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Abstract:
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"The southern African commons are in decline, for two reasons. The first is privatisation. By legal or extra-legal means, individuals and households are taking direct control of parcels of land and resources, excising them from community ownership and management. (Occasionally, as in South African land reform, a new form of commons is created on the basis of private ownership by a legal entity set up to represent a group or community.) The second cause of decline is the degradation or collapse of group governance. Controls on resource access are weakened, or cease to function. What were once commons become areas of open access, regardless of their formal status as communal areas or state land. Meanwhile, as I argued at the last IASCP conference, debate about a 'crisis' in community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) has failed to focus on the real challenge, and potential, of 'everyday' CBNRM by rural people and their leadership structures, far from the often introspective concerns of projects and protected areas (Turner, 2004a, b).
"Privatisation of the commons is not necessarily a bad thing, if its opportunities and benefits are widely accessible and adverse side effects on the livelihoods of the poor can be averted. The second kind of conversion, from common property to open access, is bound to be bad for all those who live in and use the resources of communal areas. It is this second kind of change that threatens the kingdom of Lesotho. Three years ago, in a review of range management there, I said that Lesotho is one of the best places in Africa to try and answer the question whether rangelands can be managed successfully as common property resources in the 21st century. I concluded that "the answer has to be negative, in this country at least" (Turner, 2003: 1565). The present paper reviews the prospects of Lesotho's commons from the broader perspectives of tenure and governance; outlines some significant new developments; and concludes by returning to the question I raised in 2003."
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