The production of contested landscapes: Enclosing the pastoral commons in Niger

Abstract

a b s t r a c tDivergent adaptation to climate variability produces unequal adaptive capacities between user groups and contributes to a contested landscape. This article examines divergent adaptations in the context of land tenure shifts in the pastoral zone of Niger. The management of the pastoral commons is shifting from a commonly-shared to private regime as former pastoralists take up new livelihoods, such as irrigated gardening. A method combining political ecology and remote sensing is used to study social ecological system (SES) dynamics in order to demonstrate the relationship between divergent adaptation, water-based conflict, land tenure shifts and land use/land cover change. Examining pastoral and agro-pastoral users' historical perceptions of land use and tenure change, results indicate that disputes over the access to and use of commonly shared natural resources are linked to increasing enclosures of ephemeral and permanent lakes in the pastoral zone of Niger. Remote sensing-derived information is used to identify and quantify the area and volume of enclosures around commonly shared water sources in the northern pastoral zone of Niger from 2003 to 2013. The study identifies the government-supported development of irrigated gardens in the pastoral zone as a divergent adaptation with its related conflict dynamics between user groups and highlights the land tenure shifts from a commonly to a privately managed regime. The findings have broader implications for the wider Sahel and provide recommendations as to how adaptation programs could be better designed and implemented in the pastoral system.

An Assessment of Surface Water Detection Methods for Water Resource Management in the Nigerien Sahel

“…Vegetation also varies on this north-to-south axis, with small scale cultivation in the south and dry steppe in the north. The Tahoua Region on Niger is an important area for migrating pastoralists [1,2,4] who rely on dispersed water bodies for hydration throughout their journey.…”

“…In the Sahel, a semi-arid region spanning across northern sub-Saharan Africa, pastoralists and smallholder farmers rely heavily on rain-fed ponds and lakes for hydrating their cattle and irrigating small fields [1,2]. Many surface water bodies in the region are ephemeral and heavily dependent on precipitation, reaching capacity during the rainy season, which spans from May to October, and disappearing completely during the dry season [1][2][3]. In response to severe droughts in the 1970s and 1980s, the Nigerien government has implemented laws, regulations, and policies that dictate the interactions of pastoralists and smallholder farmers with surface water resources [4].…”

Local Institutions, Collective Action, and Divergent Adaptation: Case from Agro-Pastoral Niger

“…However, in other cases, adaptation devolves into maladaptation (Barnett and O'Neill 2010;Magnan et al 2016) and/or divergent adaptation (Snorek et al 2014a). Divergent adaptation is the process by which one group's adaptation to climate hazards reduces another's adaptive capacity and may result in coupled conflict-cooperation dynamics or exacerbate inequities (Hoque et al 2018;Sovacool et al 2015;Snorek et al 2017;Sovacool 2018). Building adaptive capacity for all and avoiding divergent adaptation are related to institutions, which have been shown to have a direct influence on adaptive capacity (Olsson and Folke 2004;Adger et al 2006;Hill 2013;Gupta et al 2010;Berman and Paavola 2012).…”

“…Adaptive capacity is dependent upon the inherent and prescribed elements that make up institutions, including those that empower social actors to respond to shortand long-term impacts either through planned measures or through allowing and encouraging creative responses from society both ex ante and ex post a hazard event (Gupta et al 2010). By enabling or denying a user or groups' ability to obtain entitlements, access resources, and garner information necessary to their adaptive capacity, institutions, thus, create the conditions for or frame divergent adaptation (Snorek et al 2017;Adger and Kelly 1999;Berman and Paavola 2012). While some paradigms for adaptation and disaster risk management are dominated by top-down hierarchical approaches (Allen et al 2010), the institutions that empower stakeholders to participate and make decisions to support adaptation demonstrate bottomup, equitable, and democratic processes (Cleaver 2002;Olsson and Folke 2004;Ostrom 1999;Engle and Lemos 2010;Eriksen et al 2011).…”

“…Understanding how institutions foster cooperation through divergent adaptations has implications for the development of institutions (Gupta et al 2010;Adger 2001;Ostrom 2005). In light of increasing human insecurities and the prevalence of divergent adaptation (Snorek et al 2014(Snorek et al , 2017, it has become critical to understand how institutions are shaping adaptive capacity, for whom (Adger et al 2014;Magnan et al 2016;Eriksen et al 2011;Ruiz-Mallén et al 2015), and with what consequences (Snorek et al 2014a(Snorek et al , 2017.…”