This paper looks at how recent economic and legal changes have affected pasture management and property rights in Tajikistan. Firstly, current trends in livestock numbers and mobility are compared with those of the Soviet period. Secondly, the impact of current land legislation is investigated using 2007 field data from two sites in the Gorno-Badakhshan region of the country. We describe the extent to which pasture at these sites is under private, community or state control and discuss the implications for sustainable management of this resource.

This paper examines the roles of the state, international organisations and the public in pastoral land reform in the Central Asian republics and Mongolia. In recent years new legislation has been passed in most of these countries, often driven by environmental concerns. In the development of these laws, international organisations tend to promote common property regimes, whilst governments usually emphasise individual security of tenure, each using environmental arguments taken from quite different bodies of theory.

As the “new rangeland paradigm” took shape in the 1990s, climatic variability in pastoral ecosystems was often discussed as “uncertainty”, and the essential mobility of pastoral systems was argued to be possible only with flexible land access rights. These context-specific principles have increasingly been globalized in analyses of diverse pastoral systems.

A study was conducted with the goal of describing the current frame conditions of pasture use in Georgia and identifying the bottlenecks and obstacles that restrict the productivity of Georgian pastures and limit the income generated by Georgian farmers from pasture related agricultural activities. Whenever possible, findings were elaborated into concrete proposals for action, addressing the legislator, donors, or project implementers.

Title: The economics of pasture management in Georgia: An economics of land degradation study

Title: The economics of pasture management in Georgia: An economics of land degradation study

Semi-nomadic yak herders of Bhutan depend on high altitude rangelands and yaks for their livelihoods. Conflicts over high altitude rangelands among herders can lead to sub-optimal management with negative impacts on the environment, livelihoods and socio-economic well-being of semi-nomadic yak herders.

Given its seemingly beneficial aspects to socioeconomic development and environmental well-being, the legislative reforms initiated under the Land Act of Bhutan, 2007 have raised so much consternation as well as hope in the minds of the Bhutanese people who either depend on livestock husbandry or leasing out such rights to others with livestock and compensated with payment in cash or kind in the form of livestock products.

Property rights and management regimes for high-elevation rangelands in Bhutan have evolved over centuries in response to environmental, cultural, and political imperatives. The 2007 Land Act of Bhutan aims to redress historical inequities in property rights by redistributing grazing leases to local livestock owners in a process known as rangeland nationalization.

Land in Ethiopia is held by the state, who acts as a custodian for the Ethiopian people. Even though it is the state which controls land ownership, farmers and pastoralists are guaranteed a lifetime ‘holding’ right that provides rights to use the land, rent it out, donate, inherit and sharecrop it. Everything except sell and mortgage it. On paper and under existing formal laws, women have equal rights to men as far as use and control of and access to land is concerned.

On a global scale, Sudan perhaps ranks first in terms of pastoralists population size. About
66 per cent of Sudan is arid land, which is mainly pastoralists’ habitat. Pastoralism in the
Sudan involves about 20 per cent of the population and accounts for almost 40 per cent of
livestock wealth [Markakis, 1998: 41]. The livestock sector plays an important role in the
economy of the Sudan, accounting for about 20 percent of the GDP, meeting the domestic
demand for meat and about 70 percent of national milk requirements and contributing about

On a global scale, Sudan perhaps ranks first in terms of pastoralists population size. About
66 per cent of Sudan is arid land, which is mainly pastoralists’ habitat. Pastoralism in the
Sudan involves about 20 per cent of the population and accounts for almost 40 per cent of
livestock wealth [Markakis, 1998: 41]. The livestock sector plays an important role in the
economy of the Sudan, accounting for about 20 percent of the GDP, meeting the domestic
demand for meat and about 70 percent of national milk requirements and contributing about