GRAZING LAND TENURE AND LIVELIHOOD SECURITY:

A STUDY OF TWO CLUSTERS OF VILLAGES IN THE GAMBIA

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3.0 Livelihood Security and Land Tenure

3.1 Livelihood Security

Food security has been an important focus of the international development field since the 1970s, although lately the topic seems to have been overshadowed somewhat by environmental concerns. The driving force for the food security issue has been has been recurring famine, especially the famines of early 1970s and mid-1980s (Davies, et.al., 1991:4), and discussions of food security often revolve around famine -- defining famine, explaining famine, preventing famine. Discussions of food security have focussed on various levels from individual to international, but food security is "most often conceptualised as a macro phenomenon -- deviations from trend in aggregate consumption." (Clay, 1981:5) It is frequently discussed in relation to topics such as international markets, macroeconomic policy, national food distribution systems, and political instability.

However, individual and household level food security is also discussed in the literature. The problem of food security at the micro level is formulated in different ways and the focus is not always set narrowly on food. For example, in some formulations, "food security is essentially a proxy for poverty." (Maxwell, 1990:2) Some writers have gone further, arguing that poverty is the central issue and that food security must be seen as only one aspect of poverty. Deardon and Cassidy (1990:82), for instance, state that "there are risks that using a food security approach might impart a biased or partial understanding of poverty by neglecting such aspects as asset-holding or dependency, or might lead to overemphases on consumption-oriented interventions which prove to be unsustainable." The concept of "sustainable livelihood security" has been suggested as a replacement for "food security." (Chambers, 1987; Davies, et.al., 1991) Poor rural people seldom limit themselves to agriculture in constructing a living; the concept of "livelihood security," therefore, should more accurately reflect the needs and concerns of the rural poor than "food security." Furthermore, the term "food security" is often associated with macro issues, whereas the concern in this thesis is with the household level: therefore, the term "livelihood security" will be used.

Livelihood security strategies are ways that poor rural people cope with the threats that they face to their livelihoods. They are general patterns of behavior that can be based both on conscious decisions and on habitual practices imbedded in the culture. In discussing how the rural poor cope with vulnerability to famine, Jeremy Swift (1989:11) refers to three broad categories of assets that can be relied upon: investments, stores, and claims. "Investments" are those assets that are expected to contribute to production and can include education, farming equipment, wells, and soil conservation. "Stores" can refer to food stores, jewelry, money, and bank accounts. "Investments and stores are generally resources under the individual control of households. . . claims, on the other hand, refer to a range of wider social and political processes, whose activation depends on some level of collective decision." (Swift, 1989:11) "Claims" include claims on other households in the community, claims on patrons and big men, claims on the government, and claims on the international community. Unfortunately, land, especially common land, does not fit easily into this scheme. Instead, stores, investments and claims are types of assets that may be "cashed in when households face a crisis: production assets are sold, granaries are emptied, jewellery is sold, bank accounts emptied, loaned animals recalled, labour debts called in and community support mechanisms activated." (Swift, 1989:11)

Details about which type of assets are "cashed in," under what circumstances, is a subject that the literature on security and livelihoods has not discussed at length. However, Chambers and Conway (1992) have rearranged Swift's grouping of assets and developed it further in an attempt to produce a holistic model of rural livelihoods. It has three main components:

o People (and their livelihood capabilities),

o Tangible Assets (stores and resources), and

o Intangible Assets (claims and access).

These are brought together to produce a living (see Figure 3.1).

What Chambers and Conway call "livelihood capabilities" might be more familiarly termed "human resources." But either label is incomplete in that it includes people's capabilities but not their goals. Two people with the same capabilities and the same assets may choose to produce a living in different ways. They may grow different crops, may choose a different balance between cultivation and livestock raising, or may choose a different mixture of agricultural and non-agricultural activities. For one person an important goal may be to increase the amount of savings he or she has in the form of livestock, for another it may be to get some cash income to pay off debts, and for another it may be to open up a shop and get out of farming altogether.

Tangible assets include stores and resources. Resources is a broader category than Swift's investments. As well as including investments controlled by individuals or households, such as farming equipment and plow oxen, it can include common land not controlled by any one person. That Chambers and Conway have put stores and resources together under the heading tangible assets is also helpful for examining the economic role of livestock. As well as being a form of savings, livestock grow, reproduce, and provide milk. They also contribute to crop production by providing traction and manure. Therefore, in terms of the model put forward by Chambers and Conway, livestock are both a store and a resource. As well as contributing to day-to-day livelihood, in time of crisis the animals can be sold or eaten.

In many rural African societies the preferred form of savings is livestock and the role of livestock in security strategies is discussed by a number of writers (Hecht, 1989:6,13; Henderson, 1987:274,275; Legge, 1989:83,84; Livingstone, 1986:5-18; Ornäs, 1990:115-122; O'Shea, 1989:58; Reardon, et.al., 1988:1065-1074). For example, in describing responses to drought in Niger, Karen Legge (1989:83) reports one herder saying that, "The cow is the granary of the Hausa." However, when discussed in relation to savings and security, livestock are usually discussed as one, undifferentiated category. The issue of how choices are made between different types of livestock warrants examination (see Section 6.2).

Livestock often become important also in terms of claims, as with "stock friendships, common among African pastoralists, whereby animals are loaned between kin and friends." (Swift, 1989:11) Having done so, the original owner of the animals has done more than spread his animals to various locations; he has established an obligation for the other to lend or share his resources at some future time. Reciprocity of this sort can also include ceremonial exchanges of livestock, such as bridewealth. In the model put forward by Chambers and Conway, claims are one component of intangible assets; the other component is access. This is where this model is useful for examining land tenure, as land tenure systems are primarily systems of various types of rights of access.

Human, tangible, and intangible assets are brought together to create a living, an actual flow of food and/or cash. This flow is consumed, although when consumption is above a certain minimum level some of the flow can be channelled into savings. What this model omits is a detailed discussion of what happens when the living that is produced is below the minimum level for survival. How do people draw upon the assets? Which assets are drawn upon? Under what circumstances?

When the livelihood flow is above a certain level, some of it can be channelled into savings, which can be thought of as a reservoir to be drawn upon in times of hardship. However, as shown above, livestock are not simply savings, not simply stores of wealth. It would be incomplete to say simply that any surplus that is produced is channelled into a "savings reservoir." Although his list of assets is slightly different than that of Chambers and Conway, Swift (1989:11) states that livelihood assets

are created when production leads to a surplus beyond immediate consumption requirements, and households use this surplus, willingly or unwillingly, to invest (including investments in better education or health), to build up physical stores of all sorts, and to 'invest in claims' by putting more resources into the community or government.

Reinvestment, in other words, can be channelled into all three types of assets: human, tangible, intangible. Applying this idea to the Chambers and Conway model we get Figure 3.2. However, this still leaves unanswered the question of what occurs when there is a deficit rather than a surplus. Under what circumstances are livelihood assets drawn upon? Or, in terms of the conceptual model presented in Figure 3.2, when is the livelihood flow reversed?

 

3.2 Land Tenure

3.2.1 OWNERSHIP, RIGHTS, AND INSTITUTIONS

Much of the research and many policies relating to overgrazing have been guided by Garrett Hardin's influential 1968 essay and the concept it discussed, "The Tragedy of the Commons." Hardin argued that unowned resources are doomed to be abused. The benefits of using a commons, he says, go to the individual user, but the costs of use (and of overuse) are spread between all users.

The rational herdsman concludes that the only sensible course for him to pursue is to add another animal to his herd. And another, and another. . . . But this is the conclusion reached by each and every rational herdsman sharing a commons. There is the tragedy. . . . Freedom in a commons brings ruin to all.

(Hardin, 1968:1244)

Although these ideas have been widely criticized in the last quarter century (Atwood, 1990; Berkes and Farvar, 1989; Bromley, 1991; Gilles and Jamtgaard, 1981; Lawry, et.al., 1985; Riddell, 1988; Swift, 1977; and especially Ciriacy-Wantrup and Bishop, 1975), they have continued to be influential. In brief, the main criticism of this approach has been that it allows for only two forms of land tenure -- private property and open access -- ignoring the existence of common property regimes. What Hardin and those influenced by him mistakenly call "the commons" is actually non-property or open access. Much of the literature critical of the Tragedy of the Commons paradigm has been directed at showing, especially through historical example, that common property regimes can effectively manage natural resources. In this school of thought, land tenure is usually divided into four types: private property, open access, state property, and common or communal property (Berkes and Farvar, 1989:9; Bromley, 1989:205).

However, an accurate picture of African tenure is not simply a description of whether "ownership" of land is vested in individuals, communities, the state, or no one. Berkes and Farvar (1989:9) state that "In reality, few resources are purely open-access, communal or state property. Most are mixtures of these idealized types." The ideas coming both from the Tragedy of the Commons school and from many of its critics are sometimes simplistic. Both views are based on the concept of "ownership," and property rights are often described as if either no one owns a particular resource (open access) or else some person, group, or agency has total rights to that resource including the right to exclude outsiders and the right to do with that resource what they please, to use it or to let it lie idle. In other words, they own it.

The real situation is more complex. As Shipton and Goheen (1992:311) state, "Communal tenure and individual tenure are unnuanced visions that seldom fit African realities, before or after state intervention." In traditional African land tenure, certain rights to land can belong to one person or group while other rights are held by another person or group. Daniel W. Bromley (1989:204) discusses three broad types of property rights -- rights of control, use, and access to benefits -- which are not always vested in the same persons. One person may control when, how, and for what purpose a piece of land is used, but he or she may have no control over who may use that land or who receives benefits from that land. The complex nature of property rights can be seen in The Gambia, where the right to grow crops on a piece of land can belong to one person or family, the right to pick fruits from trees on that land can belong to another person or to the community as a whole depending on the type of tree, and the right to graze livestock on the land after harvest can belong to anyone owning livestock. Various rights to land can apply differently to different people based upon their ethnicity, their history of past use, and their objectives for the land (grazing, cultivation, silviculture, housing, etc.). An accurate picture of African land tenure, therefore, is not simply a description of whether "ownership" of land is vested in individuals, communities, the state, or no one; it is, rather, a very complex system comprised of various degrees and types of rights to land and to the resources on that land.

This system of rights, furthermore does not exist in a vacuum but is set within particular physical, technological, economic, and social environments. For example, the uses to which a particular piece of land can be put depend in part upon the availability or proximity of water. Of special importance within the social environment is the institutional framework through which disputes are settled and the various rights to land and the resources on the land are enforced. Unfortunately, for those who advocate creating or strengthening locally based common property regimes, it is easy to underestimate the importance of institutions in the land tenure system. While it is true that in the past many societies have had effective common property regimes, in many cases the institutional components of those common property regimes have been weakened or destroyed.

According to Steven Lawry (1989:3), "Care must be taken not to ascribe to common property arrangements extant under former social and economic conditions the ability to manage successfully resources under contemporary circumstances." Little and Brokensha (1985) argue similarly that where common property regimes are no longer functioning, the problem often lies with weakened local institutions rather than with the tenure rules that these institutions enforce. Malcolm Odell (1982:18) states that "while most communities have intuitive concepts of land use planning evolved over centuries of local experience, they generally require assistance in . . . strengthening their planning functions for improved communal land management." In Africa, one of the reasons that the effectiveness of local authorities, especially traditional authorities, seems to have declined is that they are losing ground to state authority (Bennet, et.al., 1986:134; Lawry, 1989:7).

3.2.2 LAND TENURE AND OVERGRAZING

Much of what has been written about rangeland tenure and rangeland ecology, along with many policies on pastoralists and land tenure, has been guided by a set of ideas that Stephen Sandford (1983:11) calls simply, "the Mainstream view." This view "holds that most of the world's rangelands are suffering from desertification and that. . . in most cases the cause of desertification is overgrazing by domestic animals." (Sandford, 1983:11) The term, desertification is not always precisely defined, but commonly it is conceived of as land degradation in arid, semiarid, and dry subhumid areas leading to long term or permanent loss of productivity (Pearce, 1992:39). The "Mainstream view" maintains that over the last century livestock numbers have increased greatly and that much of the blame belongs to "communal" (read, open access) grazing systems and the resulting "Tragedy of the Commons." (Sandford, 1983:11,12)

However, some aspects of this view, including the supposed link between grazing and land degradation, have begun to come under scrutiny. In criticizing the mainstream view, Sandford (1983:13) states, "Most people agree that there is some level of overstocking at which range degradation and desertification take place. Hence it is often concluded that if desertification is taking place it must be due to overgrazing." Other causes may be at work. Some critics of the mainstream view argue that for most Sahelian rangeland that has been declared to be overgrazed, "grazing has inflicted much less damage than drought and desiccation. . . . Booms and busts [in livestock numbers] are part of a quite 'natural' cycle, with little danger of long-term damage to pastures." (UNSO, 1992:41,42) One school of thought goes even further, arguing that range managers often make the mistake of understocking the land and that degradation of rangeland is more often caused by improper grazing than by overgrazing (Lühl, 1992:10-11; Savory, 1988). "That severe grazing is bad, that overgrazing comes from the presence of too many animals, that selective grazing destroys beneficial plants, even that whole ranges can be overgrazed are all fictions that science has consistently embraced as gospel." (Savory, 1988:151)

Other writers question the belief that open access invariably leads to overgrazing. Brent M. Swallow (1990:28) argues that co-operative allocation of resources can sometimes be achieved in situations without property rights and without explicit contracts. Resource users, without direct communication and without any enforcing institutions, often develop implicit contracts which allow them to follow a co-ordinated strategy. He calls this a "co-ordination access" tenure regime to distinguish it from true open access, in which no co-ordination is achieved. Swallow argues that co-ordination access tenure applies to the grazing land of most Fulas, an ethnic group found across the Sahel including in The Gambia (1990:50).

 

3.3 Land Tenure in Livelihood Security

The system of rights that makes up the land tenure system is an integral part of the way that rural livings are made. It helps to define people's relationship to the land and to define the nature of land as a resource, for natural objects are not resources in their own right but only as defined by people and the use value they place on those natural objects. Because issues of access, resources, and day-to-day livelihood are all a part of the land tenure system, that system has a profound effect on livelihood security. The most common way that security and land tenure issues are linked in the literature are in discussions of security of tenure on farmland (Atwood, 1990; Conway and Barbier, 1990: 122-125; Eastman, 1986). However, discussion of security-tenure connections in relation to communal, state, and open access resources are more limited. The importance of common property resources for the poor is sometimes mentioned in literature on security and livelihoods or literature on common property (Agarwal and Narain, 1989; Davies, et.al., 1991:19; Djoura, et.al., 1991), but seldom is any detailed analysis of both the tenure system and security strategies done.

The primary goal of this research is to construct a model of livelihood security strategies with special attention to how those strategies relate to grazing land tenure and livestock. Although Chambers and Conway (1992) do not themselves discuss land tenure at any length, the model of rural livelihoods that they propose provides a useful framework with which to examine land tenure. Land is an asset, a resource, one of the factors of production. Land tenure is primarily the system of access rights, and access to land can also be considered an asset. Furthermore, that system of access rights can be applied differently according to people's livelihood capabilities and goals. The land tenure system, in other words, encompasses the people and their relationship with land-the-asset, the tangible asset of land as a resource and the intangible asset of access to land. These components are brought together to produce a living (see Figure 3.3). One of the objectives of this research will be to investigate the specific nature of the relationship between land tenure and livelihood security in the Gambian context.

The land tenure system has profound consequences for livelihood security by affecting which livelihood assets people will rely upon and will invest in. For example, where pastureland is open access, users will usually be unwilling to invest in the land (terracing, fertilizing, destocking, planting forage crops, etc.) because there is no way to exclude "freeriders." Compare this to a communal tenure situation with inter-community boundaries that are strictly enforced. Access is more limited, but it is more feasible to invest in land. Land will tend to hold more value as a resource under communal tenure than under open access. Investment into human assets such as training and education can also be affected by land tenure. If pastureland is an open access resource, extensive knowledge of different pastures and water sources will be important. If, however, communal tenure prevails, the community may be more interested in educating members about the growing of fodder crops. It will also have to invest time in the management of community pastures, adjudication of boundary disputes, etc. In general, the tenure system will have a determining influence on the nature of livelihood security strategies (see Figure 3.4). Of course, as already discussed, African land tenure is more complex than the simple ideal types of open access and communal tenure suggest, but this fact makes the understanding African tenure systems in relation to livelihood security strategies even more important.

 

3.4 Summary

Chambers and Conway (1992) provide a model of rural livelihoods that is a useful starting point for this enquiry. Their schema will serve as a preliminary, general model to help guide this research toward the goal of constructing a more detailed model of livelihood security in rural Gambia. From the model presented by Chambers and Conway three broad types of assets have been identified as important: tangible assets, including stores and resources; intangible assets, including claims and access; and human resources, including capabilities, education, and goals. Livestock, which are an important component of security strategies, can be understood in terms of these various types of assets: they represent a common form of savings (stores), they are resources that contribute to production, and they can become the subject of claims.

Land tenure must not be seen simply as a category describing what person or group owns what resource. It is a complex system of various types of rights to various resources that can apply differently to different people. Furthermore, it cannot be separated from the institutions that guarantee those rights, enforce rules, and manage the resources. Applying the model of rural livelihoods presented by Chambers and Conway to land tenure suggests a useful framework for examining land tenure systems in terms of the three types of livelihood assets and for investigating the relationships between land tenure systems and livelihood security.

After this review of the literature several questions remain unanswered:

o Under what circumstances are livelihood assets drawn upon? (In terms of the conceptual model, when is the livelihood flow reversed?)

o Which livelihood assets are drawn upon?

o How do different types of livestock vary in the roles they play in security strategies?

o What is the nature of the relationship between land tenure and livelihood security in the Gambian context?

o It is clear that differences in land tenure systems will affect security strategies, but how does the actual process of tenure system change affect security strategies?

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