1. Abrahams, R.G. 1967. The Peoples of Greater Unyamwezi, Tanzania. Ethnographic Survey of Africa, D. Forde (ed.). East Central Africa, Part 17. International African Institute, London, UK.
TANZANIA This summary concerns west central Tanzania, where the people practice agriculture, livestock raising and some hunting in the dry season. Men trade in honey, beeswax, ivory and dried and fresh fish. Land belongs to the chief and, through him, to the lineage members. This applies to both farm land and to the land, trees, wildlife and other products of the bush. Management is by area and lineage membership. Strangers must ask permission before making use of land or any other asset in the area.
2. Ahmed, A.A. 1983. Forest reserves and woodland savannah regeneration on the sub-Saharan massif of Jebel Marra, Democratic Republic of Sudan (Natural Forest Ecosystem Recovery). Vegetatio 54(2):65-78. W. Junk, The Hague, Netherlands.
SUDAN Jebel Marra, Sudan is situated in the Sahelian zone, but the high massif modifies the micro-climate and increases precipitation; the highest rainfall is 1000 mm per annum on the western slopes, where temperatures are also low, and the area is protected from dry northeasterly winds. Average precipitation is 6001000 mm. The vegetation comprises mesophytic woody species and mesophytic woody plants. The main tree cover is Anogeissus leiocarpus, Cordia abyssinica, Sterculia setigera, Lonchocarpus laxiflorus, Khaya senegalensis, Faidherbia albida and Ficus palmata.
The inhabitants are sedentary cultivators practicing swidden-fallowing* and covering all of the accessible slopes of the massif from the base to 2750 m. In Jebel Marra, a bush swidden-fallow system is operated. Plots are cropped for 3-7 years, then left fallow for up to 15 years. In response to population pressure, swidden-fallow periods have been progressively shortened.
3. Allsebrook, D.L. 1987. Learning to combat desertification in the Sahel. MSc Thesis. Reading University, Reading, UK.
REGIONAL The author's focus is the Sahel with its fragile soils, intermittent rainfall and ecological diversity. The inhabitants are sedentary cultivators and transhumant pastoralists, and trees are used for food, medicines, handicrafts, fuelwood. It is suggested that common property ownership by powerful clans is an important component in the prevention of ecological destruction, as the clan may enforce punitive measures by writ over a far larger territory than is possible under individual ownership, which pertains to small areas around homesteads. In many rural Sahelian communities, religious groves, "revered forests", "ghost trees", etc., constitute a religious symbolism which is an informal and indirect means of regulating access to firewood sources.
Indigenous resource management practices are not fixed, but are constantly undergoing change as on-farm environmental problems arise. They have the potential to find solutions to the problem of sustaining the resource base. However, Sahelian land managers may be constrained by desperate short-term needs for food, fuel, security and money, which force them to adopt more destructive short-term strategies. The inability any longer to implement long-term strategies is attributed to the breakdown in indigenous social and political structures.
4. Ardayfio E. 1985. The rural energy crisis in Ghana: its implications for women's work and household survival. Research Working Papers, WEP lO/WP-39. World Employment Programme, International Labour Organisation, Geneva, Switzerland.
GHANA The research is set in the southern forested area, where the main activity is agriculture, using plough animals. Land rights are invested in the lineage or stool; any member of the lineage is entitled to use any land which is lying fallow; and it belongs to him or her for as long as he or she uses or occupies it. Trees from the owner's own swidden-fallow are pollarded for fuelwood, so that cattle cannot damage the new shoots.
5. Barnes C. 1984. The historical context of the fuelwood situation in Kisii District. Pp.61-78 in Barnes C. Ensminger J. and O'Keefe P. (eds.). Wood, energy and households. Beijer Institute, Stockholm, Sweden, and Scandinavian Institute of African Studies, Uppsala, Sweden.
KENYA The Gusii people live in the southeast of Kisii District, Kenya. The region ranges in elevation from 1,500 to 2,350 m and contains many permanent streams and some swamps. Rainfall is 1,500 mm per year. The population has increased from 122 sq km in 1948 to 395 sq km in 1979. Indigenous trees grow only in river valleys and isolated areas. The Gusii are settled agriculturalists growing cash and subsistence crops with some livestock. Coffee and tea are the main cash crops; sugar cane and bananas are also sold.
In the past, clan land was divided into settlements with arable fields. Each neighbourhood had a series of common fields comprising individual plots and a bush area used for common pasture. Communal areas now belong to the state and most land comprises permanent private plots. Under communal land systems, wood was freely available for collection and cutting to members of the clan. With privatization of land holdings, households are able to obtain their wood needs from their own land; through agreement with a landowner where there is wood available; or from crown land, where it may be gathered but not cut without the permission of local government. Thus, management has changed from use rights based on clan membership to the exercise of state-granted privileges.
6. Barrow, E.G.C. 1988. Trees and pastoralists: the case of the Pokot and Turkana. ODI Social Forestry Network Papers 6b, Overseas Development Institute, London, UK.
KENYA The Turkana manage their woody vegetation on a sustained basis, selectively pollarding rather than felling valuable trees, using dry and dead timber for fuel and using less useful bush species for fencing manyattas (cattle kraals). Better health conditions and food security for humans and the increased use of veterinary drugs have increased both human and animal pressure on the rangelands. But these facts have not been incorporated into land management strategies, even though the range was already used at close to its subsistence potential. More people are living in fixed, rather than semi-mobile, conditions, with a corresponding heavy intensification of land use and biomass off-take. The authority of the clan elders, who have, in the past, been responsible for livestock and natural resource management, is being eroded by modem education for the young and postings of government officials to the Turkana area. In high potential areas, indigenous land rights are recognized during the process of land demarcation, but they are neither investigated nor recorded in the dry areas.
7. Barrow, E.G.C. 1987. Extension and learning examples for the Pokot and Turkana pastoralists in Kenya. IDS workshop on Farmers and Agriculture Research: Complementary Methods. Institute of Development Studies, Sussex University, Brighton, UK.
KENYA The Turkana District has a semi-arid and arid environment with high ambient temperatures and low and erratic rainfall (180-400 mm). The inhabitants were originally highly mobile herders of camels, cattle and goats, but now settlements have been established all over the district. Trees are vital for fuel, construction, fodder, food and medicine. Woody vegetation is extremely important as dry season forage. The Ekwar system plays a vital part in livestock management: in the dry season it is often access to fruit and fodder trees that restricts movement. The Ekwar system is less strong in the wetter areas where there are fewer rivers with riverine woodlands. Preliminary analysis indicates that people are based in their Ekwar for much longer periods than planners associate with pastoral peoples. Usually, members of at least one generation have stayed in their Ekwar, and their fathers will have, in many cases, been buried there.
At present the woody resource of the area is not seriously depleted, except in the areas of settlement, and, in particular, in the larger settlements. However, there is an overall lack of recruitment of young trees to the woody resource. The Forest Department and NORAD have run training courses on woodland management. Permits have to be obtained for charcoal burning (and then only from identified naturally dead trees) and for building timber. This is enforced in cooperation with the administration through the Chiefs' Act and is gradually achieving a degree of order in a difficult situation. These efforts have resulted in more people planting trees around their homes, without receiving any form of payment. There is also a much greater respect for the protection of young naturally growing trees and, as a result, many of these young trees are growing rapidly. Much of this is taking place in and around the settlement areas, which is where the major problems are.
8. Barrow, E.G.C. 1986a. Value of traditional knowledge in present day soil conservation practice, the example of the Pokot and the Turkana. Example 1: The Pokot, in a paper presented to the Third National Workshop on Soil and Water Conservation, Kenya (unpublished).
KENYA Nginyang Division, Kenya is in marginal and semi-arid ecozones. Here lives a transhumant pastoral section of the Pokot tribe with goats, sheep, cattle and camels. Trees are used sustainably for a variety of purposes, including fodder, food, medicines, building materials, fuel, fencing, shade, household implements and as the venue for elders' meetings.
Within the broad grazing pattern, areas are set aside for reserved grazing, usually in the form of reserved and guarded hills. The reserved grazing is used at the discretion of the elders during the dry season or drought years. The Pokot attach great value to trees (both materially and culturally) and will rarely cut a valuable tree.
During the dry season, some trees (e.g. Balanites aegyptiaca, Dobera glabra) will be pollarded for browse and pods will be harvested for livestock feed. The only woody species that are actually cut back are the less useful bush species (e.g. Acacia reficiens and A. brevispica), which are used for fencing. This cutting back of such bushy-woody species often serves to encourage a better ground cover of perennial grass. There is considerable knowledge of the flora, especially in relation to animal fodder. Woody species can be recognized that will promote milk or meat production, dry and wet season fodder and fodder for different stock species and ages.
9. Barrow, E.G.C. 1986b. Value of traditional knowledge in present day soil conservation practice: the example of the Pokot and the Turkana. Example 2: The Turkana, in a paper presented to the Third National Workshop on Soil and Water Conservation, Kenya (unpublished). (With a little additional supporting data from Barrow, E.G.C. 1988. Trees, people and the dry lands: the role of local knowledge. Institutional invited paper presented to the Second Kenya National Seminar on Agroforestry, Nairobi, Kenya.)
KENYA The Turkana of the Turkana District, Kenya, live in a semi-arid/arid environment. They herd camels, cattle and goats, and also have sorghum gardens. In a good wet season, forage is plentiful, there are no restrictions on stock movements and questions of resource ownership do not arise. However, in the dry season and in dry years, such issues become critical. It is this power over ownership of water and fodder that is central to the Turkana. Dry season grazing takes place in higher rainfall areas and is particularly critical in the dry plains area. Here sub-lineage ownership of riverine woodland, containing important fodder tree species such Acacia tortilis, is well defined.
A herd owner's home range or dry season base is his Ere. Close kin have long associations with such areas and their ancestors are often buried there. There, they have ownership rights to resources which include fodder and fruit trees and a dry season well. Outsiders are not allowed to use these resources without prior permission.
Within the larger group Ere area, sub-group resources known as Ekwar (meaning "trees by the side of the river") include the right to exploit important individual trees or small stands of trees as a "private" dry season fodder and browse reserve. Individuals must have a strong network of close kin and supporters to keep Ekwar rights intact over time, and, at times, the elders must adjudicate between rival claimants. There are individual user rights over certain important species: Acacia tortilis for fodder, Hyphaena coriacea for basketry, Dobera glabra for fodder and famine food, and Cordia sinensis, Zizyphus mauritiana and Faidherbia albida.
The Turkana have a well developed indigenous knowledge of their flora and its uses, with especially detailed knowledge of the browse potential for different stock in different seasons of local tree species. Very few trees will be cut back completely - pollarding or lopping branches is the norm. Trees are used for construction, household utensils, fodder and medicine.
Individual user rights are only recognized as long as the families concerned continue to exercise them effectively at harvest time, and rights lapse if they are not maintained. Originally, in the Turkana riverine sorghum plots, trees were not generally cut down, and only the bush and undergrowth was removed. Yet now, in the areas, surrounding the riverine irrigation schemes (which have trespassed on the Turkana Ere), all of the rainfed crops are cleared of trees, in imitation of the irrigation scheme.
10. Beaton, A.C. 1948. The Fur. Sudan Notes and Records 29(1):1-39.
SUDAN The Fur are Muslims who live in the western district of Darfur, in Sudan. They occupy the high backbone of land across the Nile-Chad watershed. Rainfall averages 555 to 650 mm annually. The region is well forested with Acacia spp., especially Faidherbia albida. Other common tree species are Commiphora spp., Zizyphus spp., Combretum spp., mahogany and bamboo. The Fur are settled agriculturalists who keep some livestock and market salt. Crops cultivated include wheat, maize, beans, sorghum, potatoes, vegetables, tobacco, groundnuts and cotton. Both sexes care for livestock. Wood is needed for fuelwood and construction. In addition, tree fruits are eaten, which include Balanites aegyptiaca, Cordia abyssinica, Ficus spp., Sclerocarya birrea and Tamarindus indica. Whoever clears bush for cultivation gains rights to the land, and cutting trees is men's work only (not least because women are the representatives of another lineage and land cleared by men must clearly belong to their grouped.).
11. Behnke, R.H. 1985. The dynamics of open-range management and property rights in Pastoral Africa. ODI internal document (Section 3: The Baggara of South Darfur). Overseas Development Institute, London, UK (unpublished).
SUDAN The Baggara of South Darfur, northern Sudan, are agro-pastoral ists who manage their resources through the mechanism of the lineage and herd cattle. The Baggara originally practised a form of customary tenure calculated on a genealogical basis: all of the descendants of one ancestor shared a large area for such purposes as grazing, but focused on a small segment of the genealogy when more intensive land use, such as agriculture, was planned. Thus any one piece of land was owned simultaneously by small numbers of people with strong claims and large numbers of people with weak claims to it. Trees are important as browse, especially in the dry season, and are owned by the owners of the land on which they stand.
The Baggara are in the process of privatizing once open rangeland, claiming that they are doing no more than following original lineage rules, which allow for the intensification of ownership under certain conditions. In drier areas, they do it by making sure that they control scarce water points (and thus the grazing around them); in wetter areas they simply fence grazing areas and treat them as arable fields (which they may have been or may become). Such land tenure changes are most common: (1) where graze and browse are most under pressure from rising cattle numbers or where there is a market for fodder (such as near the town of Nyala where markets for milk and livestock on the hoof existed); and (2) where a particularly well-favoured grazing area is now needed at different points in the annual cycle by permanently resident local users and by nomadic herders passing through. In both of these situations, land had acquired a high value, and, in consequence, the range of `legitimate' users has been narrowed by those with the strongest and most permanent interests in ensuring that they retain access to the resource.
12. Behnke, R.H. 1980. The herders of Cyrenaica. University of Illinois Press, Urbana, USA.
LIBYA The book is concerned with the Bedouin in Cyrenaica, Libya, who live on the slopes of Jebel Akhdar, relatively well watered above 800 m, but fading to 200 mm of highly unpredictable rainfall at altitudes of 200 m and below. Tree cover is higher at higher altitudes and sparse in the plains. A variety of different kinds of animals are herded.
Customary tenure (with which the text is, in fact, exclusively concerned) was calculated on a genealogical basis: all of the descendants of one ancestor sharing one large area, within which more closely related kin shared smaller, closely adjacent portions. Thus any one piece of land had owners with strong claims and owners with weak claims to it. On the higher slopes, fruit trees, such as apricot and almond, were grown, while on the lower slopes scrub oak, Juniperus spp. and, finally, Ziziphus spina-christi were browsed. In practice, farmed land was owned on a more or less private basis, while range land was shared: a practice which related to the irregularity of rainfall and the impermanent value from year to year of any one piece of land. In the areas of more stable productivity, high on the slopes of Mount Akhdar, access to land was restricted in various ways; in the plains, where productivity was erratic, access to resources was naturally much more open. It was also noticeable that labour inputs were what, in part, limited tenurial rights to more limited categories of people. On the mountain, where crops could be grown and water points improved or created, such assets belonged to those who invested most, and most constant, labour in them. Thus increases in the reliable productivity of field sites were paralleled by increasingly exclusive terms of ownership. Trees fitted the tenure patterns of the land on which they were located-privately owned on the mountain side and communally owned in the plains.
13. Beidelman, T.O. 1967. The matrilineal peoples of Tanzania. Ethnographic Survey of Africa, D. Forde (ed.). East Central Africa, Part 16. International African Institute, London, UK.
TANZANIA Much of Ukaguru, one of the tribal areas described in this survey, is covered in miombo woodland. Rainfall is around 750 mm per annum.
The people are agriculturalists, without animals. Men collect honey and wax and women make a great deal of cash from honey beer brewing. Labour creates and maintains ownership, particularly with regard to the clearance and cultivation of land. If ownership is abandoned, the resource reverts to the matrilineage. Management is work and will not be undertaken unless there is the desire to own the resource to be managed.
14. Benneh, G. 1987. Land tenure and agroforestry land use systems in Ghana.Pp. 163168, in Raintree, J.B. (ed.). Land, trees and tenure. International Council on Agroforestry Research, Nairobi, Kenya, and Land Tenure Center, Madison, USA.
GHANA The summary concerns the northern savannah region of Ghana where bush swidden-fallow farming is practised. The member of the land-owning group who is the first to cultivate a piece of unclaimed land establishes for himself and his descendants the right to use that land for cultivation, and these rights also extend to the swidden-fallow vegetation. Economically useful trees, particularly Butyrospermum parkii (shea nut), Faidherbia albida, Adansonia digitata, Parkia clappertoniana (dawadawa) and others, are integrated with food crops. In areas where there is population pressure on land only these economic trees are left, and most of the trees are now very old.
15. Bertrand, A. 1986. Evolution de 1'elevage et politique foresteere en zone soudanienne. L'exemple de la 3e Region du Mali. [The development of herding and forest policy in the Sudanian zone. An example from the Third Region of Mali.] Communication presentee au seminaire Relations Agriculture-Elevage, DSA-CIRAD, Montpellier, 10-13 septembre, 1985. Les Cahiers de la Recherche Developpement 9-10:35-39. (In French.)
MALI The author describes the Third area of Mali (Sikasso, Koutiala, Kadiolo) with "normal" yearly rainfall varying between 900 and 1,300 mm and recent deficits of 200 to 300 mm/year in a region which is climatically favoured. Here, livestock raising is practised by sedentary herders around villages, by nomadic herders and by urban dwellers. Cattle, sheep and goats are herded. Woody vegetation provides complementary fodder, and it can be increased in volume by the reduction of herbaceous competition, i.e. by grazing, provided that rainfall is sufficient.
However, ground water deficits in upland areas where soils are thin have endangered tree species like the Butyrospermum parkii and Parkia biglobosa, and over large areas where these deficits are present, natural regeneration has not taken place for years. Forest degradation has been caused by livestock raising, bush fires, sedentary agriculture, shifting cultivation, wood harvesting (in areas near urban centres) and drought conditions.
16. Bertrand, A. 1985. Les nouvelles politiques de foresterie en milieu rural au Sahel. Reglementations foncieres et forestieres et gestion des ressources ligneuses naturelles dans les pays de la zone soudano-sahelienne. [New forestry policies in the rural Sahel. The legal status of land and forests and the management of woody vegetation in the countries of the Sudano-Sahelian zone.] Revue Bois et Forets des Tropiques 207:23-40. (In French.)
REGIONAL The francophone Sahel is addressed in this article. The main economic activities are livestock keeping and agriculture, the balance depending on rainfall. The author describes how Sahelian inhabitants originally maintained permanently settled villages, fallows and nearby village owned woodlands and open bush between villages. In 1906, the countries of the francophone Sahel came under the French civil code which stated that all assets which were "unoccupied and without owner" belonged to the state. Thus, all land, except permanently settled village land, passed out of customary tenure arrangements. A further series of addenda attempted to consolidate this position, and all customary tenure was automatically rescinded in 1956. In no francophone Sahelian countries, except Senegal (which began a land reform programme in 1964), have there been changes in forest law since the end of the colonial period.
The forest is primarily as the place for pasturing animals. There is also heavy demand for fuelwood and construction wood. By contrast, with European notions of forests as dedicated pieces of land managed for wood, Sahelian notions are of areas where other human activities take place in symbiosis with the forest. The sole exception is "sacred woods", which are strictly preserved by people.
Population growth in the Sahel is on the order of 2 percent or less in rural areas and 6-8 percent in urban areas. Concentrated and rapidly growing urban demand is devastating the rural areas for firewood. Long swidden-fallows are disappearing and, in addition, urban entrepreneurs are keeping cattle for economic reasons near towns, while before they would have travelled with them over a wide area. The necessity to preserve forest should be addressed, along with rural problems, so as to re-establish the equilibrium of the agro-silvopastoral economy, the only one capable of responding to long-term needs. The Sahelian inhabitant will respond only if he has some right of access to forest products. It is necessary to recognize too, as became clear in Senegal, that land tenure laws and administrative and territorial administration are inseparable and must be developed together. Customary tenure needed to be recognized again, but so too do the overwhelming present day forces, above all, the problems of urban growth.
The article contains an interesting bibliography.
17. Bird, N.M. and Shepherd, G. 1989. Charcoal in Somalia: a woodfuel inventory in the Bay region of Somalia. Final report of the Energy Planning Study, ODA-UK, prepared for the National Range Agency, Ministry of Livestock, Forestry and Range, Mogadishu, Somalia. Overseas Development Natural Resources Institute, London, UK (unpublished).
SOMALIA (See Annotation 97 for a summary of both documents at once.)
18. Bonkoungou, E.G. and Catinot, R. 1986. Research on and development of natural regeneration techniques for the silvopastoral management of existing forest resources. Pp. 89-124, in Carlson, L.W. and Shea, K.R. (eds.). Increasing the productivity of multi-purpose lands. Papers from a IUFRO Research Planning Workshop for Sahelian and North Sudanian Zones. International Union of Forest Research Organizations, Vienna, Austria.
REGIONAL The Sahelian and north Sudanian zones still possess extensive mixed forest covering, perhaps 50 million ha. At 600-800 mm: there is intensive agriculture (millet, sorghum, groundnut) with part transhumant, part stationary animal rearing. At 400-600 mm: agriculture in cooler areas, animal rearing, mainly transhumant, is dominant. At 200-400 mm: agriculture near water and animal rearing, nomadic or transhumant, are predominant. Wood production is more important in the higher rainfall areas, forage in the lower.
There is very limited experience among foresters of silvopastoral management based on natural regeneration techniques for mixed forest and grassland. The authors note the importance of collecting indigenous knowledge in this area, but have none to relay. Research is needed on the role of fire and pasture systems in bushland management and on ways of speeding the fallowing process through agroforestry. The state is badly constituted for these areas; its interests are too sectoral.
19. Boudet, G. 1979. Quelques observations sur les fluctuations du couvert vegetal sahelien au Gourma malien et leurs consequences pour une strategic de gestion sylvo-pastorale. [Some observations on variability in Sahelian vegetative cover in Gourma, Mali and its consequences for silvo-pastoral management.] Revue Bois et Forets des Tropiques 184 (March-April 1979):31-45. (In French.)
MALI The paper discusses the Gourma region of Mali, which has a yearly rainfall varying between 128 and 373 mm in Gao and 182 and 345 mm in Gossi. Erosion and desertification have resulted in the disappearance of Acacia nilotica along rivers and of thickets of Acacia laeta, Acacia seyal and Grewia villosa in swamp forests. Also, over rocky terrain, during a period of eight years, there has been continuous forest degradation in upland areas but woody regeneration on the lowland areas. On sandy soils, drought conditions have resulted in openings in the forest cover with Acacia tortilis taking over Acacia laeta and Acacia senegal along gently sloping areas.
20. van den Breemer, J.P.M. 1989. Farmers' perception of society and environment, and their land use: the case of the Aouan in Ivory Coast. BOS Newsletter No. 18 8(l):28-44.
COTE D'IVOIRE This paper discusses a forested region in the basin of the Comoe River. The Aouan are cultivators of maize, banana, manioc, cocoa and coffee. They are sedentary and village based, practising swidden-fallowing. In former days, no importance was attached to personal land rights. Individual land claims arose when cocoa and coffee cultivation, requiring large fixed plots of land farmed individually, gained importance. A demise in agricultural cooperation coincides with the increasing individualization of tenure.
Bo (the forest) provides humans with food and drink, medicinal plants, construction materials, tools and, formerly, clothes. The Aouan make a distinction between forest and village, distinguishing therefore among plant, animal and human life. Only original residents may lay out new fields in the forest; this is a right connected to matrilineage and the goddess Assie. Rules and taboos prevail concerning the crossing of the boundary between village and forest and the laying out of fields: e.g., fields may not be established on steeply sloping lands (prone to erosion) because Assie appears there, and this is dangerous to humans.
A system of prescribed rest days also operates, in which humans may not enter the forest, which is seen as also needing a rest. Bans on certain plants and animals (e.g., rice and goats), which can be regarded as environmentally destructive, also pertain. Rice requires a great deal of sunlight and it entails widespread clearing of forest areas; as a result, the sunrays reach the soil directly, causing dehydration and erosion. Goats also cause erosion and destroy vegetation.
In the late 1960s, rainfed rice cultivation was introduced, devastating huge areas of forest. Breemer suggests that conversion to Islam and Christianity, and, hence, a diminution of regard for indigenous rituals and taboos on forest and land use and the authority of elders, is partially responsible for the adoption of what he sees as a maladaptive ecological practice. Parts of the forest, previously prohibited, became available for agricultural exploitation and perennial cultures were introduced. Hierarchical patron-client relations were undermined when foreign village dwellers were permitted by the government to plant rice, receiving cash and power and escaping from dependence on the indigenous Aouan matrilineage.
21. Brokensha, D. 1986. Local management systems and sustainability. A paper prepared for the annual meeting of the Society for Economic Anthropology, Riverside, USA (unpublished)
REGIONAL The writer focuses on Africa south of the Sahara and on shifting cultivators. He asserts that in indigenous resource management, there is seldom a formal system or strategy. Instead, there are strategies controlling access to resources which have management consequences dependant largely on the relation of population size to carrying capacity in the existing modes of production. If the former is smaller than the latter, there is more room to manoeuvre. Brokensha suggests that indigenous resource management systems were never fixed. Instead, he sees the farmer as an innovator when innovation was called for. The success of indigenous resource management strategies inheres in the calculation of the advantages and disadvantages of risk taking or resistance to change. Local agricultural systems are flexible and adaptive.
22. Brokensha, D. and Castro, A.H.P. 1988. Common property resources. Background paper presented at the Expert Consultation on Forestry and Food Production/Security in Bangalore, India, February 1988. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Rome, Italy.
KENYA The authors discuss Kirinyaga, southern Mount Kenya, extending down to the semi-arid Mwea plains. Here, the Mbeere used forests for building materials, medicines and honey, and groves were used as places of worship and sacrifice. The sacred groves (matiiri) essentially belonged to the people of the district, although under the control of the ruling generation set, and they acted as focal point for the concerns of the local community. In the 1930s there were 200 sacred groves within the district, mainly on hilltops or along ridges. With an average size of 0.2-3.0 acres, they were composed of large spreading trees with an understorey. Major sacred species were Ficus natalensis, to a lesser extent Ficus waekfieldii in the moister areas and Ficus capensis in the drier southern lowlands. Except for taking cuttings to propagate new sacred trees, no cutting, clearing or cultivation was allowed in the groves. Calamities were often attributed to illicit cutting. If caught violating the rules, the offender had to pay a goat to the elders and face the wrath of neighbours.
The cultural significance of the sacred groves eroded due to the weakening of the generation-set system, new religious practices, disappearance of communal celebrations and increased privatization of land tenure. In the 1930s, the groves were no longer sufficiently protected by custom and peer pressure, and they came under the protection of the Local Native Council, administered by the colonial government. The trees, however, have continued to be protected by community sentiment, but the groves are essentially relics of a past era.
The area also contained islands of forest, the largest of which was 18 sq km. By order of the local elders, these areas had been preserved up to the 1930s to provide structural wood. Rightholders were free to limit the felling of trees, and permission from clan elders was needed before larger timber trees could be cut. The management system broke down with migration into the area in the later 1930s. Concern from the colonial administration over deforestation led to the Embu council taking control of the area as a public trust land and later managerial control was transferred to the forest department.
23. Campbell, B.M. 1986. The importance of wild fruits for peasant households in Zimbabwe. Food and Nutrition 12(1):38-44.
ZIMBABWE The author notes the selective maintenance of favourite wild fruit species in Zimbabwe. As a response to declining availability of preferred wild fruit species in the most severely deforested areas, certain species were selectively maintained. Thus, the frequency of consumption of the valued species did not depend on the conditions of the forest area. However, deforestation did affect the prevalence of use of the less favoured wild fruits. (This article is also referred to in Falconer, J. 1987. Forestry and diets. Background paper presented at the Expert Consultation on Forestry and Food Production/Security. Bangalore, India, February 1988. FAO, Rome, Italy.)
24. Castro, A.H.P. and Brokensha, D. 1988. Institutions and food security: implications for forestry development. Main paper presented at the Expert Consultation on Forestry and Food Production/Security. Bangalore, India, February 1988. FAO, Rome, Italy.
KENYA Mbeere, Kenya is a physically marginal area with uncertain rainfall and generally poor soils. It was initially savannah woodland. Until well into the colonial era, with a low population and an abundance of woodland, rights to woodland were not regulated. Even by 1970, probably 90 percent of Mbeere material culture came from woody vegetation, shrubs, lianes and grasses. In preand early colonial times, some trees were recognized as individual property, especially building trees that had been individually planted like Melia volkensii. There was evidence of "inadvertent conservation" (e.g., in sacred groves), the pollarding of trees and the careful propagation of desired species. But the degradation of the forest resource increased with rising population and the introduction of improved communications, which led to production and curing of tobacco and facilitated the sale of charcoal to urban residents.
25. Centre Technique Forestier Tropical. 1988. Faidherbia Albida. (Del) A. Chev. (synonyme: Acacia albida). Monographie CIRAD, pp. 29-36,50-6 1. (In French.)
REGIONAL The paper looks at the value of Faidherbia albida in East and West Africa, among sedentary cultivators and herders. This tree provides African populations with a range of uses. It is used as fuelwood, fodder and windbreak. The seeds are edible, the bark is used for saddle making, the wood for hive and hut construction and the ashes for soap making. Parts of the tree have medicinal value. This tree is also beneficial as a shade tree for livestock and can increase soil fertility. Faidherbia albida (known locally as gao) is grown in a productive system in association with maize, millet and sorghum, and also as a shade tree for coffee plantations in Tanzania. In Sudan, Fur cultivators' law system forbids cutting of the species. In the 1860s, Sultan Tanimoun in Niger decreed that anyone caught cutting a gao would be beheaded and that anyone found maiming the tree would have an arm cut. This law resulted in high densities of 100 to 120 trees per ha, which led to the disappearance of swidden-fallows.
Because such local laws are no longer in effect, degradation has resulted within these manmade forests, due to excessive lopping, pruning and ageing of the trees. Because of the absence of leaves during the rainy season and deep rooting, the presence of the trees does not affect agricultural output negatively. However, upkeep of the crops under F. albida becomes more important.
26. Charter, J.A. and Kay, R.W.J. 1960. Assessment of the Olokemeji fire control experiment 28 years after institution. Nigerian Forestry Information Bulletin (new series) No. 3. Lagos, Nigeria.
NIGERIA The experiment reported here was conducted in savannah woodland close to, and derived from, closed forest. After 28 years: in the fire protection plot, savannah grasses had been eliminated and 46 percent of tree stems were of fire sensitive rainforest species. The changes in the plots which had been early burnt were going in the same direction, but more slowly. The late burnt plots had remained as open savannah woodland.
This paper provides interesting confirmation of herder rationality in firing, rather than protecting, savannah woodland to keep it open and with a good grass cover.
27. Chavangi, N.A., Engelhard, R.J. and Jones, V. 1985. Culture as the basis for implementing self-sustaining woodfuel development programmes. Beijer Institute, Stockholm, Sweden, and Kenya Woodfuel Development Programme, Nairobi, Kenya.
KENYA The paper is concerned with Kakamega District in the Western Province of Kenya. This is a densely populated area (up to 1,000 inhabitants/sq km) with average farm size of less than 1 ha. Most of the land is under private ownership with little remaining communal land. Inhabitants practise agricultural cash-cropping and off-farm labour. Originally, land was clan property, "owned" by the clan head and used by clan members. Today, men own land in their own right. Trees were planted only by the male land user/owner, and disputes about land were resolved in favour of the male who could claim ancestral ownership of the most mature trees. Even today, trees are male property because they are linked with the demarcation of farm boundaries and with the provision of the home, which must be exclusively constructed from poles grown by men. Trees are managed by gender access and species choice.
28. Club du Sahel. 1984. Analyse du secteur forestier et propositions: la Haute Volta. [Analysis of the forestry sector and proposals: Burkina Faso.] Permanent Interstate Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel (CILSS). OECD No. 2436 (February). Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Paris, France. (In French.)
BURKINA FASO Burkina Faso has a semi-arid climate, long dry season and short rainy season. Ninety-one percent of the population lives in rural areas from livestock raising (until 1970 the most important export resource). Drought conditions, bush fires and herding have modified the dry closed forests of ancient times into open woodlands. Villages on the Mossi plateau have been forced very reluctantly to cut Butyrospermum parkii and Parkia biglobosa trees for fuelwood, once population pressure on the land had shortened or ended swidden-fallow periods in those areas.
In the realm of village forestry, it has been found that individual plantations are more popular than community plantations, which suggests to the authors that there is greater motivation within the family than within the community.
29. Club du Sahel. 1982a. Analyse du secteur forestier et propositions: le Mali. [Analysis of the Forestry sector and proposals: Mali.] Permanent Interstate Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel (CILSS). OECD Nos. 2435a: Rapport (May) and 2435b:Annexe (May). Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Paris, France. (In French.)
MALI Mali has an average rainfall of from 246 mm in the north to 1295 mm in the south. Herding is the main activity, but 90 percent of Malians also practise agriculture. High value is given to the fruits of Parkia biglobosa and Butyrospermum parkii in the south. Leaves and fruits from Adansonia digitata are edible, and its bark is used as rope. Faidherbia albida is found where agriculture takes place, and Tamarindus indica and mango trees are present around villages. Woodland degradation and desertification are prominent around towns, and erosion and depleted soils in rural agricultural land areas are also environmental problems. Forest stands are over-exploited in many areas in the country. Pasture lands in the Sahelian area are destroyed by excessive pruning and lopping of trees and degraded by bush fires. However, inaccessible forested areas are still protected, and the vegetation in the Sahel can be very resistant.
30. Club du Sahel. 1982b. Politiques forestieres au Sahel: Contraintes, Couts, Organisation. [Forest policy in the Sahel: Constraints, Costs, Organization.] Permanent Interstate Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel (CILSS). OECD, No. 2436 (November). Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Paris, France (unpublished).
REGIONAL The Sahel as a whole is investigated. Originally, Sahelian populations regulated soil utilization, hunting and fishing, while pasture lands and nomadic herders were regulated by monarchs or other traditions. Historically, certain useful tree species, such as Butyrospermum parkii, Parkia biglobosa and Adansonia digitata were conserved, either spontaneously or through strict regulations as is the case for Faidherbia albida in the Segou Kingdom (Mali) or in the Sultanate of Zinder (Niger). During the colonial period, the introduction of crops like the groundnut led to excessive clearing of forests, while urbanization has resulted in degradation around towns. The loosening of ancient traditions during that period also increased environmental degradation.
31. Club du Sahel. 1981. Analyse du secteur forestier et propositions: le Niger. [Analysis of the Forestry Sector, and Proposals: Niger.] Permanent Interstate Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel (CILSS). OECD Nos. 2434a(I): Rapport, b(II): Annexes 1-9 and c(III): Annexe Juridique. Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Paris, France. (In French.)
NIGER Throughout Niger, four climatic areas have been identified with yearly average rainfall varying from less than 200 mm to more than 950 mm. The natural forest comprises thorn savannah, bush savannah with various Acacia spp., tree savannah with Boscia, Combretum and Guiera and open woodlands with Tamarindus indica, Bombax costatum, Parkia biglobosa, Butyrospermum parkii, Parinaria macrophylla and Bauhinia spp. The inhabitants are sedentary or nomadic herders. Multiple uses for trees include fuelwood for cooking, charcoal for iron work, local timber, utensils, tools, masks, food (fruit, roots, shea nut butter, Adansonia digitata leaves), fodder (during the dry season), protection (including windbreaks, live fencing, shade) and other uses (such as medicine, ropes, poison, tannin, resin and gum arabic).
In the past, customary rights over forested land resulted in strict land management systems under village chiefs, wise men and individual families. With colonization, the system has weakened and has not been fully replaced by modern ownership laws, so that conflict between government and local villages over land management has resulted.
32. Cordonnier, A. 1988. La Foret Villageoise: Modele de gestion collective des Espaces Bois du Sahel. [The village forest: a model for collective management of the woodlands of the Sahel.] Annales de Gembloux 94: 275-287. (In French.)
MALI The southern region of Mali (Sikasso). "With respect to customary rights, forested areas are rights of way which belong to everyone and their ownership to no one. However, with the introduction of colonialism and the written law, the ownership of these vacant lands was transferred to the State." Communities, by losing their long-term usufruct to these lands, stopped using them sustainably. Since the 1970s, successive drought conditions have led to degradation of natural forests and to increased desertification and human suffering.
33. Delwaulle, J.C. 1975. Le Role du Forestier dans l'Amenagement du Sahel. [The role of the forester in the management of the Sahel.] Revue. Bois et Forets des Tropiques 160 (March-April):3-22. (In French.)
REGIONAL The Sahel is delimited by yearly rainfall of 200 to 500 mm; it comprises few natural forest formations, except along waterways. Scattered trees are present throughout the savannah, including dense regeneration of various Acacia spp., such as Acacia tortilis, F. albida, A. ehrenbergiana, A. laeta, A. nilotica and A. sieberiana.
Up to 1968, livestock raising increased steadily and natural bush regeneration was abundant. Since 1968, however, little regeneration has been possible and woodlands are ageing. A. tortilis and Commiphora africana have been dying, woodlands have opened up and erosion has set in. By the 1970s, gum stands dating to the 1940s and 1950s had almost disappeared and no regeneration was present, except for small pockets resulting from the rainy season of 1969. Protection of these stands would be much more economic than new plantations.
34. Dielen, H. 1982. Report of an agroforestry survey in three villages of northern Machakos, Kenya. Agricultural University Wageningen, Netherlands and International Council on Agroforestry Research, Nairobi, Kenya.
KENYA The Kamba area of Kenya has rainfall averaging between 700 and 900 mm. The land has marginal agricultural potential, with a natural vegetation of dry woodland savannah. The major crops are maize and pulses and some animals kept.
In the past, only farmed land was privately owned, and grazing land was open for all Kamba. Management has moved from the clan to the household, or in the case of shared grazing areas, by particular limited arrangements between a small number of households. With the change from agro-pastoralism to subsistence farming, a change has come to privately owned grazing areas which are also a source of firewood and other tree/shrub produce. Several households will share the privately owned grazing areas, but rights in trees in the area remain individual.
35. van Duijl, E. 1987. Women's access to trees and women planting trees: a study on the complications of tenure issues in agroforestry, in Berenschot, L. (ed.). People's participation in social forestry projects. BOS Document 7, report of a workshop held on 27 October 1987. Department of Forest Management, Agricultural University Wageningen, Netherlands and the Foundation for Dutch Forestry Development Co-operation, Wageningen, Netherlands.
KENYA The Machakos District, where the Akamba live, is at an altitude of 1,200 m. This is a sub-humid to semi-arid area with 850 mm rainfall per annum. Kamba men used to be hunters, livestock keepers and long distance traders, while women farmed millet. They have turned increasingly to sedentary agriculture as population densities have increased and land has been registered. The ownership of trees coincides with the ownership of land, and the head of household controls both. The household head's position has become more important with the privatization and registration of land. There is now evidence that the division of land between sons occurs earlier than previously to encourage greater investment in and improvement to land, such as terracing, and tree planting.
Exotics and planted trees, in general, are regarded as private property, while indigenous naturally occurring trees are still regarded by some as available for fuelwood to all. In cases where trees are scarce, the male head of household controls the rate of cutting. Tree lopping for fodder and for fencing (carried out by men) takes priority over lopping for fuelwood (done by women). Trees may be retained by the individual most easily if they are planted or exotic. Valuable exotics, such as Grevillea robusta and Eucalyptus spp., are lopped in such a way that a central pole for construction timber is encouraged, while side branches can be used for fuelwood.
36. Ellis, J.E., Coppock, D.L., McCabe, J.T., Galvin, K. and Wienpahl, J. 1984. Aspects of energy consumption in a pastoral ecosystem: wood use by the South Turkana. Pp. 164-187, in Barnes, C. et al. (eds.). Wood, energy and households: perspectives on rural Kenya. Beijer Institute, Stockholm, Sweden, and the Scandinavian Institute of African Studies, Uppsala, Sweden.
KENYA In this area there is a mean annual rainfall of 283-394 mm with a 9-10 month dry season. A mixture of vegetation types includes heavy bush of Acacia reficiens and other Acacia spp. with open grass areas, large trees of A. tortilis and A. elatior in riverine forests, and mountain areas with greater precipitation and a dense shrub forest dominated by Commiphora and A. tortilis. The report suggests a relative abundance of wood resources for the Turkana with no evidence of previous negative impacts of these people on tree production or density.
The Turkana are pastoralists with two thirds of livestock biomass as browsers (camels, goats) and one third browsers (cattle, donkeys, sheep). They are very mobile and move according to the seasons. All plant materials, including trees, are the common property of all individuals in sub-section "territories'. Women are responsible for the collection of fuelwood and of wood for construction. There are few constraints on the collection of wood, as this is a common resource. Tree conservation is practised, however; no live trees of any species are cut for fuel, only dead wood is collected; and although live trees are cut for construction, they are usually small and of abundant species. Although some trees are completely utilized or killed in obtaining construction materials, others are only pruned.
The most frequent species used for the construction of dwellings and corrals are Acacia tortilis and A. reficiens both are very abundant species in the ecosystem and evidence suggests that they are not decreasing in South Turkana. A. reficiens is used in over 80 percent of huts and corrals. This regional selective cutting may be acting as a partial control on the proliferation of a species that may form dense bush not well-suited for livestock when it is not cut, burnt, grazed or otherwise removed.
37. Evans-Pritchard, E.E. 1974. Man and woman among the Azande. Faber and Faber, London, UK.
SUDAN This study is based on fieldwork carried out between 1927 and 1930. The Azande live in southern Sudan, in the sub-humid zone. They are shifting cultivators with few animals. Women do most of the cultivation of eleusine, yams, pumpkins, gourds, groundnuts and maize. Men plant bananas and fig trees for bark cloth. Trees are needed for fuelwood, house construction, barkcloth (at that date) and raw materials for tools and domestic utensils. Land ownership is created by the clearing of land, which is always done by men (since the act creates ownership). Similarly, it is men who build huts. Men make barkcloth and have special responsibility for the propagation of the Ficus natalensis trees from which it is made.
38. FAO. 1981. Agroforesterie Africaine: Une etude preparde par la Faculte des sciences agronomiques de l'Etat, Section foresterie des pays chauds, Gembloux, Belgique. [African agroforestry: a study carried out by the faculty of State Agronomic Science, Tropical Forestry Section, Gembloux, Belgium.] FAO/ SIDA programme forestier pour le developpement des collectivites locales (GCP/INT/347/SWE), Rome, Italy.
REGIONAL This study focuses on West and Central Africa. It offers the following examples of indigenous agricultural systems involving trees:
39. Francis, P. 1987. Land tenure systems and agricultural innovation: the case of alley farming in Nigeria. Land Use Policy 1987 (July):305-319.
NIGERIA The paper takes the case of the Okwe area of Imo State, Nigeria. If trees are deliberately planted, they belong to the person who planted them. Selfsown trees on individual holdings are the exclusive property of the landholder. Economic trees growing wild on communal land belong to the landholding group as a whole. An individual farming an area on which a tree is growing has exclusive rights over the tree during the period of cultivation.
There are three main categories of land:
Around the compound: there is a multi-storey cropping system with kola, pawpaw, coconut and citrus trees over annual crops. The compound area is intensely cultivated with household waste and animal manure.
Land ownership is predominantly individual but there are collective mechanisms for the management of the six-year rotations on the distant land by adjacent sub-villages.
40. Gibson, D.C. and Muller, E.V. 1987. Diagnostic surveys and management information systems in agroforestry implementation: a case study from Rwanda. Working Paper No. 49. International Council on Agroforestry Research and CARE, Nairobi, Kenya.
RWANDA This is a study of the transition zone between the hilly Eastern Plateau and the Eastern Plains of Rwanda. The altitude is around 1,500 m and the annual rainfall is about 1,000 mm. Farmers live on well-dispersed homesteads. Major crops are beans, maize, sorghum, sweet potatoes and bananas. Livestock are also important, and cattle, goats and sheep are kept. Fuelwood is the main source of household energy, used for brewing sorghum beer, space heating, lighting and ironing. Trees and shrubs provide the raw materials for construction, tools, enclosures and windbreaks.
The 1962 constitution and legislation states that all land in Rwanda belongs to the state. Individuals have exclusive usufruct rights, not outright ownership. Where there is good access to forest resources, there is little tree planting and, apparently, little attempt at management. One of the factors determining tree planting rates is population density. It is most found where there is the most pressure on land and the greatest intensification of cash-oriented agriculture. Increasing shortages are causing men to take a greater interest in the production of trees. The surveys carried out showed that male farmers who get fuelwood from their farms have planted more trees than those who collect dead wood. Farmers who have to cut trees for fuelwood themselves are more interested in planting trees than farmers whose wives collect fuelwood.
41. Gluckman, M. 1951. The Lozi of Barotseland in north-western Rhodesia. Pp. 1-93, in Colson, E. and Gluckman, M. (eds.). Seven Tribes of British Central Africa. Oxford University Press, London, UK.
ZAMBIA The Lozi live on a largely treeless plain. They are sedentary farmers and fishermen with an elaborate political structure. Each Lozi king would select or build a village where he would be buried; upon his death, his subjects would erect a fence of pointed stakes around the site and plant trees from the bush there. Thus the grave sites are clearly recognizable in the largely treeless plain. (Source identified in Niamir, M. 1989. Local knowledge and systems of natural resource management in arid and semi-arid Africa. SIDA/FAO Forest, Trees and People Programme, FAO, Rome, Italy.)
42. Grandin, B.E. 1987. East African pastoral land tenure: some reflections from Maasailand. Pp. 201-210, in Raintree, J.B. (ed.), Land, trees and tenure. International Council on Agroforestry Research, Nairobi, Kenya, and Land Tenure Center, Madison, USA.
KENYA The paper focuses on Maasailand, East Africa and on an aspect of the system before group ranches were established: trees on calf pastures. This land was set aside near residential sites and provided grazing for young calves or sick or old animals, while the trees have some special rights attached to them. Permission was not required to cut dead trees for firewood, to cut a few living branches (e.g. for a walking stick) or to take a few roots for herbs. The only time permission from calf pasture controller(s) of the calf pasture was needed was when massive amounts of branches for fencing was to be cut.
43. Griffard, P.L. 1964. Les possibilites de reboisement en Faidherbia albida au Senegal. [The possibility of reafforestation with Faidherbia albida in Senegal.] Bois et Forets des Tropiques 95:21-33. (In French.)
NIGER The Hausa sultans of Zinder in Niger set themselves up as protectors of the Sao tree (Faidherbia albida), decreeing draconian preservation measures. Anyone cutting down a tree without permission had his head cut off, and anyone who mutilated a tree without good reason would have his arm amputated. There is also mention of contemporary use of Faidherbia albida in an agropastoral system with 10 to 50 trees per ha. (This article is cited in Boudet, G.C. and Toutain, B. 1980. The integration of browse plants within pastoral and agropastoral systems in Africa. Pp. 427-432, in le Houerou, H.N. (ed.). Browse in Africa: the current state of knowledge. International Livestock Centre for Africa, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.)
44. Gulliver, P. H. 1958. Land tenure and social change among the Nyakyusa. East African Studies No.11. King and Jarrett, London, UK.
TANZANIA The Nyakyusa live in an area north of Lake Nyasa, in Rungwe District, Tanzania. The altitude ranges from 500-2,400 m, with good rainfall. The main crops are bananas, maize, beans, finger millet and groundnuts. In the highest areas coffee is grown as a cash crop, while down in the lake plains paddy rice is both a food and a cash crop. Livestock was also important. The village is the basic land holding unit, under a headman. Residency gave rights to a house site, banana plot, arable land and grazing on communal pastures. A man who leaves must give up these rights but can re-activate them later. Management is by the exclusion of non-residents - even if they are from the same chiefdom or clan. When a chief dies trees are planted on his grave, forming a sacred grove and religious centre where later sacrifice might take place.
45. Hammer, T. 1988. Wood for fuel - energy crisis implying desertification:the case of Bara, Sudan. Pp. 176-18 1, in Fortmann, L. and Bruce, J. (eds.). Whose trees?: proprietary dimensions in forestry. Westview Press, Boulder, USA.
SUDAN In Bara, in Kordofan, Sudan, Acacia senegal constitutes the main tree cover. The inhabitants are sedentary cultivators based in village settlements. The general land distribution practice sees the allocation of three to four plots of land per household, with the reserve remaining under the village head's control, to be allocated to new arrivals or otherwise designated as common property. Family plots pass from father to son and deserted plots revert to common property.
In practice, village heads are now reluctant to give plots to newcomers. When they do so, they do not give the newcomers rights over the gum trees present on their plots, but appropriate the profit from the trees for themselves. They also lay claim to gum trees on open or government land. Each long-established household retains the right to tap its own gum trees and to prosecute trespassers.
Originally, the cultivation/fallow/gum tapping/charcoal burning system was strictly enforced, with long swidden-fallow periods maintained.
Forest laws, implemented by the forest office in Bara, dictated that no trees should be cut except for the purpose of cultivation and with the office's permission. Many trees are now cut daily on forest land, however, without permission. The complete cycle has been halved from around 18-20 years to only 8-10 years, and the swidden-fallow period has contracted from 10-15 years to one to three years. The shortened swidden-fallow period is both a response to and a cause of worsening ecological conditions. It interacts with a complicated set of factors, resulting from both climatic and human conditions. Diminished rainfall from 1968 to 1976 caused a decline in gum yields, so cultivators cut down the trees and began growing crops early, in order to make up for lost income.
46. Hammer, T. 1982. Reforestation and community development in the Sudan. Energy in Developing Countries Series. Discussion Paper D-73M. Resources for the Future, Washington DC, USA (unpublished).
SUDAN The Kordofan region of Sudan received 200-800 mm rainfall annually. This was once an area of exceptionally high fertility, but soil fertility began to decrease 3040 years ago. Important local tree species include: Acacia senegal, A. tortilis, A. mellifera, A. tortilis, F. albida, A. seyal, Combretum cordofanum, Zizyphus spinachristi and Balanites aegyptiaca. The population are sedentary farmers with animals. Originally, shifting cultivation was practised, with three plots on a rotational basis. A plot was cultivated for 3 to 6 years, with grazing of the fields after harvest by the cultivator's animals or those of nomadic herders for fees. A. senegal naturally regenerated and was either left to grow alongside the agricultural crops or cleared until the field was left fallow (very occasionally seeds of A. senegal were sown). During the fallow, the trees were tapped for gum. In the late 16th century, a quasi-privatization of land developed, in which farmers began to claim rights to plots after the cultivation period in order to secure income from the A. senegal.
Until the mid-1950s dead and fallen branches were used for fuel, and living trees were only cut for land clearance. Gum bearing A. senegal was never cut. There has been a general decline in the land's capacity to support the local population since the middle of this century, however, for a number of interrelated reasons: desert encroachment from the north, over-exploitation of the woodland savannah, overly intensive agriculture, over-cutting of wood for fuel and overgrazing. The intensification of pressure on land was caused by increasing indigenous human and animal populations, and migration from the degraded area to the cultivable village land in the core of the Gum Belt.
Pressure for land has also made sheikhs less willing to give village land to newcomers. They may rent land but have no rights to the land or the trees that grow on it after the cultivation period. The tenants therefore have little incentive to try to maintain or improve soil fertility. Due to falling gum yield and increasing local demands for fuelwood, live trees, including A. senegal, are beginning to be cut, although sheikhs try to punish those that do. Also, there is now demand to cut trees for charcoal for markets up to 300 km away.
47. Heermans, J.G. 1988. The Guesselbodi experiment: bushland management in Niger. Pp. 84-87, in Conroy, C. and Litvinoff, M. The greening of Aid: sustainable livelihoods in practice. Proceedings of an LIED Sustainable Development Conference. Earthscan/International Institute for Environment and Development, London, UK.
NIGER In the Guesselbodi forest, 25 km from Niamey, Niger, the dominant tree species are Combretum nigricans, C. micranthum, Guiera senegalensis, Boscia senegalensis and some Commiphora africana. In the past, there was also plenty of Prosopis africana and Sclerocarya birrea. The inhabitants practice a good deal of herding and some agriculture.
Ligneous species in the Sahel sprout readily, if lopped, and grow rapidly. Some Combretum nigricans cut to ground level has been seen to grow three metres in one year. The study provides no other information related to indigenous management.
The Guesselbodi management plan was presented to the people as a fait accompli, though it was based on two years of earlier questionnaires and discussions. It is hard to know how wide ranging these were. While it is clear that people will not participate in management programmes until ownership, control and land tenure questions are resolved, it would seem that here, local people opted for the income generating opportunities the project presented (i.e. it was not sustainable without these inputs). Management is to be by cooperatives, and responsibility will be gradually transferred to them. The co-op will sell fixed numbers of firewood cutting and grazing permits, and this will be used to raise cash for guards' salaries, and so on.
48. Horowitz, M. and Badi, K. 1981. Sudan: introduction of forestry in grazing systems. FAO/SIDA Forestry for Local Community Development Programme (GCP/INT/347/SWE). FAO, Rome, Italy.
SUDAN The document deals with the sedentary farming communities in the irrigated agricultural schemes adjacent to the White Nile and semi-nomadic pastoral-cultivators in the sandy uplands to the west. Average annual rainfall ranges from 150 mm to 400 mm within the region. Generally, the woody resource is degraded from the original vegetation types. In the Acacia tortilis-Maeru crassifolia desert scrub, A. tortilis still dominates, but many other species are no longer found. A. tortilis owes its dominance to the firm protection it enjoys from the local inhabitants. The tree is used for browse, and fallen leaves andthe collected unripe pods are used for cattle, sheep and goat feed. There are also village forest areas close to the village which are closely supervised by the villagers themselves. Wood collection and grazing is limited to actual members of the village. These areas are generally well maintained, except where the villagers of small poor villages have no cash alternative to fuelwood collection. The only privately owned trees result from natural regeneration of trees during the swidden-fallow period. These trees then belong to the title holder of the field.
49. Hoskins, M.W. 1984. Observations on indigenous and modern agroforestry activities in West Africa. Pp. 46-50, in Jackson, J.K. (ed.). Social, economic, and institutional aspects of agroforestry. UN University, Tokyo, Japan.
REGIONAL The paper deals with sedentary cultivators operating swiddenfallowing systems in West Africa: Niger, Nigeria, Chad, Burkina Faso and Mali. Hoskins notes the presence of common property resources (CPRs) in several of the countries. Herders and farmers have, in the past, had complex regulations regarding access to land, water and vegetation. Common lands remain an important source of income for women. Often, planting trees changed land ownership, so tenants might not plant trees on the landlord's property, and farmers suspected the motives of forestry departments encouraging them to plant trees. Modern land use planning programmes tend to privatize land ownership, ignoring the use of natural vegetation by forest dwellers, farmers, the landless or herders. Titles go to male household heads, ignoring indigenous gender-related usufruct rights.
Shea nuts (Butyrospermum parkii) are manufactured into cooking oil by women. Leaves and seeds comprise nutritious sauces for grain-based meals; grasses and bark are woven and dyed into mats and baskets and sold or used at home. Trees serve medicinal functions and provide fuelwood, chew sticks (tooth brushes), ropes and timber. Faidherbia albida is important for soil fertility and fodder. Taboos were often placed on certain species, activities, or the use of certain tools for cultivation or collection.
In Sierra Leone, swidden agriculturalists cut trees in field clearing operations at various heights from the ground to favour re-growth of selected species when the fields are once more fallow. In Senegal, Burkina Faso, Chad and Niger, Faidherbia albida is selectively preserved for its benefits to the surrounding crop. Likewise, Butyrospermumparkii, Parkia biglobosa and Adansonia digitata trees are preserved in the fields.
Many new agroforestry projects have been implemented in West Africa. It is suggested that their success rate corresponds to the degree to which indigenous resource management practices are incorporated into the systems imposed by extension agents. In practice, indigenous practices and tenure rules are often overridden, so that the new project fails to benefit more than a selected few in the village.
50. le Houerou, H.N. 1980a. The role of browse in the Sahelian and Sudanian zones. Pp. 83-100, in le Houerou, H.N., (ed.). Browse in Africa: the current state of knowledge. International Livestock Centre for Africa, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
REGIONAL This review mentions that "the agropastoral systems developed by several African peasant societies based on ... (Faidherbia albida) ... exploitation and millet and sorghum crops, seem to have arisen independently: for example, the Galla and Arussi farmers in the Ethiopian Rift Valley have developed a parklike landscape similar to that of the Serer in Senegal." (See also annotations 25,43 and 51.)
51. le Houerou, H.N. 1980b. Agroforestry techniques for the conservation and improvement of soil fertility in and and semi-arid zones. Pp. 433-435, in le Houerou, H.N. (ed.). Browse in Africa: the current state of knowledge. International Livestock Centre for Africa, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
REGIONAL Faidherbia albida (go) is protected and kept in millet fields in a number of peasant civilizations in Africa, among them the Serer of Senegal. The density of trees is 10 to 50 per ha, the adult trees are 10 to 20m tall and the canopies cover about 2 percent to 40 percent of the ground area. Millet production in the system is almost twice that obtained in purely open land farming systems without fertilization. Also the pods are valuable as animal feed. Branches and foliage are lopped on a rotation system about once every 3 to 5 years and fed to livestock. The wood from the branches is used for fuel and fences. The total economic output of the system for the farmer is probably about three times greater than the open land millet cultivation. In addition, soil fertility is maintained and soil erosion is kept to a minimum, unlike in open field conditions.
52. Huntingford, G.W.B. 1955. The Galla of Ethiopia: the kingdoms of Kafa and Janjero. Ethnographic Survey of Africa, D. Forde (ed.). North Eastern Africa, Part 2. International African Institute, London, UK.
ETHIOPIA The Galla live on the Ethiopian plateau and enjoy heavy seasonal rain. They are primarily growers of cereals and legumes. For the Galla, land in theory belongs to the tribe. However, some degree of rights to land and forest can be obtained through occupation "accompanied by the hanging of honey-barrels in the forest; but no man may enclose for himself more than he can cover with a spear-throw or stone's throw." The Galla have a great reverence for nature and "groves of trees", and individual trees, especially Ficus sycamorus, near huts and villages are indeed "sacred". These are often planted for spirits as an act of piety.
53. ILCA, 1979. Livestock production in the sub-humid zone of West Africa: a regional review. ILCA Systems Study 2. International Livestock Centre for Africa, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
REGIONAL The sub-humid zone of West Africa has a mean annual rainfall of 1000-1500 mm and a growing season of 180 days in the north to around 280 days in the south. Woody vegetation ranges from semi-deciduous forest along streams in the savannah zone to open tree savannah dominated largely by isolated trees. Browse is not considered as important a component of animal diets in the subhumid zone as in the Sudanian and Sahelian zones because of the number of woody species acceptable to stock is limited and grass is generally available. Browse behaviour is very seasonal and is associated with the new flush of foliage which appears on the browse plants with the onset of the hot and humid weather preceding the rains, a period when grass tends to be in short supply. In many parts of the northern sub-humid zone, herdsmen climb large trees and lop branches for fodder. This supplements other more accessible browse.
54. Jackson, J.K. 1983. Management of the natural forest in the Sahel Region. A technical report prepared for USDA Forestry Support Programme (AID/USDA/USFS), Washington DC, USA.
REGIONAL The productivity of natural forest is about five cubic metres per ha per year in the Sahel zone rising to about one cu m per ha per year in the Sudan zone. Tree cover ranges from Acacia tortilis in the driest areas, A. senegal and A. laeta in slightly wetter areas, Commiphora africana, Ziziphus mauritiana and A. seyal on heavier soils, to Combretum glutinosum, C. micranthum, Anogeissus leiocarpus and Guiera senegalensis under higher rainfall still. Much of this area shows a forest strongly influenced by man, with selected species retained and others cleared. In drier areas these anthropogenic forests contain Adansonia digitata and Faidherbia albida, while in higher rainfall areas, Butyrospermum parkii (karite), Parkia biglobosa (nere) and Tamarindus indica are found.
Forests are an important reserve of relishes, dietary supplements and fodder, at certain times of year and in times of drought. Naturally they are also important for fuel and poles, fibres and medicines. The people are herders and, where possible, agriculturalists, farming on a long swidden-fallow basis or intensively by rivers and permanent water sources.
The legal position as regards forest for rural people in francophone Africa is difficult, because all customary rights are essentially denied and the population feels that the forets classees have been taken from them by foresters. There has been little forester management of any part of the Sahel, except for protection and early burning. The main exception is that of Acacia nilotica along the Blue Nile in Sudan. State protection is in its infancy.
In this document, indigenous management is advocated as a solution to the lack of forestry staff. The report contains an excellent bibliography.
55. Jackson, J.K. n.d (post-1984). The management of dry natural forest in West Africa and the Sahel, with some general thoughts on management of indigenous forest. ODI Library, London, UK (unpublished).
REGIONAL Up to 1983, the author could find only two instances recorded of classical planned natural woodland management in Africa:
Formal forest management inputs should always be kept low because values are low, but the author suggests some possible approaches:
