Nomadic custodians: securing land-use rights

As part of the Global Call to Action in Indigenous and Community Land Rights, the International Land Coalition (ILC) brought out the 16-pp colourful brochure “Nomadic custodians: a case for securing pastoralist land rights” (2016, 16pp).

This focuses on the need to secure land rights for the world’s pastoralists, who use land under community-based governance systems, often based on longstanding traditions defining, distributing and regulating rights to land. Pastoralists rarely have secure rights to land and other natural resources because of political marginalisation and the inadequacy of existing land and resource governance systems that do not take the complexities of pastoral land use into account.

Climate change is likely to cause increased variability and stress on natural resources, but pastoralists have developed resource-management practices to adapt to variability and stress on natural resources. In the context of climate change, pastoralists can therefore be effective resource managers. Securing pastoralist land rights can enhance this capacity. Many local and national initiatives are now supporting pastoralist development to effectively mitigate, adapt to and build pastoralist resilience to the impacts of climate change.

The brochure includes several brief case studies, including from Tanzania (Kiteto District) and Ethiopia (Afar).

Posted on 8 July 2017 in Pastoralism & Natural Resources, Pastoralism, Policy & Power