Dismantling of common property, land use and pastoral livelihoods in eastern Ethiopia

Abstract

This paper examines the emerging challenges to common property resource management in pastoral areas of
Ethiopia and a shift in livelihood strategies. Using the institutional analysis and development framework and
data from three administrative districts in eastern Ethiopia, results show that traditional management of the
rangeland that permits efficient allocation of resources is no longer practiced due to demographic shift and
rainfall variability that undermine the regeneration capacity of grazing resources. Institutions governing
communal grazing do not impose duties on members, but simply exclude outsiders who do not belong to a clan.
Instead, the allocation of communal land for private use and the expansion of private cisterns as livestock
watering points have caused increased shrinkage of communal land. Such a shift in land use has altered
pastoral livelihoods where many were engaged in commercialization of livestock production, contractual
grazing, better integrated into the formal markets had increased access to new technologies. An important
lesson from this study, is that the interaction of endogenous and exogenous factors have contributed to the
dismantling of common property and created a gradual shift in livelihoods that put a threat to the survival of the
grazing commons. Internal sources of change are also important, contrary to the claim in the literature that state
policies are the dominant ones.