GRAZING LAND TENURE AND LIVELIHOOD SECURITY:
A STUDY OF TWO CLUSTERS OF VILLAGES IN THE GAMBIA
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2.0 The Research Setting
2.1 The Gambia
The Gambia is a small country at the southern edge of the Sahel populated by a number of ethnic groups. These groups are geographically intermixed and no areas of the country are dominated by villages of just one ethnic group. It is significant for a study on grazing land tenure that the Fula, with their transhumant pastoralist origins, are one of the major ethnic groups in the country. However, present-day Gambian Fulas, like other ethnic groups in the country, are settled agropastoralists.
Table 2.1: Ethnic Groups of The Gambia
Ethnic Group Percentage of Gambia's Population Mandingo 42.2 Fula 18.1 Wolof 15.6 Serahuli 8.7 Jola 9.5 Other 5.9 (Haydu, et.al., 1986:20)
By African standards, The Gambia is densely populated: 96 persons per square kilometre (GOTG, 1993:18). For administrative purposes the country is divided into five divisions plus a predominantly urban area called Kombo St. Mary that includes the national capital. The country as a whole is very rural and even in rural areas the population density is high. For example, the population densities of North Bank Division and Upper River Division, the locations of the two main sites of this research, are 68 and 71 persons per square kilometre, respectively (GOTG, 1993:18). Gambia, the country, is dominated by the river from which it derives its name. It is a narrow strip of land paralleling the river, seldom more than forty kilometres wide. Because there are few ferry crossings and no bridges the country is effectively cut in two and movement across the land border to Senegal is generally easier than movement across the river. Fully one-fifth of Gambia's surface area is covered by the river and swamps along its banks (Haydu, et.al., 1986:1). (See map on foldout page.)
The Gambia's rainy season usually lasts from June to October or mid-November. The remainder of the year is the slightly cooler dry season characterized by the dry Harmattan winds that blow off the Sahara Desert. According to most ecological zoning systems, The Gambia lies slightly to the south of the narrow band called the "Sahel," although placement of boundaries of the Sahel varies. Another classification system, that used by the World Bank, speaks of the "Sahelian and Sudanian Zone" (SSZ). The Gambia falls completely within this zone. However, in broad terms, "The Gambia is usually considered to have a Sahelian climatic pattern," and like the Sahel it experiences significant year-to-year variation in precipitation (Haydu, et.al., 1986:2-3).
According to the World Bank (1985), sixty-two point eight percent (62.8%) of The Gambia falls within the Sudanian zone between the 600 and 800 mm. isohyets and the remainder of the country, in the south and near the coast, can be classified as Sudano-Guinean between the 800 and 1000 mm. isohyets. This division corresponds roughly to differences in vegetation, which is primarily "savanna woodland with grass and shrub understories. In the moister western area of the country, there are remnants of woodland similar to those elsewhere in West Africa in the Southern Guinea Savanna." (Dunsmore, et.al., 1976:159)
It is a common belief that Gambian pastures are overgrazed (Eastman, 1986:28; GEAP, 1992:6; UNSO, 1979:1). Furthermore, "some observers feel that The Gambia is experiencing the early stages of desertification." (Haydu, et.al., 1986:3) However, there is little direct evidence to support or deny such statements. Documents prepared by the Gambian government and development agencies tend to declare overgrazing to be a problem without offering proof. The Gambia Environmental Action Plan, for example, asserts that, "Fragile arid zones are continuously cultivated and over-grazed thus predisposing them to the risk of desertification." (GEAP, 1992:6). A 1979 United Nations Sudano-Sahelian Office assessment of measures to combat rangeland degradation in The Gambia speaks of overgrazing and soil deterioration especially around watering holes, but it offers no evidence (UNSO, 1979:1). A recent study by the Gambian-German Forestry Project found that browsing cattle can impede the regeneration of some tree species; however, at the site where the study was conducted, evidence of overgrazing was inconclusive (Deschères and Ludwig, 1994).
While there may be little direct evidence to either support or deny the existence of overgrazing and accompanying land degradation in The Gambia (see Section 3.2.2, below), the amount of available grazing land has been declining. The population of The Gambia is rising rapidly, averaging 4.1% growth per year between 1983 and 1993 (GOTG, 1993:6), meaning that the population is doubling every eighteen years. Rural to urban migration relieves only some of the population pressure in the rural areas and the amount of land suitable for agriculture per person has been continuously dropping. Between 1963 and 1983 it dropped from 1.5 to .8 hectares per person in North Bank Division and from .8 to .4 hectares per person in Upper River Division (Torrence, 1991:19). The area of closed canopy forest in The Gambia has decreased by 80 percent in the twenty-six years from 1972 to 1988 (GEAP, 1992:7). The Gambia's cattle population, meanwhile has increased from an estimated 100,000 in the 1850s (and a low of 30,000 in 1933) to the 1991 level of 340,433 (Janneh, 1994; UNDP, 1991:14). A smaller amount of common land is being used by more people and more livestock, a situation that threatens to produce environmental degradation and economic hardship for rural Gambians. The prevailing traditional land tenure system seems to be unable to deal with the increasing pressure on common land. The need for a thorough understanding of this system is great; hence the need for this type of research.
2.2 The Legal Context
Until 1991, landholding in The Gambia was governed by the Lands (Banjul and Kombo St. Mary) Act (1935 as amended) and the Lands (Provinces) Act (1935 as amended), the former applying in and near the national capital and the latter applying everywhere else. Under the Lands (Provinces) Act, tenure on rural land has been governed according the traditional land tenure system and administered by "District Authorities each of which is headed by a district Chief or Seyfo." (Njie, 1993:2) In this system, rights to cropland are inheritable and relatively secure. However, neither individuals nor households have rights to specific parcels of grazing land. According to Clyde Eastman (1986:32), there are many Gambian villages that "have grazing areas where they have already established more or less exclusive customary [communal] rights through many years of continuous use." Generally, however, Gambian pastures are an open access resource. Land that is not a part of the village-proper or is not under crops is open for any Gambian to graze any number of livestock there.
The government of The Gambia has been investigating existing land tenure systems and contemplating changes. One profound change has already occurred, even if only on paper. In 1990 the Gambian legislature passed the State Lands Act which calls for the establishment of Land Administration Boards for the greater Banjul area and for each of Gambia's five divisions (GOTG, 1991:10). "The main intention of the State Lands Act is to provide a unitary title system of land, initially in certain designated areas (such as the urban area)." (Bensouda and Allen, 1993:21) The Act gives the Minister of Local Government and Lands the authority to supersede traditional tenure for any area of land that he or she designates, and declare it to be state land. Land holdings on that state land would take the form of ninety-nine year leases to be administered at the division level by the Land Administration Boards (GOTG, 1991:12-16). There seems to be nothing in the Act that would prevent groups such as co-operatives, livestock owners associations, or villages from being granted leases. According to a senior planner in the Ministry of Local Government and Lands, "The lease could go to the village. There would be a title but it would be a public title. But this could all be years away." (Touray, 1993) At the time of writing, no land has yet been designated as state land under the Act, no Land Administration Boards have been established, and rural land continues to be governed according to the traditional system. Nevertheless, this act has the potential to dramatically change Gambian land tenure.
Although the State Lands Act remains unimplemented, the Gambian government has continued to investigate traditional tenure systems, primarily through two bodies, the Law Reform Commission and the interministerial Working Group on Resource Tenure and Land Use Planning. The Working Group on Resource Tenure and Land Use Planning has conducted a series of case studies in each of the five divisions in an effort to gain a detailed understanding of land and resource tenure systems and to identify key problem areas. The Law Reform Commission, has been investigating adjudication procedures for land disputes, both in the "traditional" sector (district chiefs or Seyfolu and district tribunals) and in the formal sector (the courts). In addition to these activities specific to land tenure, the Gambian government has also been implementing rangeland development projects which have been subtly altering existing land tenure arrangements locally, on a case by case basis. Merely the act of fencing a few tens of hectares of pastureland is a change in the tenure system when that system had previously been characterized by completely open access to pastures.
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