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While it has repeatedly been observed that pastoralist resource governance systems tend not to conform to the assumptions and principles of mainstream scholarship on property rights and governance of commons, coherent theoretical reasons why this is the case are less common. One exception is the concept of open property regimes. This view holds that the quintessential features of dryland pastoralist systems—limited and highly variable rainfall, low resource density, mobility, and institutions and norms that emphasize flexibility and access—can result in pastoralist herders dynamically distributing and redistributing themselves across a territory without the assumed benefit of clear boundaries or of collective decision-making and rules. However, the open property regimes explanation describes some pastoralist systems better than others. This paper argues that some pastoralist systems are neither conventional commons nor open property regimes. Instead they tend reflect another model, referred to here as a complex mosaic regime, in which there is gradation of strength and clarity of exclusionary property rights over different resources, in which property rights are often unbundled and allocated to different actors and governance mechanisms, and in which a prominent role is played by social processes and governance mechanisms other than property rights institutions. Social and biophysical characteristics that may be more conducive to complex mosaic regimes than to open property systems, particularly if all of those characteristics are found together, include a severe and chronic shortage of one or more critical resources, spatial heterogeneity of resources, scalar heterogeneity of interests, and a herd mobility pattern that involves occasional convergence on highly valued key resource areas. In elaborating the complex mosaic regime model, this paper addresses a blind spot in scholarship on property rights and commons, deepening the understanding of why pastoralist systems tend not to conform to mainstream theory, as well as helping to explain some of the differences among pastoralist systems. Understanding the internal logic of alternative resource governance regime models and the social-ecological conditions that make one model more viable than another can help to guide national policies and the strategies of conservation and development actors.

Social-ecological systems of traditional pastoralists are adapted to deal with shocks and stresses such as droughts and livestock disease that characterize their environment. However, inappropriate policies have undermined the resilience of pastoralist social-ecological systems at a time when stresses from new challenges, such as growth in the human population and global climate change are increasing. Many pastoralist groups such as the Gabra of north-central Kenya now regularly require emergency relief. There is an urgent need to take deliberate steps to rebuild the resilience of pastoralist social-ecological systems. One lever that external actors such as NGOs and government agencies have that could help them to do so relates to structures and processes of participation and decision-making. The purpose of this research, therefore, was to examine ways in which the approaches to public participation used by agencies involved in water resources management can affect the collective capacity of pastoralist institutions and communities to influence social-ecological resilience. The research revolved around a single case study: the Kenyan NGO Pastoralist Integrated Support Programme (PISP) together with the Gabra communities where PISP works. The research found that the capacity to influence resilience resides in the network of vertical and horizontal institutional linkages as much as it does in any particular organization or institution. This implies the need for a radical paradigm shift in the way that NGOs and other formal sector actors think of participation and of their role. An examination of the Gabra approach to decision-making and PISP's approach to participation point to an alternative way of thinking about participation. This alternative rationale for participation would call on formal sector actors to promote participation and inclusivity of decision-making at multiple levels of social organization through an array of interconnected processes and institutions, to foster deliberation processes that are ...

German Academic Exchange Service ; International Fund for Agricultural Development ; European Union ; Peer Review

Recognizing that community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) approaches have had mixed success in pastoral rangelands, this paper compares five case studies—two from Kenya, two from Ethiopia and one from Tunisia—to identify aspects of social-ecological context that affect the implementation and success of CBNRM in pastoral settings. Data for each case was collected following a common protocol. Among the characteristics that emerged from our study as important were socio-political and biophysical characteristics of the wider landscape within which the community's rangeland territory is located and the extent to which that territory is circumscribed by some combination of other land uses and land tenure types, major political boundaries, and physical landscape features. The analysis of these cases suggests that where pastoralist communities coexist in large, open rangeland landscapes, rather than a narrowly community-based approach, natural resource management interventions need to be explicitly multi-level and horizontally flexible.