This article summaries an assessment of three community wildlife sancturaries in the Naibunga Conservancy in Laikipia - Koija, Tiemamut and Kijabe group ranches, with the objective of determining the reasons for the establishment of the CWSs, the role of partners and the perception of partners to the partnerships. It was found that communities in Kijabe and Koija were not contented with their partners and that they did not trust their partners. Further, despite previous research findings enumerating weaknesses in the sanctuaries, the same problems were identified in this study.

Significant progress has been made over the past decade or so in the development of policy and legislation that support the recognition of customary rights to land, with important legal rulings in Tanzania, Uganda, Mozambique, South Sudan, and South Africa. At the same time, the strengthening of communities’ traditional rights to use resources has progressed through community forest reserves and community conservation areas.

Forests and pastoralism are in a state of crisis in the Borana lowlands in southern Ethiopia. State management has failed to control forest exploitation and past and present development interventions continue to undermine pastoral production systems. In this paper the authors aim to show how a fundamental misunderstanding of pastoral land management, and in particular pastoral tenure systems, has undermined traditional institutions and the environment for which they were once responsible.

This study looks at the impact of subdivision and sedentarization of pastoral lands on wildlife numbers and production in a savanna ecosystem of southern Kenya. The study uses aerial counts over a period of 33 years to compare changes in wildlife populations on two adjacent and ecologically similar Maasai group ranches. During the period under study, one group ranch was subdivided and settled. The other remained communally owned under shifting seasonal use.

Short article discussing challenges and solutions to Simanjro Conservation Easement in northern Tanzania.

The Simanjiro plains provide a key wet season dispersal area for wildebeest and zebra migrating from northern Tanzania’s Tarangire National Park. The plains lie within the boundaries of

This Project Information Note (PIN) outlines an initial application to the Plan Vivo Foundation for working with select pastoralist and hunter-gatherer communities in Mongo wa Mono village, Mbulu District, Northern Tanzania (34°30’/03°30’S).

This paper presents several case studies to show how the Ujamaa Community Resource Team (UCRT) has been working within Tanzania’s legal and policy framework to support a diverse range of pastoralists, agro-pastoralists and hunter-gatherers, all of whom face
fundamental threats from external appropriation of, or encroachment on, lands and natural resources. The work also responds to local needs to rationalise resource use rights amongst competing local groups, such as farmers and livestock keepers. By using participatory

In Laikipia the key dynamics centre on absentee land, much of this being land that was divvied out to Kikuyu by Kenyatta after independence. Much of this land (particularly north of the 600mm rainfall band) is not viable for cultivation. However, it was used by the Kikuyu title-holders as collateral to acquire loans with the Agricultural Development Corporation and others. Maasai, Samburu and Pokot herders have been grazing this land since the 1970s.

The research begins by describing the land access and tenure context in Laikipia, Kenya. The paper also incudes:
•• Pastoralism researchers analyse coping innovations during
the 2009 drought that pushed Maasai herders to Mount Kenya.
•• Despite previous brittle social relations, agreements between
ranchers and farmers permitted limited grazing of cattle and sheep inside commercial ranches on a controlled basis

IUCN’s work in Garba Tula (GT) through this project has now been underway for almost two years, and to date a number of activities have been implemented in the area. This has included: sensitization and awareness raising of local community members; providing support to help strengthen the operations of the Resource Advocacy Programme (RAP – a local NGO working in the Garba Tula area); and supporting work carried out by RAP members to document traditional institutions and strategies for governing natural resources in the Garba Tula area.

 In Kenya, the pastoral Maasai’s districts have been the vanguard in rangeland tenure transitions and experimentation as pastoralists’ territory gave way to communal group ranches and to individual land holdings under diverse land-use activities. The tenure transformations have been accompanied by institutional and socio-economic changes that have had bearings on local communities’ capacities for collective action, pastoral livelihoods, and environmental sustainability.