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Conservation for Development in , , , .

Learning from the Past: Traditional Land Management Systems in Kenya

Betty Nafuna Wamalwa

African-Caribbean InstitUte Betty Niafuna Wamaliwa was awarded an honors bachelor's of science in botany and zoology from the University of . She continued her at Clark University, where she received an M.A. in environmental affairs. After returning to Kenya, Ms. Wamalwa worked in the Ministry of Culture and Social Services and later served as a research officer at Nairobi's Public Law Institute. She is now engaged as a research fellow in one of Kenya's most active nongovernmental organizations concerned with natural resource conservation - the African Centre for Technology Studies. Focusing on the Akamba society as a case example, Ms. Wamalwa's fellowship project explores how traditional land tenure and management systems can be.adapted to lessen resource depletion and environmental degradation, and thus to serve the developmental needs of rapidly growing populations in the 82 percent of Kenya's total which is arid and semi-arid. African-Caribbean Institute African Natural Resources Fellowship Program Working Paper Series

CONSERVATION FOR DEVELOPMENT IN BOTSWANA, KENYA, SOMALIA, AND SUDAN

Edited by Rodger Yeager

Learning from the Past: Traditional Land Management Systems in Kenya

Betty Nafuna Wamalwa

African-Caribbean Institute 1991 FOREWARD

This publication is a part of a larger body of materials from eight authors in eastern and southern that have been sponsored by the African-Caribbean Institute's Natural Resource Project. The combined works are in three main sectors. Papers by Betty Wamalwa and Mutasim El Moula focus on traditional institutions in environmental management in Kenya and Sudan. Papers by Mohamud Jama, Ahmed Yasin, Ahmed Hassan, and Amina Warsame are concerned with specific sector issues in energy, dry land fishing, husbandry, and women in in Kenya and Somalia. The final section by Eagilwe Segosebe and Alawiyya Ahmed concerns modern industrial waste management problems in Botswana and finally the important issues of environmental education in Sudan. Further studies will focus on issues of forestry and women and the preservation of biological diversity in eastern and . As with the projects that are nearing completion or currently underway, the African-Caribbean Institute will edit, publish, and disseminate the works. This commitment and all other aspects of the African Fellowship Program are intended to seve ACI's ultimate goal of assisting in the quest for genuinely African solutions to African problems of resource conservation and development. In addition to those who participated in the project, the African-Caribbean Institute wishes to thank Dr. Ford of Clark University who served as Senior Natural Resources Advisor and the national advisers in each . We are also grateful to John Gaudet and John Koehring at USAID and to Diane Rocheleau and Eric Rusten of the Ford Foundation for advice and support. At Dartmouth College the Environmental Studies Program under the direction of Dr. James Hornig has provided project support. Betty Ann Miller is acknowledged for her excellent production management as is Bonnie Stone for her professional assistance in publishing the text.

Norman N. Miller, President African-Caribbean Institute

Published by the African-Caribbean Institute Q 1991 ACI

All Rights Reserved Printed in the of America

No part of this publication may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in cases of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

For further information, contact: African-Caribbean Institute 4 West Wheelock Street Hanover, New Hampshire 03755 U.S.A. LEARNING FROM THE PAST: TRADITIONAL LAND MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS IN KENYA

INTRODUCTION and the conservation of the agricultural resource bzse are inexorably linked. The genius Until recently, Kenya has been able to of traditional systems, which can still be ignore the impact of ecological damage invoked, was that the preservation of soil triggered by the types of economic development quality, water supplies, and indigenous plant pursued in the past. Despite a predominately species formed an inherent part of agricultural arid and semi-arid environment, Kenya has production. achieved a sufficient measure of economic progress to establish it as one of Africa's few CHANGES IN AFRICAN AGRICULTURAL developmental successes. On closer SYSTEMS examination, however, it becomes evident that this good fortune has brought with it a level of As elsewhere in Africa, the colonial uncontrolled environmental degradation which interlude in Kenya was a period of continuous can no longer be ignored. A public-policy bias revolutionary change (Brett, 1973, p. 1). tr,ward more humid agricultural zones has been Brookfield (1987) has argued that the rationalized in terms of affording greater revolutionary character of was immediate returns on investments. As a result, neither accidental nor incidental. Rather, it ecological and economic declines have become was deliberately introduced with the intent of particularly evident on Kenya's arid and semi- bringing indigenous values and practices into a arid lands (ASAL) which comp.ise fully 83 permanently subordinate relationship with percent of the country's total area. This is in those of the colonizing power. This spite of the fact that the sixth national relationship was considered necessary because, development plan acknowledges the need for in Lord Lugard's words, "the African ...lacks environmentally sound policy alternatives. In power of organization, and is conspicuously particular, the plan faults the current trend deficient in the management and control alike toward "diseconomies" created by an of men or of business" (Lugard, 1922, pp. 69-70). overexploited and deteriorating natural Colonialism, then, became a mission to achieve resource base ( of Kenya, 1988, p. 169). "progress in civilisation and justice" for Africa This monograph proposes that the search (Ibid., p. 95). In this view, the linkage of for alternative forms of agricultural and rural interests between colonizer and colonized would development must take into consideration the evolve toward reciprocity and creativity indigenous knowledge and institutions of small- instead of toward exploitation and scale farmers and pastoralists. The suggested contradiction. approach is particularly relevant to ASAL This complex ideological position was locations because of difficulties imposed there employed to create a in which most by an environment characterized by low things local were either rejected or confined to rainfall, fragile soils, and poor vegetative peripheral attention; on the assumption that cover. Following a general discussion of Kenyan they lacked any basis for real "progress" and other African farming systems, the study (Richards, 1983, p. 25). Much of the precolonial presents a case analysis of Kenya's African experience has been "rehabilitated" . In the context of twentieth-century over the past 30 years. Until recently, however, ecological decline, Machakos is examined to attitudes toward indigenous land-use have illustrate how traditional land-use systems can remained stigmatized by an official acceptance still provide alternative means of iLcreasing of Western land-use systems as inherently and maintaining agricultural production. This superior. In questioning this assumption, policy position is based on the obvious but often research is pointing toward new land-use overlooked fact that, today as in the past, the opportunities with indefinite possibilities. creation of sustainable agricultural surpluses This study is intended to help clarify these

1 opportunities, especially for policy makers In Kenya, this rudimentary appreciation of who are ultimately responsible for defining the African conservation practices warned against land-use situation in rural Kenya. an uncritical acceptance of agricultural land­ use models based too closely on environmentally Early European Attitudes Toward African questionable European notions. Land Use.Colonial perspectives on indigenous farming systems varied fror, patronizing to The Rediscovery of African Agricultural more practical. Colonial ideologues generally Systems. By the 1930s, a growing awareness of dismissed African agricultural practices while the contribution of mechanized to many field officers tended to urge caution soil erosion led L. Dudley Stamp to examine against a wholesale rejection of indigenous land-use alternatives in Africa. He concluded: land-use techniques. Inevitably, this divergence reflected differences in the A recent tour of has convinced perceptions and goals of the two groups. the writer that the native farmer has Ideologues were preoccupied with constructing already evolved a scheme of farming theories to justify Britain's continued control which cannot be bettered in principle over Kenya. Accordingly, they typically even if it can be improved in detail and voiced the opinion that Kenyan Africans were that as practiced in some areas. This incapable of using the land in an scheme affords almost complete environmentally sustainable manner (see, e.g., protection against soil erosion and loss E.S. Grogran's comments in Ormsby-Gore, 1925, of fertility. It may be that the African p. 3044). has thus a contribution to make towards For their part, British field officers came the solution of the great soil erosion into close daily contact with "native" problems of other regions (Stamp, 1933, communities and were able to experience first- p. 34). hand the workings of local land-use systems. Reflecting these observations, an early director This new openness reflected a trend of agriculture offered a more positive prompted by a catastrophe known in the United assessment of African land use: States as the Dust Bowl, a -ecological disaster reaching its peak only 35 years after Up to a point, it should be recognized the final settlement of Oklahoma (Hyams, that there is some value attached to 1952, pp. 139-150). Basically, the Dust Bowl the native's own primitive methods of was created by an application of what had crop cultivation. They do not deplete become hallmarks of the Western agricultural soil fertility, particularly nitrogen and revolution (involving large-scale mechanized humus, nearly so rapidly as common monoculture, the use of artificial fertilizers, methods of European cultivration in new and dust mulching) on the semi-arid, ­ . Take the case of continuous prone steppes of the American midwest. From growing of or wheat rn the same the Dust Bowl experience it became evident land. The native's methods of that "modern" agricultural methods were not cultivation, with his mixed system of transferable across ecological zones seeding and cropping, are incomparably (Ibid., p. 140). This realization led to a search better from the standpoint of which continues today, for agricultural maintenance of soil fertility than one alternatives embodying strong conservation line production. Native methods components. Kenya and Africa as a whole are should not readily be ccndemned, and very much involved in the quest for as a matter of fact they return to the environmentally protective land use. soil a large amount of nitrogen and The historical achievements of farmers in humus in the course of a year (Alex the African tropics have been significantly Holm in ibid., p, 2049). undervalued and undermined by a tendency to use interpretive frameworks and research approaches relying heavily on models derived

2 for the northern latitudes. Much of past Flexibility is a vital feature of research was predicated on the classification of environmentally sensitive land use, enabling whole African societies as consisting of communities continually to shift their "shifting cultivators," "pastoralists," or productive regimes back and forth along an "hunter/gatherers." These categories tended to extensive/intensive spectrum. Traditionally, a hide more than they revealed because they community's need to shift was usually initiated made no provision for distinctions within single by so~-e positive or negative change in the local agricultural regimes, in which "elements from a resource base. Crops such as maize (which num" !rof systems" were often combined in the quickly depletes soil nutrients) caused frequent land-use decisions of "a single househcld movement of plots but little change in overall production unit" (Richards, 1983, p. 24). land-use patterns. Long-term climatic changes Furthermore, they glossed over the fact that could produce deeper transformations, with rationales motivating these decisions were not predominately pastoral communities relying usually associated with a typical "European more on farming and vice versa. In either event, preoccupation with farm sizes, land tenure, and such shifts implied a rejection of the rigidity productivity per unit of labour input" (_Ibid., p. and territorial fixity characteristic of Western 30). approaches to the land. The African approach In short, most African land users still value was, and where possible remains, "a matter of production over productivity and risk allocating resources of different relative minimization over profit maximization (Low, scarcities to achieve or maintain an income 1975). To fulfill their nurposes, African stream from a piece of land" (Blaikie and agricultural systems exhibit a tendency toward Brookfield, 1987, p. 71). a complexity that defies compart- In the past, this balancing of resource use mentalization. Risk-spreading management was made possible by the range of technologies strategies are employed to take advantage of employed by farmers to modify their local ecological variations. Moreover, the long environments in the interests of and frequently varied agricultural year of the environmentally sustainable agriculture. The tropics enables a productive "riding with the unique features of these innovations encourage season" which is severely constrained in resource conservation and, in this sense, form temperate zones. the basis of a modern African agricultural This propensity for complexity is revolution. Instead of accepting the European manifested in the land-use practices of African emphasis on large-scale monocultural communities. Where the environment permits, production, ever-increasing mechanization, and agriculture combines upland shifting interification based on the application of cultivation with -retreat or alluvial artificial inputs, the African focus is ideally on cultivation of a more permanent . Further what Dupriez has termed the "conservation of diversity is achieved by maintaining domestic equilibrium biomass" (Dupriez, 1982). livestock, with hunting and gathering over Amalgan.ating production with conservation is fallow and uncultivated lands serving as consistent with an African world view, common contingencies against drought. In a study of in preindustrial societies, of "the whole world Kenya's Akamba society, Hyer discovered 243 as alive" (Hyams, 1952, p. 275) and possible combinations of land use, labor interconnected. commitments, crop varieties, and timing of Ndeti (1972) and Adesanya (1958), among productive activities (Hyer, 1965). Beyer others, link a concern for the environment with suggests that African agriculture is "a constant the unity in reason and faith basic to African matter of meticulous attention to ways of philosophy. In this conception, nature is insuring production in times of drought or crop literally the of the spirits. Trees, for failure; providing time for supplementing example, are taken to be favorite dwelling from cropping and livestock with hunting, places for ancestral spirits, explaining the fishing and collecting; and utilizing ritual widespread incidence of sacred trees and feasting for reward and incentive" (Beyer, 1980, groves. Pollarding - the cutting of branches from p. 18). live trees - can be explained as making use of

3 forest products while still maintaining the Women performed actual farm­ dwelling places of spirits. Pollarding also management tasks. They matched crops and produces thick growths of young branches, crop combinations to appropriate soil increasing the productivity of the forest conditions, and cultivated in ways to protect resource. In a more general sense, nature was nct the fertility and physical properties of the lightly to be disrupted, lest misfortune be soils in their trust. Operating in separate released on the unsuspecting. spheres, men and women generally cooperated Fear of phenomena that transcend human on behalf of resource conservation. In day-to­ spiritual comprehension served to temper day touch with the land, women were human interference with the African particularly sensitive to resource depletion. environment. This state of mind, together with They constantly monitored changes in objective ecological constraints, help environmental quality, and communicated this significantly to account for the strong information to the male authority structures in conservation ethic still inherent in African which alternatives were decided. If sometimes farming systems. Moreover, hoe technology, only in attenuated form, these arrangements broadcasting of seed, intercropping, and other survive today. techniques minimize disturbance of the soil and Group cooperation also continues to play an greatly extend the lives of individual farm important, although now possibly a plots by imitating nature and preserving the threatened, role in local resource mobilization dynamics of climax plant communities. and protection. Traditionally, kinship, age, and water erosion is thus lessened, while and associational groups fostered cultural desirable soil properties are kept intact and values and social integration, and also pest infestation controlled. Widely spaced provided mechanisms for labor-intensive fields enable further adaptations to the responses to environmental and other extcrnal advantages and limitations of ecological challenges. Allan (1965) has suggested that the microsystems, creating subtle productive decline of these institutions must form a key arrangements that take full advantage of the factor in any explanation of the deterioratir.g available natural resources without also quality of African land management. In this destroying them. Similar sensitivities are argument, colonialism's "incessant and observable in the division of labor in African insatiable demands for labour, money and farming systems. economic crops" encouraged an as yet unabated increase in private land ownership and Gender Distinctions and Group Cooperation individualized working arrangements at the in Resource Management. Studies of African expense of community resource ownership and agriculture have long emphasized a gender- communal labor contributions. This related distribution of labor which places interpretation may be overly broad in light of women in the role of primary producers. In the uneven app.ication of colonial economic terms of resourL,, conservation, a more complex policies. The widespread survival of group sharing of responsibilities emerges. In cooperation in resource management attests traditional land-use systems, men enjoyed both to the limits of alien rule and to the allocative powers extending from their control resilience of traditional survival strategies. over kinship-related social, economic, and In their modern forms, these coilective political institutions. In capacities ranging strategies are employed to compensate for from family heads to lineage and clan elders, -related denials of access to financial, chiefs, and religious leaders, men dispensed infrastructural, marketing, and extension land and controlled the use of temporary sources services. Official attempts are often made to of water, grazing land, , and other co-opt local communal , but these communal resources. When necessity dictated, rarely generate much in the way of group men also decided on the physical segmentation cohesion and cooperation because they are of society through migration (Ndeti, 1972; ultimately planned and implemented by O'Leary, 1984; Pala, 1974). outsiders. Successful communal initiatives more closely resemble traditional group efforts

4 because they are institutionalized within While a tendency toward drought produces a single communities. When comminity efforts degree of uncertainty in any semi-arid area, it are organized in this manner, the implication is is not inevitable that semi-aridity in that the resulting groups are valued because of Machakos should pose serious risks for their benefits which can only be derived and livestock. Indeed, indigenous Akamba collectively. Thus, husbands may urge their communities had evolved land-use and wives to join women's groups to promote soil management systems that enabled sustainable conservation. Husbands may be willing to resource use. In past times, only long periods of contribute land and labor in the construction of a consecutive failure and/or invasions of local dam. pests and disease caused these systems to fail. In the Akamba society of central Kenya's Cyclical dry spells of lesser magnitude induced Machakos District, group cooperation is losses that were soon replaced. generically termed mwethya. To illuminate is the main immediate this and other concepts discussed in the factor responsible for more-recent ecological preceding pages, the study turns to a case imbalances in Machakos. Kjeksnus (1977) example, drawn specifically from Akamba suggests that the viability of earlier Akamba land-use patterns, of how the past can be communities can be adduced from the slow if adapted to bring forth a viable future for steady population growth occurring in African resource conservation and sustainable Machakos prior to the 1890s. This modest agricultural development, expansion stands in marked contrast to the exponential rate of annual increase that THE AKAMBA OF MACHAKOS reached 4.46 percent between 1969 and 1979. Estimated to swell from 1,237,400 in 1985 to Machakos District lies between Kenya's 2,341,500 by 2000, Machakos' exploding eastern Rift Valley and Nyika . population has already created a serious Geographically, Machakos consists of a central population/resource imbalance - particularly in hilly region surrounded by a large plateau the district's high-potential agricultural zones which slopes from about 1,700 meters in the (Mutiso, 1989, p. 371). This imbalance is more west to about 700 meters in the southeast. For the product of socially disruptive economic and its Akamba inhabitants, the district's most political changes introdticed with colonialism limiting ecological feature is an inadequate than a sign of societal vitality among the supply of both surface and ground water. In Akamba. particular, annual rainfall averages only about 750 millimeters, an amount considered ECOLOGICAL DECLINE IN MACHAKOS minimally necessary for rain-fed agriculture. Moreover, rainfall patterns exhibit wide Rapid population increases partly result temporal and spatial variations from season to from dramatic improvements in maternal and season and from year to year. These child . In addition to these irregularities give rise to a situation in which innovations, modern Machakos' ecological drought is a common occurrence. Coming in the troubles originate in four structural changes form of both delayed wet seasons and prolonged introduced during the British colonial period; periods of dry , recurrent drought ha3 namely, the creation of "native" reserves, land become a permanent feature of Akamba ecology, confiscation for European use, and the This trend which, when combined with a series introduction of new economic relations and of demographic, economic, and political factors systems of agricultural production. Partly to in the history of Machakos, has created a accommodate European , reserves were precarious environment for human and animal created for the permanent resettlement of habitation (Downing et al., 1985). Africano with no attention paid to the The 1.3 million Akamba people who live in ecological requirements of indigenous land-use the district are mainly farmers, although in systems and with no clear plan for reserve the past they also kept large herds of cattle development. Reserve lands were surrounded by (Mutiso, 1989, p. 371; Downing et al., 1985). crown lands, whose use by local inhabitants

5 was prohibited as part of an early colonial conclusion was that semi-arid conditions in effort to prevent conflicts among neighboring Machakos had been caused by the initial peoples. Crown lands were intended to serve as cutting down of trees, and by the continuous human buffer zones and in some instances were clearing of bush for shifting cultivation over a more extensive than reserve !ands (O'Leary, period of 200 years. The presence of bush 1984, p. 32). vegetation and heavy forest cover in areas False assumptions about local land use infested by , such as Kikumbuliu, was encouraged the colonial administration to taken as evidence in support of this argument. annex what it termed "uncultivated waste In reality, however, ecological degradation land" as crown lands. Far from composing was the direct result of European land wastelands, however, these tracts were vital to alienation which destroyed the physical basis land-extensive agricultural systems which for traditional shifting cultivation. combined various forms of shifting cultivation The colonial government reacted by with , hunting, and . In initiating half-hearted measures to treat the the late 1930s, Maher (1937, p. 57) estimated symptoms of the problem rather than its root that under these systems, every piece of bush cause. Programs were instituted to combat over­ was employed 15 to 20 times in a 200-year population, over-cultivation, and ovr-grazing period. Even when the land was held in fallow (Sorrenson, 1967, p. 42; Maher, 1937, p. 77; or was recovering from heavy grazing, it was Ormsby-Gore, 1925). These failed to generate still used as a hunting ground and for much local confidence because their beekeeping. implementation was inevitably coercive. They 'r -_Akamba cultivated wetter and more- also often created new problems. Prohibition of fertile iands for five or six years, with 10 years bush burning led to the spread of insect pests. representing the outside limit. Subsequent Destocking campaigns were particularly fallow periods typically extended to six years. disruptive and widely resisted because, for the The general ru!e was that the better the land, Akamba, cattle represented an essential the shorter the period of bush fallowing. When cultural link to immortality (Maher, 1937, pp. new fields were opened, the normal procedure 89-90). Cattle also served an important was to select areas within easy reach of water. practical function. They were the "bottom As yields diminished, the land was left to bush draw" in the scheme of life, and in times of fallow. Alternative fields were then cleared drought could spell the difference between life and cultivated, preferably in areas containing and death for a sizeable portion of a tall grasses and deciduous trees. These locations community. To the Akamba, "destocking was, in were rich in humus derived from fallen leaves effect, raiding the provident fund" (ibid., p. and other plant materials. Yields from humus- 90). rich and easily worked soils were initially The introduction of new economic relations high but soon fell off, prompting yet another and systems of agricultural production opening of fields. The process of local movement exacerbated the negative ecological effects of was halted when water was so far removed colonial land alienation. Suddenly, local from cultivated fields that women required resources were no longer exploited exclusively more than five hours a day to fetch it. for local consumption but were now subject to the Cultivators then migrated to new virgin land. dictates of the imperial econo my. Kenya was The cumulative effect of this process was treated, like other British , as a that at any given time, the landscape source of tropical and semi-tropical raw contained large tracts of seemingly empty materials required for the British home fields and pastures in various stages of market, and as a soft local market for cheap regeneration. This appearance, together with a British exports (Brett, 1973, p. 72). To enable general ignorance among Europeans of this transformation, the colonial triad of ecological coiditions in semi-arid areas, taxation, export-conzmdity production, and a strengthened the colonial administration's monetized formal was set in place negative assessment of Akamba land-use (Watts, 1983, p. 249). The effect in Machakos practices (see Ormsby-Gore, 1925, p. 3053). The was the gradual undermining of Akamba agro­

6 pastoralism, whose main objective was diminished sense of social obligation atomized subsistence production by and for the basic unit land-management responsibilities, with of society - the conjugal family and, in the case disastrous effects in an environment requiring of polygamous families, the house (nyumba) high communal labor commitments (Blaikie consisting of wives and their children under the and Brookfield, 1987, p. 109). care of their husband (O'Leary, 1984, p. 23). Taxation compelled the male members of LAND, POLITICS, AND CONSERVATION IN Akamba communities to take up wage labor on THE LATE COLONIAL PERIOD white-se'tler farms, precipitating a "rapid entry and integration of men into the colonial By the late 1930s, land depletion in economy" (Pala, 1974, p. 14). The consequent Machakos had reached alarming proportions. shortfall in subsistence labor meant that women Agronomists and local administrators alike were forced to intensify their involvement in were calling for a "reconditioning" of the agriculture by taking over tasks previously district (Maher, 1937). Government's reaction performed by men. As a result, families now was to embark on a massive post-war program found less time to spare for activities, such as of bench terracing. This campaign, undertaken conservation measures, that were not directly by the colonial Conservation Service, was productive, with the effect of accelerated land lauded as the final solution to the soil-erosion degradation and increasing socioeconomic problem. It was inspired by the success of the marginalization. With the introduction of U.S. Tennessee Valley Authority scheme, but cotton, export-commodity production offered human-ecological conditions in Machakos were new opportunities for some members of Akamba very different and problems were soon society but at an additional cost to the land. encountered. Countour terraces ran in narrow Maher (1937, p. 72) observed that cotton horizontal strips from the tops to the bottoms of cultivation was a "definite menace to the land" ridges, cutting across traditional Akamba land because the directed method of planting, holdings. For the program to be successful, it monocropping, exposed the soil to the elements. had to be carried out on a communal-labor basis. Minor gully erosion followed the very first This disrupted normal agricultural activities, cotton planting and, by the 1930s, more-serious and was especially hard on farmers with small erosion had become common even on gentle plots who could spare neither the land nor the slopes, labor for terracing. The most distasteful feature Kenya's monetiz d economy affected of the campaign for the Akamba was the Akamba land-management practices in several requirement that women work side-by-side ways. An absolute increase in cultivated area with men (Sorrenson, 1967, pp. 42-43). occurred in Machakos, as cash began to play a The compulsory land-terracing program greater role in the lives of the Akamba. The attracted the attention of Kenya's emerging introduction of labor-saving farm implements, African political movements. Boycotts were such as the plough, facilitated agricultural organized in Machakos and 10,000 people expansion beyond the limits of soil marched to the governor's office in Nairobi. conservation. In addition to the hoe, the only The leaders of these demonstrations were available indigenous implements were the arrested, but the point had been made. digging stick (mu ) and the long and stout Communal terracing was halted after 1947, yet crowbar (nithii). The latter was used with both the issue of enforced communal soil conservation hands, for the first breaking of new land, while had become such political dynamite that "late the small, narrow muo was wielded with one colonial officials were frequently exasperated hand for breaking up soils. Furthermore, the by insistence on its importance from London... new formal economy offered the Akamba and by experts foisted on them by international alternative sources of livelihood that bore no bodies" (Blaikie and Brookfield, 1987, p. 'll). links with the land. As money became more Soil erosion and land degradation continued available from outside employment, patterns of unabated in Machakos, and by this time the authority within community and extended Akamba had lost all ability to reverse the family networks began to break down. A trend. Instead, a sense of helplessness and

7 resignation had set in, as people felt out of direction of individual titles (Sorrenson, 1967, control of their environment. Earlier, Maher pp. 54ff). (1937, p. 73) recorded that, even as they The prbposal was generally ignored by the resisted official terracing measures, "the colonial government, in spite of the support it Akamba elders now blame God. They say 'if received from African political parties and Mulungii (God) would send us as much rain as He from so-called "progressive" farmers in the used to we could keep our present stock and soil reserves. After World War II, the land issue in good condition. God is the Great Eroder." and the call for individual titles in the The political fate of the terracing effort reserves became major sources of conflict ruled out further direct attempts at soil between these African groups and the conservation, and government began to search government. The British dismissed African for alternative approaches toward reversing demands by attributing them to a few greedy ecological decline and agricultural stagnation "land miners" suffering from the "ills of in the reserve areas of Machakos. Not individualism" (Hon. C. Tomkinson, Provincial surprisingly, by the late 1940s agronomists were Commissioner of , quoted in arguing that the basic cause of these problems Sorrenson, 1967, p. 56). Colonial officials then was neither over-population nur inferior became determined to stem the rising tide of farming methods. Indigenous land-tenure individualism by assisting African communities arrangements now became the main culprit. The to rc 'ert back to an idealized state of call went forth to consolidate land fragments, traditional communalism. This shift in to register individual titles of occupancy, and, attitude did not reflect reality in most of the eventually, to accelerate cash cropping under reserves. In 1948, a retired African school the Swyinnerton Plan (Swyinnerton, 1955; teacher summarized the changed situation: Sorrenson, 1967). These mandates were not new. As early as 1925, the Report of the East African Modern conditions dictate that some Commission (Ormsby-Gore, 1925) had suggested modern acts be done to regularize these the introduction of individual land tenure in practices to remove any fears existing the reserves as a prerequisite of better land use. among African land owners and to give The Carter Commission of 1934 again them a feeling of complete security .... emphasized the individualization of tenure. In The Private Title or Individual Title the words of A.E. Walter, Government Deed is now a necessity in many parts of Statistician: Central Province. The security it would give the right holders would encourage I think that the present land tenure of better farming methods. In fact, I do not the native will not take you very far... see how we can avoid it. People are now some sort of personal tenure would have growing permanent crops; they are to be adopted if the native were going establishing permanent buildings and to make any progress at all ....With other improvements, like fencing and regard to subdivision and dips. Individualism in the areas under fragmentation of land, what I think is consideration has come to stay. The that you cannot support such a large Native Lands Trust Ordinance of 1938 population where land is held will have to be amended to fit in with communally as where you have the times" (Muthu, quoted in Sorrenson, individual tenure. The land holds a 1967, p. 63). very much larger population if it is sub­ divided rationally (Carter, 1934, p. This defense of individualized land tenure 3034). depicted only the immediate benefits to be derived by the privileged few. It failed to Accordingly, the Commission recommended account for the plight of the vast majority of that, in locations where people were amenable impoverished Akamba peasants in Machakos, to the idea, land tenure should be guided in the and also for the necessity of preserving community responsibility for the land as a

8 vital condition of resource conservation. The with the effect that in 1985 it was estimated introduction of cash crops had given cash value that about 1.5 million titles had been issued, 6 to the land which it did not possess before. million hectares adjudicated, and 5.5 million Inequality and highly uneven distributions of hectares surveyed for adjudication and land ownership were inevitable, as land was registration (Republic of Kenya, 1988, p. 197). bought, sold, and inherited. Cash transfers left Unfortunately, the povei'ty and inequality many families landless and destitute. associated with colonial privatization have Individualized inheritance among sons resulted persisted and increased in independent Kenya. in the distribution of increasingly fragmented So too have the negative ecological effects of and sub-economic plots. privatization in Machakos and in Kenya's In 1953, at the height of the Mau Mau other ASAL regions. Authorized under the "emergency," the colonial government finally Registered Land Act, private ownership has amended existing legislation to authorize created a situation in which control over the private land acquisitions in the reserves. These land and its resources is highly fragmented. For changes set the stage for a comprehensive the majority of Akambe and other ASAL agrarian reform program in the African areas of dwellers, who own no more than two hectares, Kenya, the Swynnerton Plan of 1954. This plan this individualization of responsibility for the was intended to form a blueprint according to environment has produced consequences. To which the productivity of African agriculture be effective in AGAL locations, conservation could be increased, livestock carrying capacity measures must cover larger areas and require augmented, and human welfare uplifted. Its more time and labor than in more-humid zones. basic goals were to consolidate fragmented land Effective land management thus results more holdings, to assure security of individual land from community action than from individual tenure, and to provide the necessary productive effort. More than any other factor, a legally and infrastructural investments to transform sanctioned abandonment of communal subsistence production into remunerative cash- involvement in resource conservation has led to crop agriculture. the environmental deterioration now After in 1963, the new Kenya encountered in Machakos and elsewhere in the government adopted these tenets. In its policy 83 percent of Kenya which is arid and semi­ statement and its arid. Application to Planning in Kenya (1965), TI-is conclusion is not intended to invoke a government specified that land tenure was to be return to the past in Machakos. Many converted from communal to individual traditional Akamba institutions, land­ throughout the country. The rationale was that management strategies, and technologies are communal land ownership now obsolete. It is also evident, however, that western innovations have contributed cannot be carried over indiscriminately significantly to the ecological decline to a modern, monetary economy. The experienced by the Akamba, and neither are need to develop and invest requires they the solution to the problem. The existing credit and a credit economy rests state of affairs, then, calls for a marrying of heavily on a system of land titles and the more positive elements of both approaches. their registration. The ownership of Before this can be accomplished, the lasting land must, therefore, bc made more advantages of Akamba (and other traditional) definite and explicit if land land-management and conservation strategies consolidation and development are to must be understood and appreciated. be fully successful (Republic of Kenya, 1965, pp. 10-11). LEARNING FROM THE PAST

Twenty-eight years after independence, great LanzuLm. The Akamba were able to strides have been taken toward the realization overcome the ecological limitations of of this land policy. Customary tenure has been Machakos and to engage in environmentally transformed into statutory freehold tenure, sustainable agriculture through a combination

9 of technical innovations and institutional rules guarantee group survival. In the case of land governing land use. Developed over time, and tenure, security was achieved through a still possible tcday, Akamba land-use practices flexible institutional framework that associated variations in rainfall, temperature, discouraged exclusive individual rights and and soil with preferred crops and potential elaborated procedures for the sharing, yields in given locales. In particular, the management, and conservation of resources Akamba classified soils according to four types within and among communities. Land was - nzangathe mutune hiku. and nthanthai. viewed as essentially disaggregated. Emphasis Nzangathe soils predominate in the was placed on an equitable distribution of Akamba locations of Machakos. They are different soil types, preventing the hoarding, light, sandy, and deficient in humus. They also for example, of alluvial hiku plots by single tend to dry out rapidly because of their individuals or groups. In light of the social, lightness and the high temperatures to which economic, and environmental dislocations they are exposed. Traditionally, the Akamba associated with the introduction of individual cultivated cassava, pigeon peas, sweet land rights to Machakos, the lasting potatoes, and other drought-resistant and advantages of traditional Akamba land-tenure deep-rooted crops in nzangathe soils. By arrangements bear re-examination. contrast, mutune clays were not favored for In terms of ownership and use rights, the cultivation because of their hardness and the Akamba distinguished between arable and steep slopes where they are found. Mutune were grazing land. Title to rich agricultural land, chiefly used to provide forage and were also collectively termed ng'undu was permanently mined by women for the manufacture of pots. assigned to each clan (mbai for distribution on Hiku, the most valuable soils to the Akainba, a need basis to individual families. As long as are alluvial varieties located near large such land was plentiful, a continual subdivision streams including the Tiva and the Thowa. of holdings was avoided through kin-group They are suitable for grains such as maize and segmentation and settlement on new lands. sorghum, in addition to pigeon peas, cowpeas, (Today, in a situation of land scarcity, and sugar cane for beer brewing. Hiku are also technically supported agricultural exposed to seasonal grazing. In that these soils intensification must replace the migration retain moisture, they yield grass when all option. See Boserup, 1965, for a detailed other land is dry. On the other hand, rocky exploration of this alternative.) Other nthanthai soils, found mainly near the Yatta resources likewise carried perpetual rights, Plateau, were generally rejected for both including beehives and water requiring cultivation and grazing. extraction through boreholes and/or routing The Akamba not only recognized how, along furrows dug for the purpose. where, and when to employ the land for best Ai the other end of the ownership results, they also devised conservation continuum was grazing land, weu defined as measures to protect this scarce and valuable land which had never been cultivated and was resource for the future. Such investments, again available for use by anyone's livestock. Weu still possible, included small-scale terracing could be converted into ng'undu if local land and , together with intercropping and shortages threatened crop production. While other cultivation patterns to enhance soil cultivation rights were allocated to the male quality and prevent erosion. Taken together, heads of extended families, grazing rights were Akamba soil/land-use distinctions and distributed to and among whole clans. conservation techniques ensured sustainable Okoth-Ogendo (1974, p. 153) summarizes agricultural production in an often hostile the Akamba's complex intertwining of environment, individual and communal land rights and responsibilities, on behalf of social equity and Land Tenure. Rules governing land tenure economic security: further protected Akamba agricultural systems and society. As with land-use practices, the Access has always been specific to overall aim was to distribute risk and thereby function, for example cuifivation or

10 grazing. Thus, in any given community a resources feed inequality, social disintegration, number of persons could each hold a and a collective loss of responsibility for right, or bundle of rights, expressing a protecting and perpetuating land-based specific range of functions. In a typical resources. case, therefore, a village could claim Regardless of the level at which they were grazing rights over a parcel of land activated and by v.hom, land-tenure rights subject to the hunting rights of another, embodied specific responsibilities for the transit rights of a third and the management and conservation. These cultivation rights of a fourth. Each one obligations were embodied in commonly of these categories carries with it accepted customs, rules, and techniques varying degrees and levels of social pertaining to the use of soils, water, indigenous organization. For example, while vegetation, and wildlife. These management cultivation rights were generally and conservation innovations closely resemble allocated and controlled at the what are currently recommended to improve extended family level, grazing rights Kenyan and other Third World agricultural were a matter of a much wider segment. systems, unde' the "small is beautiful" rubric of The raison d'etre of control was to what is termed "appropriate technology." guarantee these rights and allocate them among other members of the Soils. The Akamba employed mounding, community should this be necessary. composting, cover crops, and fertilization with household wastes and animal manure to The lesson from the past to be drawn here maintain and improve soil fertility. Cropping involves the strong sense of collective procedures were also aimed at protecting soil responsibility for community and inter- structure and fertility. Leaving some of the coir.nunity well-being which motivated land in natural vegetation minimized wind and Akamba land-tenure rules. The water erosion. Intercropping of cereals and "modernization" associated with legumes with tree and root crops allowed the individualized tenure has eroded this ethic, soil to be exploited at different depths, fixed and has also intensified the need for its re- nitrogen, lessened pest infestation, reduced time introduction, and labor expended on weeding, increased The same conclusion can be applied to men's ground cover to conserve soil and water, and and women's rights in land. Allocative powers brought forth an extended harvesting period. were conferred on men rather than on women in Eastern Africa had long ago experienced the patriarchal Akamba society, partly the diffusion of plough technology from . because men were also responsible for opening Nevertheless, the Akamba deliberately chose new lands. On the other hand, women enjoyed the less-efficient hoe because ploughing oftk. inalienable land-use rights obtained through leads to excessive soil oxidation and marriage and from their fathers before breakdown, and tends to mix soils of lower and marriage. This permanency of women's rights higher quality. (This readiness to settle for a reflects the importance attached by the relatively laborious technology is probably Akamba to the role of women in providing for also linked to the fact that cultivation was and community subsistence. Exercising ultimate remains a women's concern among the Akamba, control over the land, men acted primarily to whereas in northern Africa the task normally invest agricultural surpluses in order to provide falls to men.) the necessaiy resources for symbolic activities which cemented group cohesion. Again, both Water. Most Akamba agriculture was sets of rights and responsibilities emphasized rainfed, with the exception of cropping in cooperation over conflict, and group prosperity riverine areas. In more-arid locations yields over socially disruptive individual were sustained through the use of various acquisitiveness. This stands in sharp contrast to water-harvesting techniques and through the the situation today, in which individual (and conscious selection of crops for their drought primarily male) rights to the land and its resistance. Household water supplies presented

11 a special problem for Akmba women who were throughout eastern Africa, the mixed blessing responsible for fetching it, but this burden was of wildlife was accommodated through the reduced with the introduction of community clearing of bush and , thus confining boreholes. Except in times of prolonged drought, wild ungulates and carnivores to specific areas. livestock were moved over wide areas to avoid Balances were maintained, until both human ecosystem collapse as a result of overgrazing and animal populations were decimated in the and the depletion of reserves. In epidemic diseases that accompanied the spite of heavier human population densities, introduction of colonialism into eastern Africa this option remains viable today if communal during the late nineteenth and early twentieth grazing rights are revived, centuries (cf. Kjekshus, 1977). The environmental and ecological Vegetation. Trees are an impediment to dislocations that have since occurred are not both farming and herding. Like most other confined to human-wildlife interactions. They eastern African societies, the Akamba cleared span the entire gamut of relationships joining trees by burning them and other woody growth African societies with their resource base. This in areas needed for agriculture. Over time, is not to imply that, for the Akamba and other continuous burning created societies, these disturbances have become so in parts of Machakos that could otherwise irreversible that traditionally established support . means of correcting them are no longer relevant Despite this long tradition of intentional to the future. , the Akamba also conserved forest resources for present and future use. Some AKAMBA PROSPECTS FOR THE FUTURE trees, including the b-)bab, were prized for beekeeping. Other species provided sustainable In its quest for sustainable natural resource supplies of firewood and building materials. uilization to serve an inexorably growing Especially in times of impending food population, Kenya has frequently turned to the shortages, the fruits of certain trees were outside world. This inclination is no more treated as contingency . Selected species apparent than in the country's attempts to deal were viewed as offering homes for the spirits with its arid and semi-arid lands. The Kenyan and played an important role in religious ASAL have long suffered under a misperception observances. They too were conserved, of being ecologically barren, economically dead, and, most importantly, inhabited by Wildlift. The potential benefits of subsistence farmers and pastoralists who have wildlife to the Akamba are much different used the land and its resources inefficiently and today than in the past. Now the chief value of in other ways irrationally. These mistaken wild fauna lies in the financial contributions interpretations form part of Kenya's colonial they make possible from wildlife , some legacy. Since colonial times they have of which can be shared locally. Traditionally, continued to exert a powerful and largely wildlife served an important, if limited, negative influence over public policy for these purpose in helping to satisfy Akamba areas. subsistence needs. In short, the rationale for Represented by the Akamba, indigenous protecting wildlife may have changed for the farming and pastoral communities have Akamba, but the ethic of wildlife conservation demonstrated over hundreds of years that is not absent in Akamba society and culture. sustainable resource use is pos i.-ble in ASAL As a society that still practiced hunting, settings, notw'istanding the delicate nature of the Akamba depended on wildlife for meat and their environments. And yet challenges to the for skins to tt'in into utility goods such as ASAL are much greater today than at any time musical instruments, ornaments, and storage in the past. They result not only from vessels. Some wild animals posed a physical accelerating environmental deterioration danger, however, and others acted as reservoirs associated with population growth, but also of trypanosomiasis, , and other from an erosion of traditional controls that once human and livestock diseases. In Machakos and controlled such decline. The critical question is

12 whether the essence of Akamba and other REFERENCES traditional approaches to resource conservation can !beresurrected and made compatible with Adesanya, A. (1958). Yoruba Metaphysical the Kenyan development agenda for the Thinking. Ibadan: Odu 5. and beyond. Present indications suggest a guardedly positive response. Allan, W. (1965). The African Husbandman. Individualized land tenure and use rights Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd. were introduced on a mass scale into Kenya during the 1950s. Included in the Swyinnerton Beyer, J.L. (1980). "Africa." In G.A. Klee, ed. Plan of 1954, this revolutionary change in land World Systems of Traditional Resource ownership and management for subsistence- Management. New York: V.H. Winston & oriented Africans was intended to Sons. commercialize small-holder agriculture and thus to incorporate a restive majority Blaikie, P. and H. Brookfield (1987). Land decisively into an independent Kenyan Degradation and Society. New York: economy. In Machakos and other ASAL areas at Methuen & Co., Ltd. least, Kenya has since achieved only marginal success in pursuing these goals, and at Boserup, E. (1965). The Conditions of considerable cost to the country's natural Agricultural Growth: The Economics of resources and environment. Agrarian Change Under Population Assisted by the government's self-help Pressure. Chicago: Aldine. movement, a counter..trend may now be emerging. Modem forms of communal land Brett, E.A. (1973). Colonialism and management are appearing among the Akamba Underdevelopment in : The and in other local societies. Some of these Politics of Economic Change 1919-1939. nuances are based on traditional institutions London: Heinemann. and practices and others result from the actions of modem secondary associations, including non- Carter, Sir M. (1934). Repor of the Kenya Land governmental organizations specifically Commission. Vol. 1. Nairobi: Government concerned with resource conservation as well as Printer. agricultural cooperatives, religious congregations, and women's groups. Downing, T.E., D.N. Mungai, and H.R. Muturi Unfortunately, these innovations are as yet (1985). "Drought Climatology of Central unaccompanied by alterations in land tenure and Eastern Kenya." In National based on lessons from the past which are still Environment Secretariat. Climatic appropriate to natural resource conservation Variability and Agricultural Production in and sustainable agrarian development. Central and Eastern Kenya. Nairobi: NES, To the extent that it already exists, the Ministry of Environment and Natural new communalism in itself represents no mean Resources. feat, requiring as it does a loosening of individual prerogatives and even the surrender Dupriez, H. (1982). Paysans d'Afrique Noire. of land on behalf of resource conservation. That Paris: L'Harmattan. the effort arises largely from community self­ help initiatives attests to the enduring Heyer, J. (1965). "Preliminary Results of a vitality of traditional values which once Linear Programming Analysis of Peasant promoted the same kind of commitment. In no Farms in Machakos District, Kenya." In small measure. the future of Machakos and its Proceedings of an East African Institte of Akamba inhabitants will turn on the ability of Social Research Conference. : national policy to further these links with the EAISR. past and to extend them throughout Kenya's vast reaches of arid and semi-arid lands. Hyams, E. (19521 Soil and Cultivation. London: Thames and Hudson.

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Okoth-Ogendo, H.W. (1974). Properti Thieojy and Land Use Analysis. An Approach to the Study of the Function and Limitation of Law in Peasant Land-Use in Kenya. Working Paper No. 160. Nairobi: Institute of Development Studies, University of Nairobi.

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