Land tenure regimes and land conservation in the African drylands: the case of northern Ghana

Abstract

In Africa’s drylands, threats to economic livelihood from climate change are exacerbated by a low rate of investments in land conservation. The existing literature identifies land tenure insecurity as a major contributory factor. To help better understand this challenge, this paper investigated, empirically, the impact of land tenure regimes on investment in land conservation, focusing on northern Ghana. The study’s findings identified three dominant traditional institutions of land administration, viz., tendana, chieftaincy and family. These institutions in turn define three broad categories of tenure regimes, namely, freehold, leasehold and lineage. It further finds that these regimes exhibit a continuum of tenure security that impact differentially on investment in land conservation. This is buttressed by the quantitative analysis, which reveals that whereas freehold (relative to lineage) significantly engenders investment in conservation, leasehold shows no important impact. Among others, the paper recommends the institution of reform processes that promote durable and individualized land tenure security.