




































In ternationa l
Scholars
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African Journal of Agricultural Marketing ISSN 2375-1061 Vol. 5 (9), pp. 001-012, September, 2017. Available online 
at www.internationalscholarsjournals.org © International Scholars Journals 

 

Author(s)                                           Author(s) retain the copyright of this article. 
 
 

 

Full Length Research Paper 

 

Dismantling of common property, land use and 
pastoral livelihoods in eastern Ethiopia 

 
Fekadu Beyene 

 
College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences, Haramaya University, P. O. Box 161, Haramaya, Ethiopia. 

E-mail: keneefbk@gmail.com. Tel: +251255530314. Fax: +251255530325. 
 

Accepted 05 May, 2016 
 
This paper examines the emerging challenges to common property resource management in pastoral areas of 
Ethiopia and a shift in livelihood strategies. Using the institutional analysis and development framework and 
data from three administrative districts in eastern Ethiopia, results show that traditional management of the 
rangeland that permits efficient allocation of resources is no longer practiced due to demographic shift and 
rainfall variability that undermine the regeneration capacity of grazing resources. Institutions governing 
communal grazing do not impose duties on members, but simply exclude outsiders who do not belong to a clan. 
Instead, the allocation of communal land for private use and the expansion of private cisterns as livestock 
watering points have caused increased shrinkage of communal land. Such a shift in land use has altered 
pastoral livelihoods where many were engaged in commercialization of livestock production, contractual 
grazing, better integrated into the formal markets had increased access to new technologies. An important 
lesson from this study, is that the interaction of endogenous and exogenous factors have contributed to the 
dismantling of common property and created a gradual shift in livelihoods that put a threat to the survival of the 
grazing commons. Internal sources of change are also important, contrary to the claim in the literature that state 
policies are the dominant ones. 

 
Key words: Pastoral commons, land use, property rights, livelihoods. 

 
INTRODUCTION 

 
Assertions embedded in the environmental damage by 
pastoralists, have paved the way for „hegemonic‟ 
development constituting irrelevant policy interventions 
and practices (Sullivan and Homewood, 2003). 
Rehabilitation, which has been based on ecological 
assumptions of damage potentials of livestock grazing, 
the threats of degradation and desertification and the 
need for control of livestock numbers and grazing 
movement, has been one of those interventions common 
in East Africa (Anderson, 1999). Nevertheless, range 
susceptibility to degradation occurs when formerly mobile 
pastoral households become sedentary and overuse the 
resources (Hary et al., 1996). This implies that land use 
policy should not focus on manipulation of stock size, but 
rather on optimal distribution of animals in space and 
time. In practice, pastoralists‟ resource overuse potential 
is conditioned by other inputs – such as water and labor – 
and one cannot presume linear link between increases in 
herd size and pasture condition (Ensminger and Rutten, 

 
 
 

 
1991). While evaluating retrospectively, the state policy in 
pre-existing historical period of Ethiopia has greatly 
influenced development in pastoral areas because land 
not entitled in the name of any individual during this 
period remained under state control, giving right to the 
state to appropriate the grazing land to cultivators (Gebre, 
2001).  

Historically, the constitutional and legal recognition of 
pastoral land in the 1950s and 1960s have marginalized 
pastoralists (Abdulahi, 2003). For instance, the 1955 
constitution and related land policy indicates that all 
grazing lands had to be recognized as government 
property, the consequence of which involved state action 
in allocating pastoral land to highlanders who would like 
to invest in the rangelands. Political change in 1974 
towards the socialist regime has introduced a land reform 
that has equally recognized the right of pastoralists at 
constitution level. For instance, it states „nomadic peoples 
shall have the necessary rights over the land they 

file:///C:\Users\user\Documents\REPUBLICATION\AGRICULTURAL%20SCIENCES\AppData\Local\Temp\www.internationalscholarsjournals.org


 
 
 

 

customarily use for grazing or any other agricultural 
purpose‟. This ensured all kinds of rights other than 
alienation, as this was the political period when land 
ownership rights have been transformed from private to 
state. Nevertheless, such change did not explicitly 
improve the long existed insecurity, because the use 
rights remained effective as long as the government did 
not allocate the grazing area for other purposes. Pointing 
out the establishment of parks and big state farms, a 
recent study reveals that such an imperative is morally 
unacceptable because the state failed to act, at least, 
with the consent of the pastoralists themselves (Gebre, 
2001).  

In addition, the introduction of group ranches by Marxist 
regime in Ethiopia has excluded outsiders who previously 
had access to pasture. It was designed to prevent 
encroachment by farmers on the land traditionally 
occupied by pastoralists. At the same time, it was 
planned for pastoralists to hold land privately and 
changing the structure of property rights. This was done 
based on already established groups with the purpose of 
minimizing incidence of conflicts due to unclear property 
rights; however, it was not widely applied among other 
pastoralists of Ethiopia. This condition instigated the 
exclusion of outsiders who were formerly using the 
grazing land when it was communal which has made the 
management and sanctioning costs too high (Moris, 
1988), due to the disturbance caused to the traditional 
system (Ellis and Swift, 1988).  

Moreover, the existing land tenure policy contains 
potential challenge to communal pastoral grazing. This 
emanates from long-term provision of security to farmers 
whereby farmers receive land use certificates, which is an 
outcome of an overarching debate on property rights to 
land to at least achieve security if not efficiency. This 
policy prevents regular land redistribution for the next 
twenty to thirty years (MOFED, 2002). To overcome land 
scarcity arising from increased farming population, there 
is a plan to undertake resettlement on uncultivated 
pastoral land, increasing uncertainty on survival of the 
pastoral commons and raising controversies. On the one 
hand, land tenure policies designed for mixed sedentary 
farming reinforced the effects from the past regime that 
can adversely affect pastoralists‟ property rights to 
customary communal land. On the other hand, land 
suitability assessment supported by the policy retains a 
hope for special consideration of pastoral land, which is 
suitable for grazing than crop-farming, as determined by 
the attributes of resources. 
 

The aim of this paper is to examine the emerging 
challenges to common property resource management in 
pastoral areas of Ethiopia and the shift in pastoral 
livelihood strategies. While explaining a specific context, 
the paper contributes to the overall debate in the drivers 
of change in property rights and the underlying challenge 
to common property governance in semi-arid pastoral 
lands. The paper would fill the gap in the literature on 

 
 
 
 

 

how the interplay of formal and customary systems 
trigger for change in land use, property rights and 
livelihood diversification in the pastoral production 
systems. 
 

 

SOCIAL CAPITAL AND COMMON PROPERTY 

 

Social capital has been an important component of 
livelihood resources. The way it mediates livelihoods and 
common property resources in the context of pastoral 
production system has not been given sufficient 
emphasis in contemporary literature (Mearns, 2004). The 
reason lies on the underlying conceptual difference 
between those applying sustainable livelihoods approach 
and the new institutional economists who often seem to 
be interested in how common property is governed rather 
than how it contributes to attaining sustainable livelihoods 
and equitable distribution of benefits (Johnson, 2004). 
Social capital is often seen as „shared knowledge, 
understandings, norms, rules and expectations about 
patterns of interaction that groups of individuals bring into 
a recurrent activity‟ (Ostrom, 1999). It is used as a means 
to improve private or collective well-being (Coleman, 
1990; Katz, 2000; Cleaver, 2005). Though it is 
undersupplied by market and non-transferable compared 
to other forms of capital (Arrow, 1999), and hard to 
estimate the rate of return to its investment (Solow, 
1999), it can also mediate exchange relations (including 
risk-sharing activities) in vulnerable societies, where 
formal insurance system is lacking.  

Some evaluate the role of social capital through its 
contribution to transmission of knowledge and skill 
between generations, as well as in developing shared 
environmental knowledge to adapt to changes in the 
resource system (McCay, 2002). It assists in the 
development of mutually beneficial risk insurance system 
complementing the state and market roles (Bowles and 
Gintis, 2002). A number of scholars have assessed the 
key role played by local level institutions in building 
sustainable livelihoods (Grootaert and Narayan, 2004; 
Scoones, 1998) and collective resource management 
(Beyene, 2008). An extensive review on economic 
performance in Africa shows that informal institutions 
facilitate adaptation in risky environment mainly in 
traditional societies where “liquid” assets are limited. It is 
argued that establishing social connections assist 
livestock spread over a larger geographical area which is 
related to risk management activities (Collier and 
Gunning, 1999). In common property resource 
management, some argue that the role of social capital at 
group level is immense whereby its expression through 
trust and social networks increases its importance in 
improving coordination among resource users on the 
basis of established norms (Pretty and Ward, 2001; 
Woolcock, 1998). Where this perspective is considered, 
social capital is valued in laying a foundation for 



   
 
 
 
 

  

Characteristics of 
         

 

     
Formal land tenure 

    
 

  

resources 
       

 

     and agricultural     
 

  (variability,        
 

     

development policy 
    

 

  unpredictability)        
 

           
 

            
 

            
 

  Community    Action Arena  Outcomes 
 

  characteristics     Actors (pastoralists,   Shift in land 
 

  (social capital,     state)   use, 
 

  diversity)     Competion for space   Resource use 
 

       

and disputes 
  

patterns 
 

         
 

          

 Change in 
 

  

Collective 
       

 

          
livelihood bases 

 

  

norms/customary 
        

 

           
 

 
 rights  

        
 

         
 

            
 

            
 

 
 
 

 
Figure 1. Analytical framework. Source: Adapted from Ostrom et al. (1994). 

 
 

 

monitoring and enforcement of rules, and may serve as a 
substitute for well-defined legal property rights (Figure 1).  

By doing so, it supports efficient management of the 
commons through creating security of rights to common 
property resources where state has a little role (Grafton, 
2000; Katz, 2000). A livelihood system basically indicates 
the characteristics of resource users, such as the 
pastoralists and agropastoralists, the institutions and 
organizations that determine access to resources to 
generate livelihoods and the policy environment that 
constrains or facilitates certain action (Scoones, 1998). 
Argument explaining how community characteristics 
influence institutional arrangements in the governance of 
common property resources (Agrawal, 2001) gives 
attention to the crucial importance of social capital to 
sustaining livelihoods (Figure 1). Earlier works argued 
that those resources with certain attributes should remain 
in the public domain when the gains from specification of 
rights are very low or the costs are expected to be higher 
(Barzel, 1989). Such contextual factors lead to the 
emergence of institutions favouring property rights 
structure with non-exclusive rights to the use of resources 
(Van den Brink et al., 1995).  

There are two views dominating the literature on 
pastoral land use policy, both favouring different property 
rights regimes to the rangeland resources: conventional 
and opportunistic approaches. While the former 
advocates sedentarization and privatization, the latter 
supports flexibility in resource use and reciprocal access 
rights (Grell and Kirk, 1999). Having the conventional 
approach in mind, many African governments have 

 
 
 

 

designed policies for rangeland management and use. 
For instance, private land ownership among Ugandan 
pastoralists was justified on the grounds of the national 
interest to transform livestock production and to attain 
equity (Muhereza, 2001). Such a practice has resulted in 
the redistribution of land from large individual ranchers to 
squatter pastoralists posing new challenge to the 
communal grazing land and tenure instability. These 
policies have undermined implementation of opportunistic 
approach. Under such circumstances, donors‟ technical 
and financial support along the conventional line is 
usually seen as a crucial reason for governments to 
develop and adopt policies that hardly fit into the 
rangeland realities (Grell and Kirk, 1999). This contradicts 
the argument that pastoralists require common property 
regimes since such tenure arrangement facilitates 
mobility. Indeed, through permitting an extensive 
resource use system, common property is argued to be 
associated with a lower cost of exclusion than private, 
because it reduces the extent of the boundaries to be 
monitored and enforced (Niamir-Fuller, 1999). Many 

studies have questioned the efficiency
1
 of common 

property rights by relating communal ownership with land 
productivity. But efficiency in pastoral land use, which is 
characterized by a variable weather condition, can be 
achieved through retaining common property (Nugent 
and Sanchez, 1993).  

In the  rangeland  resource  use  system  where  tenure  

 
1 Efficiency can be argued from the perspective of effects of private land 
holding on livelihood sustainability and social stability.

 



 
 
 

 

security is much less important than access security 
because of variable land productivity in space and time, 
communities are characterized by low population density, 
customary property rights are more efficient in facilitating 
access to grazing resources than adopting formal titling to 
parcels of land. Some have agreed that formal titling in 
such systems can be expensive and futile (Migot-Adholla 
et al., 1991). The formal land tenure policy that may 
involve the transfer of land use rights to other persons 
from a different clan or ethnic group can be a source of 
disputes (Figure 1). It may induce an offensive act by the 
indigenous people with customary rights to the land, 
since such action is often interpreted as a violation of 
cultural norms (Abdulahi, 2007). Moreover, a number of 
studies have underlined the general negative influence of 
land tenure policy that has contributed to marginalization 
of pastoralists (Helland, 2006; Gebre, 2001; Hogg, 1997). 
During the imperial regime, although land was private 
property in the highlands, the tenure policy failed to 
recognize communal land tenure and considered land 
used by pastoralists as „open access‟ that can be 
allocated to any private cultivator or state initiated 
development projects (Gadamu, 1994; Gebre, 2001). For 
example, the state expropriated communal grazing land 
from pastoralists to establish national parks (Awash, 
Mago and Omo) and sugarcane plantation for sugar 
industry (Gadamu et al., 1983; Bruce et al., 1994).  

The nationalization of land during the military regime 
subsequent to the 1975 decree and the continuation of 
the same equation till today have sustained the question 
of rights to customary communal land. The existing 
democratic government, upholds the status quo to secure 
freedom to allocate pastoral land to investors through  
leasehold (Berhanu, 2006). By distilling the 
aforementioned review, the action arena consists of 
pastoral and local state actors who are influenced by 
community characteristics, resource characteristics, 
collective norms and the state policy. Through time, the 
competition and disputes typically occurring in the action 
arena will contribute to the change in resource use 
patterns, shift in land use and livelihood bases through 
time that is taken together as outcome (Figure 2). 
 

 
METHODOLOGY 

 
Close to 93% of the inhabitants of the drylands in Ethiopia are 
pastoral and agropastoral communities while the remaining 7% 
depend on hunting, petty trade and mining (FDRE, 2002). They 
inhabit areas below 1500 m above sea level and occupy rangelands 
which account for 44% of the country‟s land size with the annual 
rainfall received varying from 400 to 700 mm. They consist of over 
15 ethnic groups, the major one‟s being Somali, Afar and Oromo 
(Sandford and Habtu, 2000). Historically, there were three important 
externally funded development interventions recorded since the late 
1950s. The first one was implemented between 1958 and 1963, 
narrowly focusing on dairy development. The second one was in 
place from 1973 to 1981. It was initiated by the Ethiopian Livestock 
and Meat Board and gave emphasis to 

 
 
 
 

 
expansion of marketing facilities and other infrastructure with the 
intention of facilitating livestock sales and processing. The third 
intervention took place between 1975 and 1992, consisting of three 
target areas (Northeast, East, South and Southeast) inhabited by 
pastoralists.  

The aim of the three interventions was to modernize the pastoral 
sector. In particular, the third one was widely implemented and 
aimed at increasing production efficiency with special focus on 

natural resource management. It covered about 33,000 km
2
 of 

semi-arid region of eastern Ethiopia (Coppock, 1994). The 
strategies employed were improving services, establishment of 
feedlots, providing training and introducing range management. It 
has covered major pastoral areas inhabited by the three ethnic 
groups. Even though project designers had the perception that the 
traditional system was inefficient and generated low output, the 
outcomes of these policy interventions were below what was 
expected for different reasons in different areas: in the east and 
southeast, instability due to the border war and bureaucratic hurdles 
and in the south, a ban on traditional range management practices 
(Angassa and Tolera, 2006; Berhanu, 2006; Moris, 1998). 

 

Data collection, sources and type 
 
Data were collected from three purposely selected districts in 
eastern Ethiopia (Mieso, Kebribeyah and Harshin). These districts 
are characterized by the challenges inherent to pastoral commons, 
ethnic diversity and differences in the level of the state influence on 
land use and pastoral resource governance. Data collection 
involved some steps and mixed methods. In this case, the first few 
days of contacts with the villagers were spent on other matters 
rather than the main subjects of the study. This was essential in 
such social hierarchical society to establish friendly relationship with 
the key informants and to develop trust and making subsequent 
contacts easier and to prevent the key informants from constraining 
further contacts with the rest of the village community members. 
The next step was discussion with these key informants and focus 
group discussions on the major themes of the study. Using this 
method data were collected on interclan grazing arrangements, 
factors responsible for land use change and the state‟s role in 
agricultural technology supply.  

This step assisted a lot in revising and adjusting the content of 
the questionnaire to fit into the realities on the ground. One of the 
critical challenges in data collection was that those available were 
hopeless due to striking level of poverty and failed to show 
enthusiasm. In effect, enumerators were advised to begin with 
questions pertinent to respondent‟s situation in a more flexible way 
so that he would be at ease. The household survey was carried out 
in 2006 and covered 160 households from the eight lowest 
administrative units (called „kebeles‟); and the issues included in the 
survey included livelihood sources, land use and access to land for 
private use and the constraints undermining the possibility to 
conserve the pastoral communal grazing land and the interaction 
between private land use and water-points and the link between 
property rights and livelihoods. 
 

 
Data analysis 

 
As processes of institutional change and factors associated with 
change in land use, property rights and shift in livelihood strategies 
can be captured using a more qualitative approach, data from focus 
group discussions and expert key informants were mainly used to 
write this paper. In addition, some statistical and econometric tests 
were made with regard to expenditure in water and participation in 
enclosing land which served as a proxy for preference over property 
rights to land in the pastoral and agropastoral systems. 



 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

A
m

o
u

n
t 

o
f 

R
 a

in
fa

ll 
(m

m
) 

 
 
 

 

1600  

 

1400 

 

1200 

 

1000 

 

800 

 

600  

 

400                                Kebribeyah 
 

200                                Harshin 
 

0 

                                 
 

                               Mieso 
 

1962 1968 1974 1980 1986 1992 1998 2004  
 

1965 1971 1977 1983 1989 1995 2001     
  

 

Years (1962 - 2004) 
 

Figure 2. Rainfall patterns in the case study districts. Source: Ethiopian National Meteorology. 
 
 

 

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 

 

The results are presented as follows, first the inherent 
challenges and practices in managing grazing commons 
with specific reference to transaction costs of arranging 
resource access and how these costs vary in different 
situations was captured. Secondly, the processes that 
have contributed to the dismantling of the pastoral 
commons (including communal land) as attributed to a 
number of factors – internal processes and external 
influences were described. It emphasizes emergence of 
new forms of livelihoods, shift in land use and the threat 
this will carry for the survival of the commons. Evidence 
from the actual field survey substantiated the qualitative 
evidence generated through key informant interviews and 
focus group discussions. 
 

 
Institutional practices and challenges to pastoral 
commons 

 

Increasing resource scarcity has brought a challenge to 
the management of pastoral commons. It results from the 
combined effect of rainfall variability and population 
growth. In the past, herders in eastern Ethiopia used to 
practice rotational grazing, since it was practiced as an 

 
 
 

 

effective strategy in rangeland improvement and provided 
access to alternative pastures. In this practice, relatively 
overgrazed areas should be escaped to permit range 
regeneration within a large clan grazing area. Such 
mechanisms enabled groups to create fodder banks 
towards which they could easily shift without significant 
tension for grazing at times of stress. It is no longer 
practiced at present. An alternative strategy to deal with 
this problem is the use of reciprocal sharing 

arrangement
2
, the situation in which users of a particular 

commons may be classified as primary and secondary. 
The distinction may go along with kinship, tribes and 
ethnicity and other factors. Again, each social unit might 
use a resource for different purposes. Differentiation in 
terms of users and uses can lead to a claim for the 
existence of various rights and obligations. The survey 
shows that 64.8% of the sample households benefited 
from being involved in reciprocal sharing of grazing 
commons to pursue their livelihoods. This involves herd 
mobility; access to a wide range of resources is required 
where communal lands inhabited by different clans are  
 
 
2
 The practice of reciprocity is not confined to traditional societies. In a wider 

context, it exists in modern forms of life where all market exchanges such as 
contracts and money transactions are codified fundamentally based on this 
notion (Niamir-Fuller, 1999). 



 
 
 

 

characterized by greater degree of spatial and temporal 
rainfall variability (Figure 2). The importance of such a 
practice lies on the fact that absence of institutions to 
create flexible access options triggers a group suffering 
from greater relative scarcity, at a point in time, to 
encroach upon the other with relatively better pasture. 
Under certain conditions, costs of mobility can be higher 
as permission is required, which might be subject to 
greater costs of negotiation, that is increasing the 
transaction costs of mobility. It occurs particularly when 
mobility extends beyond good years‟ grazing area and 
access rights become incomplete and contingent upon 
certain factors (such as the willingness of outsiders not to 
claim for access to water points). If clan association 
(lineage) and investment in social relationships 
characterize resource use relations, such incompleteness 
may reduce. The experiences from the three case study 
sites, show the difficulty of reaching at a conclusion, of 
whether access rights are incomplete and contingent. 
Hence, the transaction costs of mobility vary from one to 
the other location assuming that such costs are captured 
in the negotiations made between clans. Insights from the 
focus group discussion show that very mobile households 
tend to trespass clan boundary without agreement but by 
committing incursion. But frequently mobile households 
tend to limit their grazing points at the buffer zones or 
around the boundary other than extending further.  

In such large sized resource use system enforcement 
of reciprocity rules is costly. The fugitive nature of 
livestock in pasture use can even increase such costs. So 
the incentive to deviate from the rules is high as the 
probability of being detected will be low. In this case, the 
communal land around clan boundaries exhibit 
characteristics of open access. This produces a 
temptation for the users to commit little trespass. The 
incentive to comply with the rules of prior agreement, 
therefore, corresponds to the decision on the extent of 
entry. If a group expects the risk of being detected by 
members of a clan who hold exclusive right, it may decide 
to negotiate through its clan other than committing 
incursion; otherwise, it commits intrusions, taking a risk 
that can be a potential source of violence (Unruh, 2006). 
Other important lesson from the field on the use of 
common property grazing resource use is the absence of 
restriction of clan members in the use of the resources, in 
that there are no customary rules that limit the number of 
livestock each household has to keep on the grazing 
commons. The rules of access are restricted only for 
outsiders who do not belong to a clan. This makes the 
empirical and theoretical explanations focusing on the 
management of the rangeland use for common property 
owners through limiting stocking rates impractical. Many 
have tried to portray that co-owners of the grazing 
commons have their own rules, in limiting the stocking 
rates through forming some sort of internal agreements 
(McCarthy et al., 2003). The results in this study shows 
access limits are set to non-members, in that only 

 
 
 
 

 

exclusion rules for outsiders are functional. Common 
property in the cases studied shows characteristics of 
property rights structure that Stevenson (1991) calls 
“limited user open access” where members have 
„exclusive rights to harvest the resource, but do not have 
exclusive rights to certain amount of resource extracted 
because any member exploits the resource at any rate 
desired‟. In this case, property rights among the limited 
users are undefined posing a challenge to the 
management of common property grazing.  

An extensive allocation of land for private use in the 
pastoral areas is a second source of challenge to grazing 
commons management. This practice is pervasive in 
many pastoral areas of Ethiopia. For example, 24% of 
land among pastoralists of southern Ethiopia has been 
put under private use either for cultivation or grazing. In 
some cases, the grazing enclosure is still being shared 
among immediate neighbors where group size varies 
based on the purpose of enclosure (for dry herds, 
lactating cows and calves) where the definition and 
enforcement rules are organized by the traditional 
governance system (Kamara et al., 2004).  

The third challenge emanates from the lack of clear 
tenure policy for the rangeland that has become a source 
of disputes and confusions. As it stands, regional experts 
firmly believe in the “need to introduce legislations that 
support appropriate use of land, demolish the existing 
enclosures and convert them into the communal land”. 
The intention of the regional state has for long been to 
introduce formal land use plan to an unpredictable 
environment. But the implementation has been delayed 
for years since the region developed its natural resource 
conservation and land use plan in 1999, which was 
actually copied from the national documents without 
considering regional realities on the ground. The 
traditional system is incapable to handle disputes in 
cases when land at clan boundary is enclosed for 
cultivation. In all case study districts, interclan grazing 
resource sharing arrangement is not as strong as in the 
past due to two central reasons. The first is inadequate 
number of livestock to move with (limited level of assets) 
due to frequent drought since the early 1990s. 
Assessment of herd ownership from survey data shows 
that the maximum per capita holding for Mieso is 2.23 
TLU, which is far below the minimum threshold (4.5 
TLU/capita), as recommended in the literature, for an 
individual to depend on livestock as food source (Pratt 
and Gwynne, 1977). The second reason is increased 
shrinkage of grazing land, as many households tend to 
enclose communal gazing. The more land each clan 
allocates, fenced land to private grazing or farming, the 
less chance to practice reciprocal sharing and the less 
option poor households have to keep livestock of their 
relatives from other clans which otherwise provided 
access to milk. A new development from within a clan is a 
contractual grazing agreement between poor households 
(without lactating cows, but cultivated land) and others 



 
 
 
 

 
1 5 

 
 
 
 
 
 

 
1 0 

 

C
o

u
n

t 

 
 
 

5 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
0 

 
   

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
M ore ben e ficial 

pro duction sys te m   
m o re o f L S   
m o re o f c ro p s   
so le ly LS  

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
State

 
Clan leader

 Privately fenced Contracting Own parents 
M ean s  o f A cq u isition 

  
Figure 3. Preferences over production systems based on sources of rights to land. 

 

 

who are better off during the dry season. This is long-
existing land use practice explained in the literature 
(Wade, 1992; Dahlman, 1980). Overall, 42.1% of the 
sample households reported that they benefit from such 
contractual arrangement.  

Nevertheless, the expansion of enclosure could 
contribute to overgrazing and subsequent land degrada-
tion through soil compaction unless herders change their 
production objectives and stocking decisions. Grazing 
practices that avoid livestock concentration in specific 
area largely supports sustainable use of resources. 
Contractual grazing also takes place on crop-fields when 
short rain season leads to crop failure where households 
use their cultivated field as sources of fodder. Such 
internal dynamics to cope with the changing state of 
nature is typical in Mieso district. This indicates that the 
integration of farming and herding enables effective use 
of resources even in bad rainfall years. This study also 
looked into the institutional dimension and the role of the 
different actors in land allocation/acquisition. An 
examination of the land acquisition means/source of land 
rights for those involved in water harvesting (31%) during 
the dry seasons shows that inheritance from parents 
becomes the main source of rights. Comparing the 
mechanisms of land acquisition for private use (grazing 
and/or cultivation) is necessary to understand the level of 
influence by the formal and informal systems. The result 
discloses that across the districts, inheritance is more 

 
 

 

prevalent in Kebribeyah (67.5%), clan based rights to 
land in Harshin (54%) and significant role of state 
administration in Mieso (33%). However, comparing the 
sources of rights state seems to stand least (14.5%) while 
parents becoming the most important one (55.3%). It 
should, however, be noted that land under private 
holdings inherited from parents can be initially acquired 
either through the state or customary leaders. Moreover, 
the two systems are not necessarily mutually exclusive as 
land related disputes and rights to enclose in some cases 
involved joint decisions of the state and customary 
systems. A further inquiry into the comparison of the most 
beneificial production system indicates that a smaller 
proportion of the respondents (7.6%) favored a sole 
dependence on livestock as a livelihood source (Figure 
3).  

The fourth source of challenge in managing the 
pastoral grazing commons is the increased establishment 
of private water points and the failure of collective action 
in the management of communal water points. To locate 
this, it is important to assess whether those who are 
involved in collective action, do spend less than those 
who do not. The pattern of expenditure on water gives a 
rough indication of the likelihood of participation in water 
point management. The survey indicates that while the 
average income during the survey year was 1779, nearly 
13% of the sample households have spent more than 
one-third of their income on purchase of water; whereas, 



 
 
 

 

48.4% had access to private or communal water points. 
Further, those households which spent more on water 
had access to many water points, whereas others using 
private or communal, had relatively limited watering 
points. An independent sample t-test was carried out to 
examine whether there was a difference in expenditure 
on water between those who have access to many and a 
few water points. There was a statistically significant 
difference (p<0.01) between the mean values of 
expenditure (62.8 and 257 Birr) of the two groups. This 
indicates that access to fewer water points means better 
water management, whether it is private or communal. It 
implies that limited access options to water points restrict 
mobility and the sharing of grazing commons that can 
trigger land use change.  

Moreover, further analysis by taking mobility behavior 
as a grouping variable shows that those households 
which practiced frequent mobility (greater than three per 
annum) spent less than others which moved rarely or not 
at all. Still less mobile herders spent less than more 
mobile groups. This shows that mobility rarely provides 
access opportunity to watering points as climate change 
has increased the value of water in the semi-arid regions. 
On average, more mobile households spent more (203 
Birr per annum) than others (149 Birr). This statistic is 
highly supported with the fact that many water points 
were held in private or by close families with restricted 
access by others. Discussions revealed that poor 
households cannot establish water-well as a result of 
declining water table and limited capacity. This was 
particularly a problem in Kebribeyah unlike most other 
places in the region. In areas where these wells function, 
elders facilitate their management as water scarcity 
remains critical during drought. In Kebribeyah, the 
regional state established a large reservoir through 
pumping ground water, which was being used among 
those who did not have their own private cisterns. Water 
from this source is sold at different rates based on 
livestock species served. Turn waiters at the watering 
point inform fee collectors not to permit cistern owners to 
water their animals from this source unless they exhaust 
their own water. 
 

 

Linking livelihoods and property rights 

 

The link between livelihoods and property rights is not 
straightforward and many factors can affect the 
relationship. Here, evidence is provided on how 
generation of livelihoods from the pastoral commons is 
influenced by markets, access to technology and change 
in rainfall conditions. In this case, the incentives created 
through emergence of markets for the grazing resources 
and beginning of fattening programs in some places, 
individuals‟ access to technology (farm implements 
provided by NGOs, improved seeds and training from 
change agents) and change in rainfall conditions are 

 
 
 
 

 

drivers for change in property rights. Change in 
knowledge of pastoralists on how to use the resource and 
interclan relations contribute to the emergence of new 
incentives. The result also shows that the need to 
diversify livelihood sources other than solely relying on 
livestock under condition of environmental uncertainty 
represents change in knowledge of herders. In addition, 
group incentives, being influenced by the traditional 
authority composed of clan leader, religious leader and 
elders have favored flexibility of rights to a resource; 
hence, it affects decisions on resource use. Group 
decisions to undertake certain activities such as sharing 
of the grazing commons and establishment of enclosure 
seek the support of traditional authority (Figure 4). Due to 
flexible nature of property rights on the basis of internal 
demands, further incentives will be created for individual 
resource users. This influences their production 
objectives and asset holdings. Individuals can be 
households or groups who use a specified resource in a 
specific land area. In this case, customary institutions 
assist wealth creation through promoting alternative and 
productive resource use. The tendency to see change in 
such institutions as breakdown, principally by holding 
static view, is currently being criticized as more dynamic 
view assessing their capacities to respond to emerging 
challenges is highly appreciated (Watson, 2003).  

However, institutional change is a complicated 
phenomenon when seen in terms of diverse and often 
competing interests of different pastoral groups. For 
example, even if some pastoralists are involved in crop 
production in small scale, large herd owners who can 
subsist on their livestock alone can constrain flexibility in 
property rights in that they disfavor private land use 
rights. This phenomenon seems to change currently as 
enclosing land for grazing and crop-farming have 
continued to be practiced by large herders themselves. 
From this, one would say customary institutions define 
property rights. They do this by specifying differentiated 
rights for different groups mainly based on established 
social relationships, geographical proximity and kinship 
structure. However, imposed changes can influence 
these institutions in defining property rights. Figure 4 
illustrates the dynamics of property rights institutions in 
relation to interaction of a set of factors. Knowledge 
change also encourages resource users to raise 
distributional questions because groups who are aware 
and have invested in managing the resource may restrict 
access-options for other clan or sub-clan members. The 
driving forces also influence the incentive structure in 
resource use, making the demand for property rights 
endogenous. For example, development of private water 
points in some and spread of enclosure initiatives reveal 
this condition. Meanwhile, development policy intervene-
tions, such as supply of improved crop technologies (to  
agro-pastoral households), agricultural extension ser-
vices and settlement schemes, often seen as externally 
imposed changes, can influence the pace of property 



  
 
 

 

Clan, religious leaders and elders (rule makers) 
 
 
 
 

 

 Group incentives   
 

Market 

    
 

    
 

Access to technology     
 

 Resources use  Change in knowledge 
 

Supply-induced decisions  and interclan relations 
 

resource scarcity     
 

    
  

 
 
 
 
 

 

Flexible property  
rights 

 
 

Figure 4. Dynamism in property rights and land use. 
 
 

 

rights change and shift in land use (Table 1).  
Though state claim de jure ownership rights to the 

rangeland in the country as stipulated in the constitution, 
its governance and administration in pastoral areas seem 
to be left to the clan customary leaders themselves. 
Establishment of basic infrastructure that affects pastoral 
grazing land has often involved a fierce resistance from 
customary leaders and state officials had to negotiate 
with the clan controlling the land. In this case, the de jure 
landowner did not make a unilateral decision. In addition, 
responses from the household survey showed the 
presence of a firm belief that pastoral land belongs to the 

clan rather than to the state
3
. Many have simply stated, 

“The state has come after us and so this is our land”. In 
customary system, long-term occupancy is understood as 
a point of departure in determining rights to a given land. 
Hence, clan leaders and elders are the key members of 
the executive body exercising the Somali customary law 
(Xeer) to decide on land allocation for private use while 
the role of religious leader in this aspect is often limited. 
The regression result shows that 68.6% of the sample 
respondents have enclosed land. Analysis of the 
determinants of the decision to enclose land shows that  
 

 
3
 One important indicator for this is it is the clan leader, not the state agent, 

who makes investment decisions on clan land. Any investor needs prior 
approval of a clan leader to begin any activity showing that, in practice, 
customary tenure system is much stronger than the state based tenure. 

 
 
 
 
 
bridging social capital expressed through the number of 
close relatives living in another clan territory is likely of 
have a negative effect on the decision to enclose land. 
Total herd ownership is likely to have a positive influence 
on fencing (Table 2).  

Lastly, a general approach to range management, 
actively in place by several NGOs and state agencies 
motivates different groups to make efforts to improve their 
own resources from within rather than relying on grazing 
commons of other clans and ethnic groups. This involves 
collective action in natural resource manage-ment and 
other project and development activities (establishing 
terraces, huge communal water-points and nursery in all 
the studied districts). Relevant small-scale range 
management projects have been undertaken through the 
World Food Program and International Fund for 
Agricultural Development in collaboration with Regional 
Bureau of Agriculture and district experts. These 
livelihood activities tend to strengthen internal social 
relations, while still bridging form of social capital is 
essential in the shared use of the pastoral commons and 
discouraging rangeland enclosure (Table 3). On the other 
hand, development intervention involving externally 
facilitated environmental rehabilitation programs was a 
clear manifestation of national policy to systematize 
herders‟ sedentarization by improving access to feed 
resources through adoption of improved perennial fodder 
species. This could influence households to give less 



 
 
 

 
Table 1. Land allocated to private grazing by wealth category (ha).  

 
  Wealth category  

Districts Small (0 to 5.01 tlu) Better-off (>5.01 tlu) 

 Mean S.D. Mean S.D. 

Mieso 0.48 0.33 0.38 0.14 

Kebribeyah 1.47 0.87 2.11 1.13 

Harshin 2.08 1.45 1.55 1.14 
 

Source: Household survey, 2006. 
 
 

 
Table 2. Mean values for total land falling under private use by wealth category (ha).  

 
   Wealth category  

 Districts Small (0 to 5.01 tlu) Better-off (>5.01 tlu) 

  Mean S.D. Mean S.D. 

 Mieso 1.76 0.74 2.17 0.57 

 Kebribeyah 2.45 1.02 4.24 1.97 

 Harshin 3.24 1.97 2.90 2.19 
 

Source: Household survey, 2006. 
 
 

 
Table 3. Determinants of participation in enclosing land.  

 
Explanatory variables Coefficient S.E. Wald Exp(B) 

Household size (number) -0.076 0.054 2.038 0.926 

Literacy† 0.466 0.418 1.242 1.593 

Close relatives (number) -0.053* 0.030 3.096 0.949 

Using relatives‟ grazing areas† -0.272 0.323 0.706 0.762 

Livestock (TLU) 0.174** 0.061 8.014 1.190 

Land for crop-farming (ha) -0.085 0.244 0.122 0.918 

Constant 0.767 0.590 1.694 2.154 
 

*p<10%, **p<5%; † dummy variables. Source: Household survey. 
 
 

 

emphasis to resource use relations outside their clan. In 
this particular case, a few individual herders have 
registered claiming for cultivated land to be used as 
permanent pasture to be controlled privately by applying 
to the government local authority (Figure 3). A related 
study among southern Ethiopian pastoralists reaffirms 
that though the governance of the rangeland falls in the 
hand of traditional (tribal or clan) leaders through the 
enforcement of customary rules, there has been an 
increase in the number of requests for private cropland, 
fencing certain parts of the rangelands. The expectation 
that any other individual will not claim the fenced part and 
communal lands are insecure and will be given to other 
potential claimants was the underlying reason for this to 
occur (Swallow and Kamara, 1999). While relating the 
conceptual framework and the results, one can learn that 
formal land tenure policy is much more influential in terms 

 
 
 

 

of dictating the direction of land use change than the 
resource characteristics such as the variability of rainfall 
and the unpredictability of the benefit flows. As this 
occurs, customary norms tend to align themselves with 
the state policies in land appropriation for private use. 
 

 

Conclusions 

 

The dismantling of the pastoral commons is attributed to 
the increased internal tensions and uncertainty, resulting 
from the influence of development policies that fail to 
carefully understand the pastoral context. The latter is 
argued to be a reflection of a national policy priority in 
encouraging pastoral herders to be involved in the market 
economy that in turn implies a shift in livelihood strategies 
and land use. If the benefits from private land use are 



 
 
 

 

crucial in diversifying income sources, either through 
growing a few cereals or grazing, measures needs to be 
taken to correct for externalities arising from it where 
fencing of privately held land could cause destruction of 
trees on communal land and can be a source of 
inefficiency in the use of already scarce grazing 
resources. Even though private land use is inevitable in 
situations when relatively reliable benefit flows prevail 
and households‟ knowledge change has greater 
influence, improvement of livestock market to enable the 
poor generate reliable income from livestock sales can be 
a more promising policy option.  

An important lesson from this study is that even if the 
interaction of endogenous and exogenous factors have 
contributed to the dismantling of the pastoral commons 
and created a gradual shift in livelihoods and land use, 
there is a need to invest in the management of pastoral 
grazing commons. The regression results show that the 
bridging social capital still undermines investment in 
enclosing land, due to variability in benefits from crop-
farming under variable rainfall conditions. One strategy to 
assist the co-existence of diverse land use systems in 
pastoral areas could be through investing in the capacity 
of pastoralists to manage communal grazing and water 
points and revitalizing the role of traditional leaders in 
managing them. 
 

 

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT 

 

The author would like to appreciate the financial support 
of the International Food Policy Research Institute. 
 

 
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