Presented by Lance W. Robinson and Irene N. Nganga at the 17th Global Conference of the International Association for the Study of the Commons, Lima, Peru, 1-5 July 2019

1. Community-based rangeland management
in light of recent developments
in Commons Theory
Lance W. Robinson and Irene Nganga
17th Global Conference of the International
Association for the Study of the Commons
1 to 5 July 2019
Lima, Peru

2. Commons theory
• Four property types:
– Private property
– State property
– Open access
– Commons
• Ostrom design principle no. 1: clearly
defined resource and social group
boundaries
• Open access is to be avoided

3. Influence of commons scholarship
• Community-based conservation (CBC)
• Community-based natural resource management
(CBNRM)
• FAOs voluntary guidelines on the responsible
governance of tenure (VGGT)
• In Africa, growing trend toward constitutional
provisions and legislation recognizing communal land
tenure
• Including in pastoral rangelands

4. The Paradox of Pastoral Tenure
• Fernandez-Gimenez (2002)
• Action is needed to secure communal tenure
rights for pastoralists
• But policy interventions that do this seem to
always undermine the flexibility and fuzziness
that are quintessential features of pastoralism

5. Many traditional pastoralist systems don’t
conform to mainstream thinking
• Spatio-temporal variability in rainfall and forage
compels mobility
• Traditional pastoralist governance systems
characterized by:
– fuzzy and flexible group and territorial
boundaries
– emphasis on access rather than ownership and
exclusion
– yet, often without a tragedy

6. New models proposed for collective
governance in pastoral systems
1. Open Property Regimes (e.g., Moritz 2016)
e.g. Northern Cameroon.
• Open access is not lack of rules; open access is the
rule
• Creation of boundaries is resisted.
• Systems of management of resources are resisted.
• Yet no sign of a tragedy

7. New models proposed for collective
governance in pastoral systems(cont.)
2. Complex Mosaic Regimes (e.g., Robinson 2019)
e.g. Borana of southern Ethiopia.
• A gradation of clarity and strength of boundaries and
property rights
• Property rights unbundled (Schlager and Ostrom 1992) by
type, timing, and governance actor
• Overlaps in territories, and rights
• Multi-level fuzziness in decision-making authority
• Governance mechanisms other than property rights
institutions feature prominently (deliberative forums,
negotiation, land use planning).

8. 3 pastoral communities
Shompole/
Olkiramatian
Group Ranches
Il’Ngwesi Group
Ranch
Dirre Dheeda
CONTEXT
Country Kenya Kenya Ethiopia
Rainfall 550 mm. CV=27.4% 810 mm. CV=28.8% 614 mm. CV=31.3%
Encapsulation Med.-High Low-Med. Low
Security of tenure High Med.-High Low
Conflict Low – Med. Med.-High High
BASELINE
GOVERNANCE
SYSTEM
The rangeland
community
Commons Commons Complex Mosaic
Regime
The wider
landscape
Somewhat
circumscribed/
buffered
Nested w/i larger
landscape, diverse
ethnic groups
having OPRs, CMRs
Nested w/i larger
landscape of CMRs,
same ethnic group

9. Interventions and Challenges
• All three cases had interventions that, at least in the
early stages, were essentially CBNRM interventions.
• Shompole/Olkiramatian is arguably the most successful
case. They are somewhat isolated and therefore
protected.
• Dirre has struggled to be understood by other actors, as
well as struggling with a jealous state
• In north-central Kenya, Il’Ngwesi and other
communities have struggled. Local community
governance not respected by the wider pastoral
communities. CBNRM not adapted to an CMR context.

10. Evolution of Approaches
• Approaches in Ethiopia (Dirre case) evolving toward
being more explicitly multi-level, as well as building
trust with the government actors.
• Approaches in north-central Kenya evolving toward:
o More multi-level interventions.
o More emphasis on planning approaches; less on
“hard governance”/1st design principle

11. Policy Options for the Paradox of Pastoral Tenure
• A theory of governance of common pool
resources in pastoral rangelands is needed.
• Such a theory, if empirically grounded, may
provide insights into how to address the
paradox of pastoral tenure.
• For example, scale of communal tenure
recognition at one (large) scale; resource
governance at multiple scales.

12. References
COMPLEX MOSAIC REGIMES: Robinson, Lance W. 2019. Open
Property and Complex Mosaics: Variants in Tenure Regimes
Across Pastoralist Social-Ecological Systems. International
Journal of the Commons, v. 13(1) :805-827. URL:
https://www.thecommonsjournal.org/articles/903/
OPEN ACCESS REGIMES: Moritz, M. (2016). Open property
regimes. International Journal of the Commons, 10(2), 688–
708. https://doi.org/10.18352/ijc.719
PARADOX OF PASTORAL TENURE: Fernández-Giménez, M.E. 2002.
Spatial and Social Boundaries and the Paradox of Pastoral Land
Tenure: A Case Study from Postsocialist Mongolia, Human
Ecology, 30(1), pp. 49–78.
UNBUNDLED RIGHTS: Schlager, E., and E. Ostrom. 1992.
Property-rights regimes and natural resources: a conceptual
analysis. Land economics 68(3):249–262.

13. Acknowledgement
This work benefitted from funding from:
• the CGIAR Research Programs on:
o Livestock led by the International Livestock Research Institute, and
o Policies, Institutions and Markets led by the International Food
Policy Research Institute, and
• the International Fund for Agricultural Development and the
European Commission through the “Taking Successes in Land
Restoration to Scale” project.

14. CGIAR Research Program on Livestock
livestock.cgiar.org
The CGIAR Research Program on Livestock aims to increase the productivity and profitability of livestock agri-food
systems in sustainable ways, making meat, milk and eggs more available and affordable across the developing world.
This presentation is licensed for use under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence.
The program thanks all donors and organizations which globally support its work through their contributions to the
CGIAR system