Securing Community Land Rights Experiences and insights from working to secure hunter-gatherer and pastoralist land rights in Northern Tanzania

Maliasili Initiatives (2012) Securing Community Land Rights: Local experiences and insights from working to secure hunter-gatherer and pastoralist land rights in Northern Tanzania. Pastoral Women’s Council (PWC) and Ujamaa Community Resource Team (UCRT) with Maliasili Initiatives. Tanzania: Arusha.

Front cover photo: Akie hunter-gatherers in Napilukunya, Kimana Village, Kiteto District, Tanzania

Back cover photo: A Hadzabe woman elder being awarded a Group Certificate of Customary Rights of Occupancy by the Assistant Commissioner for Lands of the Government of Tanzania.

This publication was developed with the support of: Maliasili Initiatives Inc. Registered Address: PO Box 293 Underhill VT 05489 United States of America

Maliasili Initiatives is a non-profit organization, registered as tax-exempt under Section 501(c)3 of the Internal Revenue Code of the United States of America.

Copyright ©2012 Pastoral Women’s Council, Ujamaa Community Resource Team and Maliasili Initiatives

Contents

Introduction...... 1 The political economy of land rights for pastoralist and hunter-gatherer communities in northern Tanzania ...... 3 Introducing the case studies ...... 9 Progress to date, points of debate and emerging ideas for action ...... 12 Ideas for action ...... 15

LAND RIGHTS CASE STUDIES BY PASTORAL WOMEN’S COUNCIL ...... 18 Pastoral Women’s Council ...... 18 Learning from land loss and conflict in Sukenya...... 19 Securing land titles for pastoralist women ...... 24

LAND RIGHTS CASE STUDIES BY UJAMAA COMMUNITY RESOURCE TEAM ...... 28 Ujamaa Community Resource Team...... 28 Conflict resolution at last between the Loita and Batemi peoples?...... 29 Pioneering collective land titles for Hadzabe hunter-gatherers...... 32 Land restitution for the Barabaig in Hanang...... 36 Securing land for Akie hunter-gatherers...... 39 Initiating Women’s Leadership Forums in Maasai communities...... 42

Selected additional reading ...... 46

SECURING COMMUNITY LAND RIGHTS

Introduction

In this publication two pioneering grassroots The organisations organisations from northern Tanzania Pastoral Women's Council of Tanzania was examine and present their experiences and founded in 1997 to conceive and implement insights from their long-term work to secure long-term structural solutions for ending the the land rights of hunter-gatherer and poverty and marginalisation of pastoralist pastoral communities. The case studies were and agro-pastoralist women and children. presented at a one-day learning event held PWC is women-led and encourages women on 5th October 2012, when Pastoral to openly discuss the positive and negative Women’s Council (PWC) and Ujamaa aspects of their culture, to act on their Community Resource Team (UCRT) joined findings, and to mobilise local efforts and together to share and reflect on their work resources. PWC achieves this through to secure land rights, to learn from each improving access to health and education, other, and to identify ways to build on their providing economic empowerment achievements moving forward. opportunities, and building rights and leadership skills for girls and women. Land The case studies are preceded by a synopsis and property rights are an important part of of the political economy of land rights in PWC’s work. Today the organisation has a Tanzania, providing background to help membership of approximately 5,000 contextualize the studies. Following this is a women, who may be both individual summary outline of the case studies, and members and corporate members in the then a synthesis of the lessons and key points form of women’s action groups or savings raised during the one day learning event. and credit associations.

Today, around the world – and especially in Africa – new commercial and governmental land acquisitions are proceeding faster than progress on formalizing vulnerable communities' customary and legitimate rights to land. This increased demand for land and natural resources threatens to reshape local landscapes, ecosystems, and livelihoods without considering how it fundamentally jeopardizes the communities that depend on these lands. There is now a well established and growing body of scientific evidence that documents how local communities are often best placed to sustainably manage and conserve their natural resources, providing ecological and economic benefits both locally and globally. With the continued loss of biodiversity and ecosystems critical to the future of the planet, the erosion of community-owned lands constitutes a serious global challenge and threat. This situation is a core concern to Maliasili Initiatives and its partners which recognize local rights as being part of a global challenge.

Maliasili Initiatives therefore builds the skills and strengthens the capacity of local partner organizations in East Africa that are leaders in community-based natural resource management. We connect our partners to a global network of collaborators and support, facilitate and strengthen cutting-edge initiatives that seek to advance conservation, rural development and social justice issues in Africa.

Maliasili Initiatives facilitated the land rights learning event, and the subsequent development of this publication, as part of its work to strengthen the capacity of its partners PWC and UCRT.

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Ujamaa Community Resource Team was Both organisations work with the full founded in 1998 and works to empower involvement of local communities. They marginalized people in northern Tanzania’s operate on the basis that all members of a rangelands to secure rights to their land and community have equal rights to participate natural resources in order to improve their and make decisions regarding community livelihoods. UCRT aims to promote more affairs, and that decisions should not be resilient, egalitarian and sustainable undermined by elite or vested interests. A communities that are responsible for their very high proportion of both organisations’ own development, and better able to staff (including their executive directors) are benefit from and steward their environment members of the communities where they for future generations. UCRT also works work, which means they are highly effective with these communities to expand their in working with local people to address ability to ensure that national policy and locally complex social and natural resource legal processes underpin their rights and management issues. development needs.

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The political economy of land rights for pastoralist and hunter-gatherer communities in northern Tanzania

Land has long been a complex and rights and creating the means to formalize contentious issue for many Tanzanians and them through issuing certificates of remains so today. Historically land customary occupancy. The Village Land Act occupancy had been recurrently contested in of 1999 is further supported by the Land Use the rangelands of northern Tanzania Planning Act of 2007 (see below). between different pastoralist, hunter- gatherer and agriculturist groups. However, The new land acts were ostensibly the it is the legacy of government interventions culmination of a long consultative process, during the late and post colonial periods that substantively framed by a presidential have had the greatest impact on the present commission of inquiry into land matters that day land rights and landscape occupancy of had been reported in 1992. Originally, the hunter-gatherer and pastoralist communities commission proposed a series of radical of northern Tanzania (see box on next changes that would have led to the legal page). inalienability of land from communities, made land a constitutional category (thereby The re-emergence of legally recognized significantly safeguarding its newly customary land rights progressive legal tenets), redeveloped local From the outset of the colonial period, land tenure and management institutions customary land rights and practices were, in based on customary land laws and practices, one way or another, redefined and and divested radical title from the President increasingly overridden and extinguished by to national institutions held accountable by the pre- and post-colonial state. By the end Parliament. However, these of villagization in the late 1970s (see box on recommendations were considered radical next page) the few rights left in the security by the Tanzanian state and were largely of deemed (customary) rights derived from rejected, not least because they took control the country’s original land legislation (the away from the executive, and were colonial Land Ordinance of 1923) had been perceived as being counter to a development destroyed. By the late 1980s, Issa Shivji, an agenda centred on promoting foreign direct eminent expert on land in Tanzania, investment. Ironically, had the described the legal framework of village land recommendations been accepted, they tenure as utterly confused; in the opinion of would have forestalled many of the others, customary land tenure had been challenges that local communities have since legally as good as extinguished by the mid encountered, including not least in terms of 1990s. the continued appropriation of their land by the state and commercial private sector, However, in the late 1990s as Tanzania without proper safeguards and in ways that reformed its land laws, the prospects for socio-economically disempower them. customary and communal land rights took a turn for the better. Two new land laws were Today, while communities are ostensibly passed – the Land Act of 1999 and the consulted, it is the President, acting on behalf Village Land Act of 1999 – followed by the of the nation, who holds the ultimate power Courts (Land Disputes Settlements) Act of to transfer any land to general (i.e. granted 2002. Despite its shortcomings, the Village rights) or reserved land (for protection). Land Act, re-established a system of village- Then – as the state sees fit - either of these based land tenure by recognising customary latter land categories can be allocated to

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The implications of reordering landscapes and population growth for land rights in Tanzania

During the colonial and the post-independence eras until the end of the 1990s, Tanzanians’ customary (deemed) land rights were gradually extinguished by the state in favour of granted rights. The impact of this process was that land could be re-ordered in a way the government considered most judicious and in line with its changing economic development and related agendas. During the 1970s up to five million people were forcibly resettled into collective villages: although it is not clear whether Tanzania’s two hunter-gatherer communities were directly affected, pastoralist communities were not spared. While the theoretical benefits of villagization in terms of improved primary health, education service provision, and better communications have been slow to materialize, the villagization era severely disrupted people’s customary land tenure and land management practices.

Villagization was itself preceded by evictions of communities from their lands – for example, the Maasai were forced to leave the Serengeti to create the national park in the early 1950s, and the Barabaig forced from the Basotu plains for wheat farming in the early 1970s. These evictions have continued sporadically to the present day; for example, with the eviction of the Parakuyo Maasai from Mkomazi to create a game reserve in 1988, and up to 70,000 Sukuma and other agro-pastoralists from the Ihefu Swamps in 2006 ostensibly to protect a nationally strategic watershed.

The net effect has been that Tanzania’s landscape has been heavily reordered, with large areas of the country set aside for protected areas (up to thirty five percent), and other areas taken over for commercial agriculture and other uses. As the country’s population has grown – since its independence in 1961, it has quadrupled to 41 million people – Tanzanians have increasingly competed among themselves for the remaining space, and particularly, for the few remaining areas of the country that are relatively fertile. The long history of evictions, together with population growth, has meant that people’s movements have become increasingly fluid, aided by improved transport and communications. Today this means communities who were previously little affected by immigration of different groups onto their lands, particularly the pastoralist and hunter-gatherer groups of northern Tanzania, must today contend with their land being increasingly settled, and sometimes altogether taken over by newly immigrant communities. This has led to increased outbreaks of conflict between long-term resident and newly immigrant groups. In some parts of Tanzania, it is farming groups that are the longer term residents, and herders are the immigrants: in much of northern Tanzania, it is the opposite.

This process of internal immigration and re-settlement poses difficult challenges for long-term resident communities, newly immigrant groups and the organisations working to support land and natural resource rights and management at local level. As ever, the relationships between long-term residents and newly immigrant groups remain socio-economically fluid and complex. Therefore, the challenge lies in recognising that those areas– previously more uniformly the domain of pastoralists and hunter-gatherers groups– will increasingly become a mosaic of different land-users and land-uses. This requires that innovative initiatives be developed for helping these communities equitably, peacefully and adaptively secure and sustainably manage their land and natural resources in this increasingly complex and crowded environment.

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non-community members, such as an communities? Who is responsible for investor, or managed by the state. However, managing customary lands when these are village land can also be leased to outsiders identified and set aside – is it de facto the (including investors), which is an option that village council or is it local customary has led to strong mutually beneficial institutions or both? And lastly, how can partnerships between villages and the private socio-economically equitable and sector; for example, with the tourism ecologically sustainable outcomes be industry in northern Tanzania. assured?

Village land law, customary occupancy and Communities have long been struggling to increasing internal immigration answer these difficult questions and mediate Although the land laws did not fulfil the solutions. However, as different groups live vision of the 1992 commission of inquiry and trade in juxtaposition, these into land, they nonetheless have created the relationships fray and breakdown in years of prospect of greater land security, not least hardship, often because of inclement for pastoralists and hunter-gatherers. This has weather (drought or flood), or because of been the case particularly where these other factors. This is evidenced by a history communities have been supported by civil of recurring outbreaks of inter-communal society organisations to secure their conflict and violence in Tanzania, Certificates of Village Land (i.e. village land particularly in the immigration frontiers of documentation). This first and important the country. step has then formed the basis for further A key dynamic in such confrontations, and in land and resource management the processes of immigration, is the notion improvements, ostensibly controlled by the that pastoralists and hunter-gatherers are village council which in turn is supposed to ‘nomadic’ and that their land areas are be held accountable by the village assembly ‘unused’, a notion shared by incoming (of all persons in the village over the age of agricultural communities and policy makers eighteen). Government-promoted examples alike. Yet, this perceived vacancy is an include Village Land Forest Reserves and illusion. Pastoralists frequently use different Wildlife Management Areas. In addition wet and dry season pastures to allow certain non-state actors have worked with villages areas to recover; to avoid livestock disease to develop land-easement arrangements. and wildlife populations; or to make the Yet with increasing internal immigration as most of the presence of minerals (e.g. salt for well as newly or more ethnically livestock), terrain, and forage conditions. As heterogeneous communities, a new step in a result, pastures may be seasonally vacant the evolution and mediation of village and but they generally form a part of long-term customary land laws is needed, and with this adaptive rotational grazing system involving comes some important questions: Whose the seasonal movement of people and customary laws and land management livestock across the land. practices count most? How can different More often than not, the government finds practices, understandings and priorities, these dynamics difficult to accept, particularly in ‘frontier’ areas where particularly in relation to its very different immigration may have the largest impacts, perception of what a ‘modern’ livestock be accommodated without threatening the (ranching) economy should comprise. In this lands and livelihoods of existing long-term - regard it seeks to promote its own and often marginalised - resident technocratic perceptions of socio-

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economically productive, rationally ordered outcomes, particularly for vulnerable groups and sustainably managed landscapes. For (e.g. rural women) and marginalised example, the Land Use Planning Act of 2007 minorities (e.g. hunter-gatherers). It is sets out a well ordered system of land-use exactly this hybrid approach that PWC and planning, with national and regional UCRT are adopting, and are seeking to frameworks, underpinned by district and develop further and expand. village level land use planning institutions and processes. To a large degree, the top- Women’s land rights: national law and the down and bottom-up approach makes sense: gap with customary norms villages can zone village lands for both Tanzania has long been a regional leader in communal and individual uses, including promoting the rights of women in many seasonal livestock pastures, and they are aspects of public - and to a lesser extent - encouraged to prepare land use plans and private life. For example, women are village by-laws codifying these zoning provided with equal rights as men under the schemes. country’s constitution, they have varying but relatively strong property rights under the But in reality, land use planning is more country’s marriage law, and following the often than not a one-time exercise which enactment of the new land laws, women however ‘participatory’, usually just ends up have the same rights as men to own, lease being a static paper exercise. These do not and sell land. However, women’s sufficiently endow local land users and land inheritance rights in law are more ambiguous use managers with the means to adaptively and women’s rights groups continue to manage their land and natural resources, or advocate to see them strengthened. to resolve recurring and emerging conflicts. The continued emphasis on formal The relatively strong gender equality government machinery, procedure and provisions in the country’s national laws outputs, particularly in a resource and stand strongly apart from the discriminatory capacity constrained environment, means customary norms and practices that are a there is often a vacuum of pro-active and painful reality for most Tanzanian women, competent planning and management at and for pastoralist women in particular. local level. This is compounded by a justice Traditionally, patrilineal systems of social system that has a long history of being weak, organisation, property ownership and difficult to access and corrupt, particularly at inheritance are the major reason for these district level and below. What is needed is widespread discriminatory norms and much greater support for local institutional practices. The country’s laws safeguarding arrangements, using a variety of formal and women’s rights are explicit in disqualifying customary institutions, together with new any contravening customary laws and partnerships and incentives, to secure local practices. However, women have little rights, adaptively manage landscapes and recourse for challenging discriminatory landscape occupancy, enhance rural customary norms and practices within their livelihoods, and manage conflicts. This type own communities, and as little or even less of approach, such as has been taken in the opportunity for seeking recourse from the Yaeda Valley, incorporates and builds upon country’s justice system. This latter challenge formal land tenure and land use planning stems from the fact that access to the processes yet goes well beyond their often country’s judicial system remains slow and limited scope to bring about sustainable and costly for local people, and is often beset by equitable land tenure and landscape use corruption. Despite these challenges, there

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are a small but increasing number of cases land were requested for biofuels, mostly where women have successfully challenged jatropha as well as some large sugarcane discriminatory practices in formal courts of schemes in river basins along the coast. law, but these successes remain the Most of the investment in biofuels was exception. driven by European companies, including some with their own government financing It is clear that much remains to be done in or public ownership, and most production bridging the gap between de jure and de targeted European export markets. Similar facto norms and practices: women’s equality investments were spreading across much of will not be advanced by only focussing on a sub-Saharan Africa at this time. technocratic and perhaps improbable feat of ensuring that the law is enforced. Rather, the More latterly, while enthusiasm for growing emancipation of women will in European biofuel investments has waned, large part depend on empowerment through many of the major biofuel investments have their education and training to collectively since collapsed. Yet public concern in organise within their own communities and Tanzania around land grabbing has to take locally appropriate and informed continued to grow, particularly since 2009. action. This will ultimately enable them to This increased prominence of land grabbing transform their communities’ customary in the public discourse is to a large degree norms and practices to a point where they the result of wider political reconfigurations deliver and reinforce the rights and occurring in Tanzania, as public debates entitlements women locally desire. Again, intensify over corruption, accountability, and PWC and UCRT have been working together the use of public assets. Civil society and to implement this approach in the media institutions are increasingly calling communities they work with. attention to land grabbing as a central element in this wider debate over who A new wave of village land loss to national benefits from the country’s natural resources, elites and international business how decisions over resource governance are The decline of the socialist state in Tanzania made, and who is able to participate in the and its replacement with a more capitalist modern market economy. Land rights – for economy from the mid-1980s onwards led women, marginalized communities, and to a wave of land grabbing as nationalised even ordinary citizens – are the foundation land assets began to be divested, and as of economic empowerment and sustainable business and political elites sought to take forms of development, and as such lie at the advantage of the new economic climate. center of policy debate and political struggles While these land loses were documented as in Tanzania today. part of the commission of inquiry into land in the early 1990s, land grabbing issues have since returned to central prominence in Tanzania’s social and political discourse. Two distinct phases within this period are discernable.

In the first phase, from around 2005 to 2008, interest in establishing large-scale biofuels plantations in Tanzania surged, particularly around the ‘miracle crop’ of jatropha. Up to four million hectares of

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Introducing the case studies

The case studies presented here are examples remained largely uncultivated, and the of unique approaches used to address issues village continued to maintain their access regarding community land rights, socio- rights for grazing and water. However, political marginalization of pastoralists and when the land was subsequently sold to a hunter gatherer groups and women’s rights. tourism company in 2006, the community The case studies provide insight into how were no longer able to access the land, as local communities, supported by PWC and the company began to enforce their UCRT, have engaged with these issues. exclusive rights. PWC, on behalf of Sukenya and Mondorosi villages, is seeking to have The case studies were written by PWC and the land returned to the community while UCRT staff, and Maliasili Initiatives compiled the tourism company continues to defend its and edited them as part of its ongoing right to the land and the investment it programme of support to these represents. The case study looks at the organisations. Seven case studies are various approaches that have been taken presented (see map overleaf): towards resolving the conflict. It examines Each of the seven case studies falls into one how the imbalance in knowledge, access to of four themes: power, and challenges in both parties’ understandings of what options exist and A. Strengthening women’s access to land and how best to seek resolution, has resulted in a their participation in customary governance dispute quickly becoming acrimonious and institutions; has continued without any real signs of resolution. B. Securing collective land rights for marginalised and minority communities in ‘Securing land titles for pastoralist multi-ethnic contexts; women’ by Joseph Melau and Jill 2 Nicholson – documents an initiative C. Securing and/or restitution of collective by Sakala Village and its Women’s Rights land rights from commercial government- Committee in Ngorongoro District to backed interests; safeguard their land as a village, and in the D. Building inter-community conflict process to improve the land rights of women management and resolution mechanisms in the community. The initiative was ground- through customary institutions. breaking in the sense that it directly challenged the existing inequitable property These themes are taken up and further relations of men and women in Maasai discussed in the following section. pastoralist society where women own little outside of their immediate domestic Case studies from Pastoral Women’s Council environment. Regardless of the socio- ‘Learning from land loss and conflict economic benefits associated with having in Sukenya’ by Maanda Ngoitiko and individual title to land, the women 1 Cara Scott – traces the history and explained that securing ownership of their examines the challenges of resolving a own land transformed their perception of conflict over 12,000 acres of land that was self-worth and standing in society for the excised from Sukenya Village in Loliondo in better. The case study identifies some salient the mid 1980s for growing commercial questions about the replicability and barley by the government for Tanzania sustainability of the initiative, and provides Breweries. Despite its excision, the land

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some recommendations for taking it UCRT’s support for securing their own forward. CCRO. This demonstrates how promoting rights-based approaches with different user- Case studies from Ujamaa Community groups within diverse communities can be Resource Team scaled up through local demand leading to ‘Conflict resolution at last between resource use agreements and a reduction in local conflict. 3 the Batemi and Loita?’ by Laurence Kondei & Jamboi Baramayegu – ‘Land restitution for the Barabaig in documents how two communities were able Hanang’ by Elikarimu Gayewi – to institute a conflict resolution mechanism 5 documents the long historical struggle when all previous outside attempts to solve of the Barabaig people for the restitution of long-term land conflicts had failed. The case their land after it was taken away from them study explains that in realising the cost of the by the government in the late 1960s for a long term conflict, both communities came commercial wheat-growing scheme. The case together to take ownership of the problem, study narrates how focussing on the developing a mechanism for managing development of solidarity within Barabaig outbreaks of conflict and preventing future society through building the capacity of escalation. The case study demonstrates customary leadership institutions contributed where customary leadership institutions to a greater ability and some success in retain sufficient local legitimacy, they can advocating for the return of their land. play a central role in managing and resolving local conflicts over land and natural ‘Two options for securing land for resources - even in cross-cultural contexts. Akie hunter-gatherers’ by Edward Notably, the government subsequently 6 Lekaita – in a story similar to the recognised the success of UCRT’s approach Hadzabe case study, the Akie, Tanzania’s and has since requested UCRT to work with only other hunter-gatherers, are increasingly other communities to help them manage and threatened by the expansion of farming resolve their land conflicts in a similar communities around them, driven by manner. population growth and the search for fertile land. The case study documents a ‘work-in- ‘Pioneering collective land titles for progress’ of a collaborative initiative to 4 Hadzabe hunter-gatherers’ by secure the land rights of the Akie, a process Partalala Meitaya – describes how a being resisted by certain local elites who new legal instrument set out in Tanzanian would prefer they retain control over the land law, but never before implemented, has land to use for agriculture. An initial attempt been used to secure the land rights of a to create a separate village for the Akie as a Hadzabe hunter-gatherer community that means for securing their rights has stalled and had been suffering from long-term land loss UCRT now wants to replicate the success driven by the expanding settlements of that they experienced using CCROs for the herders and farmers in what was once their Hadzabe with the Akie case. domain. The legal instrument – a Certificate of Customary Occupancy (CCRO) – creates ‘Initiating women’s leadership forums much stronger and legally defensible rights in Maasai communities’ – by Eddah for its holder. Through the process of 7 Saileni, Fred Loure & Paine Makko - securing these rights for the hunter-gatherer describes how women’s leadership forums community, a neighbouring pastoralist have been initiated in the Maasai Steppe as community also subsequently requested means for empowering women to

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participate in village government and as part active in preventing the illicit sale of of building greater levels of accountability in communal land and its fragmentation, formal and informal (customary) institutions. thereby safeguarding the community’s In addition to enabling women to voice interests and their pastoralist livelihoods. their issues and concerns, it is anticipated that women will also become increasingly

An Akie man out hunting SECURING COMMUNITY LAND RIGHTS

Progress to date, points of debate about what impact promoting titling for any social group might have on the overall and emerging ideas for action increasing rate of fragmentation of pastoralist rangelands. Throughout East A substantial investment has been made by Africa, what was once communally owned PWC and UCRT over the last ten years to rangelands has increasingly become improve the security of collective land rights individually owned, inherited and further in the communities where they work. UCRT sub-divided. This trend has become an has carried out much of the work on the increasing challenge to the maintenance of ground to strengthen local institutions and social equity in pastoralist communities and put in place the steps needed for improved has also seriously undermined ecosystem land security. PWC has invested in building functioning and value. Once contiguous awareness about women’s rights and rangelands are being divided by and into strengthening their participation in local areas of farming and fences, disrupting governance institutions, which now stands to customary rangeland management practices play an increasingly important role in and resulting in increasing inequality of underpinning and improving the overall access to land and range resources, often security of collective land rights in these through elite capture. communities. While PWC and UCRT are strongly aware A. Strengthening women’s access to land and that customary gender property relations in their participation in customary governance pastoralist societies continue to be institutions; inequitable, they also realise that introducing Ostensibly, strengthening women’s access to and promoting a set of solutions to address and ownership of land should be a straight- these imbalances without first opening a forward issue in terms of its intrinsic benefits debate within communities about local and positive implications for women and priorities and ways forward, would be short- their pastoralist communities1. Empowering sighted and could easily become counter- women to access land in whatever way is productive. It was suggested that the issue of most appropriate for their needs, should women’s land rights become a subject for enable them to have new and enhanced facilitated debate and exploration within livelihood opportunities. However, PWC’s both Women’s Rights Committees and men’s engagement with such efforts has Customary Leadership Forums as a way of precipitated a debate about what are the developing consensus about how (i) most appropriate approaches for Women’s increasingly independent land and empowering women to have access to the economic entitlements could be promoted land and related entitlements they need. and supported as an emerging norm from Concerns were expressed that if the within local society, and how (ii) Safeguards approach were too unilateral in enabling could be agreed to protect vulnerable women to gain access to land—without the women – such as widows – from being requisite social sanction and support needed iniquitously deprived of the entitlements and at local level—the result could be a counter assets they need for a secure and dignified current from men-dominated communities. livelihood. A further dynamic that was In addition, concerns were also expressed briefly discussed, and which would merit further thought, was the role of women’s 1Land is not really ‘owned’ in egalitarian hunter-gatherer institutions in holding formal and customary societies and therefore, at least customarily, the land management institutions at local level allocation and inheritance of land between men and more accountable. women is, at least in theory, much less of an issue.

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The status of Participatory Land Use Planning (PLUP) and issue of Certificates of Village Land (CVLs) in different villages and districts in northern Tanzania that UCRT and PWC support Number LUP Village by-laws developed Land use zoning Issue of CVLS and of villages prepared and approved demarcation registration of LUP 37 97.3% 73.0% 35.1% 21.6%

Overall, the issue of women’s land rights is a bureaucracy, have meant that the relatively new area of work for both PWC delineation of boundaries and finalisation of and UCRT. And while PWC’s first efforts the formal land titling process at village level have got off to a positive start, a concern has been slow – as shown above. was expressed that if this success is to be scaled up, the approach may need to be A key challenge has been that village adapted, and will need to receive much governments and local communities have wider support and buy-in from both women often hesitated to commit to and have been and men across pastoralist communities. slow in resolving their territorial conflicts. Although PWC’s advocacy and This may be part of more protracted and outspokenness is a crucially important driver complex identity-based disputes and of change, this process may need to be tensions—part of this is simply due to the balanced somewhat through adopting an fact that customary boundaries have rarely evolutionary approach to strengthening been definitive and instead have tended to women’s rights and entitlements that first be fuzzy and shifting, or boundaries have focuses on local women’s immediate been arbitrarily drawn on maps by priorities in light of longer-term administrators reflecting at one point in time transformational goals. a particular understanding of a domain or extent of an administrative area. As a result, B. Securing collective land rights for collective lands – or villages – often suffer marginalised and minority communities in from boundary disputes, and remain insecure multi-ethnic contexts and easily open to land alienation or Much of the effort invested thus far in fragmentation into smaller units. promoting local land rights in northern Tanzania has correctly focussed on raising Three key steps have been identified and the awareness of local communities and have started to be taken to move beyond working with them to fulfil the statutory this hiatus: steps required to secure their territorial rights at village level. The pre- and post- 1. Strengthening customary leadership independence history of land loss and institutions to build collective consensus ongoing pressure for land alienation in many and commitment about the need to of the communities in which UCRT and resolve (i) administrative boundary PWC work, has meant that communities conflicts and (ii) identity-based disputes have welcomed this support. However, local for the collective good. In reality, where conflicts over boundaries between and there is a commitment to resolving the within administratively created villages latter, resolving the former becomes linked to ethnic identity and affiliation, more straightforward, particularly when together with a substantial amount of communities realise that an administrative boundary does not

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preclude their continued access to gradually taken over by a locally resources beyond that boundary. politically powerful or ascendant group. 2. Resolving territorial disputes on the Further layers of formal and informal ground and supporting resource-use legitimacy need to be built up to secure local arrangements that depreciate the rights; formal rights can be strengthened by significance of boundaries. Key to this is supporting vulnerable groups to obtain developing a set of conflict resolution collective or group titles to specific areas of practices and norms that are widely land that they can lay legitimate claim to, as accepted and supported by customary ostensibly accepted by the wider leaders, local government and local community. At the village level, a communities. UCRT has developed a community may need to pro-actively methodology that has seen success in the anticipate and counter moves by the state or recent past, particularly when a commercial entity to obtain their land. This communities have perceived an overt may require that the community build external threat to their land, quickly support with local and national political incentivizing them to put their figures and public officials as well as civil differences to one side and collectively society organisations in order to resist the work together to secure their common appropriation of their land, including interests. In the absence of communities through taking legal action. Or it may perceiving a sufficiently pressing threat in require that the community counter-offer the their locality, it will take a renewed plans of the state or commercial interests commitment by customary leadership with alternative arrangements that maintain institutions to sponsor and promote the their control and ownership over the land. delineation of boundaries and reciprocal This will also maximise the benefits they are use arrangements in order to secure their likely to derive from any arrangements they collective lands. enter into with the state or commercial 3. Actively pursuing and securing the entity, either voluntarily and/or because they certificates of village land and registered consider it the wisest course of action to land use plans required to finalize the safeguard their long term interests. titling of collective lands at local level. This process oftentimes requires repeated C. Securing and/or restitution of collective and protracted liaison with local and land rights in relation to their loss to regional government, and access to funds commercial government-backed interests with which to carry out the formal It is not common for local communities in boundary survey process. However, it Tanzania to win back their village land after has become increasingly clear that a it has been taken over by the state or Certificate of Village Land, supported by commercial sector. The Hanang case study is a land-use plan, is insufficient for securing a rare example of a land restitution process, the land rights of minority groups within which albeit still ongoing, has resulted in a particular community, or even of a some success. Of pressing concern however, whole community in certain is the continuing alienation of village lands circumstances. This is because village sponsored by the state, often for commercial lands, even when formally registered as interests, and the Sukenya case study serves such, can still be appropriated by the as such an example. The land should have state; or in multi-ethnic communities, the been returned to the community, once land of a minority group can be Tanzania Breweries Limited (TBL) had stopped using it, years previously. Instead

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the land was sold by TBL for an estimated level of conflict can be expected to escalate, USD 1.2 million for almost a clear profit as rural populations continue to grow, to since the company had never paid for the compete for increasingly scarce land land. resources, and to contend with new levels of climate variability brought on by climate A clear set of options and guidelines need to change. Local communities are likely to need be developed with and for communities and more support to better manage and resolve the private sector that promote and result in conflicts, as part of safeguarding local more equitable outcomes for local livelihoods and local natural resource communities and sufficient security for management regimes. It is clear that many partnering businesses. The guidelines and local communities in northern Tanzania practices would help safeguard against the possess the foundations for developing malfeasance that often exists within local effective conflict resolution institutions and community leadership, government processes. UCRT has proven as much in its bureaucracies and private sector transactions. work to support the development of local It is easy to take advantage of the low conflict management institutions and standards of practice and weak governance practices with the Batemi and Loita in at all levels, to the detriment of local and Ngorongoro. Substantial opportunity exists national interest – such as the TBL example for further developing conflict resolution demonstrates. Yet at the same time the capacity at local level, by building local guidelines would also provide useful options community institutions, and facilitating and support for companies committed to effective linkages with formal judicial systems acting ethically with communities in securing and government administration. access to land for their business operations. More often than not, the private sector, Ideas for action communities and even government are not fully aware of the different options possible There are some clear opportunities emerging and available for developing land for strengthening existing efforts and arrangements and local partnerships that developing new initiatives to improve the provide sufficient security of access for land and natural resource rights of local commercial operations, yet at the same time communities as a basis for enhancing their safeguard the interests and rights of local development and the conservation of their communities. Developing such a set of natural resources. These opportunities guidelines, for example for the tourism include: sector in northern Tanzania, would require that government and the private sector as a 1. Working with pastoralist communities to whole become open to new types of land develop consensus and ways forward for tenure and possible partnership improving women’s access to land, arrangements. livelihood and enterprise support, and meaningful participation in local D. Building inter-community conflict governance processes; management and resolution mechanisms through customary institutions. Over the last twenty years, there is strong anecdotal evidence that frequency of land- use conflicts between different communities across much of Tanzania has increased. Northern Tanzania is no exception, and the

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2. Developing an analysis and clear set of developing public-private partnerships guidelines about the options available between local communities and the for securing land both for whole villages private sector that create win-win and for different communities or groups outcomes. These guidelines could focus of people within and across villages. on natural resources, but also have Importantly, it would be useful for the continuity with and complement other guidelines to identify the different efforts to develop similar guidelines, for capacity building and support required example, for commercial agricultural for achieving the potential of each partnerships. option, as well as its limits. Linked to 4. Examining ways of building the capacity this, it would also be useful to examine of customary institutions to manage and ways of how the fragmentation and resolve resource-based conflicts, through individualization of common pool perhaps developing a training resources – particularly rangelands – can programme that includes providing local be minimized or prevented, a process government officials with insights and that is often detrimental to the wider ideas for creating hybrid arrangements interests of local communities and the between customary systems of dispute integrity of ecological systems. resolution and formal administrative 3. Developing an analysis and clear set of approaches when the need arises. guidelines, perhaps as part of a collaborative initiative with other organisations, for best practices in

Grasslands and wild flowers in Ngorongoro District

SECURING COMMUNITY LAND RIGHTS

LAND RIGHTS CASE STUDIES by Pastoral Women’s Council

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Learning from land loss and conflict in Sukenya

Resolving differences in values and imbalances in knowledge and power Cara Scott & Maanda Ngoitiko

Ngorongoro is a leading area for Tanzania’s resource availability, which are largely tourism industry due to its expansive landscapes dependent on rainfall and are governed by and large wildlife populations. This scenic rotational grazing reserve systems formalized in beauty and imagery of a pastoral ideal belie a village by-laws and land use plans. much more complex and conflict-ridden reality. Instead, the history of Maasailand over the past In 1984, Tanzania Breweries Ltd (TBL), which hundred years has been characterised by one of was then a government parastatal corporation marginalisation and land loss. with a number of barley farms around the country, obtained more than 10,000 acres of Background to the Sukenya farm conflict land that came to be known as Sukenya farm. Soitsambu, Sukenya and Mondorosi villages are The community claims that this land was located in Loliondo Division, Ngorongoro obtained in an irregular fashion. The precise District. The villages are predominantly Maasai circumstances that surrounded the allocation of pastoralist and agro-pastoralist communities the disputed Sukenya farm may never be that are reliant on livestock keeping. Land is definitively known, but it is well documented managed according to seasonal patterns of that during this period fraudulent land 19 SECURING COMMUNITY LAND RIGHTS allocations were widespread throughout even claim that TBL had agreed from the outset northern Tanzania and in Loliondo in that the land would be returned to them, as particular. While TBL obtained dispensation documented in village minutes from 1984. from the district and regional government to use the land, it did not obtain an official title Initially TCL attempted to have exclusive use of deed to the land until 2003, almost twenty the newly acquired property, preventing any years later. local people from residing in, or seasonally using the land. From the company’s From the outset, TBL only used a small portion perspective, it had paid a substantial sum for (roughly 700 acres) of the land and in 1989 the property, the sale had been sanctioned by they abandoned their efforts altogether. the government, and therefore it had the right Between 1989 and 2003, the land lay to exclusive and unhindered access to the land abandoned by TBL. Instead the three resident within the bounds of the law. Its objective was Maasai sections (or ‘clans’), the Purko (who to develop the property into a private wildlife make up the residents of Mondorosi), Loita sanctuary with a high-end tourism facility. (who are a minority clan in Sukenya) and Laitayok (who are the majority of residents in The significance of losing access to the land Sukenya but a minority clan in the region quickly became apparent to the surrounding overall) continued using the property as they communities because there are few (and no always had—as seasonal livestock pasture, year-round) water sources available. With the critical watering points and temporary closure of access to TCL’s new ‘Enashiva’ settlement during the rainy season. property (the Sukenya Farm), the community’s herders were now forced to make a 14 hour The Conflict return trip to Kenya in order to access water in In 2003, using what Soitsambu Village Council the dry season. In addition they had lost access claim are fabricated - and therefore illegal - to a valuable grazing resource. Prohibiting village meeting minutes, TBL acquired the title community access to the land created a major deed to the land from Sukenya and Mondorosi conflict between the company, local Villages (which were then legally sub-villages of government, and the villagers. Soitsambu village), while also increasing their Many of the members of this remote total acreage to 12,617 acres of land. This new community are not well informed about the title deed gave them control of the land with a country’s land laws and the concept of 99-year lease agreement. In 2006, TBL divested exclusive rights to land or the ability to transfer the property with the legal sale of the such rights to others. Thus the fact that they remaining 96-year leasehold to a new tourism knew TBL had previously used, then operation known as Tanzania Conservation Ltd abandoned and subsequently sold the land did (TCL). TCL is owned by Wineland-Thomson not in their understanding mean that they could Adventures Inc., which also owns Thompson no longer access it. As a result, and also taking Safaris, one of the larger tourism operators in into account the questionable undertaking by Tanzania. Wineland-Thomson Adventures Inc. TBL in the initial 1984 agreement, the majority prides itself on its corporate social of villagers consider that the land is still responsibility, such as supporting local rightfully theirs to use. Thus many feel that the community schools, dispensaries and other measures taken to exclude them from the farm development projects where the company are unlawful, unjust and that they are damaging operates. However, the sale was from the the overall welfare of their communities. outset controversial, as TBL had abandoned the land for more than twelve years, and therefore, From the point where TCL took over the by law, the land should have reverted back to property and enforced its legal right to the government. In fact, the local community’s 20 SECURING COMMUNITY LAND RIGHTS

exclusive access to the property, supported by employees on the farm, for example as security district officials and the police, the level of guards paid to keep other village residents from tension and conflict has markedly escalated. As grazing livestock on the property. The internal a result there have been numerous arrests and division within the community meant that for imprisonments, a non-fatal shooting and several years there wasn’t a consensus at alleged other mistreatment of local residents by community level about the Sukenya Farm and TCL’s employees and the police. therefore collective action was weaker than it might have been. This situation enabled TCL to Since the start of the conflict Soitsambu Village claim that they had the support of the local Council and community members have community, and that the conflict was more an requested the assistance of PWC. PWC has artifice of a minority within the community, documented the arrests and allegations of supported by NGOs. beatings and liaised with a range of other supporters. PWC views its role as being 3. The internal division within the accountable to and supporting the communities communities has meant for example, that an to re-secure their rights to Sukenya Farm. attempt by TCL in 2007 to agree grazing practices on Sukenya Farm was rejected by the Understanding the failed mediation attempts and wider community. TCL had negotiated only increasing polarisation with the residents of Sukenya, when in reality Local civil society organizations and concerned the land was historically grazed by the local individuals have attempted to help resolve the communities as well as by other communities conflict. But, unfortunately these attempts have from futher afield. Since then, herders have failed thus far and instead of bringing the sides purposefully flouted TCL’s grazing restrictions in closer to a settlement, have instead increased protest, resulting in more tension and arrests. tension and mistrust, compounded by a series This has led to further increased tensions of events and issues, including the following: between TCL and the wider community, and a 1. Throughout the six years since TCL acquired hardening of attitudes. the Sukenya Farm, a number of different 4. In 2011 Soitsambu Village sought legal organizations and local individuals have sought action to challenge TCL’s right to the land with to address the conflict, either by supporting the the support of Minority Rights Group, the Legal affected communities to take legal and political and Human Rights Centre, and PWC. While action to secure their rights, or by trying to initially dismissed on a technicality, an appeal mediate a win-win resolution of the conflict was successful and the case is now proceeding. directly with TCL and community On the one hand this process can be seen to be representatives. As a result, a concerted and advantageous for the community in that it coordinated initiative to resolve the conflict has opens up the opportunity for legal recourse and never quite taken off. gives community members renewed hope of 2. The Soitsambu Village area has historically justice thereby reducing the threat of violent been the domain of both the Purko (forming conflict in the future. It has also ledto increased the majority) and Laitayok clans, and knowledge and awareness about land rights, correspondingly, the Purko clan has a majority dymysitfying the legal system, and reducing in the village government. However, with the fears of the local court system. It has arrival of TCL, some Laitayok leaders and significantly reduced the alledged number of residents saw an opportunity to improve their beatings and arrests for grazing cattle since the position by supporting the company. TCL case began. On the other hand the case has naturally allied itself with these Laitayok, hiring perhaps continued to feed and prolong the community members from this section as conflict given the hardened positions and the

21 SECURING COMMUNITY LAND RIGHTS likely long period it will take to reach its Tanzania’s history of land relations and land conclusion. rights. Both the communities and TCL as a foreign investor, claim legitimate perspectives 5. Both sides have promoted their competing and positions, although it is clear that TCL narratives in the media. A social media should have acted with far greater diligence campaign was initially begun by a group of from the outset. Nevertheless, both parties have organizations and individuals sympathetic to sought to safeguard their interests in the ways the communities’ plight, which documented they best know how, yet their values, unfolding events on the ground. In addition knowledge and power remain worlds apart. articles in the mainstream international press have further raised the profile of the conflict. Power: From the outset, the ambiguity of the However, as the critical social media campaign original transfer of land from community began to hurt Wineland-Thomson Adventures’ ownership to TBL, followed by the subsequent brands, it mounted a public relations counter non-consensual enlargement of the land parcel campaign, emphasizing the legality of its to incorporate more village land, demonstrates operations, denying the damaging allegations the ease with which the community was out and showcasing its charitable work with local manoeuvred. This is further exemplified by the communities in the area. fact that a delegation of villagers, including three PWC Board members, met with the Prime 6. Other informal mediation attempts between Minister in 2008 to discuss Sukenya. This PWC (in its role of advancing the interests of resulted in a formal government inquiry into the affected communities) and TCL have also the status of the farm and the nature of the failed. These failures are largely due to each side conflict with the villagers. In 2010 the ad-hoc perceiving the other as being insufficiently committee released their findings to TCL but to flexible and there remains considerable mistrust date not to community members or members between the two organisations. For example, of the district council. In effect, whatever the TCL has often maintained that PWC does not findings of the inquiry, it was clear to members represent the interests of the wider community of the community and district council that the and are instead after the land for their own government was more concerned with the interests. interests of a private investor than it was of its Overall, the mediation attempts to date have own citizens in relation to Sukenya. This helped the communities to come to a more demonstrated that PWC’s and the communities’ unified position on what they want and need limited linkages to the national political elite from the land as a resource. Conversely, the give them little influence beyond local district failures of these mediation attempts have led to council members and the local Member of the community becoming more entrenched in Parliament. its position and less open to further Knowledge: PWC has a deep understanding negotiations. TCL’s owners have also remained and experience of the conflict on the ground resolute in their position and perspective – that but less experience of conflict resolution their ownership of the land is unquestionable, processes in a broader context. Much of PWC’s that they have legitimitately defended their approach throughout has been reactive rather interests, while at the same time reaching out to than proactively leading the way to a win-win the surrounding communities in extending their resolution. This is mostly due to PWC being a good will through charitable works. small community-based NGO with limited Worlds apart: values, knowledge and power human and financial resources. TCL’s management has also lacked the willingness, The Sukenya conflict in many ways could not vision and knowledge required for creating a be a more apt microcosm and allegory of win-win solution. A wide range of business 22 SECURING COMMUNITY LAND RIGHTS

models and supporting case studies abound in values about what it is to be neighbours and to the tourism and other – for example agricultural share grazing and water resources. The – sectors demonstrating that profitable and communities’ resource use practices and values equitable business partnerships can be are based on reciprocity and adaptive developed with local communities. It is negotiation, while TCL’s values are based on unfortunate that TCL chose to pursue a exclusive rights and control. This clash between narrowly defined business model and a weak customary practices and contemporary western due-diligence process when it first acquired the concepts of property rights forms part of the land. continuing land debate across Africa: both have their advantages and disadvantages. Values: as discussed at the outset, it is clear that TCL and the communities hold very different

23 Village Forest Reserve in Loliondo, Ngorongoro District SECURING COMMUNITY LAND RIGHTS

The Women’s Rights Committee of Sakala Village

Securing land titles for pastoralist women

Piloting new practices and identifying the need for debate about property norms Joseph Melau & Jill Nicholson

In pastoralist societies in East Africa, women the local council. Sakala lies in between two may often suffer from discriminatory property expanding settlements of Loliondo and Wasso, relations. This can be due to historically which form the main District centre: the situated customary practices that have long government re-designated this larger area as a been inequitable, or because contemporary municipality due to the increasing rate of urban practices have undermined women’s long held and peri-urban growth. The significance for rights and entitlements. But there are efforts to Sakala Village was that this meant its land change this, and the following case study administration would be changed from a system provides insight into one such initiative. of customary rights of occupancy to one of granted rights of occupancy. This would The Story of Sakala Village effectively extinguish any customary claims to In 2010 the land rights of Sakala Village in the land that were not already documented, as Ngorongoro District were threatened when the land would now be managed under a their village was designated a municipality by municipal council, with the powers to grant

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Assembly (all members of the village 18 years of Women’s Rights Committees age and above that elect the village council). In Women’s rights committees have been created in addition, PWC also worked with the village’s 30 out of 37 villages in Ngorongoro District. They Women’s Rights Committee, which is an play a crucial role in addressing issues of informal committee comprised of twenty stopping domestic violence, improving girls’ elected women members and five men. education and achieving stronger land rights. Representatives from each women’s rights PWC worked with these institutions to build committee are nominated to attend the district awareness about the need for the village to act women’s leadership forum, which represents and together in safeguarding its land. In addition to advocates for women’s rights and interests at the bringing attention to community land rights, district level, including meeting with the men’s PWC also used the opportunity to raise customary leadership forum. awareness about improving women’s access to land. Starting at the sub-village level, PWC land. The district authorities had surveyed initiated discussions about women’s access to Sakala and were planning to delineate plots for land, particularly in the context of enabling allocation for private and public purposes as women to farm and earn a livelihood, which part of the municipality’s expansion process. contributes to their welfare and to their The local government authority had also children’s. These discussions led to a strong planned for the necessary infrastructure agreement by the village to support the improvements, which included the construction allocation of property rights to women. The of a new health centre to be built in Sakala women’s rights committee initially identified 50 village. women beneficiaries at the request of PWC; however the village council identified an While these developments were taking place, additional 72 women needing plots, for which the great majority of the members of Sakala it would pay the costs itself. With the Village were unaware of these plans. agreement of the village council, PWC wrote a Fortunately, the Pastoralist Women’s Council letter to the district council requesting that the (PWC), which happens to have its main office district cooperate with the village council to in the village, brought the significance of these help them re-delineate and survey their village developments to their attention. This began a land. After the initial survey was completed, pilot initiative spearheaded by PWC to Sakala awaited the arrival of the cadastre so safeguard the communities’ overall land rights. that individual plots could be demarcated and At the same time, PWC used the opportunity to titles issued. This second step is still in the further its programme of addressing gender process, but it has the full backing of the inequalities in relation to property rights in Regional Surveyor, and so is expected to be Maasai society, by encouraging the community completed in the near future. in Sakala to allocate land to women. Was the approach successful? How were the issues approached? Although the land titling process is still ongoing, There are three institutions at village level that the project to date has been successful in that it were key for providing the entry points for has raised a local community’s awareness about PWC to work with the village to address both the importance of taking measures to safeguard the imminent loss of their land and the their ownership of land. The pilot project opportunity for improving women’s access to provided the opportunity not only for women village land. These are the Village Council (a to be allocated land in their own right, but for democratically elected body of men and the community to support and voluntarily women), the Village Land Committee (part of contribute to this process, in recognition of its the village council), and the Village General importance for the overall well being of the 25 SECURING COMMUNITY LAND RIGHTS

community and particularly for vulnerable community to allocate land to women as part women, such as widows. It also gave the of safeguarding its overall access to land is an community the resources and confidence to inspirational example of what can be achieved. seek compensation for land that was taken for a But it does not address prevailing norms within public project, underlining the need for the local Maasai society in regards to women’s government to respect people’s land rights and property rights. Rather, it seems the Sakala compensation procedures as set out in law. example stands as a point of departure where local communities, women’s rights committees Emerging challenges and questions and customary leaders debated and found While the pilot project has met with initial consensus on how property rights can be made success, it raises several interrelated questions fairer and used to safeguard the vulnerable. No around how best to improve the equitability of doubt there will be those who will actively property relations in a way that leads to disagree with or not value the importance of sustainable outcomes. For example, while women’s property rights, while equally there women have benefited from being allocated will be others who will be strong proponents land, it is not clear whether they have full rights for equality, regardless of prevailing norms or over their land. Do they have the right to sell unintended societal impacts. or mortgage their land, regardless of whether this is desirable or not? Can they decide who is While sustained activism and leading by to inherit it? Furthermore, how can this model example are indeed important, securing change be scaled up and generate support from through consensus may be equally key. In additional communities from the area as a remote rural areas where customary laws and model for women’s land rights? PWC is practices tend to prevail over poorly currently working to address these questions in understood formal laws, fostering participatory its next phase of work. debate about property rights and encouraging the prioritisation of safeguards for the most Despite these unanswered questions, it is clear vulnerable in society, would seem to be sensible that the women who had been allocated land steps forward in building better futures for have been profoundly affected for the better. women and empowering them. Many of them have described feeling a greater sense of dignity, self-value and standing in the Lastly, the advocacy role of women’s right’s community now that they can own their own committees could grow to fufil a useful role in land. However, it is less clear how the women local communities and wider society in planned to use the land for improved benefits, encouraging consensus-led and newly emergent and this was an issue PWC had recognised and property relations and practices become more wanted to help address. Finally, the project was widely accepted. able to capitalize on carefully laid foundations and good relations with the community: grass- roots awareness-raising and building consensus at all levels within the village led to people working together and contributing to a greater outcome.

Emerging insights It is clear that this pilot project is only the first in several steps towards improving the equitability of property relations between men and women in the pastoralist communities where PWC works. The mobilization of a

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SECURING COMMUNITY LAND RIGHTS

LAND RIGHTS CASE STUDIES by Ujamaa Community Resource Team

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A community conflict resolution meeting Naan and Kisangiro villages in Sale Division, Ngorongoro District

Conflict resolution at last between the Loita and Batemi peoples?

Supporting cross-cultural community Laurence Kondei & Jamboi Baramayegu institutions to achieve and sustain peace

The conflict over natural resource useSupporting between crossaddressed-cultural by a series community of different interventions the Batemi (Sonjo) and Loita (Maasai)institutions groups in toand achieve initiatives (what?) by governmentand authorities and Sale and Loliondo Divisions insustain northern peaceother organisations, yet tensions continue to Tanzania has been going on for possibly 200 linger. years, with major clashes in the 1970s and again How were the issues approached? more recently. The Batemi, mainly agro- In 2008 UCRT began working with the pastoralists, believe that the Loita, mainly pastoralists, are immigrants from Kenya and traditional leadership of the two communities therefore have no right to occupy their (Sonjo: Wanamijie and Maasai: Ilaigwanak) in territory; but the Loita have resided in the area an effort to bring about resolution. More for decades. recently UCRT facilitated a workshop for the council of elders from the two communities to Due to increased population, climate variability discuss and reflected upon the different and the pressure of limited natural resources, methods that had been used in the past to try the conflict between the two communities has to resolve their conflict, and the successes and intensified, and feuds are long standing and failures of each. They came up with a new repetitive. Over the years, the conflict has been

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government authorities holding an official mandate to resolve village land conflicts – for example, the land adjudication courts.

Was the approach successful? Engaging with traditional leadership to spearhead the conflict resolution efforts has resulted in strengthened trust as well as a realization that the conflict was achieving little for either community. This has led to improved economic stability in the two communities, with previously closed footpaths being re-opened Oath taking was one of the strategies to end conflict and create peace and access to Wasso’s market (an important trading and livestock sales centre) and strategy for intervention - one that had not yet healthcare services possible again. Neighbours been tested – which was to form a joint council from different communities have started sharing of elders for conflict resolution. This would help resources and are farming together again, and solve and de-escalate smaller conflicts over land outbreaks of localised conflict have greatly that continued to break out, and that tended to reduced. escalate into heightened protracted violent conflict. It was agreed that in order to resolve Now, when there is a dispute between two any arising boundary or other localized conflict, villages the other villages stay out of the two representatives from each village in the dispute, and instead work together through larger area - whether Batemi or Loita - would chosen representatives to mediate its resolution. be chosen to mediate and make Previously conflicts would escalate rapidly, as recommendations for its resolution. No villages tended to side with their ethnic group; representatives would be drawn from the however, today this no longer happens. villages involved in the dispute. The appointed Boundary conflicts have been solved or nearly conflict mediators would then be much freer to solved between six villages. act fairly in their resolution of the conflict.

The joint council of elders made a commitment to solve all the issues causing the recurring conflicts and set out a number of principles which they agreed upon:

. Utilizing their standing and power bestowed on them by the communities to mediate over boundary conflicts and to provide lasting solutions; . Speaking as one voice over all issues Batemi youth on the reopened road to Wasso market affecting their communities; . Vowing to protect and utilize their natural What are the key lessons so far? resources for the benefit of future Working with traditional leaders to solve long- generations; term conflicts between the communities has . Prohibiting revenge attacks by one been instrumental for success because these community on another; leaders are very well respected by their . Building better links between customary communities. Despite the fact that some of the leadership and the various village traditional leaders have been part of the

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problem, when they came together they acted prevent any changes of understanding or a loss as a group of leaders instead of as individuals of consensus from this not occurring. with their own agendas. The government has gratefully acknowledged UCRT’s and the In addition to establishing clear boundaries, communities’ achievements, particularly since capacity building on natural resource previous interventions had failed. In fact, the management and good agricultural practices District Commissioner has recently written to needs to be carried out within the two UCRT asking them to continue with this work. communities to help them be better stewards of their limited resources. Challenges A related but altogether larger issue is the need UCRT faced a number of challenges during the to advocate for a new approach to conflict resolution process: transboundary management for pastoralists . Local political conflicts of interest in the between Kenya and Tanzania. Currently area were difficult to overcome; pastoralist communities frequently move across . There was initially a lack of commitment the international boundary as part of their long from the government to support UCRT’s established grazing and trading practices. initiative – perhaps linked to a However this movement is illegal, and is often disenchantment with a history of failed dissuaded. UCRT plans to work for a mediation attempts; transboundary agreement that allows the free . Politicians with their own motives but locally agreed movement of people and attempted to get votes from one cattle across the boundary, without risk of community by making promises to alienate prosecution. This would help communities on the other community if they came to either side of the border better manage their power; grazing resources. . A lack of funds available for the traditional leaders to work on the conflict resolution slowed progress; . The council of elders lacked statutory powers to make final decisions on boundary disputes, which meant that their recommendations had to be referred to local government for approval. (This was not entirely disadvantageous, although the involvement of local government slowed down the process); . There was a general lack of support from the local police as they had previously benefited from exploitative rent-seeking opportunities created by the recurring outbreaks of conflict; . A need to reach out to other organizations which had previously been involved in attempting resolution of the conflict, but which had since been somewhat eclipsed.

The next steps The recently resolved village boundaries need to be demarcated immediately in order to

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Celebrating the awarding of Group Certificates of Customary Rights of Occupancy Pioneering collective land titles for Hadzabe hunter-gatherers

Legally and economically securing a last Partalala Meitaya remaining domain of an ancient people

Comparison of DNA from people all over the uniquely diverse ethno-linguistic area where world indicates that the Hadzabe are one of the Bantu, Cushitic, Southern-Nilotic and the isolate original peoples, who likely lived in northern Hadzabe language groups all co-exist in the same Tanzania’s Lake Eyasi basin for 40,000 years or landscape. more. Yet despite their long history, the Prior to UCRT’s involvement, the Hadzabe and Hadzabe have gradually been displaced from other communities in the area had little their land, and have been marginalized as hunter- knowledge about their rights in terms of the law gatherers since Tanzania gained its independence. and the land, and also had few resources Within the last 50 years, the Hadzabe have lost available to carry out the complicated and long more than 90% of their land to outsiders seeking process for securing village and other land land for grazing and farming. certificates (titles) themselves. To ensure their survival, the Hadzabe must have How were the issues approached? secure rights to their land in order to protect their With initial funding from the Dorobo Fund for livelihoods. In light of these challenges, UCRT Tanzania, later augmented by Norwegian has been working to support the Hadzabe People’s Aid (NPA) and more recently supported community of the Yaeda Valley, which is a 32 SECURING COMMUNITY LAND RIGHTS

by The Nature Conservancy, UCRT started building the capacity of the Hadzabe community, as well as the other surrounding farming and pastoralist communities in the area. Trainings were held on good governance and also on the relevant policies and laws of local government, land and wildlife. UCRT also facilitated the villages to obtain village land certificates, which included their developing simple sketch maps on how people used their lands for hunter-gathering, grazing, farming and settlements. After the initial land use planning Hadzabe community welcoming the Assistant was carried out a more formal plan was Commissioner of Lands when she came to award the produced and village by-laws to compliment Hadzabe their Certificates of Customary Rights of these were written and passed. Occupancy.

How successful has the approach been? UCRT’s work with the Hadzabe has been extremely successful, culminating in obtaining the title deeds for the customary rights of occupancy for approximately 20,000 hectares of land.

As a result of securing rights to their land the future food security of the Hadzabe has improved, as now there is much greater respect by other communities towards their land, and staple food such as wild fruits, tubers, honey, meat and other resources are no longer threatened

UCRT has also worked with pastoralists in the area to secure access to and protection of their communal lands through obtaining a Group Certificate of Customary Rights of Occupancy for their grazing lands. As a consequence of the now clearly demarcated and titled land, overt A community Customary Right of Occupancy Certificate conflicts between agriculturalists and pastoralists With all the necessary requirements in place, have declined. UCRT was able to assist the Hadzabe in With the land now legally certified, an applying for Group Certificates of Customary opportunity has opened up for the Hadzabe Right of Occupancy (CCROs), which allows the community to additionally benefit from carbon community to control, manage and have the payments for conserving their woodlands in right to sell or lease the land. UCRT assisted collaboration with a carbon offset developer, with this in each of the modern villages that cut Carbon Tanzania. Great care has been taken to across the Hadzabe’s ancient domain. work closely with the local Hadzabe community to ensure their free, prior and

33 SECURING COMMUNITY LAND RIGHTS

and vulnerable minority communities living in increasingly multi-ethnic villages where land-use planning is too weak an instrument for ensuring that they are able to protect and maintain access to their customary lands.

One of the most important lessons that UCRT has learnt throughout this process is the importance of building relationships with leaders from the villages all the way up to the Old markers on trees and new metal signs protecting the district level in order to work successfully on area for the Hadzabe: a game of cat and mouse had land issues in any area. started with some opportunistic individuals from a farming community cutting down marker trees, and marking new An emerging insight trees to shift the agreed boundary. Often the best approach for securing land and informed consent. The certification process is natural resource rights for communities involves now close to completion through a rigorous a painstaking, grassroots, bottom-up process of standards system, known as Plan Vivo scheme. capacity building, legal empowerment and Community guards have been elected by the negotiation with other interests and partnership Hadzabe men from Mongo wa Mono Village looking out over their land Hadzabe community to protect their area, and building. A community-led, adaptive and they are paid out of funds made available by learning-orientated approach is critical for Carbon Tanzania that will be deducted from achieving sustained results and outcomes. In the eventual carbon payments. This has enabled Tanzania today, there is a large programme of the Hadzabe to protect their boundaries from developing Wildlife Management Areas other communities, so that when other resource (WMAs) that communities are ostensibly meant users want to use Hadzabe resources, they do to control, manage and benefit from: however so consensually and sustainably. The partnership the WMA approach is rigidly top down, between the Hadzabe and Carbon Tanzania, institutionally inflexible and often the which was facilitated by UCRT, is working organizations facilitating the WMA process have because the interests of each party are closely little understanding of or sensitivity towards aligned. Carbon Tanzania’s mission is to truly empowering local communities to manage promote community-based conservation their internal conflicts and achieve an effective through incentives generated from the carbon and equitable natural resource governance market, and the Hadzabe are seeking ways that regime. In the past these large organizations, allow them to live in their last remaining wild funded by an external donor, have arrived in lands indefinitely. area and hurriedly carried out short-term projects in a supply driven manner, frequently What are the key lessons learnt so far? without consulting other organizations that The Certificate of Customary Rights of have a long-term history of support to the Occupancy is the first of its kind to be issued in community, They then leave when their funds Tanzania for protecting community lands. have run out without an exit strategy, leaving There is exciting potential to replicate its use to behind paper institutions, and new elites in enable other vulnerable communities – such as place with little accountability to the the last remaining Akie hunter-gatherers as well community, and no perceptible improvement as pastoralist and other rural communities – to to how the larger community (not a limited protect their communal lands and natural elite) is managing and benefiting from their resources. Scaling up the use of Group CCROs resources. will be particularly important for marginalized

34 SECURING COMMUNITY LAND RIGHTS

This is now a very real prospect for the Yaeda natural resources so that the land is truly Valley where UCRT has been working with the conserved and their livelihoods enriched. Hadzabe, pastoralist and farming communities for many years now to build an equitable natural resource management regime.

The next steps Although a large tract of land has been secured for the hunter-gathering community, land security for the Hadzabe still needs to be increased by negotiating with neighbouring villages to connect their land across into other districts. This will also help to build unity and cultural identity between the scattered Hadzabe communities.

There is a great opportunity to share the experiences of empowering the hunter-gatherer and pastoralist communities in Yaeda: in order to do this UCRT would like to hold a large meeting with all three districts to share the successes of the work that has been done and to encourage other communities to do the same. Now that the land has protective boundaries more capacity building is needed for the Hadzabe communities and for their neighbours to ensure that everyone understands the area’s boundaries and the meaning of the title. UCRT will continue to support the hunter-gathering, herding and farming communities of the Yaeda Valley to improve their collective management of their

Hadzabe men from Mongo wa Mono Village looking out over their land SECURING COMMUNITY LAND RIGHTS

A customary leadership meeting of Barabaig Elders in Hanang

Land restitution for the Barabaig in Hanang Righting historical injustices and Elikarimu Gayewi expanding community solidarity

At the beginning of Tanzania’s villagization However, instead of returning the land to its process in the late 1960s, approximately previous owners, the Barabaig community, the 100,000 acres of land on the Basotu Plains in Hanang District Council gave the land to Hanang District were taken by the Government farming communities on the slopes of Mt of Tanzania from Barabaig pastoralists. This Hanang. The Barabaig refused to accept this land was allocated to the National Farming decision but they did not have the resources or Corporation for the Tanzania Canada Wheat the ability to fight their case without help. Project (TCWP) with seven farms subsequently UCRT, together with its partners2 has been able established on this land. Many local people to provide the Barabaig with this support, and were evicted and migrated to other areas in the as a result the Barabaig have been able to make country, such as Morogoro in central Tanzania. progress in their struggle to regain their land. Others were able to stay in the area on the land that remained. The wheat farms were initially How were the issues approached? supported by Canadian Government Aid, but Supported by Oxfam, UCRT started working in when funding was finally phased out in the 2005 with the Barabaig. UCRT worked with early 1990s, the farms began to collapse. five villages to address these land issues, and set At first the government looked for foreign investors to take over the farms, but when they failed, they decided to return 23,000 acres of 2 UCRT has collaborated with the Pastoralist Women’s Council and Tanzania Natural Resource Forum in developing the land back to the local communities. the Community Forums and Women’s Rights Committees. 36 SECURING COMMUNITY LAND RIG HTS

up community forums that would stand united secure grazing land for the Barabaig community as a strong representative body for these through land use plans and by laws. villages. To date 50 men and 20 women are active members of the forum. Once the Was the approach successful? community forum was established, training was Community forums, often comprised of provided by UCRT on land policies and laws, customary leaders and others, are a very to ensure that the communities were aware sustainable approach for addressing land issues. about the legal rights and options available. They allow for open discussions, build capacity The Barabaig community felt that they were and empower communities to better address not being listened to by government, and that land and natural resource issues themselves. the 23,000 acres of land they wanted returned Thus the approach used by UCRT of to them was imminently to be given to establishing a community forum enabled the agricultural communities looking for new land. Barabaig community to have the power to So six people were elected to travel to Dar es make the key decisions and take the actions Salaam to present their case to the Office of the they needed to, while UCRT remained in the President. Although the group did not manage background in a support role. to meet with the President (he was travelling), they were able to return to their communities Key lessons with a letter from the State House addressed to Through working with the Barabaig community A Barabaig warrior herding donkeys the Regional Commissioner in Babati asking him forum, UCRT learned three main lessons: to meet with the Barabaig community and 1. Community forums are a good platform for listen to their point of view. addressing major community issues and catalysing collective action. 2. Community forums are quite easily replicable and scalable in pastoralist society. In the case of the Barabaig the community forum has extended its network to include the Barabaig diaspora in Morogoro in central Tanzania, demonstrating the effectiveness of the institution. 3. New traditions grounded within the community can be initiated to help build community solidarity and identity: a large Elikarimu Gayewi facilitating a leadership forum joint community forum meeting is now held every year with Barabaig members The meeting was held and as a collective voice attending from different parts the country, the Barabaig insisted that they needed the land which demonstrates a new strength and for grazing and that it should not be given to continuity within the community. others. The land that the Barabaig communities wanted returned, and that fell within the What could have been done better? villages’ administrative boundaries, was Due to cultural norms, the community forums eventually returned to the Barabaig community. were initially heavily male dominated. This can However, the remaining land that falls outside be seen as having been a mistake, as it would the village boundaries and which was excised have been desirable to have encouraged greater before villagization has still not yet been participation by women from the outset. officially returned and re-demarcated as part of the villages. Despite this ongoing controversey, UCRT continues to work with the villages to 37 SECURING COMMUNITY LAND RIGHTS

However, over time, more women were . Further investigate Basotu Plantation, one elected into the forums in recognition of the of the remaining unreturned farms, which importance of ensuring women are active currently has no investors. Instead its 14,000 participants, also able to raise their concerns. At acres are farmed by individuals who have the outset, UCRT began working with the secured access to the land in what is thought Barabaig who were still residents in Hanang, to be an irregular manner, and so the land and did not include others who had been should be given back to the Barabaig; evicted many years ago and moved far from . Further investigate some of the other farms their homes. Arguably these families were even which are also under-utilized by investors more marginalized than those they had left and could also be returned to the Barabaig. behind in Hanang. However, more recently There are also ongoing conflicts between UCRT has managed to include some of the these investors and the Barabaig on these diaspora in its program of support for land properties. rights and community-based collective action. In conclusion The next steps The historical loss of land, together with Although UCRT’s work has been generally increasing pressure from population growth successful in helping the Barabaig reclaim their within the Barabaig community and from land, the process remains incomplete. UCRT has immigration, together with competition over identified the following tasks that they would land between pastoralists and agriculturalists all like to carry out in conjunction with the add to the ongoing land and boundary conflicts Barabaig community forum: in the area. UCRT has played an important role in enabling the Barabaig to reclaim some of . Secure and re-demarcate all the reclaimed their grazing lands. Yet despite some success, land under existing village boundaries; there remain unresolved issues and conflicts, . Finalise village land use plans and by-laws and the returned land has yet to be fully for many of the villages on the Basotu demarcated, with more land still needing to be Plains; returned. . Strengthen the advocacy skills of community leaders;

A Datoga herdsman and donkeys SECURING COMMUNITY LAND RIGHTS

An Akie woman picking berries in Napilukunya in Kiteto District

Securing land for Akie hunter-gatherers

Building local support and creating new Edward Lekaita options for protecting minority rights

The Akie is a minority group of hunter- representatives in village government, as a gatherers who live in the Maasai Steppe, in minority they would struggle to safeguard their Kiteto District, northern Tanzania. As interests against more popular interests, such as neighbouring agricultural communities have land uses for agriculture. To ensure that Akie grown, they have increasingly expanded onto can continue with their culture, traditions and land formally occupied by the Akie. Today the way of life it is essential that they have access to Akie are faced with a total loss of their land, and jurisdiction over the resources that they which threatens their culture and livelihood. need, and that they are able to protect their The Akie, now living scattered across a few land. village areas that were once their domain, have In addition to the threat to the Akie, the little rights or control over the land they pastoralists in the area are also at risk from the depend on. For example, in Napilukunya expansion of agricultural communities attracted village, they have no power to control who by the area’s fertile land and close proximity to gains access to their land or how it is used, as all the district capital of Kibaya. The incoming major decisions are made by the village agricultural communities have been encouraged government, now dominated by farmers. to move into these frontier areas by the district Unfortunately, even if the Akie had strong 39 SECURING COMMUNITY LAND RIGHTS authorities as they seek to promote the district’s When UCRT first met with its collaborating commercial and financial interests – even if it partners, it thought that the best way for the comes at the expense of existing communities in Akie to secure their rights would be through the area. securing a Group Certificate of Customary Right of Occupancy (CCRO). A Group CCRO How were the issues approached? provides a specific group or community with UCRT recognizes the importance of collective and exclusive title to a piece of land, collaboration. Therefore, it established links which they can defend in law. This is a much with two like-minded organisations already stronger way of enabling minority communities working in the area - Community Research and to secure and manage specific areas of land than Development Services (CORDS) and KINNAPA land use planning. It means that a minority (an acronym for six pastoralist villages in community can secure their place and rights Kiteto). UCRT began holding joint meetings within a larger multi-ethnic village setting. with these pastoralist land rights NGOs so they However because UCRT was joining an already could identify and agree upon the best way to existing initiative of village land titling and land work together to support the Akie. use planning for pastoralist villages throughout Kiteto District, it thought it appropriate to work The first step identified was to carry out a within this existing collaborative approach first, training with the Akie community so they could to see if a successful outcome could be achieved better understand their rights as set out in the for the Akie. national land policies and laws. The aim of this training was to build their knowledge and UCRT have worked with the Hadzabe in the confidence about their choices and rights in Yaeda Valley to successfully secure their land defending their interests under Tanzanian law. through obtaining the first ever Group CCRO in Tanzania. UCRT are keen to build on and Following the training, the Akie decided to replicate this process. They therefore would like apply for full village status. UCRT facilitated this to hold a meeting with the Akie and their process by writing a letter on behalf of the Akie partners to share experiences on the Group Community requesting its separation from the CCRO approach. Due to the large travel main village as a full village. The support of the distances and a shortage of time, UCRT has not area councillor was obtained by UCRT, and he yet managed to do this. However, UCRT are submitted a motion in the full council meeting confident that if the Akie hear about the to approve the idea of a full village for the experiences of the Hadzabe hunter-gatherers Akie. Approval for the full village for the Akie and how they came to protect their land, they has now been obtained at the ward level. might well decide to prioritize obtaining a Was the approach successful? Group CCRO instead. This is still possible, and might become a necessary and perhaps more While the Akie have yet to officially secure their desirable outcome if the Akie are denied their remaining land in perpetuity, there is strong full village status by the authorities. Pursuing a hope they will. Group CCRO would avoid, in so far as is The paperwork for their application for full possible, an outright conflict of interest between village status is complete, and the group is the Akie wanting to leave Napilukunya Village, waiting on final approval by the district council. and the village government not wanting to lose However, there are some concerns about access and control over Akie land. UCRT would whether Napilukunya Village Council and the also like to hold a workshop at district level district council will approve the Akie’s involving local government authority staff to application. win the overall support of the district

40 SECURING COMMUNITY LAND RIGHTS

A village meeting in Napilukunya Village

administration for deploying Group CCROs to establishing rights to their land and natural safeguard the land rights of Akie hunter- resources, communities receive the continued gatherers and pastoralists facing a similar support of government and surrounding challenge. communities through constituency building. In light of these needs, UCRT and its partners What are the key lessons learnt so far? would like to: One clear lesson is that it is important to build . Facilitate a workshop on Group CCROs for strong constituencies of support and the district and take key district officers to understanding for the need to safeguard the visit Yaeda as a learning experience; land, natural resource and development rights . Continue to work with the Akie of marginalized people – and this is particularly community to make a final and informed true for the two remaining hunter-gatherer decision about whether to continue to societies in Tanzania. UCRT’s experience from apply for full village status or instead apply working to strengthen the Hadzabe’s rights has for a Group CCRO; demonstrated that it is possible to persuade . Build the Akie’s capacity enabling them to previously unsupportive interests to cooperate elect their own committee to protect their and to become part of a solution. Additionally, land; when working as part of a coalition, it is . Once their land is protected, facilitate land important not to overlook the need to clarify use planning with the Akie. partner roles and responsibilities, through developing straight-forward Memorandums of Understanding (MOUs).

Finally working with politicians needs a degree of patience and a certain level of flexibility – even when they are considered to be firm supporters!

The next steps…. Securing rights for marginalized communities is often a more complex and long drawn out process than may be initially anticipated. For example, it is important to ensure that in 41 SECURING COMMUNITY LAND RIGHTS

Making a well received point at a Women’s Leadership Forum meeting

Initiating Women’s Leadership Forums in Maasai communities Enhancing the rights and roles of Eddah Saileni, Fred women to safeguard society and family Loure & Paine Makko Maasai culture is strongly patriarchal, with According to Maasai culture, women are not women often left marginalised, with little or no allowed to inherit property, and may stand to voice in decision making processes. The Ujamaa lose land and livestock if their husband dies and Community Resource Team (UCRT), which is they don’t have any male children. mostly comprised of pastoralist staff, recognises Girls are often not sent to school because when that women and men are equal and that the girls typically get married, they move to their historical, patriarchal traditions need to change. husband’s home and village, which is why In many rural pastoralist communities, women families often prioritize investing in their son’s are not involved in any of the decision making education. processes, from the family to the village In addition, the inequality between men and government level. Although national law women leads to other problems such as the sale stipulates that women must participate in of land without the consultation of women. As village government, in many cases they are not a result, land that once provided access to represented at all and if they are present, their active involvement is weak. 42 SECURING COMMUNITY LAND RIGHTS

important natural resources, such as firewood Districts. PWC has shared their experiences with and water, has been sold and lost. These UCRT and has collaborated to solve issues with natural resources are particularly important for UCRT as they arise. Through this collaboration, Maasai women as farming, cooking and house the impact of the forums on women has grown construction continue to be primarily their task and continues to flourish. in the home. In addition, the sale of land has Starting up WLFs in Simanjiro and Kiteto often undermined the livestock economy, as Districts key grazing lands are lost and converted to other uses. A team of five UCRT staff, consisting of field Maasai girls who are educated often choose not officers and the gender officer have started to to return to their societies, preferring to marry work with six villages in Simanjiro District and into other ethnic groups where they have a with four villages in Kiteto District. more equal partnership. Unless there is change, The field team initially presents the concept of there is a threat that the Maasai family structure the WLF to the village government and once will break down as Maasai women search for a they agree to the idea, including the practice life and a culture where they are better that the WLF should be present as observers at recognized and where they have the same rights all village meetings, an agreement is signed as their male counterparts. between the village leaders and UCRT. The Over the years of working in pastoralist women in the village government are then communities, UCRT has recognised the threat asked to call a general meeting for the women that certain Maasai traditions pose for modern from all the sub-villages. life, not least in relation to the vulnerability of Maasai girls and women. Therefore, UCRT An introductory training is given by the field decided to take steps to address these team about the overall purpose of the WLF challenges. initiative, and at the end of the training the women in the community are asked whether or Initiating Women’s Leadership Forums not they are would like to participate in the The idea of the Women’s Leadership Forums initiative. If they agree to the process, then they (WLFs) was developed as a means for including are asked to select 24 representatives, divided women in the decision-making processes of equally between their sub-villages, who will Maasai communities. Each WLF has come to be then comprise the WLF. recognised by their village government as a The 24 elected women are trained for two days means for giving women a voice with which to on land laws, categories of land, land raise their issues and perspectives. administration at village level, land dispute UCRT and the Pastoralist Women’s Council resolution and their general rights as women. (PWC) have both initiated a system of Inheritance and marriage laws and the new Women’s Leadership Forums in several Maasai constitution currently being drafted for communities in Northern Tanzania. UCRT has Tanzania are also discussed in the training. At worked to start the forums in Simanjiro and the end of the training, an hour is given to an Kiteto Districts, while it has collaborated with open discussion on all the women’s problems, PWC in Loliondo Division, where they are from traditional problems to village known as Women’s Rights Committees. In government issues and the group tries to find Loliondo, PWC has made substantial progress in solutions to them. developing these committees, raising women’s awareness about their rights. PWC’s progress Results has provided a good example for UCRT in its In the initial stages of the project in Simanjiro expansion of the WLFs in Simanjiro and Kiteto and Kiteto, there have been very positive

43 SECURING COMMUNITY LAND RIGHTS

responses from participating women who several of its constituent villages have not yet welcome the WLF as a way to give them a begun WLFs. More funding is required to voice within their communities. The project has include all villages and wards, so that the enabled UCRT to reach out to a large number Women’s Leadership Forums can form a of pastoralist women, and empower them to representative body at district level. recognise their rights in relation to land and politics. In addition to this, in one village there may now be several different ethnic groups with Women are very happy to have an official different traditions and customs. However, the platform that is recognised by the village project is designed for pastoralists – in this case, government where they can express their views, Maasai woman. Focusing on the Maasai and address their issues. women only can be perceived as being discriminatory, and yet at this point it would be too difficult to include all the other traditions Village from Simanjiro No of participants in introductory meeting and issues from other groups. This led UCRT to Kimotorok 123 agree with the WLFs that for now they would focus on largely pastoralist-related issues, but Narakawo 100 that all women would be welcomed to all Kitiangare 55 meetings. Sukuro 37 At the ward level (a group of villages within an area make up a ward), 24 women are again LoiborSiret 93 selected, equally from the villages, to make up Terrat 78 the Ward WLF. Another two days of training is provided by UCRT at a more in-depth level, Total 486 including teaching women how to address their issues and where to bring them beyond the Some discriminating Maasai traditions against village government level if they are not being women, identified in WLF discussions. addressed satisfactorily.  Women are not allowed to go for a medical check-up without their husband being present, even if they are Another challenge is that for women to actually seriously sick. attend the meetings they must first obtain  Men are mainly responsible for insisting that girls get permission from the men. In Sukuro Village, married rather than attending school. two women were told not to attend a WLF  A married woman with only female children has no meeting because the men believed UCRT was inheritance if her husband dies. She is given one cow and one donkey and sent back to her parents. acting against male interests.  Compensation for the killing of a man is 49 head of However, the women were confident that they cattle given to the family, whereas only 9 head of cattle are given for killing a woman which are given could solve this problem with time. This to the traditional leaders. precedent has also caused UCRT to think how  Men carry out all land transactions without the in the future it can reduce suspicion about WLFs consultation of the women. and build greater support among the men folk for women’s collective action. The meetings Challenges with women are such a new concept for many - including men -that many of the women are The main challenge with the WLF is that the afraid to talk in public and especially in front of project only covers a limited number of village leaders. The UCRT Gender Officer, as a scattered villages and so it is not possible to Maasai woman, scale the initiative up beyond the ward level, to the district level. Even within each ward often

44 SECURING COMMUNITY LAND RIGHTS

Kimotorok Women’s Leadership Forum

managed to convince many of the women families, instead of leaving women little choice participants to talk freely by sharing her own other than to join a different culture to secure experience– that she is an educated woman better rights as a woman. who still strongly holds Maasai values. Many of the groups wanted to involve their customary However, UCRT has been encouraged by the leaders, particularly in the land policy and law fact that the women seem to have embraced trainings. In response to this, UCRT invited the the initiative, and have even gone a step further customary men leaders of Makame Village to in some villages using the WLF as a way to save the trainings, but was careful to ensure that the and share funds between themselves to help in women still had their own space and time to times of trouble as well as to use their WLFs as debate issues separate from the men. a means of sourcing new funds for small business opportunities. What are the key lessons learnt so far? But some serious questions remaining for UCRT In starting up these initial WLFs in Simanjiro and are: can WLFs be further scaled up, and will the Kiteto, UCRT has learned that more villages WLFs be a success and strengthen the role of need to be included in the process to make it women in pastoralist society? functional from the village up to the district level. Finally, a sustainable monitoring method for the initiative needs to be developed so that UCRT also learned that men should be invited women feel they are achieving their goals and to join the trainings, to dispel any fears that the can track the results of their efforts. meetings are secret or conspiratory in any way. The reaction of the men, who stated that UCRT‘s trainings would destroy their family structure, surprised UCRT’s field officers. In reality the purpose of the project is to empower women within their own Maasai society as part of enhancing their roles and rights in their

45 Selected additional reading

Anseeuw, W., Wily, L.A., Cotula, L. & Taylor, M. 2011. Land Rights and the Rush for Land: Findings of the Global Commercial Pressures on Land Research Project. International Land Coalition. http://www.landcoalition.org/cpl/CPL-synthesis-report

Cotula, L. & Mathieu, P. 2008. Legal empowerment in practice. Using legal tools to secure land rights in Africa. London: International Institute for Environment and Development. http://pubs.iied.org/12552IIED.html

Cotula, L. & Leonard, R. 2008. Alternatives to land acquisitions: Agricultural investment and collaborative business models. London: International Institute for Environment and Development. http://pubs.iied.org/12567IIED.html

Nelson, F., Sulle, E., & Lekaita, E. 2012. Land Grabbing and Political Transformation in Tanzania. Paper presented at the International Conference on Global Land Grabbing II, Ithaca. http://www.maliasili.org/library/books-papers/

Scalise, E. 2012. Indigenous women’s land rights: case studies from Africa. In: Walker, B. Ed. State of the World’s Minorities and Indigenous Peoples 2012: Events of 2011. London: Minority Rights Group International. http://www.minorityrights.org/11374/state-of-the-worlds-minorities/state-of-the-worlds- minorities-and-indigenous-peoples-2012.html

Shivji, I. 1998. Not Yet Democracy: Reforming land tenure in Tanzania. London: International Institute for Environment and Development. http://pubs.iied.org/7383IIED.html

Wily, L.A. 2003. Community-based land tenure: Questions and answers about Tanzania’s new Village Land Act, 1999. Issue Paper No. 120. London: International Institute for Environment and Development. http://pubs.iied.org/9295IIED.html

Wily, L.A. 2012. Why we must accelerate the security of commons tenure: Opinion piece. International Land Coalition & Rights and Resources Institute: Rome & Washington DC.

46

Ujamaa Community Resource The Pastoral Women's Council of Team works to empower Tanzania was founded to conceive marginalized people in the and implement long-term structural rangelands of northern solutions for ending the poverty and Tanzania to secure rights to marginalisation of pastoralist and their land in order to improve agro-pastoralist women and children. their livelihoods and ability to conserve their natural PWC is women-led and encourages women to openly resources. UCRT aims to promote more resilient, egalitarian discuss the positive and negative aspects of their culture, to and sustainable communities that are responsible for their act on their findings, and to mobilise local efforts and own development, and better able to benefit from and resources. PWC achieves this through improving access to steward their environment for future generations. UCRT health and education, providing economic empowerment also works with these communities to expand their ability to opportunities and building rights and leadership skills for ensure that national policy and legal processes underpin girls and women. Land and property rights are an important their rights and development needs. part of PWC’s work.

Ujamaa Community Resource Team, Pastoralist Women’s Council, P.O. Box 15111, Arusha. Tanzania P.O. Box 72, Loliondo. Tanzania Website: www.ujamaa-crt.org Website: www.pastoralwomenscouncil.org Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected]

Maliasili Initiatives builds the skills and strengthens the capacity of local partner organizations in East Africa that are leaders in community based natural resource management. We connect our partners to a global network of collaborators and support, and facilitate and strengthen cutting-edge initiatives that seek to advance conservation, rural development and social justice issues in Africa.