Abstract
Afforestation programs are challenged by competition for land uses. Land use conflicts arise whenever there is divergent use, access and management of the resource or due to incompatible use and inadequate policy. Agroforestry may reconcile competing interests. However, small landholdings remain a challenge due to the negative ecological and economic impacts of most economically preferred trees for agroforestry systems. Such negative impacts lead to the emergence of conflict among different land users and in most instances, slows down afforestation efforts on the farm. This study intended to explore conflicts arising from on-farm tree-planting and other land use practices, to identify the conflict resolution mechanism adopted by land users and to evaluate their strengths and weaknesses in conflict management. Mixed method approach of structured and semi-structured interviews was employed in Bobasi, Kisii County, Kenya. Content analysis, means, frequencies and cross-tabulations were done. Results indicated that small landholdings coupled with poor agroforestry practices were the main source of conflict driven by the ready market for trees of high economic values but with negative ecological impact. Conflict management mechanisms adopted were mainly cooperative methods such as voluntary negotiations between tree farmers and crop owners. These included adopting silvicultural control measures, benefit sharing of tree stems along the boundaries and compensation mechanisms for losses incurred by crop owners. Right based management mechanisms were also noted among other land users who believed that what they did with their land and compound was their business and so exhibited competitive approaches such as avoidance, coercion, and adjudication.
Highlights
Management of natural resources for the production of goods and the provision of ecosystem services such as conservation of biodiversity, water, and even air has led to competition for land among different user groups
Under the common property regime in natural resource management, a number of conflicts have been reported which include conflicts related to the utilization of natural resources which arise due to divergent interests of forest user groups where in some instances, consumptive users do not consider the interests of other users such as nonconsumptive users (Gombya-Ssembajjwe, 1998)
An effort to reconcile competing land uses between forestry or conservation with other competing land use practices such as agriculture led to the development of agroforestry as a useful land use practice to reconcile agriculture, livestock production, forest conservation, soil and water conservation and mitigation of climate change in small landholdings (Sobola, Amadi, & Jamala, 2015)
Summary
Management of natural resources for the production of goods and the provision of ecosystem services such as conservation of biodiversity, water, and even air has led to competition for land among different user groups. Land use conflicts or natural resource conflicts arise when there are divergent views on land use policies causing negative impacts on other land users or whenever an introduced management system contradicts the pre-existing local management systems and the new system is incompatible to the pre-existing land uses (Kazoora, 2003). These conflicts arise from misunderstandings and lack of information about policy when there are contradictions and lack of clarity in laws and policies; inequities in the distribution of resources, or poor policy and programme implementations, as well as historical relationships and power differences among actors. An effort to reconcile competing land uses between forestry or conservation with other competing land use practices such as agriculture led to the development of agroforestry as a useful land use practice to reconcile agriculture, livestock production, forest conservation, soil and water conservation and mitigation of climate change in small landholdings (Sobola, Amadi, & Jamala, 2015)
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