Grasslands of the World.pdf - Disasters and Conflicts - UNEP

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Grasslands of the world
leasehold tenure (Busingye, 2002). Although the mailo system was officially
abolished, it continued until the late 1990s, when the 1995 Constitution and
the Land Act of 1998 were implemented. Freehold tenure was also granted by
the state and later by the Land Commission, mostly to institutions for religious
and educational purposes (Busingye, 2002). The 1995 Constitution and 1998
Land Act also identified a new land tenure system called customary tenure.
The land is held, used and disposed of following the customary regulation of
the community, and people using the land have some rights . Customary tenure
is the most common system in the rangelands (Amadi, 1997). The emphasis is
on use, which is controlled by the family, who distribute land to male family
members for their use rather than ownership. Customary tenure also includes
the communal land, where users have rights to grazing , farming, fuelwood,
access to water and land for traditional uses and burial grounds (Busingye,
2002). Ownership is through the family or community, and there are no individual
ownership rights. Traditional authorities allocate the land and resolve
disputes. In addition some land was declared Crown Lands in 1900, and areas
are still held by the state under the Uganda Land Commission as protected
areas, some of which are now open access.
The land tenure system in the United Republic of Tanzania is a legacy
of colonial rule, with all lands being public land and remain vested in the
President as a trustee for and on behalf of all citizens of Tanzania (Nyongeza,
1995; Shivji, 1999). The state grants rights of occupancy and tolerates customary
occupation and use of land. All public land is categorized under three types :
General, Reserved or Village land, which are each managed and administered
by ministry officials. The Commissioner for Lands has the power to allocate
land on the general, and even reserved, lands. When a village registers its land,
the title deeds are held in trust for the whole village by the Village Chairman
and Council. Numerous land-related conflicts exist in Tanzania, partly caused
by conflicting land use policies. The Villagization Programme (1974–76)
concentrated people together, displacing some and allocating them land that
was taken from others. Some of the villages were relocated into reserved
land, thus creating pockets of habitation and cultivation in protected areas.
With the economic liberalization in the mid 1980s, large-scale land alienation
occurred, in particularly in the Arusha region, where vast parts of rangelands
were leased out to large-scale farmers (Igoe and Brockington, 1999). Village
land can also be allocated by the government, if it is not registered or its use
can not be demonstrated. To secure their title deeds, many pastoralists started
cultivating. Much of the rangeland areas in Tanzania have been categorized as
reserved lands, having been set aside as national parks, game reserves or game
controlled areas, thus making them inaccessible for herders and their livestock
(Brockington, 2002).
Land tenure in Kenyan pastoral systems has evolved rapidly over the last half
century. About the 1940s, Kenyan colonial authorities introduced an entirely