Rangeland governance in an open system: Protecting transhumance corridors in the Far North Province of Cameroon

Abstract

The mobile pastoral system in the far north region of Cameroon is an excellent example of the paradox of pastoral land tenure, in that pastoralists need secure access to pasture and water, but also flexibility in resource use, i.e. the ability to move elsewhere because of spatio-temporal variation in resource availability. In this paper, we draw from our collective research and development experience with mobile pastoralists and discuss how non-governmental organisations have used ordinances and bureaucratic procedures to protect pastoral resources, in particular transhumance corridors that connect seasonal grazing lands in the far north region. We argue that the mobile pastoral system is best understood as an open system and explain what the implications are for the protection of pastoral resources. We argue that delimiting and protecting transhumance corridors is not the panacea, and we conclude with a discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of this approach.

Ideal Free Distributions of Mobile Pastoralists in Multiple Seasonal Grazing Areas

“…Rangeland governance should be integrated at local, regional, national, and international scales. The Lake Chad Basin Committee (LCBC), for example, governs and supports livestock mobility at national and international levels within the Chad Basin (Moritz et al 2013a). The challenge will be to find the right balance to solve the ''paradox of pastoral land tenure' ' (Ferná ndez-Giménez 2002), which is that pastoralists need secure access to pasture and water, but also flexibility in resource use, i.e., the ability to move elsewhere because of spatiotemporal variation in resource availability (Niamir-Fuller 1999;Turner 1999).…”

Misreading a pastoral property regime in the Logone floodplain, Cameroon

“…AN OPEN PROPERTY REGIME I next describe the open property regime of pastoralists in the floodplain as I have come to understand it, drawing on a number of my previous publications (Moritz et al 2013a,b, 2014a,b, Moritz 2016. Given the extensive research of social and ecological systems, I would argue that this description is a more accurate description of the current state of pastoralists' management of common-pool grazing resources in the Logone floodplain than that presented by Haller et al (2013).…”

“…Fourth, we showed that economic inequality did not undermine the system of open access (Moritz et al 2015b). Fifth, we discussed the implications of our findings for the governance of rangelands (Moritz et al 2013a (Gulliver 1951), and the Pashtun in western Afghanistan (Glatzer 1977). Thus, the case of pastoralists' management of open access to common-pool grazing resources in the Logone floodplain is not unique.…”

“…My colleagues and I have studied the pastoral system in that floodplain for the last 20 years. Whereas we initially developed an argument of nomadic contract (Moritz et al 2002), we further developed our ideas and showed that pastoralists are efficiently, equitably, and sustainably managing common-pool grazing resources in a situation of open access (Moritz et al 2013a(Moritz et al ,b, 2014a.…”

Mobility and Sustainability: A Computational Model of African Pastoralists

“…Although various 'levers' for affecting the model's dynamics are conceivable, an obvious option is to find a proper institutional setting that induces agent interactions toward a more desirable direction. In the context of African pastoralism, institutional matters have most often been discussed with regard to land ownership and land use in ASALs (Lane & Moorehead, 1994;Moritz et al, 2013;Musembi & Kameri-Mbote, 2013;Niamir-Fuller, 1999). As the first step toward a more comprehensive treatment of this subject, some of the standard (and often controversial) rangeland interventions are examined in the simulated drylands.…”