Sustainable Agriculture Extension Manual

Strengthening user rights

Many countries in eastern and southern Africa have lost much of their natural forests. In recent years, serious efforts throughout the region have focused on reforestation and natural regeneration. Despite differences in land-tenure policies, various countries share similar problems in rural communal lands.

Constraints to regeneration and reforestation efforts include:

• Free grazing in the dry season.
• Over-stocking of livestock and lack of suitable forage material.
• Soil degradation, producing unfavourable micro-environments for young plants.
• Promotion of exotic tree species such as eucalyptus rather than local trees.
• Lack of (or weak management of) community plantations or nurseries.
• Weak extension services and limited use of participatory approaches.
• Farmers' unwillingness to invest in land without secure ownership or clear user rights.
• Competing land uses (eg, arable farming is taking over traditional pasture areas, so livestock holders are reluctant to stop free grazing on uncultivated land).

Clearly, many of these problems are interrelated. But perhaps the predominant constraint is a lack of secure ownership over natural resources—land, water, and trees.

User rights, or "usufruct rights", mean that the control by groups or individuals over natural resources is officially recognized. Clearer, stronger user rights may enable communities to use natural resources better and more innovatively. They have an incentive to use and conserve the resources in a sustainable way. It is necessary to make them confident that investing time and effort to improve those resources is worthwhile.

The remainder of this section describes a project in the northeast highlands of Ethiopia which has tried to address these issues. The approach described here is most relevant to areas where:

• User rights on communal or open lands are not clearly defined.
• There are marginal lands with extreme deforestation due to lack of management or unclear user rights.
• Previous reforestation programmes did not deliberately involve the local people in the planning, implementation and decision-making.
• The resource base—soil, water, trees, forage, etc—is seriously degraded.

User rights in Meket district, Ethiopia

Meket district in North Wollo administrative zone of Ethiopia ranges in altitude from 2,000 to 3,400 metres above sea level and has a mix of agro-climatic zones. Its inhabitants are almost wholly dependent on agriculture. As rising numbers of people have put more pressure on the land, fallow periods have shortened, and continuous ploughing has become commonplace. Local people say that within a generation, there has been dramatic deforestation, and the grazing has declined in both quantity and quality. Expanding

cultivation and increasing demand for wood have left even the steepest slopes unprotected. Only about 8% of the total area remains under forest. Much of the rainfall is lost through runoff, causing severe soil erosion and floods. Indigenous trees are not commonly allowed to regenerate (except on some church lands), and efforts to plant trees have had little impact.

The Ethiopian people have had negative experiences of land reallocation over the last 20 years, and are hence unwilling to invest effort in reforestation or regeneration activities. Different types of forest ownership (individual, church, service co-operative and community) can be found in the district, but none have reversed the natural resource depletion.

Weak land-tenure and user rights were clearly hindering effective community-led environmental conservation in Meket. But this seemed to be a policy issue too large for a small development programme to become involved in.

The reforestation programme

In mid-1996, SOS Sahel, an international NGO, began working with local authorities and agriculture ministry staff to seek a way to work with communities and solve these problems. A series of consultative meetings resulted in official approval for a draft set of procedures. Central to these was the establishment of official user rights for villagers.

The main purposes of the project were to:

• Improve the condition of the natural forest.
• Provide community needs for construction materials and fuelwood.
• Build villagers' confidence to make long-term investments.
• Use the experience to advocate changes in government policy on user rights.

Community meetings were held to explain the procedures, identify potential conservation sites, begin gathering data, and establish co-ordinating systems to deal with possible conflicts between villages. Follow-up visits helped each community to:

• Identify the individuals who would be involved in the group.
• Define the group's objectives in participating in the reforestation activities, and the anticipated impacts.

• Name and mark the proposed reforestation site, making it visible to the surrounding communities.
• Develop a site-management plan (see the box below).

The project marked the reforestation site with marker poles painted with bright red and white stripes. These poles became popular, and other communities began to want their own.

The communities were allowed to define their own objectives for the site, but long-term plans (5-10 years, or more if indigenous trees were established) were required. The group decided how to share the benefits among its members, and this had to be included in the management plan. Similarly, each village developed its own strategy for guarding the site; most decided to hire a guard, who was paid in cash or in kind.

If a conflict arose between the villages over the plans or proposed sites, another meeting was organized to resolve it. This proved essential, as it provoked animated discussions and eventually led to a general consensus between the villages involved.

The proposed plan was then presented for approval at the kebele (sub-district) level by relevant bodies: community representatives, subdistrict officials and church leaders. It was then submitted to district officials and the agriculture office. If the plan was approved, official user rights were given to the group for their site.

SOS Sahel and the Ministry of Agriculture provided tools, seed, technical support and follow-up services to establish woodlots on the sites.

 

Management plan for reforestation sites in Meket A community's management plan had to include the following elements: Objectives of the enclosure List of members Species, type and number of seedlings to plant, and source of seedlings (establishment of a village nursery or purchase from other sources) Design and management of the plantation Development of annual work plans (for at least 1 year) Means of protecting the site Definition of group bye-laws Use and management of the products

Impacts

The project has had a number of significant impacts.

• Farmers' participation in reforestation efforts has increased. At first, 14 villages received official user rights; 20 more communities have also become involved, directly benefiting more than 2,000 households.
• Natural regeneration of indigenous grass, shrub and tree species has been dramatic. There are very clear differences when compared with unprotected sites.
• Sufficient short-term benefits have been realized—such as improved forage and increased production of thatching grass—to motivate communities to strengthen and expand their enclosure sites.
• More secure user rights have created confidence among the communities. They have expressed strong interest to plant indigenous species (eg, Hagenia abyssinica, Juniperus procera, Olea africana) instead of eucalyptus.
• Communities have started to expand their sites, and new communities want to establish their own enclosures. Some are seeking compensation from the sub-district administration for individual farmers who are cultivating land within the future enclosures. Some villages have even begun a similar process without outside intervention or support.
• Community-based control systems for dry-season grazing have been shown to be effective.
• Farmers seem to have accepted the introduction of cut-and-carry fodder systems. This may prove to be one of the most significant impacts for the Ethiopian highlands.
• The results of the experience have demonstrated to policy-makers the usefulness of the approach. The regional government has accepted the process and is replicating it throughout the region.
• Reduced access to fuelwood was the most commonly cited problem after the sites were enclosed. Although they were enthusiastic about the enclosed sites, women had to shift from using fuelwood (traditionally collected from the site), to other, lower-quality fuels, such as cow dung, crop residues, twigs and leaves.