pastures of various categories. The fee for the use of pastures is carried out by pasture committees, which are included in the associations of pasture users operating in each village. If earlier, for the use of pasture for shepherds, a rent was established, now the amount of the collection is determined from the livestock and the species of animals. Means collected by pasture user associations are directed to rehabilitation of the pasture infrastructure - construction and restoration of water holes, cattle roads, bridges.

NGOs, CSOs etc have a big role to play in creating platforms for stakeholders engagements.  They have the experience, expertise and patience to bring different rangeland users into a kind of symbiotic relationships.  Not all rangelands are under cultivation or grazing.  Stakeholders meaningful engagements can free some of these rangelands for other uses.  It has a potential to reduce conflicts and restiveness among rangeland competing interests. 

I would like to react on the third series of questions related to the parthways for engagement as a multi-stakeholder platform.

I believe that a first thing to do is to assure a fluid communication and information sharing and access for all of those involved in the platform. With the Coalition of European Lobbies for Eastern African Pastoralism (CELEP) for instance, we rely on our google group of over 440 active users to define (at least partially) the content for our lobby and advocacy work. Of course, this does not mean that all of the shared information is reliable and can be used for lobby and advocacy purposes. That is why we also have Eastern African partners and European members on which we can count to verify if certain things are true or not. The communication tools that are used – google groups, website, etc. – are also sufficiently simple and easy to use which facilitates communication.

I also think that a platform can be more effective when lobby actions are better coordinated and planned and when similar actions are developed around the world at the same time, targeting different policy targets. European organisations for instance, can target EU development policies at given moments whilst at the same CSOs in EU aid recipient countries target their governments on the same subject. This is a particular example of how stakeholders can better connect to influence. This requires some sort of central coordination and a clear partnership between stakeholders. Insights on who is the legitimate actor to influence particular lobby targets should also be taken into account.

Finally, lobby platforms should always consider sustainability and avoid working on a project/programme basis. Long-term engagement of all stakeholders or at least few key-stakeholders is necessary; otherwise, each platform/initiative is doomed to fail. Different scenarios exist to diversify risks. For instance, different stakeholders can have different roles at different times resulting in different types of engagement. Informality can also be an asset in a sense that it makes platforms much more flexible.

Pastoralism is slowly gaining visibility in the agenda of international development sector in comparison to what it was ten years ago. But if we look at India or even South Asia as a whole pastoralism is not on the agenda of the Govt, donors and funders. Possibly there are over a hundred million pastoralists in India contributing substantially to the country’s GDP but there is no single policy that supports pastoralism. 

A Multi stakeholder platforms biggest opportunity is to bring together pastoralists, policy makers, Govt , researchers, practitioners, donors, corporates, for effective collaborations and holistic interventions. Each of these actors need to be on equal footing for the partnership to work. In India there are a few NGOs who represent pastoralists but there is no collective of Pastoralist themselves at national or sub national level, which i think is a huge gap and needs to be addressed to develop a stronger pathway for a multi stakeholder platform. 

Each of the partners also have a specific role in strengthening pastoralism as a production system. But to have better understanding of the roles we need latest Information and data on current statistics and status of pastoralists,  changing management practices, impact of changing land tentures, climate change adaptations, contributions of Pastoralist to Indian economy and environment, and so on. In short we need reliable research to demonstrate the business case for supporting pastoralism as a production system. We need specific research from India but we also need to share success stories from other countries to influence govt and donors. This platform can play an important role in this respect. 

My biggest hope is that in next few years pastoralism becomes a part of agenda for all relevant actors in India and Indian sub continent. 

Thank you very much Koen. Indeed, to me CELEP is a great example of a multi-stakeholder platform that is actually steered by its members and combines the political legitimacy of its CSO members with the technical capacity of its NGO and scholar members - and sometimes both capacities are in the same person! The multiple perspectives of East African and European members also add a lot of value, I think, as does a lot of voluntary work that keeps the platform alive with minimal funding yet open to sources of funding for additional activities.

I think this gives food for thought for those not-so-successful platforms.

In West Africa literacy level in very low.  To talk about internet and it's access among pastoralists is not an issue.  What other platforms can we propose to fill this gap. 

Thanks Fiona,

Literally Uganda land sector is undergoing reformations. As earlier on I mentioned, the current land context of the majority of Uganda is under customary tenure and in most cases the lands are not registered, surveyed and also titled and in most cases it is higher in pastoralists societies whose live styles are overlooked as primitive and uncoordinated. Pastoralism in Uganda is seen as a development challenge in the Country Uganda. Well the current policy debate on land in Uganda is that Government can acquire land compulsorily from the landlord or community before compensation and by all means as the matters go on negotiaton in the courts of law. 

The current ongoing Land Amendment Bill if passed as government is pressing, is bound to impact very negatively on the traditional lands of the Karamojong pastoralists, maybe more than other communities. This is because most chunks of land are communally owned and not titled hence very convenient to grab. One of the proposed sections allows government to compulsorily acquire land for public sector investment from a land owner and negotiate with the latter while development is in progress. This puts the land owner in a very weak situation given that the government valuer who is supposed to determine the value of the land is him/herself an agent of the state which is party to the disagreement. The bill also provides for government to deposit money with a court while protracted negotiations are going on. The court system in Uganda is very slow and generally justice does not favour the poor which will disadvantage the people of Karamoja even more.

Therefore is need for concerted effort now to protect most of this important rangelands and community lands for the future needs of pastoralist and other communities in Uganda.

Pasture of cattle on the territory of the State Forest Fund of the Kyrgyz Republic

According to the Forest Code of the Kyrgyz Republic, on the territory of the State Forest Fund (further SFF) grazing of cattle is allowed, which is one type of forest use.

To date, there is a non-standardized load on grazing lands in pasturelands of the SFF, which is the main cause of the severe deterioration of their condition, causing soil erosion, and as a result leads to a significant decrease in the productivity of land resources.

This is mainly due to the lack of a management plan and the use of pasture land in the territory of the SFF.

The Law of the Kyrgyz Republic "On Pastures" (2009) does not regulate pasture use on the territory of the SFF.

At the present time, by the state forest management organization has developed a draft decree "Procedure for the use and disposal of the state forest fund," which defines the procedure for regulating pasture of livestock in pasture lands of the SFF. And this draft decree of the Kyrgyz Republic was submitted to the Government of the Kyrgyz Republic for consideration and approval.

The introduction of mobile phones is causing a real revolution in mobile societies such as pastoralists. Some academic studies are starting to be published but unfortunately there has been to date no initiative to gather pastoralist knowledge and innovations on this so that other pastoralist groups can learn from each other. An effort to reach funding may give the possibility to conduct such an activity, which would translate into an improvement of pastoralist livelihood conditions. Including, of course, an improvement in land rights.

Many of the ideas here have already been tried and tested. We are dealing with a stubborn problem that needs more emphatic approaches! In my opinion and based on local experience, they should include the following:

- A strongly empowered community, which is closely guided and continuosly supported, will be active and motivated to protect their sources of livelihood.

- Local governance forum where the community voices are fully and ably represented will put the violators in check.

- For the Karamoja case, registration and functionalization of the Communal Land Associations will present a forum that unites the cause of securing the rangelands.

- The policies in place need to be implemented just the way they are, given that they were well intentioned.

- The customary land tenure system is hardly being recognised. In the context, therefore, new mechanisms of protecting and securing these rangelands may have to be designed - one option being organizing the users into Associations.

- Sharing of the common property resources need to be streamlined, as this minimises conflict, espcially where both sides - pastoralists and government - claim territories which can be harmoniously shared.

- Create the physical presence on the ground of international observers to minimize abuse of the laws and policies common with African governments.

- Advocacy should be mantained and its enforcement closely supported. This is helpful where leaders are compromised or intimidated.

- In case of change of land use, rangeland users must get involved in the decision-making process. Emhasis should be made on how their participation contributes in securing the rangelands.

What is a multi-stakeholder platform in the field of pastoralism?

* It is a mechanism through which information can be developed, shared and used among pastoralists. Its overall objective is to enhance the capacity of pastoralists and their organizations to improve their livelihoods; strengthen their networks and outreach; and as a result influence policy.

* It supports pastoralists wishing to target their issues, enlarge their participation and enhance their capacity to engage in global, regional and/or national policy debates that affect their lives.

Why a platform of pastoralists?

* Often marginalized due to their unique cultural particularities, nomadic life, transnational status and mobility, pastoralists have been overshadowed by more dominant better organized groups such as small crop farmers. Their remoteness and often trans-boundary livelihoods have made it challenging to access services and engage in decision-making. Their self-sufficiency, mobility and different culture make them a unique constituency that often does not engage in dialogue with policymakers.

* Most pastoralists, and many of those who make policy decisions at the local level, have extremely weak access to information, especially in electronic formats. Better policies for pastoralism can flow from more accessible, better-presented information. The information dissemination gap needs to be filled.

* As a result of this marginalization, pastoral rangelands are decreasing from: 1) exclusive conservation policies on pastoral rangelands that are also the natural habitat for wildlife, flora and fauna; and 2) growing populations that create competition over natural resources and encroachment of arable farming on potential grazing lands. Pastoral land is being acquired by state allocation and also by agro-industrial companies. Agricultural expansion is increasingly cutting into pastoral land and cultivators extract the water that feeds pastoral wells. Pastoralists’ livelihoods and production are constrained by national policies seeking to settle pastoral communities and turn them into 'modern’ livestock keepers. In addition, pastoralists are also victims of war and famine; additional factors that displace and impoverish pastoralists, i.e. their herds become targets for hungry soldiers.

What key opportunities are there to work as a platform to further secure rangelands?

* Support activities such as training and capacity development. Strengthening the skills of pastoralists to articulate the economic, ecological and social benefits of their way of life is a key element for pointing out the two-way relationship between pastoralists and rangelands – that is the importance of rangelands for herders’ livelihoods and the environmental services provided by those herders.

* Foster partnership between pastoralists, governments, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), international organizations and the private sector. Strengthening partnerships with pastoralist organizations across regions establish the needed networks for additional learning exchanges and knowledge sharing, mainly on the importance of rangelands and on good governance practices to manage them.

* Support regional workshops and community dialogues, as viable communication models to raise awareness. This helps policy makers understand the importance and benefits of pastoralism and pastoralists’ role as food producers and custodians of the environment.

* Raise awareness and build capacity on the Voluntary guidelines on the responsible governance of tenure of land, fisheries and forests in the context of national food security (VGGT) and the technical guidelines for improving the governance of pastoral land.

Thank you Pablo,

Yes,  info and data is always lacking for pastoralists/rangelands. All data in many cases hold by the governments, institutions, but marginalized herders can’t access to the data and info timely.  

So , at national and local level for the dissemination of information can be better to  use mobile phones, as well as FB, regular meetings, herder to herder visits, bulletins, newspapers and other tools too.

Currently, from our small experiences , we are in JASIL using ICT, mobile phones,  to disseminating weather forecast data to the herders, in cooperation with RIMES (http://www.rimes.int/) and our national and local partners.  Mongolian herders are moving from season to season, always dependent on the weather. Their livelihoods depend on the sound management of livestock and the natural resources that sustain their animals. Early warning information to the herder’s mobile phone in the form of Weather Forecast Data, WFD,  by their specific seasonal location can assist herders to make better informed and less risk prone decisions concerning their everyday livelihoods. With the WFD  on their specific camp sites,   herders in our  sites  think that "they are now more secure to use pasture and herding".  The  group messages by mobile phone also  can used for day to day info on markets and others purposes too.   

Also  for  regional and international exchange of info, from our practice within  Rangelands Initiative,  we use  e-mail listserve groups, Skype, FB, exchange meetings, learning filed visits, bulletins, online meetings/trainings  and web sites.  But,  of course,  there are many other opportunities.

The debate is getting on fine but today is the last day. 

The world bank and other donor agencies support to pastoralism in West Africa do not include capacity building in all forms.  We blame the pastoralist for not understanding or integrating enough so as to be accessible but who made any deliberate attempt to help them to do that.  Funding from such sources are usually wasted in buying big project cars, building air conditioned offices,  purchase of expensive laptop computers and paying hotel bills for so-called experts only to produce volumes of documents that are more or less useless.  

The current pastoralist-farmers conflicts in Nigeria can partly be blame on these agencies for their support to the marginalisation of pastoralism. They only support crops farming at the expense of livestock keeping  The Wetlands are put to all year round cultivation by farmers leaving no space for pastoralist during drought and sudden change climatic conditions.  

The broadcast media which pastoralist heavily depend on for information is highly biased and the news items are broadcast based on how much you pay. 

To assist pastoralist both national and international new approaches are urgently needed. Otherwise in less than 2 decades pastoralist will go extinct in West Africa.

In Tanzania land is governed by various legislations but the principal laws are the Land Act and the Village Land Act, both of 1999. These  laws categorize land into village land, reserved land and general land. These laws provide for two land tenure systems namely  granted rights of occupancy, and customary right of occupancy (CCRO) for an individual or individuals, registered groups or any legal entity. All types of land is public land which is under the State (under the President as Trustee). Rangeland fall under village land in the control or ownership of Village Council as the trustee of the Village Assembly. For  pastoralists to secure and protect rangeland, they should first form a registered association, follow land use planning processes to secure rangeland and access CCROs or certificate of occupancy.  As Fiona pointed earlier, Sustainable Rangeland Managent Programme (SRMP) has tested and scalled up practicability of this process, with great successes.

In  Cameroon the land tenure laws, private land rights are derived from possession of a ‘land title.’  While all untitled, unregistered land is deemed to be to be ‘public land,’ which is held by the state on behalf of the public, or ‘national land’ that includes unoccupied land and land under customary tenure. Rangeland/ grazing lands in Cameroon are considered to be state property, under Ordinance No. 74–1 of 1974, and is therefore administered, like all other national lands, by two related structures: the Land Consultative Boards and Agro-Pastoral Commission (APC), both headed by the Divisional Officers. The APC can allocate grazing land to individuals or groups for grazing purposes,  on a temporary basis, and for the land is still considered as national land until the individuals or groups apply and obtain a land title making it then ‘private personal land.’  A grazer or group of grazers can acquire grazing land through concession by establishing a livestock production or development project (cattle ranch, plantation etc.) and then applying for a concession. When land is classified as ‘final concession’ land it ceases to be ‘national land’.

All the diferent good practices  above from Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tanzania, Cameroon and elsewhere inform and remind us the condition and must to fulfil legal requiements to ensure we build capacity of pastoralits to mobilize themselves to legal associations as precondition toward the  process of securing and protecting rangeland  

Formation of communal land associations in some districts of Karamoja as provided for in the Uganda Land Act. However such initiatives are mostly conducted by civil society and in Karamoja, and not the rest of the pastoralist/cattle corridor districts of Uganda.

Also, dialogue promoting tenure security for pastoralists is being facilitated by civil society through multi-stakeholder forums like “Interest groups on land’’ facilitated by GIZ in Karamoja to bridge the knowledge gap on traditional vs. formal land management systems; and the Northern Uganda Land Platform that meets quarterly to discuss land issues usually under themes including pastoral land rights.

David from ILC said well on how NES established and activated multistakeholder dialogues in various countries. I am from Tanzania, Tanzania Natural Resources Forum (TNRF) who is part of these platforms.

In real, from ground level evidences, I can testify here that  NES facilitated establishemnt and activeness of variuos multi-stakeholder dialogues on People-Centred Land Governance at various hotspot areas with land challenges and issues. Through these multistakeholder dialogues, key land governance  issues are discussed from community levels, through District multistakeholders dialogues, to national level multistakeholder dialogues. Through these dialogues, key actors and players that have a stake in decision making process on land issues are involved and engaged from local to national level including community members, traditional leaders, local governement authorities,  leaders that represent various groups within localities, development partners, Civil Society organizations, government agencies including Conservation agencies that are sources of challenged land use conflicts in rangelands, technocrats from various Ministries and  Parliamentary Committee members and members of parliaments from hotspot areas with challenged land issues.

These multistakeholder dialogues are well designed and structured in way to ensure land issues and challenges within their mandate are discussed and agreed with tangible solutions for action and follow-up. Once some issues become more complicated to be handled by existing domestic legal frameworks, mandates and governance systems, the same lessons and issues are shared to feed existing UN mechanisms and regional dialogue at regional level like Word Bank Conference on Poverty, Conference of Land Policy in Africa, and Universal Periodic Review (UPR), etc 

This, among others, influences and shapes the best advocacy enagegements under various government regimes that call for transparency and accountability. 

The creation and strengthening of multilateral platforms for pasture management is a necessary and useful activity. First, the countries of Central Asia and Mongolia were originally livestock-breeding countries with significant areas of pastureland. Secondly, countries are located in an arid climate and have limited water resources. Thirdly, the countries have a great experience in pasture livestock breeding. All the above arguments speak about the need for cooperation between our countries in order to preserve pastures and exchange experience in sustainable management of pasture resources to protect them from degradation and improve the welfare of rangeland users.

Hi everyone, in the spirit of the principles contained in Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land (VGGTs), the ILC has invested in building an enabling environment to realise people-centred land governance by establishing and supporting multi-stakeholder platforms which develop and implement national strategies and global or regional thematic initiatives.

At national level, we have 3 ILC National Engagement Strategies (NES) with an important focus on rangelands (Kenya, Tanzania and Cameroon) and it is likely in the near future we will have two more (Kyrgyzstan and Mongolia). The ILC also supports two regional rangelands initiatives (Africa and Asia) and one global which consists in a core partnership within international members and partners. In the case of Latin America, as Gabriel already explained, we support a regional platform and strategy on Semi-dry lands which usually exchange experiences and information with the above mentioned platforms.

Inside and within our platforms we can observe diversity across civil society, government, multilateral agencies, academia, grassroots, private sector, and other stakeholders. This diversity offer an enabling environment to exchange and share experiences, to have a more coordinated and powerful joint advocacy, and to provoke a more robust dialogue around key land governance issues.

We are happy to see the coordinators and members of our different platforms on rangelands, as well as important ILC partners, sharing their experiences in this on-line discussion!

To learn more about our work on Rangelands: http://www.landcoalition.org/en/resources/introduction-ilcs-rangelands-i...

Thanks Angela for mentioning this, we know that investors acquiring rural land in the developing world is not new but what is worring is the increase in the frequency and scale of acquisitions since the mid-2000s, due to the increase in the demand of agricultural products, non renewable resources, and even conservation initiatives (http://pubs.iied.org/pdfs/G03853.pdf). For the ILC, is important to be part of the Land Matrix partnership and would be great to see if in the near future the Observatory would throw interesting info on this.

For the question of women's rights to the courses it's a long story.

1.- Until 2004: in customary law, if a woman lives in the village and she has animals, married or unmarried, she has the right to graze in forest rangelands but not in some other collective lands,

If she does not live in the village she has no rights.

If the collective land is divided to be cultivated, the woman had no part.

2.- Since 2004: with the new family code, the woman has the same rights as the man in the rangelands, sometimes there are problems if her husband is from another tribe who has conflicts with the tribe of her family, but if she goes to court she wins, she is given her right.

Currently there is a ministry dedicated to human rights in charge of all land affairs.

It takes time to change mentalities.

1. What land-related challenges are rangelands and rangeland users facing ?

Rangelands or common lands in India contribute significantly to the food, fuel and water requirements of more than 350 million rural households in India and provide the foundation for the viability of farming systems. It is estimated that over the last fifty years these lands have declined by 31 to 55% resulting in environmental degradation, increasing conflicts over resource use and aggravating issues of food, fodder and water crisis for the rural poor. The decline and degradation of common lands stem from conventional mindsets that disregard and undermine the ability of local communities to collectively manage resources and reposes greater faith in ‘State’ and ‘Private’ property regimes. Such rhetoric has resulted in tenurial arrangements that neglect the collective tenurial rights of local communities. Lack of appreciation of the local institutional arrangements in many cases led to emergence of parallel sets of institutions from ‘outside’ that did not align with the local context and resulted in the collapse of governance mechanisms. Commons and community ownership generally do not feature in the official vocabulary of land use. Common lands are most often seen as ‘wastelands’ that are to be diverted for other ‘productive’ uses such as biofuel cultivation, corporate contract farming and industrial zone. The economic value of ecological resources or collective action is discounted in promoting economic growth.

2. What are some good practice examples, experiences and lessons learned of making rangelands more secure?

Enabling legislations such as the Forest Rights Act and Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act and national programmes such as Green India Mission, Watershed Development Programmes, and National Action Plan on Climate Change provide an opportunity for reviving the functioning of Commons at biophysical level while facilitating decentralization of decision making to local self-governing units. While institutional solutions proposed under policies and programmes towards decentralization are a step ahead in recognizing rights of local communities to use and manage their resources, neglect of local institutional arrangements and substitution with inferior arrangements could lead to the collapse of existing governance mechanisms and reinforcement of power dynamics.

On the other hand, facilitating local communities in defining resource and user boundaries by building on customary patterns of use and access, assisting them in formulating local rules and regulations to improve democratic character of their functioning, ensuring spaces for the poor, and engaging with the Government and other actors to create an enabling environment and improve programmatic investments could help in strengthening processes of making these lands more secure. Further, using technology to create a shared understanding of the local ecological thresholds amongst the primary stakeholders, and improving access to information for a more nuanced understanding of local social-ecological contexts can enhance land use planning and decision making.

3. How can we develop strong pathways for engagement as a multi-stakeholder platform?

It is important to appreciate that natural boundaries transgress the administrative boundaries and efforts of making rangelands more secure cannot succeed if it is done at just one level. Land governance involves different players – from a poor livestock keeper in a village to other stakeholders in the same village and other villages sharing the resource, to the local administrative officers, to the State and Central Governments, to practitioners and academicians. All of these actors play a wide array of roles in influencing the resource condition. It is important to map and understand the roles of each of the actors influencing land use better and to explore avenues to bring these diverse players on a common platform at meso-levels. Multi-stakeholder platforms need to be designed in ways that facilitate constructive arrangements such that these help in addressing information and knowledge gaps and take better decisions for land governance.

Strategic engagement for better rangelands management

Many factors have driven focus on rangelands and informing the debate towards the need to secure rangelands tenure and resource rights; this is the positive side.  While this is happening, the other conversations are defined by rangelands as open space and opportunity for use, regardless of the implications to its health. This in a way has defined intervention pathways that have different ways contributed to strategic engagement.  As such, some of them are:

- Government oriented positive thinking; there are more efforts by governments at the national levels developing policies and plans that in some way recognizes resources within the rangelands such are the West Africa codes, the AU Policy on pastoralism, in-country plans, laws, policies and institutions.

- State and non-state actors partnership for joint action; increased governments’ recognition of partnerships with CSO and development partners and in this case, the Rangelands Initiative presents very concrete examples in Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Cameroon and progressively West Africa.

- Thirdly is emerging grassroots oriented membership networks and coalitions; many global, regional and local networks are beginning to recognize the grassroots membership as having direct impact to promoting secure rangelands through awareness. Some are good others are questionable but the most important thing is the conversation for the sustainable rangelands management. The examples again are the group ranch systems in Kenya and the Wildlife Conservation association, conservancies. The west Africa Model of the Réseau Billital Maroobé (RBM) among others are examples of governance membership pathways for addressing rangelands. 

The International Land Coalition has two strategies that have in themselves developed strategic pathways at the national level and the regional level; these are already mentioned - the NES and CBIs - and have created an impetus and defined some thinking towards the rangelands debate, specifically the concept of the CBI and having rangelands as an area. The strategy has created both vertical strengths, by feeding ILC members through NES at the nation levels and engaging communities at the base. Feedback from these and lessons learnt are filtered and shape the global rangelands discourse in a way the forum such as this debate is structured and targeted, reaching wider audiences.

This has presented opportunities to connect with different players and influence positive thinking building partnerships and networks. Targeted global policy influencing forums, for instance the CELEP think tanks and its annual engagement forum and feedback to the EC and DEVCO, has in itself defined CELEP as another opportunity for policy influencing at the European Institutions.

Thank you for all your comments! We have learnt a lot during the last weeks. The facilitator team will share a report that summarizes the main lessons.

Have a nice end of the week!