Issue

Vol. 12 No. 2 (2023)

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Submitted
Feb 29, 2024
Published
Feb 29, 2024

SULEDO Community-based Forest Reserve: A Contested Terrain between Peasants and Pastoralists in Kiteto District, 1990–2016

https://doi.org/10.56279/jhss.v12i2.339
Juma Marmo

Journal of Humanities & Social Science (JHSS), Vol. 12 No. 2 (2023)

Abstract

This paper examines how the establishment of the SULEDO community forest reserve
caused land use conflicts between peasants and pastoralists in Kiteto District from
1990 to 2016. The peasants complained that the government had deliberately made
it possible for pastoralists to get more benefits from the reserve since they were
allowed to graze their livestock in the reserve, which took large parts of their former
agricultural land. Conversely, the grabbing of land by peasants in the forest reserve
caused complaints from the pastoralists who claimed that the peasants were
grabbing their grazing land in the reserve. Using archival sources, fieldwork
interviews, and secondary sources, the study found that the establishment of the
SULEDO, by de facto, favoured the pastoralists and directly affected the peasants. The
peasants interpreted the establishment of SULEDO as a confiscation of their land by
the government in the interest of the state and Maasai pastoralists. The reserve
authorities restricted the peasants from expanding their farms, did not allow them
to collect firewood and building materials, or undertake related activities in the
reserve. This planted seeds of hostility between the peasants and pastoralists. This
article argues that the government’s conversion of land into forest reserves without
considering the heterogeneity of the community in terms of land use, escalated
conflicts over land between the peasants and the pastoralists in Kiteto District.
Furthermore, the adoption of inappropriate approaches to conflict resolution did not
end the conflicts; instead, the conflicts changed their nature and magnitude.

Keywords

Kiteto, SULEDO, forest, conflicts, peasants, pastoralists
Marmo, J. (2024). SULEDO Community-based Forest Reserve: A Contested Terrain between Peasants and Pastoralists in Kiteto District, 1990–2016. Journal of Humanities &Amp; Social Science (JHSS), 12(2). https://doi.org/10.56279/jhss.v12i2.339
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