Waterscape and land commons changes, in semi-arid area, creating multiple crises
Channel: IASC COMMONS
Date: 2020-07-29

Waterscape and land commons changes, in semi-arid area, creating multiple crises for pastoral communities and natural resources management, Amboseli, Kenya.
by Bostvironnois Arthur, University of Lyon, France

This presentation focuses on the changes across time and space of two key commons for pastoralists in a semi-arid area, water and land. The main aim of this work is to understand how changes of the water system (i.e., the waterscape or the spatio-temporal distribution of water plus governance and access) have impacted local livelihoods and ultimately land system in Group Ranches situated around Amboseli National Park – ANP - and inhabited by Maasai pastoralist. Amboseli ecosystem (the ANP and the surrounding rangelands) shelters many wild emblematic species of the East-African savannahs. It is thus a conservation hotspot with a myriad of policies and actors which create an hybrid governance of the commons. Challenges experienced by a majority of Maasai, the most vulnerable, due to crisis (e.g., climatic, political, cultural, economic –due to covid-19 recently-, and so on) are leading (i) to a critique of the collective ownership related to inequalities, injustices, authority abuses, and thus (ii) to the end of the commons through changing rules, institutions, knowledge. In this context, we are questioning how changes of the waterscape (i.e., water infrastructures , policies, access and usage) reveals changes in land representations, practices and therefore tenure ? To answer this question, an ethnographic approach was designed, using open and semi-directive interviews, mapping workshops, and role-playing game, targeting the Maasai agropastoralists, government officials and NGOs workers. The information collected on the socio-hydrological cycle, are showing that changes of waterscape and other key elements were accompanied by inequalities and are therefore contributing to an end of the collectively owned land. Moreover, based on the understanding of the historical and contemporaries challenges in managing the commons, a RPG will be built to favor social learning and the production of creative scenarios for managing the natural resources under an hybrid management scheme in the future.