Land
Use
Policy
28 (2011) 907–
916
Contents
lists
available
at
ScienceDirect
Land
Use
Policy
journa
l
h
o
me
pa
g
e:
www.elsevier.com/locate/landusepol
Climate,
carbon,
civil
war
and
flexible
boundaries:
Sudan’s
contested
landscape
Charles
Chavunduka,
Daniel
W.
Bromley
∗
Department
of
Agricultural
and
Applied
Economics,
University
of
Wisconsin,
427
Lorch
Street,
Madison,
WI
53706,
United
States
a
r
t
i
c
l
e
i
n
f
o
Article
history:
Received
15
April
2010
Received
in
revised
form
19
March
2011
Accepted
24
March
2011
Keywords:
Sudan
Grazing
conflicts
Climate
change
Flexible
boundaries
a
b
s
t
r
a
c
t
The
confluence
of
climate
change,
oil
development,
farmer–nomad
interaction,
and
civil
war
has
given
rise
to
serious
contestation
over
land
and
water
resources
in
the
heart
of
Sudan.
Here
we
report
on
direct
involvement
in
the
very
difficult
and
protracted
efforts
to
resolve
these
land-use
conflicts.
Repeated
efforts
to
define
and
implement
“hard
demarcation”
of
boundaries
in
agroecological
regions
characterized
by
great
temporal
variability
across
space
have
been
unsuccessful
for
many
reasons.
In
semi-arid
and
savanna
environments,
where
nomads
share
the
use
of
land
with
sedentary
communities,
boundary
disputes
are
minimized
by
the
existence
of
flexible
demarcations.
Flexible
boundaries
are
identifiable
but
subject
to
change
in
response
to
negotiation
and
agreement
among
resource
users.
It
seems
that
the
struggle
is
always
over
“rights”
to
particular
areas
of
land.
But
it
is
necessary
to
understand
the
distinction
between
interests
and
rights.
Each
individual
–
and
each
group
–
has
interests
that
they
will
seek
to
protect
and,
very
often,
enhance.
But
the
conversion
of
interests
into
rights
is
a
more
difficult
matter.
As
long
as
the
need
to
deal
with
risk
and
uncertainty
dominate
livelihood
strategies,
flexible
adaptation
rather
than
rigid
boundaries
remains
the
optimal
strategy
in
agro-pastoral
economies.
© 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Introduction
Land
tenure
reforms
in
Africa
have
sought
to
address
long-standing
boundary
disputes
among
groups
of
individuals
(“communities”)
dependent
on
extensive
rangelands
and
inter-
spersed
sedentary
agriculture.
Part
of
this
effort
has
entailed
the
demarcation
and
registration
of
customary
land.
One
of
the
moti-
vations
for
customary
land
registration
has
been
the
expected
increase
in
security
of
tenure
for
the
community
and
its
mem-
bers.
With
increased
security
of
tenure
arising
from
registration,
landholders
are
expected
to
spend
less
time
quarreling
over
land
and
focus
on
improved
management.
Sudan
represents
an
exem-
plar
of
the
many
difficulties
of
such
programs.
And
within
Sudan,
Southern
Kordofan
State
finds
itself
at
the
vortex
of
land
disputes
exacerbated
by
climate
change,
major
oil
deposits,
lingering
ethnic
hostility
involving
Arab
nomads,
and
civil
war.
The
issue
of
overlapping
claims
to
territory
is
characteristic
of
African
semi-arid
and
savanna
lands
where
forage
and
water
sources
tend
to
be
shared
by
several
individuals,
households,
or
village
groups
(Swallow
and
Bromley,
1995).
Behnke
observes
that
where
pastoralism
is
a
major
activity,
land
is
seldom
carved
up
into
well-defined
distinct
territories.
Instead,
“.
.
.any
defined
area
is
likely
to
be
used
by
a
myriad
of
different
ownership
groups
of
∗
Corresponding
author.
Tel.:
+1
608
262
6184;
fax:
+1
608
238
9640.
E-mail
address:
dbromley@wisc.edu
(D.W.
Bromley).
variable
size
and
composition,
with
overlapping
claims
to
territory
derived
from
particular
claims
to
different
categories
of
resources
within
it
(Behnke,
1994,
p.
13).”
In
African
land
tenure
systems
the
idea
of
ownership
is
contested
because
land
rights
tend
to
be
inclusive
rather
than
exclusive.
This
perspective
is
shared
by
Scoones
(1995)
who
affirms
the
idea
that
in
African
drylands,
cus-
tomary
tenure
systems
operate
with
shared
overlapping
forms
of
tenure
rights.
In
these
settings,
the
imposition
of
strict
bound-
aries
is
ecologically,
economically,
and
culturally
untenable.
Rather,
community
boundaries
are
best
understood
as
a
zone
–
a
swath
of
varying
widths
–
of
overlapping
territory
that
is
jointly
man-
aged
by
neighboring
groups.
These
“elastic
boundaries”
allow
for
expansion
and
contraction,
and
they
function
as
fallback
areas
in
difficult
times.
Traditionally,
some
communities
maintained
more
extensive
buffer
zones
that
required
ad
hoc
negotiations
with
con-
tending
groups.
In
the
buffer
zone,
neighboring
communities
had
secondary
rights
to
land
(Petterson
et
al.,
2005).
Our
primary
purpose
here
is
to
argue
that
in
many
instances
–
and
Sudan
is
certainly
one
of
those
–
flexible
boundaries
among
agro-pastoral
communities
are
superior
to
strict
demar-
cation.
Unfortunately,
the
compelling
logic
of
flexibility
is
often
jeopardized
by
exogenous
circumstances
beyond
the
control
of
contending
parties.
In
addition
to
climate
change,
oil
exploitation,
and
civil
conflict;
these
exogenous
factors
include
national
politics,
regional,
and
global
geopolitics.
Writing
on
Sudan,
Deng
(1995)
and
Jok
(2007)
have
emphasized
divisive
race
and
religion
as
causes
of
recurrent
civil
conflicts.
In
their
view,
Sudan’s
political
instability
is
0264-8377/$
–
see
front
matter ©
2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.landusepol.2011.03.007