The Case of the Tonga in the Gambia, Guinea and Sierra Leone

15-15 WORKSHOP IN POLITICAL THEORY AND POLICY ANALYSIS 513 NORTH PARK INDIANA UNIVERSITY BLOOMINGTON, IN 47408-3895 U.S.A. Resiliency and Change in Common Property Regimes in West Africa: The Case of the Tonga in The Gambia, Guinea and Sierra Leone Mark Schoonmaker Freudenberger Aiah R. Lebbie Judith Carney The International Association for I The Study of Common Property Fifth Common Property Conference "Reinventing the Commons 24-28 May, 1995 Bode, Norway Figure 1: Map of Case Study Sites Atlantic SENEGAL Ocean SENEGAL 1. Font Jarrol District 2. Klang West District I 3. Upper Baddibou District MAURITANIA 4. Sami District 5. Sandu District 6. Upper Guinea Region 7. Middle Guinea Region THE GAMBIA 8. Moyamba District IVORY COAST I GHANA I Resiliency and Change in Common Property Regimes in West Africa: The Case of the Tongo in The Gambia, Guinea and Sierra Leone Mark Schoonmaker Freudenberger1 Aiah R. Lebbie Judith Carney I. Introduction The African commons are valuable though often ecologically threatened sources of food and fiber products for urban and rural populations. Particularly around resources of great use Iand exchange value, rural communities in many parts of West Africa create rules and conventions to define rights of access and conditions of sustainable use. Recent case studies highlight the considerable rule-making capacity of West African rural institutions despite the erosion of rural authority required to enforce sanctions (Berry,, 1988; IFAD, 1992; Shepard, 1991; Thomson, 1992). Many of these local-level tenure regimes create community protected areas - common property regimes that regulate access to forest commons, sacred groves, fishing ponds, and grazing areas (Price, 1991; Fischer, 1994; Djibo et al., 1991). Other case studies describe in considerable detail restrictions on the use of individual species of vegetation and wildlife (Freudenberger, 1993; Sowers and Manzo, 1991; McLain, 1992). Unfortunately, few studies take into account the historical evolution of these systems nor do Ithey investigate whether similar management regimes exist across ethnic boundaries and between livelihood systems. 1 Mark S. Freudenberger is a senior program officer in the Social Science and Economics program of the World Wildlife Fund-US; Aiah Lebbie is a graduate student in the Conservation Biology and Sustainable Development Program at the Umversity of Wisconsin-Madison; Judith Carney is an associate professor of geography at the University of California at Los Angeles. The authors wish to express deep thanks to David Gamble for kind assistance in making suggestions and providing background documentation. Comments may be addressed to Mark S. Freudenberger at: WWF-US, 1250 Twenty-Fourth Street, N.W. Washington D.C. 20037-1175 USA. While the literature on common property regimes (CPRs) in Africa often suggests that these institutional arrangements are declining, recent research suggests that new resource management regimes are constantly being created around resources of great utility to rural communities. This paper takes an historical perspective to describe and compare the flexible and perpetually evolving forms of the tongo common property regime found in Gambia, Upper and Middle Guinea, and coastal Sierra Leone. It explores ways in which development programs and projects can build upon the foundations of these flexible yet resilient institutional arrangements. The tongo defines and enforces rules to seasonally regulate access to vegetation and wildlife located within village commons and on individually appropriated lands. This arrangement ensures that a particular resource, such as fruits from domesticated and wild Itrees or grasses used for thatch, reach full maturity before being harvested by the community-at-large. Village institutions determine the dates and conditions of access of tongo in The Gambia and Guinea. Similar prohibitions, known as sawei by the Mende of Sierra Leone, are enforced by a powerful rural institution, called the poro. These rules are applied to fishing areas, fruit and palm trees, sacred forests, and sources of village drinking water. The tongo and sawei of West Africa are examples of seasonal common property regimes embedded within a constantly oscillating local level tenure regime. During a particular season, a common property regime coalesces around a resource of considerable economic Ivalue: during other seasons it subsides as other property rights are reactivated.2 The tongo and the sawei define "closed" periods when all use of the resource is banned by village authorities. When the protected resource no longer has a particularly high economic value, an "open" season is declared, and the rules revert to a state of dormancy until the next season. During the open season, few restrictions regulate the collection of the product, though in 2 The minimum definition of common property regimes used in this paper is that "rules define who has access to the commons" (Lawry, 1990:406). some cases owners of privately appropriated lands, like fruit tree orchards, attempt to protect their future harvest from theft. The tongo and sawei have historically set not only seasonal restrictions on the use of particular resources, but also established cartel arrangements to limit sale of agricultural and tree crop commodities to the international market. During the early 1900s, tongo and sawei were employed by Gambian and Sierra Leonian village and provincial chiefs to withhold sale of groundnuts and palm nuts to merchant interests. A review of the colonial archives shows that contemporary seasonal restrictions are descendants of similar practices recorded as far back as the late 1500s by Portuguese explorers. Similar seasonal restrictions to natural resources are reported occasionally from other Iparts of Africa. During the 1940s in Botswana, it was reported that chiefs would proclaim "open" and "closed" seasons for tree cutting in the bush (Schapera, 1943). For pastoralists the earmarking or enclosure of dry season fodder has been a key response to seasonal vulnerability for such groups as the Turkana of Kenya (Barrow, 1987).. Local leaders among the Sukuma of Tanzania organize bans against cutting valley grass for thatch until it has reached a certain height (Shepard, 1989). In effect, seasonal restrictions in Africa are very similar to hunting and fishing seasons set up in western societies except that "open" and "closed" seasons are organized by local communities rather than government wildlife departments. I n. Historical References to Seasonal Restrictions in Coastal West Africa Sixteenth century Portuguese explorers and English colonial administrators describe restrictions similar to the tongo of present day coastal West Africa. In the Brief Treatise on the Rivers of Guinea, the Portuguese explorer Andre Alvares de Almada reported seasonal restrictions against fruit picking from the manganaxo tree (de Almada, c.1590). Similar accounts found in colonial archives several centuries later suggests that de Almada was describing an arrangement similar to the present day tongo. Another fruit which is found in the Rio Grande is produced on little bushes, and called in the language of the land manganaxo. When it is in flower, it has a very pleasant smell. This fruit cannot be gathered by an individual until the whole population happens to gather it simultaneously. For it anyone happens to gather it before the right time, he is sold [into slavery] for this offence. This is because it cannot be gathered until it is fully matured, and until the lord of the land has announced its maturity, so that thereafter all may gather it on the same terms. The blacks consider this fruit one of their staple crops (de Almada, c.1594). In the late 1940s an anthropologist in the British colony of the Gambia reported the presence of the tongo arrangement around the same shrub. Gamble reported'that "at Karewan a certain measure of control now affects a number of wild fruits - neto (Parkia biglobosd) and manankaso (Icacina senegalensis) which are used during the hungry season" (Gamble, I1949: 128). The author reports that not much flesh is on the fruit, and that the kernel is pounded into flour and eaten in periods of hunger, and that a large tuber grows under ground (Gamble, personal communication, 1995). A more detailed glimpse of the restrictions placed on the manankaso and other tree species was noted in 1948 by the same researcher (Gamble, 1948, 1955, 1958). Manankaso is a small shrub with red berries, which is found all over the farmland. In May 1948 at Kerawan, when the fruit was nearly ripe, a prohibition was placed on gathering netto, on cutting manankaso bushes when clearing farms, and on picking the fruit, until a day fixed by the alkali (Gamble, 1949). In this case, the prohibition was inadvertently broken because of a bush fire. "A fire started Ion one side of the town, and the women and children on the other side of the town mistook the alarm signal for the signal to pick manankaso and all rushed out to the farms carrying basins, pans, baskets, and calabashes." Within a couple of hours, the author reports, the fruit was "gathered with ferocity and speed," leaving anything missed to be gleaned by old women the following day (Gamble, 1949: 128). Once the manankaso were gathered, young boys •A collected the fruit of the neto (Parkia biglobosa). Gamble notes that sanctions were severely enforced by blacksmiths who were not to make tools for anyone who defied the ban (Gamble, personal communication, 1995). From a review of West African botanical guides, we conclude that manganaxo is indeed the Icacina senegalensis (A.Juss) shrub, commonly found in many parts of sub-humid coastal West Africa.3 Its average height is 1 meter and below ground it grows a large edible tuber weighing as much as 10 kilograms. The shrub grows well in tree savanna environments and on sandy soils suitable for groundnut, millet, and cassava production. The plant is reported to be troublesome in savanna areas because of its enormous tuber with long penetrating roots, requiring much labor to eradicate it and being destructive to animal drawn implements (Dalziel, 1937: 291).

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