Changes In Land Tenure Research Articles

Vulnerability of Worldwide Pastoralism to Global Changes and Interdisciplinary Strategies for Sustainable Pastoralism

Ten case studies from seven major pastoral regions across six continents were studied in this paper by conceptualizing three factors (agro-ecosystem resilience, livelihood options, and institution capacity) as the axes of a three-dimensional vulnerability framework. This analysis highlights the vulnerability of agriculture-based livelihood systems to global changes and helps identify what institutions have the potential to mobilize effective relief in different pastoral regions. In terms of results, this vulnerability assessment shows that the vulnerability of pastoralism was very different in all the cases across the globe. As such, a further analysis, based on the pressure-state-response (PSR) model was undertaken to enhance our understanding of the ways that global changes put pressures on pastoral livelihoods worldwide. From this we conclude that climate change and climate variability are driving fragile pastoral ecosystems into more vulnerable conditions. Socioeconomic factors, such as changes in land tenure, agriculture, sedentarization, and institutions are fracturing large-scale pastoral ecosystems into spatially isolated systems. The implications of this analysis are that professionals, practitioners, and policy makers should jointly develop a coupled human and natural systems approach that focuses on enhancing the resilience of pastoral communities and their practices. This requires institutional developments to support asset building and good governance to enhance adaptive capability. In addition, pastoralists’ adaptation strategies to global change need to be supported by public awareness and improved by institutional decisions at different scales and dimensions.

Desertification and livestock grazing: The roles of sedentarization, mobility and rest

Pastoralism is an ancient form of self-provisioning that is still in wide use today throughout the world. While many pastoral regions are the focus of current desertification studies, the long history of sustainability evidenced by these cultures is of great interest. Numerous studies suggesting a general trend of desertification intimate degradation is a recent phenomenon principally attributable to changes in land tenure, management, and treatment. This paper explores the suggested causes of land degradation and identifies the land management and grazing treatments shared by many pastoral cultures. The singular commonality found in nearly all studies of degradation is the prevalence of partial or total rest. While historical observations rightly suggest that desertification is the result of both climatic and anthropic factors, recent focus has been placed upon the effect of sedentarisation. This paper attempts to coalesce these two streams of thinking with particular focus upon inclusive planning processes which may improve arid and semiarid rangeland ecosystems using livestock as a solution to the problem of land degradation.

The Multifunctional Transition in Australia's Tropical Savannas: the Emergence of Consumption, Protection and Indigenous Values

AbstractAs elsewhere in affluent, western nations, the direction, complexity and pace of rural change in Australia can be conceptualised as a multifunctional transition in which a variable mix of consumption and protection values has emerged, contesting the former dominance of production values, and leading to greater complexity and heterogeneity in rural occupance at all scales. This transition has been explored in accessible, high‐amenity landscapes driven by enhanced consumption values. Less attention has been directed to remote, marginal lands where a flimsy mode of productivist occupance can, in part, be displaced by alternative modes with the transitions being facilitated by low transfer costs. Such is the case in Australia's northern tropical savannas where an extensive mode of pastoral occupance is selectively displaced by alternative consumption, protection and Indigenous values. This transition towards multifunctional occupance is most readily documented by mapping changes in land tenure and ownership over the last three decades. Tenure changes have been accompanied by new regimes of property rights and land ownership, including: native titles derived from common law; non‐transferable, common‐property Aboriginal freehold tenures; transfers of pastoral leases to Indigenous and conservation interests; expansion of conservation lands under public tenures; and revisions of the rights and duties of pastoral lessees. Future occupance scenarios remain unclear, given the sensitivity of this frontier zone to national and global driving forces.

Spatial structure of Amur (Siberian) tigers (Panthera tigris altaica) on Sikhote-Alin Biosphere Zapovednik, Russia

Abstract Spacing patterns of large carnivores can affect demographic parameters of populations that, in turn, influence effective population size. As a result, better understanding of spatial structure can provide insight into effective conservation strategies. We examined home-range size, spacing characteristics, and changes in land tenure of radiocollared Amur tigers (Panthera tigris altaica) on the Sikhote-Alin Biosphere Zapovednik, Russia, from 1992 to 2006. We predicted that both sexes would maintain spatially exclusive home ranges and that subadult female tigers would tend toward philopatry and males would disperse. Home ranges (95% fixed kernel estimates; mean ± SD) of resident females (n = 20 home ranges of 14 females; 390 ± 136 km2) were significantly (P = 0.003) smaller than those of males (n = 6 home ranges of 5 males; 1,385 ± 539 km2). Geometric mean overlap between adjacent females (0.11 ± 0.11 SD) did not differ from that between adjacent males (0.14 ± 0.12). All radiocollared male cub...

Renegotiating Barbuda's commons: recent changes in Barbudan open-range cattle herding

Barbuda remains little developed and sparsely populated relative to its neighbors in the Leeward Lesser Antilles, a rather extraordinary and relatively unknown Caribbean place. Much of its distinctiveness derives from the communal land-tenure system, itself rooted in three centuries of open-range cattle herding. Yet, as revealed through interviews, newspaper archives, and landscape observations, open-range cattle herding has declined over the past three decades, with related changes in land tenure. As the new Barbuda Land Act came into effect in 2008, codifying the communal tenure system, the very landscape elements that manifest open-range herding have become obscure. In particular, the rock-walled stockwells have become largely defunct, many of the walls lie in ruins or have been entirely consumed by the crusher that converted them into gravel to surface roads. With the principal land use that had supported communal control largely out of practice, usufruct access to land now largely obsolete, the new act might have little actual impact in preserving Barbuda's uniqueness.

The Adoption Process of Ricefield-Based Fish Seed Production in Northwest Bangladesh: An Understanding through Quantitative and Qualitative Investigation

Purpose: The purpose of the study was to understand the adoption process of ricefield based fish seed production (RBFSP) that has been developed, promoted and established in Northwest Bangladesh. Design/Methodology/Approach: Quantitative investigation based on regression analysis and qualitative investigation using semi-structured interview were carried out to enhance understanding of the adoption process of RBFSP. Findings: A quantitative investigation showed two variables, the area of rice-plot stocked and access to tilapia broodfish, predicted 57% of variability of RBFSP adoption. A later qualitative investigation with different groups of people from communities where RBFSP was established showed ecological and complex socio-cultural factors to be responsible for its adoption or rejection by farming households. In an ecological context, the development of the rice-plot environment and increased fish production in rice-plots and ponds were major factors influencing adoption by farming households. In the case of farming families, the technology helped to meet the basic food needs of household members, particularly women, children and the elderly. There was an important temporal aspect of the benefits delivered by the approach, since fish consumed and income provided for households occurred during the ‘hungry gap’; RBFSP can be regarded as a coping mechanism for households' seasonal vulnerability. Development of networks among seed producers and fry traders reinforced the adoption process. Practical Implications: Loss in access to suitable ricefields through land tenure change was identified as the most important factor constraining sustained adoption of RBFSP by farming households. Originality/Value: The quantitative investigation showed that the two variables possessed limited explanatory power for the adoption process of RBFSP, however, the qualitative investigation identified complex factors that contributed to the adoption process of the technology.

Emerging Reality in Customary Land Tenure: The Case of Kachenga Village in Balaka District, Southern Malawi.

This paper discusses land tenure changes that have occurred in one village in Balaka district, southern Malawi and the forces that have been at work. The current land tenure system departs in a number significant of ways from what is supposed to be the ideal situation. Among the important changes are the diminishing role of the group village headman as allocator of land rights, increasing importance of family heads as allocaters of land rights and the development of an informal land market.

From a legal perspective to see the evolution and transformation of land tenure institutions in China

Through the discussion of property rights of land in the People’s Republic of China by examining the evolution of legal frameworks governing land institutions and that of the rights embodied, it traces out the development of urban and rural land tenure changes during the pre-reform era (pre-1978) and post-reform era (post-1978). Analysis shows that after thirty years of opening up and orientation towards a market economy, there is still a wide divergence of rights between urban and rural land tenure. Quasi-leasehold system of urban land tenure, accompanied by relatively well-established titling and registration procedures as well as an open market for transaction, has been established. In contrast, although the rural land contracting system has endowed farmers with thirty years of agricultural land usufruct rights and attempts to strengthen farmers’ tenure security have been made progressively over the years, farmers are yet not enjoying the full bundles of land rights. Imminent reforms in rural land tenure includes, but not restricted to, the following crucial areas: Farmers’ right to mortgage their land, a well-functioning land market, well-defined and just causes for land requisition written in law, a clear delineation of the different roles and rights of the collective and individual farmers.

Transitions: Pastoralists Living with Change

This review covers two major causes of change in pastoral systems. First is fragmentation, the dissection of a natural system into spatially isolated parts, which is caused by a number of socioeconomic factors such as changes in land tenure, agriculture, sedentarization, and institutions. Second is climate change and climate variability, which are expected to alter dry and semiarid grasslands now and into the future. Details of these changes are described using examples from Africa and Mongolia. An adaptation framework is used to place global change in context. Although pastoral systems are clearly under numerous constraints and risks have intensified, pastoralists are adapting and trying to remain flexible. It is too early to ask if the responses are enough, given the magnitude and number of changes faced by pastoralists today.

Tenure, tourism and timber in Quintana Roo, Mexico: Land tenure changes in forest Ejidos after agrarian reforms

We present and apply an analytical framework for understanding land tenure change in the wake of radical land policy modifications in Mexico’s communal tenure system. We posit that the changes in land tenure vary as a result of a complex interplay of drivers external and internal to the land tenure unit. Using interview and socio-economic data, we apply this framework to six ejidos in Quintana Roo, Mexico in order to understand the extent to which these ejidos have shifted towards private individual property as promoted in the 1992 amendment of Article 27 of the Mexican Constitution. In our case study ejidos, we conclude that external factors, including community forestry, tourism, and urbanization, have synergized with factors internal to the ejido, such as ethnicity, livelihood strategies, migration, and attitudes, leading to different trajectories in land tenure arrangements.

Tenure, tourism and timber in Quintana Roo, Mexico: Land tenure changes in forest Ejidos after agrarian reforms

We present and apply an analytical framework for understanding land tenure change in the wake of radical land policy modifications in Mexico’s communal tenure system. We posit that the changes in land tenure vary as a result of a complex interplay of drivers external and internal to the land tenure unit. Using interview and socio-economic data, we apply this framework to six ejidos in Quintana Roo, Mexico in order to understand the extent to which these ejidos have shifted towards private individual property as promoted in the 1992 amendment of Article 27 of the Mexican Constitution. In our case study ejidos, we conclude that external factors, including community forestry, tourism, and urbanization, have synergized with factors internal to the ejido, such as ethnicity, livelihood strategies, migration, and attitudes, leading to different trajectories in land tenure arrangements.

The effects of land tenure change on sustainability: human security and environmental change in southern African savannas

Abstract Using a human security perspective, we investigate how the history of land tenure changes has driven sustainability in southern African savannas. The paper examines four countries—Botswana, Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe. Two research questions are addressed: first, how has colonial land tenure and distribution affected people's options and capacity to end, mitigate or adapt to risks to their human, environmental and social rights, and what have been the related effects on land uses and degradation? Second, to what extent have post-independence land reforms addressed threats to human security and political causes of land degradation? The inequitable distribution of land and colonial legacy of dual or pluralistic systems of tenure are found to be at the root of many agrarian and environmental problems. Post-independence land reforms have largely failed to address these fundamental issues, sometimes even reinforcing threats to social, economic and environmental sustainability. The skewed distribution of land and resources, insecure rights, and the marginalisation and restriction of savanna livelihood systems have persisted, undermining human security and environmental integrity in the region as well as leading to mounting conflict and insecurity.

The vulnerability context of a savanna area in Mozambique: household drought coping strategies and responses to economic change

Abstract In this paper, we investigate the ways in which climate stressors and economic changes related to liberalisation alter the local vulnerability context. Household and key informant data from two villages in Mozambique are analysed. First, we explore how changes such as increased market integration, altered systems of agricultural support, land tenure change and privatisation of agro-industries may affect factors important for response capacity, including access to local natural resources, employment opportunities, and household labour and capital. Next, we investigate how people related to the market while coping with the 2002–2003 drought. The study reveals that there had been an increase in informal trade and casual employment opportunities; however, market relations were very unfavourable and as the drought intensified, smallholders were locked into activities that barely secured economic survival and which sometimes endangered long-term response capacity. Only a few large-scale farmers had the capital and skills necessary to negotiate a good market position in urban markets, thus securing future incomes. Inequality, social sustainability, vulnerability and natural resource use are all closely linked in the savannas. Hence, both climate change adaptation policies and sustainability measures need to target vulnerability context and the social and environmental stressors shaping it.

Shaky Foundations: Moving Beyond “Housing Tenure”

Housing tenure retains a “taken for granted” status in much writing on housing, despite some previous critical analysis. This article reviews theoretical perspectives on housing tenure, and re‐examines the construction of housing tenure in Australia as it relates to changing land tenure arrangements and institutional settings which affect housing occupancy. It asserts that the construction of housing tenure as a series of unchanging and mutually exclusive categories, centred on “usual residence”, creates a barrier to understanding changes in how households occupy and buy/sell housing, using the examples of increased investment in residential property and a proliferation of market housing arrangements for older people. A suggested way forward is to distinguish questions about housing occupancy, which affect the daily life and circumstances of households, from questions relating to investment in residential property as an asset and potential generator of capital and income for households, particularly as they become older.

Changing Land Tenure Arrangements and Access to Primary Assets under Globalization: A Case Study of Two Villages in Anglophone Cameroon

Abstract: This paper illustrates how, in relation to globalization, formal and informal land institutions are prone to generate conflict over land rights and examines the implications of such conflicts on security levels of access to primary assets for the poor in two villages in Cameroon — Vekovi and Ekona. The land laws in Cameroon are an outcome of its colonial heritage and exist alongside the communal tenure system. As the issue of land awareness comes to the fore, engendered partly by population pressure, relative price changes and the commoditization of land, conflicts develop: farmer–grazer conflicts in Vekovi, and farmer–farmer and indigenous people–state conflicts in Ekona. The rent‐seeking attitude of administrative and judicial authorities, who use inconsistencies in the dual tenure system, reduces the possibility of negotiating lasting solutions to land‐related conflicts in these villages. The social cost of this behaviour is not limited only to mutual distrust but also includes the opportunity costs of both time and financial resources mobilized by the parties in conflict to follow‐up legal procedures. The informal land tenure system generally operates in opposition to the national land laws in our case study villages, an atmosphere that generates or exacerbates conflict situations that create insecurity and restrict productivity‐enhancing investments. Land markets are more buoyant in Ekona, which is relatively more cosmopolitan and with farm‐to‐market roads that are fairly developed, than in Vekovi, which experiences net out‐migration and is poorly accessible. As a more homogenous society with strong traditional conventions, land transfer in Vekovi remains biased in favour of males, while Ekona enjoys gender neutrality in access to land. Conflict adjudication in the case study villages would be more legitimate if both formal and informal interpretations inform the land dispute settlement mechanisms.

Traditional strategies used by pastoralists to cope with la nina induced drought in Kajiado, Kenya

Pastoralists traditionally relied on herd mobility to cope with drought. In the pastoral areas of Kajiado, Kenya this strategy is now threatened by increased individual land ownership as compared to communal access. Drought frequency as related to El-Nino and Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is predicated to increase with climate change. The aim of the study was investigate the use of herd mobility strategy in the ENSO related 1999/2000 la Nina induced drought under different land tenure types and varying household cattle wealth. The study found that despite changes in land tenure, herd mobility was used as a coping strategy. Households rich in livestock applied the herd mobility strategy more than the poorer ones by moving a larger proportion of their herds. Poorer households applied the strategy of keeping drought resistant animals more than richer ones by having a higher proportion of goats and sheep than cattle. Institutional land units of Kiboko Range Research Station and Chyulu National Reserve which had higher herbaceous biomass were the most favored refuge areas for livestock during the drought. In conclusion poorer families are likely to be impacted more from increased incidents of ENSO droughts due inability to use the herd mobility option. Key words: La-Nina, climate change, drought, pastoralist, herd mobility, land use type

Spatial and temporal variability in fire occurrence within the Las Bayas Forestry Reserve, Durango, Mexico

Patterns of fire occurrence within the Las Bayas Forestry Reserve, Mexico are analyzed in relation to variability in climate, topography, and human land-use. Significantly more fires with shorter fire return intervals occurred from 1900 to 1950 than from 1950 to 2001. However, the frequency of widespread fire years (25% filter) was unchanged over time, as widespread fires were synchronized by climatic extremes. Widespread fire years occurred during dry years that lagged wet years. Widespread fire years lagged the negative El Nino phase (wet winters) of the Southern Oscillation by 1 year, but were not synchronized by the positive, La Nina phase (dry winters) of the Southern Oscillation. The smaller, localized fires that occurred more frequently during the first half of the 20th century were attributed to changes in land tenure with the introduction of the ejido system in the early 1950s. Ejido management strategies lowered fire frequencies by suppressing fires and reducing anthropogenic fires. There were likely more ignitions prior to the arrival of the ejido system as fires were ignited by lightning and indigenous people. As the movement of indigenous peoples across the landscape has been restricted by changes in land tenure, numbers of human-ignited fires subsequently decreased post 1950. After 1950, fires occurred less frequently, were more synchronized, and more restricted to years of extreme climate.

Characterizing land tenure dynamics by comparing spatial and temporal variation at multiple scales

The dynamics of landscape change are closely linked to the dynamics of land tenure—the societal institutions (organizations, rules, rights and restrictions) that control the allocation and use of land and its associated resources by people. Land tenure occurs over a characteristic set of spatial and temporal scales. Understanding the nature of variation in land tenure in space and time is an important step towards developing a deeper understanding of land tenure change and its impacts on societies and ecosystems. In this paper we develop a new method of characterizing and exploring spatial and temporal variation in land tenure, focusing on the potential for dynamic feedbacks between variation in space and variation in time. The primary objective of this research is to develop a robust set of methods that can be used to make inferences about pattern-process linkages across multiple scales in landscapes that contain interlinked social and ecological systems. We apply our approach to the analysis of a 30-year data set of land ownership in part of Hamilton County (north central Florida) and find strong evidence for positive feedbacks between spatial and temporal variation. Our results suggest that spatial and temporal variation in land tenure interact strongly, raising the interesting possibility that strategic purchases of land in ecologically important areas may serve to limit habitat fragmentation.

What Drives Long-Term Biodiversity Change? New Insights from Combining Economics, Paleo-Ecology, and Environmental History

This paper presents an econometric analysis of the relationship between economic and environmental factors and biodiversity change in Scotland over the period 1600-2000. Our main hypothesis is that economic development, as captured by changes in prices, technological improvements and management intensity, is a significant determinant of long-run biodiversity change. The measure of biodiversity used here is an estimate of plant species diversity, constructed by the authors using paleo-ecological analysis of pollen remains. We assemble a new data set of historical land use and price data over 11 sites during this 400 year period; this data set also includes information on long-run climate change and extreme weather events, as well as changes in agricultural technology, land tenure and land ownership. A panel model is then estimated, which controls for both supply and demand shifts over time. Our main result is that agricultural prices, which determine livestock numbers, do indeed impact on biodiversity, with higher prices leading to lower diversity scores, due to their influence on production. No significant direct effects of either changes in technology or climate are detected.

Land tenure change and rural housing in Scotland

This paper aims to define and illustrate the ways in which a change in land tenure can impact on housing provision. It looks in particular at rural Scotland. The paper interprets interview data gathered on the isle of Gigha, a small island off the west coast of Scotland in the spring of 2005. Three years earlier, Gigha had been purchased by its residents from a single, private landowner. The paper finds that the process and nature of ownership change have fundamentally reshaped economic, social and political relationships governing housing provision. The paper concludes by reflecting on the significance of the findings.