THE UNIVERSITY OF LEIPZIG

trees, food resources, warmth or ability to cook and so on. These, he says contribute to their
well being. 338 But it is also important to ask whether under such circumstances individuals can
make rational choices versus the maintaining of the natural resource regime healthy.
In their analysis, Guyer and Richards argue that natural resource regimes entail exchange
rights, entitlements over the distribution of net economic surplus accruing to the communities,
a management subsystem, and authority mechanisms as necessary components of the
enforcement system. When any part of this complex system is undermined, they caution, the
entire system malfunctions and ceases to operate as a resource regime. 339
It is indeed the management subsystem with its authority mechanisms and ability to enforce
operating rules and system-maintenance provisions, which ensures that the rules relating to a
particular property regime are adhered to. This, in principle, is not different from the ways in
which the other property regimes operate as authority systems. 340 For instance, as earlier
noted, under private-resource regimes the owner relies on the authority of the state and its
coercive power to assure compliance and to prevent intrusion by non-owners. In absence of
this regulative and coercive authority, even private resources would collapse and become
open-access resource regimes. 341 Therefore, in light of the above treatment some issues arise.
One such issue is the fact that a resource regime entails the distribution and sharing the
economic surplus as well as other entitlements. In respect to Kakamega which is a habitat for
different sub-tribes, we ask ourselves; what are the entitlements involved and what are the
institutions governing the distribution and sharing the economic surplus?
Swallow notes that resource degradation in common resource areas will usually occur if the
government holds local communities using such resources in low esteem. 342 This is
exemplified by instances of state disregard to the interests of those segments of the population
occupying a particular communal resource regime. For instance, when external threats to such
a common resource occurs, such populations will not receive the same state response as
would a threat to private property or that common property regime which has high state
consideration.
The willingness of the modern state to legitimize and protect different property regimes is
partly explained by the state's perception of the importance of the citizens holding different
types of resource rights. This situation is well illustrated by Elbow. He elucidates that if
pastoralists for instance are regarded as politically marginal, then the resource regimes central
to pastoralism will be indifferently protected against external threats. On the contrary if those
threatening pastoralist property regimes, for example sedentary agriculturists, enjoy more
338
Sen, A. 1999. Opcit.
339
Guyer, J and P.Richards. 1996. The Invention of Biodiversity: Social Perspectives on the Management of
Biological Variety in Africa.66(1): 1-13.
340
Hess, C and E, Ostrom. 2003. Ideas, Artifacts, and Facilities: Information as a Common-Pool Resource",
Law and Contemporary Problems 66:111-146.
341
Espen, S and D,W.Bromley. 1997. Indigenous land rights in Sub-Saharan Africa: Appropriation,Security and
Investment Demand. World Development 25(4):549-562.
342
Swallow,B.M. 1990. Strategies and Tenure in African Livestock Development. LTC Paper 140. Madison:
University of Wisconsin.
67