LES SYSTÈMES PRIVÉS ET COLLECTIFS DE PROPRIÉTÉ EN RÉPUBLIQUE-UNIE DE TANZANIE

Le programme bien connu de la République-Unie de Tanzanie pour l'implantation de villages, appelé Ujamaa, a permis, dans les années 70, la sédentarisation de presque tous les résidents ruraux dans quelque 8 000 villages. L'impact de l'implantation de villages sur la pratique réelle de distribution des terres peut varier, mais on remarque une préférence générale pour une individualisation des droits dans presque tous les cas étudiés, et cela est dû, du moins en partie, à l'expérience de la production communale dans le cadre de l'Ujamaa. Seuls 6 pour cent de la superficie totale de la République-Unie de Tanzanie sont cultivés. Par conséquent, la gestion de la propriété commune et un accès ouvert aux ressources forment une part importante de toute politique foncière. Ni la privatisation des droits, ni la continuation des formes précédentes de propriété commune ne permettent de conserver les ressources forestières et de pâturage dans toutes les circonstances et sont donc toutes deux inadéquates. Il faut identifier les groupes d'usagers pour leur accorder la propriété du droit d'exploitation, y compris le droit et les moyens d'exclure les intrus.

REGÍMENES DE PROPIEDAD PRIVADA Y COMUNAL EN LA REPÚBLICA UNIDA DE TANZANÍA

El programa Ujamaa de implantación de pueblos en Tanzanía permitió la sedentarización de casi todos los habitantes rurales en los años setenta. El impacto de dicho programa en la distribución de tierra ha podido variar, pero se ha notado una preferencia por los derechos de tipo individual en casi todos los casos estudiados. Esto se debe, al menos en parte, a la experiencia de la producción comunal en el marco del Ujamaa. Solamente el 6 por ciento de la superficie total de la República Unida de Tanzanía está cultivada. Por consiguiente, la gestión de la propiedad común y el libre acceso a los recursos son elementos importantes de la política de tenencia de la tierra. Ni la privatización de los derechos ni la continuación de las formas anteriores de propiedad comunal permiten conservar los recursos forestales y de pastizales en todas las circunstancias, y ambos sistemas son inadecuados. Es necesario identificar a grupos de usuarios para otorgarles el derecho de explotación, comprendidos el derecho de excluir a los intrusos.

Private and communal property
ownership regimes in Tanzania

A.S. Kauzeni
F.C. Shechambo
Institute for Resource Assessment, University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
Ibrahim Juma
Faculty of Law, University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

The United Republic of Tanzania's well-known village establishment programme, which is called Ujamaa, allowed for the sedentarization of almost all rural residents in some 8 000 villages in the 1970s. The effective impact of villagization on land distribution may vary, but a general preference for individual assignments of rights has been observed in nearly all cases under study, which is at least partially due to the track record of communal production in the framework of Ujamaa. Only 6 percent of the country's total surface is under cultivation. Therefore, common property management and open access to resources are an important part of all land tenure policy. Neither the privatization of rights nor the continuation of previous forms of common property permit forest and pastoral resources to be maintained under all circumstances, and are thus both inadequate. User groups must be identified and be assigned ownership of user rights, including the right and means to keep out trespassers.
This article undertakes a critical analysis of the various tenure systems in the United Republic of Tanzania, with an emphasis on the comparison between communal and private land tenure systems and government policies towards those systems.

CATEGORIES OF NATURAL RESOURCES IN TANZANIA

The total area of the United Republic of Tanzania is approximately 883 749 km ², 99.72 percent (881 289 km²) of which is mainland, while the rest is composed of the islands. The country is endowed with a wide range of resources offering considerable social and economic potential and including extensive areas of arable land, coastline, game reserves and parks, forests, rivers and lakes (Government of the United Republic of Tanzania, 1989). The mainland has a low population density of about 25 people per km² and has sufficient land resources to allow substantial growth of agricultural production, at least in the short to medium term.

Land resources
In terms of production, land is still predominantly utilized for small-scale agriculture, although there is some large-scale farming, for example of tea, sisal, coffee and sugar. On the mainland, little more than 6 percent of land area is actually cultivated (Government of the United Republic of Tanzania, 1989). Extensive nomadic grazing is a major occupation of people in the northern arid lands, Masai steppe and the central semi-arid lands, some adjacent to national parks and game reserves.

Forest resources
Forest resources comprise forests, woodlands or woody savannah. It is estimated that forests and woodlands in Tanzania's mainland cover about 400 000 km², i.e. about 45 percent of the country. Of this area about 135 000 km² are designated as forest reserve. It is estimated that between 300 000 and 400 000 ha are destroyed annually (Government of the United Republic of Tanzania, 1989), the major causes of deforestation being farming, wood fuel harvesting, bush fires and land reclamation against the tsetse fly.

TABLE 1
Land resource zones

Source: LRDC/ODA (1987).

Wildlife and water resources
Tanzania is one of the world's great wildlife strongholds. Realizing the importance of this natural heritage of wildlife, the government has established an outstanding network of national parks, game reserves and other wildlife protected areas, covering about 25 percent of the total land area (Yeager and Miller, 1986; Government of the United Republic of Tanzania, 1989). The country has the biggest lake and river systems in Africa which include large portions of Lakes Victoria, Tanganyika and Nyasa. A variety of other small lakes, swamps and seasonal floodplain and dam reservoirs form a very important part of its freshwater resources.

Economic change in Tanzania
When Germany occupied East Africa after the Congress of Berlin (1884-85), it introduced a dual system of land tenure which has endured through the British colonial period up to today. The Imperial Decree of 26 November 1895 declared all land to be crown land, and the German colonial governor became the custodian of that property. Crown land could be granted by the governor either as a conveyance of ownership which was a perpetual tenure with a clause allowing the state to acquire the property on a number of public interest grounds, or as a leasehold with the option to purchase and enlarge the tenure to ownership. Peasant production was accommodated by the Decree's recognition of land rights of chiefs or clan heads of communities. German rule recognized the existence of the indigenous people and their own systems of land tenure. It established use rights and recognized the existence of customary systems of land tenure.
Tanzania's agriculture is dominated by smallholders organized into about 8 000 registered villages, with an average holding of less than 2 ha per household for smallholders and about 5 ha for medium-sized farms. Under Tanzania's well-known Ujamaa villagization programme, which was implemented mostly in the early 1970s, much of the country's rural population was resettled into villages. Initially, the objective was to collectivize agricultural production, and land resource management was devolved to the village level. In practice, much of the agricultural production continued to be carried out on privately managed plots and, over time, a greater tolerance of private enterprise in agriculture was noted. Nevertheless, the Ujamaa villagization programme introduced major changes in the customary tenure systems prevailing in Tanzania at the time of its implementation.
Economically, agriculture is the single most significant sector, currently accounting for almost 50 percent of GDP and involving nearly 80 percent of the workforce. In some areas, the productivity of much of the cultivated area is steadily declining owing to the lack of modern agricultural technology and land resource deterioration.
Extensive nomadic grazing and agropastoralism are major occupations in arid and semi-arid areas of the northern and central parts of the country. The livestock sector contributes about 10 percent of GDP, although it has the potential of contributing more. Smallholders' livestock accounts for about 99 percent of the national herd.
The Government of the United Republic of Tanzania, through various pieces of legislation, has tried to accommodate the customary tenure system to enable the full development of land resources, to improve the overall production level in rural areas and to open up land not effectively used for better utilization. However, in recent decades the plight of the rural poor has not improved significantly.
The present study was confined to two administrative regions only, Arusha and Dodoma, but an extensive literature review was done. A structured household questionnaire was used with participatory rural appraisal.

THE LEGAL EVOLUTION OF LAND TENURE SYSTEMS IN TANZANIA

Tanzania has retained the colonial legislation governing land tenure systems: the Land Ordinance with its concept of "public land" was accepted and retained (Fimbo, 1973). The concept of "public land" in Tanzania implies that the state, through the president, operates not only as a political sovereign but also as the owner of land. This underscores the primary authority of the state over all land. This role is further strengthened by the Land Acquisition Act of 1967 which empowers the president to acquire any portion of public land for a "public purpose".
Fimbo (1978) noted that public land is not homogeneous. Public lands serve different economic purposes and are used in different ways. Public land therefore comprises agricultural land granted for use in village development; state farms and other users for agricultural purposes; land for populated localities (cities, towns and minor settlements); land for industry, transport, health and other non-agricultural land; land occupied by forest reserves, waters, preserved land, national parks and game reserves; land occupied by communities under customary law and tenure; and any other piece of land within the United Republic of Tanzania (Fimbo, 1978).
It is important to observe here that the term "public land" has in some instances been construed to mean communal lands - land that is collectively owned and has not been allocated for the use by an individual or a family. James and Fimbo (1973) list forest lands, grazing lands, common hunting grounds, unallocated arable lands and abandoned lands as constituting communal land.
Tanzania has divided all rural lands into villages. In 1987 the Tanzanian Government initiated an ambitious programme to demarcate, survey, title and register all of the country's more than 8 500 villages within five years. The ultimate goal of the programme was to improve security of tenure and usher in faster agricultural development.

East African Royal Commission (1953-1955)
Tanzania today faces the same problems as in 1950s which prompted the appointment of the East African Royal Commission in 1953. The British Government was concerned with rapid population growth, congestion in certain lands, falling standards of living, the lack of capital to improve farming, means of adapting customary land tenure and the whole issue of opening up new areas for farming. The commissioners appreciated the fact that most land in East Africa under African occupancy is held by customary tenure, the substance of which is not embodied in statutory law. The British (and German) administration found well-entrenched local land authorities controlling land rights in accordance with local custom. The policy of leaving African land tenure to continue, unguided for the most part, under customary influences has not always led to the individual security of tenure demanded by modern economic conditions. Commissioners implored the policy-makers to desist from using the "public land" conceptions as the justification for relegating customary landholders to the legal position of occupiers at the will of the state. In particular, commissioners were concerned that the use of the concept "public land" would provide a rationale for giving land held under customary land tenure to non-Africans.
The commissioners made several proposals regarding land law. First, land tenure laws should aim at achieving the fullest possible continuous production by ensuring landownership and enabling access to land. Second, land tenure laws should establish grounds for confidence that existing property rights will not be arbitrarily disturbed. Third, land tenure laws should then provide for a process whereby exclusive individual ownership of land can be registered where it exists and helped into being where it does not. Finally, land tenure laws should be flexible enough to meet varying circumstances of a local nature.
The Colonial Government of Tanganyika accepted these recommendations. The Tanganyika African National Union (TANU), which had been formed in 1954 and had become an important political force by 1958, successfully opposed the measure (Fimbo, 1978).

Post-independence statutes
Various laws passed since independence outline the official policy towards land tenure and natural resource management. These are summarized below.

Range Development and Management Act, 1964. This law was enacted to provide for the conservation, development and improvement of grazing lands. It declared certain areas to be range development areas. Masai District was among the first such areas to be declared a "Range Development Area". The minister responsible for animal husbandry was empowered to declare and delineate boundaries of new range development areas.

Land Tenure (Village Settlements) Act, 1965. This law made the Commissioner for Village Settlement a legal personality with perpetual succession, official seal and the capacity and power to acquire, hold, manage or otherwise deal with property. The rights of occupancies given to the commissioner were very special and geared to the village level. They were exempted from contractual terms, conditions and regulations normally attached to an ordinary right of occupancy.

Rural Lands (Planning and Utilization) Act, 1973. This law was enacted for the purpose of empowering the government to control and regulate utilization of land. It empowered the president to regulate land development in any area of Tanganyika if it is in the public interest to do so.

Village and Ujamaa Villages Act, 1975. This law was enacted to provide for the registration of villages, the administration of registered villages and designation of Ujamaa villages. In any case where the registrar of villages is satisfied that at least 250 households have settled and made their homes within any area of Tanzania's mainland and the boundaries of such an area can be particularly defined, the area could be registered as a village. Administratively, this law also provided for village assemblies and village councils. The Villages and Ujamaa Villages Act extinguished the traditional/customary land tenure system and, as a result, its implementation was very difficult because it conflicted with other land tenure and ownership legislation and local customs.

Local Government (District Authorities) Act, 1982. Repeal of the Villages and Ujamaa Villages Act did not spell the end of designation of Ujamaa villages and registration of ordinary villages. As an improvement on the status enjoyed by the village council, the Local Government (District Authorities) Act gave village councils corporate status and perpetual succession.

Conservation of Forestry and Wildlife. Lands held under customary tenure or under granted rights of occupancy are also subject to the overriding control of the Forests Ordinance, 1957, a law designed to provide for conservation and management of forests and forest produce. The Forests Ordinance empowers the president to declare any area of unreserved land to be a territorial forest reserve or a local authority forest reserve. All persons who, prior to demarcation and declaration, have been exercising any rights over such lands are then expected to register such rights. After registration of such rights, the users are required to apply to the Chief Conservator for a permit to continue to exercise their land rights. The Fauna Conservation Ordinance was enacted in 1951 to provide for the conservation and control of wild animal life. This law restricts hunting, entry and residing in game reserves.

Preserved Public Lands. Since 1954, the government has retained the power to preserve areas of public land for their better utilization and development in the public interest. The Public Lands (Preserved Areas) Ordinance, 1954 empowers the minister to declare any area of public land to be a preserved area. Once it is declared a preserved area, no right of occupancy can be created over such an area. The declaration of a preserved area under customary land tenure does not extinguish the right of a local community that is lawfully using the land or preclude passing the same to customary heirs. The declaration of an area occupied under customary land tenure implies the co-existence of the Public Lands (Preserved Areas) Ordinance and customary land tenure.
Different legislation has aimed at alleviating rural poverty, but many of the problems Tanzania faces today are the same ones identified by the East African Royal Commission in its report (1955).

ACCESS AND OWNERSHIP OF COMMUNAL AND PRIVATE PROPERTY

In order to understand land and natural resource tenure, it is essential to examine the processes through which individuals and groups acquire and defend the resources they use. In Tanzania, access to rural land and other resources is through inheritance, purchase, allocation by village government, loan, lease, rental and other means. The villagization programme, the economic and political liberalization and the steady increase in population in some areas have combined to increase the value of arable land and other resources such as woodlots and pastures in areas accessible to markets.

Communal resources
The household. Before villagization, in almost all parts of Tanzania that had surplus arable land under customary tenure, anyone with the energy to do so could obtain land simply by clearing it or establishing a woodlot, grazing area or watering point, provided the person had the permission of the clan head, the lineage authority, or the individual who exercised effective authority in the area. The investment of labour gave the land resource value and created ownership rights which were held by the person who had cleared the land and his heirs. Since the villagization programme, undeveloped land and other unclaimed resources are allocated only by the village council. The prevailing customary land tenure in Tanzania is predominantly patrilineal. There are no de jure legal restrictions on women inheriting rights to land, but a widow will lose de facto rights to resources when her son becomes 18 years of age. Another way of acquiring resources is through Granted Rights of Occupancy. This practice relates mainly to large commercial farmers and parastatal organizations.
In order to evaluate these means of access, observations were made during a field survey in four representative villages: Ilkirevi in Arumeru District, Ipala and Mahoma Makulu in Dodoma Urban District and Arkatan in Monduli District.
Ilkirevi village lies on the slopes of Mount Meru within a densely populated area where homesteads with zero-grazed cattle are surrounded by coffee and banana trees. Almost all land is privately controlled except for a few hilltops considered by elders to be "sacred" water catchment areas.
Arkatan village in the neighbouring Monduli District displays a sharp contrast to Ilkirevi. Population density in Arkatan is sparse and livestock herding on open grasslands is the main economic activity supplemented by production of annual crops. Access to and management of land resources is invariably communal.
Two villages on the fringes of Dodoma Urban District (Ipala and Mahoma Makulu) are characterized by a density of population that falls between that of Ilkirevi and Arkatan. The farming system ranges from mixed semi-pastoralism to shifting cultivation with maize, millet, sorghum and beans as the major crops. The impact of villagization is obvious in both villages, given that land and other resources were originally allocated to household heads by the village authority. After the initial allocation, farmland resources continue to be held along individual family lines while grazing land, livestock watering points and natural forest around the village are communally owned.
Table 2 shows various ways through which land is acquired by farmers in the four villages under this study. A similar situation also applies to other natural resources. Observations in these four villages represent a reliable indication of the extent of variation in access, tenure and management of resources to be found across Tanzania.

TABLE 2
Modes of land acquisition

The lineage or clan. Tanzania is favoured with an abundance of arable land resources. In villages with a greater perception of natural resource shortages (e.g. Ilkirevi and Ipala villages), 64 and 68 percent of the respondents, respectively, said they would not dare to dispose of their resources (e.g. land) without seeking authority from the head of the clan or lineage. They would expect serious sanctions if they acted on their own. In Arkatan and Mahoma Makulu villages where the perception of land shortage was lower (low population-density villages) among respondents, 47 and 42 percent, respectively, said that they could dispose of privately held resources without consulting any clan or lineage heads.
In Arusha region, women do not generally inherit land, but gain access through their husbands or by holding property in trust for sons. In Dodoma, on the contrary, the question of women holding and inheriting land resources in particular was not so problematic. In Ipala, 89 percent of the respondents replied that daughters are allowed to inherit land; in Mahoma Makulu, the figure was 100 percent.

The village or community. Village authorities are able to hold natural resources on a corporate basis, exercising the right to allocate and reallocate resources falling within the village boundary (Village and Ujamaa Village Act, 1975). Where villagization meant resettlement of population, resources were vested in the village council. Land for individual use is allocated by the village council. This practice was observed in Ipala, Mahoma Makulu and in Arkatan. However, where villagization did not imply actual resettlement, as was the case with Ilkirevi, village authorities have little control over access, tenure and management of resources. Once land is allocated to an individual household, the village authority or village council cannot impose managerial control over it.

Other social groups. In some cases, ownership and control of natural resources is vested in organized social groups that significantly influence community welfare, including Christian churches and traditional religions. In Arkatan, the majority of Masai follow the traditional religion that considers certain hilltops to be "sacred", so no one individually is allowed to own, control or manage them except for religious functions. In other villages in Tanzania, sacred groves can be enclosed in Granted Lands and owners of such places can be allowed to worship after obtaining permission and under supervision. Other institutions may also control land resources, for example the military.

State property
According to existing legislation, all land and other natural resources are vested in the state which then issues rights of occupancy to various villages groups and individuals. The state itself owns and controls considerable natural resources in the form of gazetted areas such as national parks, forest and game reserves, game controlled areas as well as land allocated to state farms, corporations and institutions. The president can acquire any piece of natural resource with or without compensation if he deems the act to be in the public interest.

Private ownership of natural resources
Although landlessness is still not a serious problem in most parts of Tanzania, in the densely populated areas this is no longer the case. The majority of the respondents in three villages prefer individual ownership of resources to communal ownership. In Mahoma Makulu, 100 percent of respondents preferred individual ownership, in Ilkirevi 96 percent and in Ipala 89 percent. In Arkatan only 44 percent of the respondents prefer private ownership of resources such as grazing areas and water for livestock. Resources required on a large scale are preferred to be owned communally. The same situation applies to natural forests. Therefore the preference for private ownership of resources cannot be generalized. In Arkatan, Ipala and Mahoma Makulu the privatization of grazing areas as well as communally owned woodlands (as sources of fuelwood and building poles) appears to constrain the farming systems being practised there. In general, richer farmers prefer private ownership of land and other resources; poorer ones prefer access to communal resources.
The holding of resources by corporate bodies (both national and international) is subject to allocations by the government in its endeavour to encourage investment in the various sectors, for example agriculture, industry and the service sector. The allocation of natural resources to such corporations can cause problems, especially when it conflicts with smallholder farmers or pastoralists.

COMPARATIVE EVALUATION OF COMMUNAL AND PRIVATE PROPERTY

Employment creation
After experiencing some problems with communal activities under the much publicized Ujamaa system, many people have come to prefer private ownership of resources. Private ownership has the advantage of inducing a stronger commitment to the management of resources. However, the private proprietor has the final decision on who should be employed. This situation may or may not be conducive to attaining the benefits expected from the opportunity for employment creation.
Communal ownership, on the other hand, also has the potential for creating employment opportunities, provided there are regulations that require individual members of the community to participate fully in the activities of that community, and which ensure that women have access to resources.

Income generation
People tend to work harder in their private enterprises than in communal activities. During this study villagers and leaders mostly suggested that private ownership enhances income generation. For instance, privately owned land can be used as a means of providing collateral for credit. In Tanzanian communal Ujamaa farms, both the land and its produce are owned communally or collectively. Income generated from communal activities or resources is often lower than those from private activities or resources. However, in the absence of regulations or guidelines, privately owned resources or enterprises can also be mismanaged, reducing their capacity for the generation of high income.
The privatization of grazing areas, wildlife and game reserves and forests is administratively cumbersome and would involve the fragmentation of management to levels incapable of generating income. This suggests different tenure policies for different resources. For livestock keepers, grazing communally is advantageous since they enjoy such amenities as cattle dips, watering facilities and other veterinary services at lower running costs. The situation also applies to other economic activities taking place off the agricultural holdings. It is important to note that for livestock keepers, grazing land is owned communally but the animals are individually owned, implying the need for effective common management and exclusion of non-owners. Increasing the size of individuals' herds adversely affects or reduces the income generated or accruing from livestock keeping because the livestock carrying capacity of the land is surpassed. Under communal grazing or other forms of natural resource use, communal property systems tend to acquire the characteristics of an "open access" system or regime leading to poor resource productivity.

Agricultural productivity
Private ownership of land resources means that gains and losses in productivity accrue directly to the owner, which enhances incentives to invest in productive improvements. Rapid appraisal results obtained in all four villages suggested a strong preference for the private ownership of agricultural holdings. There is always the danger of overuse, particularly where land is scarce. In other instances, private ownership may lead to the underutilization of resources.
Experience has shown that, given similar conditions, agricultural productivity is often lower on communal farms than on private farms. This is often caused by the "free rider" problem, the observed tendency of some members of communal production systems to exert less effort in communal production. This has a demoralizing effect on the active members because the final reward would be the same for everyone.

Social cohesion and group solidarity
Resources may be more accessible to members when they are owned and controlled by the head of a clan or lineage. Such means of access may also serve to prevent outright landlessness. Private ownership often works against cohesion and group solidarity. Private ownership of land and natural resources can lead to speculative investments in those resources or their use simply as collateral for other investments, thus exacerbating class or wealth differences in a community. Owing to the collective nature of the communal property regime, and depending on the prevailing situation, this regime usually has the potential for promoting both social cohesion and group solidarity.

Social justice
Under private ownership, everybody who has the ability to buy or acquire the resource will do so. Women's access to resources differs from one community to another. Although in some communities women are not traditionally allowed to inherit resources such as land, private ownership regimes often permit women to purchase and own land. Nevertheless, private ownership of resources intensifies landlessness in the long term.
In communities where women cannot inherit or buy land resources, they are prevented from capturing income from improvements on land in spite of their labour contribution. In communities in which women traditionally cannot inherit land, communal ownership may provide some means of access. Communal property regimes sometimes have the tendency to favour the group which forms the leadership of the community and which feels it deserves special treatment.

General welfare
Under certain conditions, private ownership is conducive to increased resource productivity and income generation. However, social cohesion, group solidarity, political stability and social justice are likely to be adversely affected under private ownership if there is a loss of equality in access to resources. This may undermine the general welfare of the population.

Environmental considerations
Private ownership enables owners to capture the full benefit of conserving their land resources or to bear the full cost of deteriorating resources. For this reason it is often associated with increased investments of both money and labour in resource conservation. However, this is dependent on access to sufficient capital and labour, which may prove to be major constraints.
Under communal property regimes, communities are potentially effective in sustainable resource management. This can only happen if the communities are granted the right to use resources, determine the mode of usage, benefit fully from resource use, exclude outsiders, determine the distribution of such benefits and determine rules of access.
The potential of communal property regimes for environmental conservation is enhanced if the community is small enough for all members to be in occasional face-to-face communication to enforce conformity to the rules through peer pressure, has a longstanding collective identity and has the ability to exclude outsiders from gaining access to community resources.

CONCLUSIONS

Although Tanzania does not have the general problem of acute land shortages, land concentration, or widespread land degradation resulting from land resource mismanagement, the fact is that its present land resource policies and laws pose problems for implementing sound natural resource management and ensuring equitable access to land resources.
Several key problems emerged from this study, the first being how to enable smallholders to develop more secure and stronger property rights to their natural resources. The second is how to ensure sustainable utilization of communal resources and prevent their becoming "open access" resources. The third is how to regulate competition for pasture between pastoralists and agropastoralists.
Tanzania faces serious problems in the management of resources. These problems include conflicting land tenure systems, competition for land between agriculture and other activities, land degradation, inefficiency in land delivery and poor land resource management. The country has retained the colonial system of "public land", underlining the ultimate power of the state over all lands. Most land is under African occupancy and is held by customary tenure, the substance of which is not embodied in statutory law. The Government of the United Republic of Tanzania has tried to accommodate the customary tenure system to improve productivity and to open up land not effectively used for better utilization, but the plight of the rural poor has not improved significantly.
Individuals gain access to resources through inheritance, allocation by the village council, clearing bush, buying, renting, allocation by clan/family regaining land lost during villagization programmes, state-granted rights of occupancy or even squatting. As a result of their experience in cooperative enterprises and communal farming in villages, the majority of people interviewed said they preferred private property regimes in general. However, they also said that natural resources such as rangeland, water sources for both human and livestock and natural forests should be treated as communal property. Both common property and private property regimes have potential as effective resource management systems.
The rights of women to inherit resources varies by ethnic group. In some cases, women may inherit land or other resources, while in others they are strictly barred. With changing socio-economic conditions, women can own resources through purchase and also through allocation by village government.

RECOMMENDATIONS

The basic outlines of the legal framework to improve rural well-being as proposed by the Royal Commissioners should be adopted. Any discussion of rural poverty must take into account the failure of legal regimes to facilitate continuous production, enable access to resources, register individual titles, accommodate customary tenure systems and open up land that is not effectively used.
To enhance communally based resource management, it is recommended that identified groups are granted proprietorship over the natural resources concerned and have sanctioned use rights, including the right to decide whether or how to use the resources, the right to exclude non-owners and the right to benefit fully from their exploitation in the manner they like.
The government should devise a legal environment which is conducive to security of tenure under customary systems and which eliminates conflicting means of controlling resource use. There should be one harmonious land delivery system instead of having several organs operating separately in land delivery services.
Depending on the nature of the natural resources concerned, both private and communal property regimes should be legally recognized, promoted and used because both have potential as effective resource management systems. The present land resource laws and policies should be reviewed and periodically updated in order to keep up with the changing economic, political, social and technological circumstances.
Common property resources should be demarcated within the village boundary. The village boundary demarcation and titling programme that is currently taking place should be used by the government in establishing common property resource control over public land resources. A legal basis for common property management should be established under the village titling programme.
The evolution of customary land tenure systems should be facilitated so that vagueness and conflicting claims are removed and so that the ownership or availability of land and other resources owned can be confirmed in unchallengeable possession for a term appropriate to the potentialities of owner's land. This will enable owners to develop their resources to the full without fear of losing them.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

East Africa Royal Commission. 1955. Report on land issues. London, HMSO.

Fimbo, G. 1973. Land, socialism and the law in Tanzania. East Afr. Law Rev., 6.

Fimbo, G. 1978. The contours of land policy in Tanzania. United Republic of Tanzania, University of Dar es Salaam. (mimeo)

Government of the United Republic of Tanzania. 1989. Tanzania Forest Action Plan, 1990/91-2007/08. Dar es Salaam, Ministry of Lands, Natural Resources and Tourism.

James, R. & Fimbo, G. 1973. Customary land law of Tanzania. A source book. Nairobi, EALB.

LRDC/ODA. 1987. Tanzania profile of agricultural potential.

Yeager, R. & Miller, N. 1986. Wildlife, wild death: land use and survival in East Africa. Albany, NY, USA, State University of New York Press/The African-Caribbean Institute.