Williams, A.; (2007) People cascades, land and livelihoods: Farmer and herder land-use relations in the Idodi rangelands, Tanzania. Doctoral thesis , University of London.

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Abstract

Land policies in Africa have often been predicated on marginalising or extinguishing customary land tenure systems in favour of introducing more 'efficient' formal systems of individual titling and registration of land. This approach has been marked by its frequent failure and high cost. In Tanzania, recently introduced land laws instead now recognise customary systems and set out a basis for incorporating them in a village-based land tenure system. Yet there is growing apprehension that placing an emphasis on recognising customary practices will compound me growing trend of social differentiation, elite capture and the increasing numbers of landless poor. These issues can be better understood through investigating who benefits and loses from instances of 'negotiability' in access to land at a local level, particularly in the light of broader political economic and social changes. Based on field work carried out in central Tanzania, the study traces me sodo-environmental outcomes of herders and farmers living in the Idodi rangelands. Over the last 50 years, a substantial portion of these rangelands have been taken over by me state for the creation of wildlife conservation areas. The remaining parts of the rangelands have been settled by successive waves of farmers and herders, mainly associated with evictions from the creation of protected areas, other state-perpetrated land alienations in northern Tanzania, and state-enforced villagisation. Over time, the continued immigration of people into the Idodi villages has added to an already growing population, such mat today, key resources---fertile arable land, grazing and water---are in increasingly short supply. The story of the Idodi rangelands reflects developments occurring in many other parts of Tanzania. In particular, wetland areas in the dryland rangelands have become a focus of in-migration and heightened competition for land and water, as farmers and herders alike converge on these centres of relatively high fertility and productivity. Often, as in the Idodi rangelands, competition for land and water has grown sufficiently great for conflict to break out in these polyethnic dryland-wetlands. The social negotiability of land has remained central for herders' access to key land and landed resources. In the Idodi rangelands, herders have used their growing social relations with farmer-based centres of power to avoid conflict and maintain access to farmland. Contrastingly conflict over land has occurred when other herders have not sufficiently invested in social relations with farmers over access to land. Herders continue to remain squatters---albeit socially legitimate ones---on village land, without firm rights to rangeland resources. In recent years strong social relations have not been sufficient to guarantee herders' security in the landscape. It is clear that the land entitlements of marginalised herder groups may often need safeguarding by me government, but it less dear what me best approach may be. In Idodi, a more overt expression of pastoralists' rights to land would likely lead to polarisation between farmer and herder, and an increase in conflict and competition over land. Too little consideration has been given by the government to enabling the pluralistic yet equitable development of locally diverse customary understandings of land tenure. The continued increase in competition and conflict over access to land---as has occurred in Idodi---strongly suggests that priority should to be given in land reform processes to the development of locally legitimate dispute resolution fora that focus on negotiated outcomes wherever imposed adjudicatory decisions can be avoided.

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