1. This paper examines a process - the spontaneous enclosure of the range by livestock owners - which may raise new problems but also permit new approaches to the development of the African livestock industry. In sub-Saharan Africa the unplanned and centrally-unadministered enclosure of arid or semi-arid grazing land by pastoralists is a relatively new phenomenon. Even in those countries where enclosure is occurring, it is localized and, as yet, affects a small proportion of all producers. Range enclosure is not, therefore, an acute administrative problem at this time. Range enclosure movements are significant, however, be cause they provide an early indication of fundamental changes which are now reshaping the livestock sector.
2. Drawing on case material from Sudan and Somalia, the opening section of the paper will discuss some of the causes of spontaneous range enclosure. It is suggested that the conditions which give rise to enclosure movements - drought, overstocking, water development, the increasing commercial value of livestock production, and the breakdown of collective forms of land management - are factors which are common to much of dry, pastoral Africa. If we can reasonably expect these conditions to persist or become more acute, then we may also expect the fencing of rangeland to become more general.
3. If the fencing of rangeland by livestock owners is likely to become more common, then administrators and policy makers will need to have some idea of the benefits and costs arising out of the shift from open-range to fenced forms of animal husbandry. The case for or against enclosure is not, however, as clear-cut 85 one might hope. The balance of costs and benefits, and the interest groups likely to be positively or negatively affected, vary according to local conditions, making it unwise to simply endorse or reject enclosure as a matter of general policy. What administrators require is a set of criteria which will assist them in judging the desirability of enclosure or the advisability of intervention under different local circumstances. A brief discussion of the relevant criteria will be provided here.
4. The prospect of extensive range enclosure also raises the issue of the role and effectiveness of livestock policy in influencing voluntary, local-level movements of this kind. To what extent, administrators must ask, can government intervention stop, speed up, or redirect enclosure movements, and how might such interventions be most effectively carried out? Examination of the causes of enclosure will reveal that government agencies can manipulate some, but only some, of the factors which retard or promote enclosure. There is, therefore, a modest role for administrative action in the regulation of enclosure movements.
5. The final issue posed by range enclosure concerns the long-term planning and policy implications of this process. The concluding section of this analysis will argue that range enclosure is producing a new and distinctly African system of livestock management in which animals alternate between both enclosed pastures and the open range. In these cases it would be unrealistic to base development plans on the assumption that we are still dealing with traditional, fully nomadic pastoralists. On the other hand, it would be equally unrealistic for administrators to press for the immediate development of completely self-contained, fenced ranches, on the model of North American or Australian ranches or along the lines of the standard group or individual ranch schemes common in Africa in the 1960s and 1970s. A more reasonable objective would be to devise suitable policy responses to the hybrid form of enclosed and open-range animal management which is now developing, and to sponsor technical research which will address the characteristic problems of this form of production
6. In sum, the following analysis considers four critical questions regarding range enclosure movements in contemporary Africa, namely:
(i) Why do range enclosure movements occur?
(ii) Under what conditions are they harmful or beneficial?
(iii) Can these movements be controlled?
(iv) What do these changes imply for the long-term development of the African livestock industry?
