Securing Communal Tenure Complemented by Collaborative Platforms for Improved Participatory Landscape Management and Sustainable Development: Lessons from Northern Tanzania and the Maasai Mara in Kenya

Abstract

Community lands play a critical role in community well-being and conservation, but community lands can be at odds with statutory land systems. We present two case studies from the Kenya-Tanzania border that illuminates the risks of top-down approaches imposing misaligned privatized tenurial systems onto the community, and the potential of community-based organizations (CBO) to promote collaboration in a socially fractured landscape via communal titles. The case studies indicate that applying a private tenure system in a misaligned cultural setting can fracture cultural and ecological coexistence between communities and the land. CBOs can play a role in catalyzing collective action to resolve these issues. The full devolution of rights must be sensitive to communities’ culture, traditions, and history, while ensuring avenues for collective action.