25 November 2016: With an estimated 500 million pastoralists moving in search of pasture and water on an area equivalent to one-third of the Earth’s surface, it is becoming increasingly difficult to safeguard their complex land tenure needs in the face of increased pressure on land and the transformation of traditional pastoralist lifestyles. A technical guide published by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO), titled, ‘Improving governance of pastoral lands,’ discusses how to establish viable tenure arrangements for this often-marginalized group.

It is part of a series of publications offering insights on how to implement the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security (VGGT, or The Voluntary Guidelines).

The technical guide builds on a number of initiatives and studies addressing pastoral governance and land tenure, with a focus on issues such as the inherent challenges pastoralists face, the shortcomings of governments in securing pastoral tenure, and the emerging examples of success and progress from around the world. It aims to offer solutions to securing pastoral governance and tenure within a rapidly changing global context, while recognizing the complexity of pastoral tenure arrangements and the great diversity of pastoral societies worldwide.

The publication notes that with highly adaptable livelihood strategies that are often at odds with classical notions of property rights, pastoralist livelihoods are often poorly understood by policy makers and development practitioners.

The publication notes that with highly adaptable livelihood strategies that are often at odds with classical notions of property rights, pastoralist livelihoods are often poorly understood by policy makers and development practitioners. One of the main objectives of the guide, which is published with the support of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the Commission on Environmental Law and the Commission on Environment, Economic and Social Policy, is to explain the rationale behind pastoralist livelihood systems and their contribution to the sustainable management of rangeland areas, many of which are arid or semi-arid.

Explaining the evolution of pastoralist land tenure systems, Jonathan Davies, coordinator of IUCN’s Drylands Programme and lead author of the Technical Guide, notes that pastoralism is based on large-scale, carefully planned movements of livestock, which demands high levels of coordination between multiple users. “This has led to the emergence of customs and institutions that enable decisions to be effectively made and enforced by local communities,” he states.

Pastoralists’ land management practices include critical functions such as soil fertilization, wider seed dispersal, improved groundwater infiltration, landscape maintenance and compatibility with local wildlife. The publication notes that such practices are estimated to be two to ten times more productive per unit area and resilient over a longer period than some of the alternative land uses such as crop farming and mining that have been proposed to replace them.

Using diverse case studies, the technical guide outlines how to reconcile such customary systems with formal, statutory regimes without losing the intrinsic flexibility that pastoralism requires. The case studies include both successful examples of policy interventions that have led to legal recognition of pastoralists’ customary rights, as well as “policy failures” and other drivers that have contributed to the degradation of rangelands and threaten pastoralist livelihoods. It notes that in addition to the often cited problem of overgrazing, “undergrazing,” for example due to blocking of pastoralist routes, or abandonment of an area following conflict, also poses a threat to the sustainability of rangelands, and can sometimes be harder to reverse as it opens the way for encroachment by thorny shrubs.

The guide notes that overgrazing is often a symptom of flawed governance, such as is the case of absentee herd owners in North Africa who require that animals remain near market centers where they can be quickly traded, leading to underutilization of distant rangelands and widespread degradation of those closer to points of sale. It also highlights how challenges linked to border conflicts undermine pastoralists’ risk-management strategies, as is the case of Borana pastoralists in Kenya and Ethiopia, who used to give surplus animals to distant relatives in either of the countries on the understanding that, in times of need they could count on a credit to rebuild their stocks.

The technical guide is designed for a variety of users who recognize the importance of securing pastoral land tenure and who are looking for practical guidance on how to proceed. According to the authors, the guide is not meant as an advocacy document, but instead provides arguments for securing pastoral tenure that can be used by different actors to strengthen their justification for such work.

The VGGT make explicit mention of pastoralists, as end users of the guidelines and as targets of capacity building. Under “Rights and responsibilities related to tenure” (paragraph 4.8), the Guidelines note that “states should respect and protect the civil and political rights of […] pastoralists […] and should observe their human rights obligations when dealing with individuals and associations acting in defense of land, fisheries and forests.” The authors of the technical guide note that while it aims to provide practical advice that can be operationalized, further work is needed to translate the current document into more local user-friendly products for pastoral communities.

The VGGT, commonly referred to as the Voluntary Guidelines, were adopted by the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) on 11 May 2012. The technical guide on ‘Improving the governance of pastoral lands’ complements other technical guides produced under the auspices of the VGGT, including ‘Governing tenure rights to commons,’ ‘Governing land for women and men,’ ‘Improving governance of forest tenure,’ ‘Responsible governance of tenure and the law,’ and ‘Respecting free, prior and informed consent.’ [FAO Press Release] [Improving governance of pastoral lands] [The Voluntary Guidelines]