Disclaimer: The op<strong>in</strong>ions <strong>and</strong> views conta<strong>in</strong>ed with<strong>in</strong> the TNRF Occasional Papers Series do not necessarily represent those of the Tanzania Natural Resource Forum expressed or implied. They are solely those of their respective authors. 1
Introduction Northern Tanzania’s l<strong>and</strong>scape is characterized by extensive semi-arid rangel<strong>and</strong>s where rural communities, mostly pastoralists or agro-pastoralists, use large tracts of l<strong>and</strong>s <strong>and</strong> widely distributed resources <strong>in</strong> a climatically unpredictable environment. Secur<strong>in</strong>g access to the l<strong>and</strong> base which such livelihoods depend on <strong>in</strong> these savannah rangel<strong>and</strong>s is critical for these people, <strong>and</strong> has been the central socioeconomic <strong>and</strong> political issue <strong>in</strong> northern Tanzania dur<strong>in</strong>g much of the past twenty years. Northern Tanzania’s communities share their environment with some of the most substantial rema<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>g populations of wild animals rema<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong> the world. This wildlife is the subject of long-st<strong>and</strong><strong>in</strong>g conservation efforts <strong>and</strong> is the basis of a tourism <strong>in</strong>dustry valued at around 10% of Tanzania’s national GDP (World Bank/MIGA 2002). The <strong>in</strong>teraction between wildlife management on the one h<strong>and</strong>, <strong>and</strong> rural l<strong>and</strong> tenure, on the other, is a complex one. On the one h<strong>and</strong>, much of the wildlife <strong>in</strong> northern Tanzania rema<strong>in</strong>s widely dispersed across the region’s rangel<strong>and</strong>s because of the traditional coexistence of pastoralist l<strong>and</strong> use practices with wildlife (Collet, 1987; Homewood <strong>and</strong> Rodgers, 1991; Boone <strong>and</strong> Coughenour, 2001). But at the same time, the establishment of state protected areas for wildlife <strong>and</strong> tourism has been a major cause of local l<strong>and</strong> loss <strong>and</strong> alienation <strong>in</strong> northern Tanzania dur<strong>in</strong>g the past fifty years (Parkipuny, 1991; Neumann, 1998; Igoe <strong>and</strong> Brock<strong>in</strong>gton, 1999). Today the tensions between wildlife management <strong>and</strong> village l<strong>and</strong> tenure cont<strong>in</strong>ue, albeit with new nuances, legal issues, <strong>and</strong> contest<strong>in</strong>g parties over access to l<strong>and</strong>s <strong>and</strong> resources. The focus of local l<strong>and</strong> tenure contests has shifted from the core state protected areas- the National Parks <strong>and</strong> Game Reserves- which <strong>in</strong> most cases were removed from local control decades ago, to the village l<strong>and</strong>s themselves. The issue is no longer the black<strong>and</strong>-white one of evict<strong>in</strong>g local people <strong>and</strong> establish<strong>in</strong>g exclusive parks, but centers around numerous local contests over degrees of control of access <strong>and</strong> rights to l<strong>and</strong> <strong>and</strong> wildlife. This paper explores <strong>and</strong> analyzes these contemporary contests over l<strong>and</strong> tenure <strong>in</strong> northern Tanzania’s village l<strong>and</strong>s as they relate to wildlife management <strong>and</strong> l<strong>and</strong> policy <strong>and</strong> legislation. It details the nature of the contests <strong>and</strong> conflicts, <strong>in</strong>clud<strong>in</strong>g their legal aspects, <strong>and</strong> further seeks to diagnose the underly<strong>in</strong>g political economic reasons beh<strong>in</strong>d these endemic conflicts. It concludes by relat<strong>in</strong>g these underly<strong>in</strong>g issues to the broader macroeconomic environment <strong>and</strong> efforts to improve the security of local l<strong>and</strong> tenure <strong>in</strong> the region for both livelihood <strong>and</strong> environmental concerns. Background: Rural L<strong>and</strong> <strong>Tenure</strong> <strong>and</strong> <strong>Wildlife</strong> <strong>Management</strong> <strong>in</strong> Northern Tanzania Interactions between wildlife management <strong>and</strong> local l<strong>and</strong> rights <strong>in</strong> northern Tanzania can be traced back to the colonial period. Initial wildlife laws <strong>and</strong> regulations passed by the German colonial regime <strong>in</strong> the 1890’s <strong>and</strong> early 1900’s focused primarily on restrict<strong>in</strong>g the use of wildlife (kill<strong>in</strong>g animals), <strong>and</strong> where reserves were set up with conservation purposes <strong>in</strong> m<strong>in</strong>d the rights of local people to live <strong>in</strong> <strong>and</strong> use them were reta<strong>in</strong>ed. It was 2