Rural Soaolog) 58(4), 1993, pp. 626-642Copyright © 1993 b; the Rural Sociological Society

Tenures in Transition, Tenures in Conflict:Examples from the Zimbabwe Social Forest'

John Bruce, Louise Fortmann, * and Calvin Nhira**Land Tenure Center. Unirersity oj W"lSCOnsin, }Iadison,Wisconsin 53715,*Department oj Environmental Sciences., Policy and }Ianagement,Unirersit)' oj CaliJornia., Berkeley; California 94720, and**Centre Jor Applied Social Sciences; Unicersity oj Zimbabtre.,Harare., Zimbabtre

ABSTRACT The landscapes of rural communities are commonly dividedinto areas in which distinctive resource uses are practiced and for whichthere exist particular types of property rights. Such tenure niches fordifferent resources may overlap where those resources themselves occupythe same space (e.g., land and trees). Further, competing legal and utili­zation systems (e.g., national and local) may place the same resource indifferent incompatible tenure niches. Conflict may involve overlappingtenure niches. Co-management by conflicting right-holders may offer asolution.

Introduction

In the 1960s, much of the discussion about African land tenure wascouched in terms of dualistic land tenure systems created by coloni­zation and white settlement. Western property law was transferredto Africa to govern landholding by whites, while land use by Africansremained governed by native law and custom. The terms in whichthis phenomemon 'was discussed were drawn from a larger debateabout dual economies and legal dualism. This legal dualism repre­sented by different systems of land tenure was generally clearly ex­pressed in spatial terms, with specific areas of land brought underVvestern tenures. Discourse on tenure in the immediate post-inde­pendence period concerned how to deal with this dualism with regardto agricultural land.

In the past decades the discussion oftenure has expanded to includetenure in natural resources, including forests and trees. These re­sources, under Western tenure systems, tend to be owned with theland on which they stand, but their use is commonly controlled throughother, "regulatory" laws. Such regulation obviously affects the prac-

1 We are grateful to Marshall Murphree for helpful comments on an earlier version,Donald Moore for his insights into the Bende case, and Chuck Geisler for the generosityof his many insightful and extremely helpful comments. Research and writing weresupponed by Ford Foundation grants to the Oxford Forestry Institute of OxfordUniversityand to the Centre for AppliedSocial Sciences ofthe University ofZimbabwe,an IDRC grant to the Centre for AppliedSocial Sciences ofthe University ofZimbabwe,a Fulbright Fellowship to Louise Fortmann, and a grant from the American Councilof Learned Societies. Authors' names are in alphabetical order.

Tenures in Transition - Bruce et al. 627

tical content of rights in the resource, though most lay and technicaldiscourse on regulation does not recognize that property rights arealtered by regulation, except where the regulation is especially on­erous.

In African circumstances, governments in some cases enacted lawsregulating the use of natural resources on a national basis, overarch­ing the dual land tenure systems. In other cases they enacted laws toapply only to land under indigenous tenure systems. The latter casewas most common in the white settler colonies where land in reserveswas considered by the settler regimes to require special protectionfrom misuse and degradation by "natives."2 That regulatory legis­lation often conflicted directly with indigenous tenure systems. Thisis in part a result of the normal conflict between private rights underthose systems and state regulation, but it is also a function of thenature of the indigenous tenure systems. A long historical evolutionhas left Western tenure systems radically simplified into a few one­size-fits-all tenures (ownership, lease), which allow rights in land tobe traded easily as a commodity. Much of the variety in rights to useland comes through regulation. But indigenous land tenure systemsinvolve multiple tenures, each of which defines different rights andresponsibilities for land under different resource uses.

Examining the territory of a single community where land use isgoverned by indigenous tenure, one finds the landscape divided intoareas of land under different uses, with different tenures applying tothose areas. Each area constitutes a tenure "niche" (Bruce and Fort­mann 1989)-that is, a space in which access to and use ofa resourceis governed by a common set of rules, a particular tenure. Tenureniches are by no means simple or static. They may vary seasonally,as when household fields of farmland become after harvest a grazingcommons for the community. Tenure in these situations includes bothproperty concepts and use regulation concepts. Indigenous tenuresystems are integrated systems of property rights and land-use reg­ulation, and so legislation on Western models which seeks to regulateresource use can come into direct conflict with indigenous tenurerules. In those areas which remained legally under indigenous landtenure systems, then, there is a legal dualism and tension betweenindigenous rights in resources and the national law regulating naturalresource use.

Moore (1973) has provided the concept of overlapping semi-au­tonomous social spheres created by the national, state, and local pol­ities, and the alternative bodies of law which similarly overlapped.The images are apt for this discussion because they convey the sense

2 See Showers (1993) indicating that European land-use practices including man­datory conservation strategies were a major cause of land degradation in southernAfrica.

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of overlap and not of discrete spatial domains covered by differentbodies of law, as did much of the earlier tenure literature on Africa.Sometimes the tension created by the overlap is described as a conflictbetween systems of law, but the conflicts are better understood asconflicts over resources among different actors (the state, national,and local elites, peasants), who appeal to different legal systems tosubstantiate their claims.

This tension is becoming greater as pressure upon and competitionfor resources increases with population growth and increasing com­mercialization of production. This study from Zimbabwe examineshow this competition is playing itselfout as the state and elites relyingon national law wrestle with local communities seeking to preservetheir own tenure niches.

Tenure niches in Zimbabwe'sforests and iooodlands

Zimbabwe, like all African countries, came to independence with apoorly integrated system of property law. The colonial governmenthad introduced Western forms of tenure for white settlers, and invery limited areas for black Zimbabwean model farmers. Colonialgovernment first concentrated the country's black population in re­serves to open up land for white settlement, then sought to preventland degradation in the reserves through ambitious programs to reg­ulate land use. There is a large, critical literature which explores thelegal and other aspects of this experience (McGregor 1989; Moyo etal. 1991; Palmer 1977; Ranger 1967; Showers 1993; Wilson 1989).

The post-independence government of Zimbabwe, while eliminat­ing racial restrictions on private land ownership, has both continuedthe basic structure ofexisting property regimes and created new onessuch as resettlement areas. Zimbabwe is generally described as havingthree classes of land tenure (state land, communal areas, commercialland) (Moyo et al. 1991), but de facto land tenure in Zimbabwe in­volves a multiplicity of both discrete and overlapping property rela­tions and a multiplicity of actors engaged in struggles over propertyrights. The forest sector, which historically has been a locus of prop­erty struggles in many places, is particularly appropriate for illus­trating these relations. The use of the tenure niche allows a morefinely-tuned analysis of property struggles and the evolution of man­agement strategies in the forest sector broadly defined than moreblunt-edged property concepts will allow. The concept of the tenureniche enables one to perceive and analyze the consequences of peo­ple's own tenure differentiation of space. The usefulness of co-man­agement as a strategy for resolving these struggles will also be ex­plored. McCay and Acheson (1987:31-32) define co-management asthe right of communities (or other units) " ... to share managementpower and responsibility with the state. It is an attempt to formalize

Tenures in Transition - Bruce et al. 629

a de facto situation ofmutual dependence and interaction in resourcemanagement." Zimbabwe provides an especially appropriate case forcontemplating forest co-management since it is already the locus ofa noted innovative co-management experiment involving wildlife(Martin 1986; Murphree 1993).

Five tenure niches in forests and woodlands which are subject todiffering property relationships are examined. Not surprisingly, man­agement strategies and conflicts vary from niche to niche. Many vil­lages have more than one niche and therefore exhibit different niche­specific conflicts with different players appealing to different princi­ples of tenure.

l'tfethods

Data were collected using key-informant interviews, existing researchdata, and rapid rural appraisal in seven villages which included thefull range of ecological zones in Zimbabwe, both communal and re­settlement areas, and areas which varied in terms ofpopulation den­sity and fuel wood availability," Household interviews were carriedout in six villages with special attention given to including the poor,those who lived away from the road, and women. The focus was onthe "social forest"-that is, any aggregation oftrees and other woodyperennials, however spaced and wherever located, from which localpeople obtain trees or tree products for domestic consumption and/or commercial sale (Romm 1991). Examples from the literature andfrom the villages studied referred to as "study sites" will be noted.

Forest land controlled by the state

In state-controlled forest land, the claim of the state generally restsin national statutory law. Frequently residents ofadjacent areas claima variety of usufructuary rights to this land and the resources on it,generally based on customary law. The state's claim is staked outthrough the process of gazetting and encompasses the demarcatedarea described in the gazette notice. Local residents tend to claimusufructuary rights to specific resources for specific purposes, oftenin quite localized areas. There might be grazing niches, sacred niches,and so on scattered over the state's claim and sometimes overlappingeach other.

Such overlapping niches can be seen in Zimbabwe where expec­tations raised during the independence struggle and the shortage ofland and trees in the communal areas has led to serious contestsbetween the statutory claims of the Forestry Commission and thecustomary claims oflocal people. The Zimbabwe conflicts are typical

~ Fieldwork was done by Calvin Nhira and Louise Fortmann.

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of the disjunction between the national standpoint, in which forestreserves and national parks are perceived as a source of beneficialproducts and important ecological functions, and the local perceptionof these areas as the source of dangerous and noxious pests and/oras a land bank. Globally, national forests and parks are often placeswhere local people try to exercise usufructuary rights despite thestate's statutory claim to the land and the trees; that is, they poachtimber and other forest products and even utilize the land itself(Fort­mann 1990; Guha 1990; Miller 1992; Peluso 1992). In Zimbabwelocal farmers contest land and trees controlled by the state eitherformally or informally via trespassing, timber poaching, or settingforest fires; they probably will continue to do so as long as the stateland is the sole or the most convenient source of these products.

One of the most notorious and troublesome of these conflicts hasbeen the controversy between the Forestry Commission and the vil­lage ofBende. The extreme bitterness ofthe Bende case has historicalroots stemming from the turn of the century (Cahi 1992). The con­troversy of concern here began in 1989 when the Forestry Commis­sion decided to utilize forest area that had long been used for grazingby Bende people. The eastern boundary was fenced and grazing bythe cattle of Bende people was prohibited. During a visit to the com­munity, a small group ofVIDC04 chairs and traditional leaders wereconsulted to request permission to interview community members.Their refusal to grant that permission and their articulation of theirreasons for doing so are instructive. Village leaders complained thatwhile they had been allowed to graze their animals on Forestry Com­mission land in the past, this had changed with the recent fencing ofthe forest. Villagers were being fined and their cattle were beingimpounded. Leaders expressed the opinion that the Forestry Com­mission had taken village land before and that presence of interview­ers indicated that it might be trying to take it again.

The conflict between the Forestry Commission and the residentsof Bende illustrates the complexity of the tenure issues at stake inforest areas. The people of Bende are not struggling for access tofirewood or poles, which are plentiful in Bende. Rather, the struggleis over grazing land. In Bende, as in many areas, forests and woodlandsare better understood from the local viewpoint as holding areas ofarable and grazing land. The leaders of Bende have repeatedly ex­pressed the view that when the Forestry Commission fenced its landin 1989, it also enclosed grazing land rightfully belonging to thevillage. The fact that the Forestry Commission has used some of thefenced-in land not for afforestation but for grazing and seed-potatoproduction has simply added fuel to this particular forestry fire.

4 A VIDCO is both a unit of governance (1,000 people or roughly 100 households)and the supposed governing body. We are referring to the latter here.

Tenures in Transition -Bruce et al. 631

State-controlled forest land has been described as a tenurial softunderbelly-that is, a resource which is often less effectively pro­tected by the state than other resources are protected by communitieswhich use them (Aluma et al. 1989). The concept of the tenure nicheallows state-controlled forest land to be seen as an area ofoverlappingniches and hence competing claims. In these areas where nationalconcerns for stewardship and profitable enterprises are pitted againstlocal subsistence strategies, co-management may be the managementstrategy most likely to resolve conflicting claims and ensure the eco­logical integrity of the area [see Fortmann and Nhira (1992) fordetails.]

Control of trees in communal areas by district councils

Under authority of the Communal Lands Act and the CommunalLands Forest Produce Act, District Councils have claimed ownershipof trees in some communal areas and have given harvesting contractsto commercial timber concessionaires. Based in custom and law, localresidents have usufructuary rights to these trees and the land on whichthey grow. Thus, this presents a second case of overlapping tenureniches. Spatially, the niche claimed by District Councils is highlylocalized and noncontiguous, not only overlapping the villagers' nichebut also being scattered over it. That is, the concession allows cuttingofcertain species wherever they occur. This creates an access problemso not only do local villagers lose trees that they consider theirs, butalso concessionaires use and may damage both the land and otherresources in the process of harvesting the trees. A similar problemwas described in the 1923 annual report of the Forestry Branch(5674):

In terms of the Mines and Minerals Ordinances prospectorsand miners have the right to cut timber free of charge onall farms where the timber has been reserved to the govern­ment .... The owner of the farm upon which the timber isreserved has no interest in the tree growth, for the more itis destroyed, the less chance there is ofminers coming to hisfarm for wood. This is a state of affairs which should not bepermitted to continue for it results in large areas remainingunproductive to the loss of the whole community.

The lessons of 70 years ago apparently remain unlearned.'When District Councils exercise their claims, local residents are

prohibited from using the species being commercially exploited. Theyreport in some cases that government officials as well as agents of theconcessionaires seek evidence ofuse of these species by local people,arresting and fining those who are caught. At best, villagers' onlybenefit from these operations are a few jobs. Even when they do not

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use the wood themselves or would burn it to get rid of it, villagersfeel that they should get a share of the profits. And they do not feelthat the District Council, which does share in the profits, provides asatisfactory level of service in recompense. While villagers have notplanted these indigenous species, they make a compelling argumentthat their restraint is responsible for the continued presence of thesetrees. Thus, in a sense, they have contributed management. Onemight call this de facto co-management except for the fact that be­cause the land is communal, the District Council has generally con­tributed no management at all. The people of one area made thisvery argument formally to the District Council when complainingabout harvesting by timber concessionaires: "[W]e have been lookingafter these trees for ages and now you come and let someone else cutthem without consulting us" (Madzudzo 1991).

The issues at hand can be seen in the case of Tsholotsho DistrictCouncil's claims to trees in its communal areas. Since the mid-1980s,a commercial timber company has been logging tropical hardwoodsin the Dlamini wards under a concession from the District Counciland the Forestry Commission. The District Council prohibits thecutting of commercial species by local people even for domestic uses,although they are permitted to collect dry logs and slash left by theloggers. Local people, who use these species for making doors andwooden plates, are angry because only small and poorly shaped treeshave been left standing.

Part of the displeasure with logging stems from a sense that thisarea has been neglected by the District Council. Even local peoplewho do not oppose the logging operations say that the money fromlogging should be used for repairing local boreholes and maintainingroads. Some opposition is based on the perception that the sloppylogging operations kill the grass, leading to a shortage of grazing andthatching grass. Unhappiness with commercial logging was expressedin an interchange between the Wildlife Committee of Ward 2 ofTsholotsho North and the District Council:

[W]hy don't you let us use the trees which we can exploitright away. It has taken you so long to bring the control ofthe elephants to us because you were waiting for the resourceto be depleted. So we would not be surprised if in five yearsyou will ask us to take care of the trees when they havealready been depleted (Madzudzo 1991).

In reply the District Council said the villagers could look after thethatching grass and the mopane worms," but not the trees (Madzudzo1991).

5 Mopane worms are edible insects found on colophospennum mopane trees.

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Here the concept of tenure niche is particularly powerful in elu­cidating the conflict, District Councils clearly see commercial treespecies on communal land as a niche in which they have the right tocommercial exploitation. Local villagers just as clearly see no suchniche. In this competition between district government financial needsand village production systems, villagers are clearly defending thelocal definition ofproperty rights against outside definitions and claims.Here formal co-management agreements might work to both parties'advantage. In return for protecting commercial species and facilitat­ing their regeneration, villagers would receive a share of the profitsgiving both them and the District Councils a source of needed cash.

Sacred sites6

Sacred sites are used for religious activities, have religious connota­tions, or are associated with death. Their use is mediated by "tradi­tional" religious leaders and/or generally accepted community norms.Because certain species are considered sacred, individual specimensof these species may constitute a sacred site. Hence, sacred sites canbe quite minute and tend to be interspersed with other niches, par­ticularly, but not only, in the communal areas. Sacred sites can beextremely important as ecological refugia (Gadgil and Vartak 1976).Sacred niches can be a cause ofconflict when immigration or culturalchange lead to a nonbelieving population segment. Their violationis an occasion notjust ofeconomic anger but a deeper moral outrage.

Zimbabwe has long been known for religions, which Schoffeleers(1979:2) has characterized as"... profoundly ecological .... [They]issue and enforce directives with regard to a community's use of itsenvironment ...." The dictates of these religions protect both gen­eral areas and specific trees as sacred. Thus, sacred niches are commonin much of Zimbabwe. For example, Garbett (1969) found that ba­obabs (and, sometimes, other large trees) were usually chosen as landshrines. To this day individual trees and whole species are honoredas sacred, leading to restrictions on their use. For example, Wilson(1987) reported sacred/socio/ cultural restrictions on the cutting and/or use as firewood ofFicussp., Lonchocarpus capassa, Pseudolachnostslismaprouneifolia, Gardenia spatulifolia, andPeltophorum africanumas wellas the protection ofa sacredJulbernardiaglobiflora. Matowanyika (1991)found an individual sacred Borassus aethiopum and noted that fruitcollection and tree cutting was forbidden in burial sites. In all of ourstudy sites, people did not cut trees on burial sites. Cutting theParinaricuratellifolia (trees used for speaking to the ancestors) was prohibited.

The strongest protection of sacred sites was found in a relativelyisolated and homogeneous community where the spirit medium pro-

6 Sacred sites, recognized locations of sacred objects, differ from sacred controls,the invoking of sacred sanctions both in and out of sacred sites.

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hibited tree cutting in three sacred places as well as the cutting of allTamarindus indica and Azanza garckeana. In the mid-1980s, a localresident was evicted from the area for collecting honey in one of thesacred places by cutting the sacred trees. Apparently the spirit me­dium had the support for the eviction from two of the most powerfulpeople in the ward, including the sub-chief. There may have beenother reasons for wanting the culprit out of the ward, but it is tellingthat the publicly-articulated reason for the eviction centered on thecutting of what was described as "very powerful trees."

In specific areas, this is a niche in transition and sometimes subjectto manipulation. Schoffeleers (1979:5-6) observed that traditionalreligious cults with ecological functions ", . . are necessarily com­munal institutions involving the entire population of a geographicarea in a system of common obligations." It is precisely these con­ditions that are disappearing in rural Zimbabwe. A common themeamong many observers is the steady weakening of sacred controls(Matowanyika 1991; McGregor 1989) and with it the disappearanceof sacred sites. Mukamuri (1991) also pointed out that some tradi­tional guardians protect sacred areas for their own secularends-asort of land bank. He described a "sacred hill with a haircut" wherethe forest was encroached on by well-established fields belonging tothe members of the ruling elite and their friends. At the top was anabandoned field that belonged to a latecomer who was forced torelinquish his encroachment-his field, in contrast to the others, wasdefined as profaning the sacred.

Tensions between spirit mediums and newcomers were particularlyapparent in resettlement areas. In one location, traditional authoritieslost control of the allocation of land with the initiation of the projectand the project has allocated land in sacred places. Due to an inducedland scarcity, people can ill-afford to revere the sacred land they havebeen allocated even if they would not have begun farming there oftheir own volition. Immigrants are known to trespass on sacred places.Traditional authorities accuse immigrants ofruining the land becausethey do not listen to the owners of the land (that is, the spirit me­diums). Immigrants counter by deploying a different cosmology­namely, "we are God's children, we do not speak to Satan." In otherinstances the immigrant justification is that prohibitions are too dif­ficult to adhere to and that the spirits will not mind if they departfrom strict observance. Traditional controls are thus being erodedboth by government action and by the immigrants out of necessity,and the tenure niche is being redefined.

Communal woodlands in communal and resettlement areas

Communal areas (known over time by various names) were the areasof generally poor soil onto which local African residents were forced

Tenures in Transition - Bruce et al. 635

by the colonial settler regime of Southern Rhodesia. Ownership ofthese areas is now vested in the state, although villages enjoy a fairdegree of self-government. Resettlement areas are farms purchasedfrom (generally white) commercial farmers for settlement by sup­posedly landless farmers, although this policy is in flux. Indigenouswoodlands in these areas are de facto common property. In someplaces secular communal woodlands are likely to be interspersed withsacred sites. Conflicts over communal woodland tend to result fromattempts to convert it to other tenure types, competing claims bynearby social units, or its expansion (via, for example, poaching) intoother tenure types.

'Woodland and tree management involves any or all offour controlmechanisms. First, pragmatic controls are both long-standing andrecently adopted norms oftree use and protection designed to ensurea steady flow ofa particular product. The prohibition of cutting fruittrees is an example of a pragmatic control. Second, sacred controlsare norms of tree use and protection that are based in folk or "tra­ditional" religious belief and that are enforced by individual inter­nalization of the norms, community sanction, and/or by religiousleaders. Third, civil contract controls norms of civility that governdaily conduct and that restrain excessively avaricious behavior. Thecivil contract ensures that people do not steal fruit from trees ineach other's compounds or steal piles of firewood or poles left forlater collection by the cutter. Parts of the civil contract may be re­inforced by religious mores and norms, but they are not generallythought of as being religious. Fourth, emergent controls are thecreation by the community (in some cases in cooperation with or atthe instigation of outside institutions) of new norms of tree use andprotection and/or new institutions to enforce rules of tree use andprotection.

Management ofthe indigenous woodlands in communal areas mostfrequently takes the form ofpragmatic control and the civil contract.The most common pragmatic control is the general prohibition oncutting fruit trees (Gumbo et al. 1989; Matowanyika 1991; McGregor1989; Wilson 1987). In all study sites, people refrain from cuttinglive trees (especially fruit trees) for firewood or any other purposeunless the tree is already dead. Perhaps to symbolize that they werein fact stewards of the land and trees, respondents in all sites madea point of saying no one should cut down a tree unless they intendedto use it. Other pragmatic prohibitions are more site specific. Wilson(1990) noted that people objected to cutting Colophospennum mopanetrees near villages in order to protect them as a source of ediblecaterpillars and that people did not cut some trees in their fieldsbecause they improve the soil fertility. In one site, despite a desperateshortage ofwood, baobab and Ziziphus mauritania trees are left stand­ing because they have multiple uses including commercially valuablefruit.

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The forms of civil contract are highly localized and variable. Gum­bo (1991) reported that individual claims to the produce of specifictrees in the communal woodlands could be staked by typing a ropearound the tree or building a thorn fence around it. These activitieshad to be undertaken after the winter when all resources are usedon an open access basis. Matowanyika (1991) found that individualclaims to trees for the placement of beehives and for collecting cat­erpillars could be made for the period of use.

Saying that "if it is in the bush, it cannot be fenced" and "they{the trees] belong to the forest," women in all but one of our sitessaid that wild fruit is an open access resource and cannot be markedto reserve it for any particular person. In contrast, key informants inthe remaining site reported that Ziziphus mauritania fruits can beclaimed by clearing the ground surrounding the tree and encirclingit with thorny bushes. In the event others collect the fruit from amarked tree, the tree "owner" can recover the fruit from the thief.Elsewhere, there did not appear to be any prior rights that could beclaimed by an individual to woodland trees or their products and itwas generally assumed that an individual would only collect the amounthe/she actually intended to use. The beginning of the breakdown ofthe civil contract is indicated by the theft of piles of fuel wood leftfor later collection as fuel wood becomes scarce (Gumbo 1991;McGregor 1989), a phenomenon reported in varying degrees in oursites.

A major assumption of the civil contract concerning communalwoodlands is that the woodlands will remain communal. However, insome areas the assumption is being breached as private individualsannex communal woodland (Gumbo 1991; Matose 1991; Tasosa 1991).Mvududu (1991) suggested that this is a strategy to prevent the landfrom being allocated to outsiders, yet another reminder that whatmay be at stake is the land under the trees rather than the treesthemselves.

Emergent controls are primarily associated with post-independenceinstitutions. The most frequent institutional actor of this sort is theVIDCO (Matose 1991; Wilson 1987). According to Nhira (1990) inKanyati (a village recently settled by spontaneous immigrants andmade the site ofa land-use planning project) Natural Resource Over­seers were elected for every village in the area. These overseers workwith the VIDCOs in monitoring the use of the woodlands. For ex­ample, before cutting a tree outside of one's own fields, one is sup­posed to ask permission from both the resource overseer and theVIDCO chair. This process is not strictly adhered to because of thegeneral perception that trees are a plentiful resource and that onecannot stop one's neighbors' access to a resource they legitimatelywant to use. However, these structures have been relatively effectivein barring outsiders or residents of other VIDCOs from using Colo-

Tenures in Transition - Bruce et al. 637

phospermum mopane trees and bamboo, but this cannot also be said ofother tree species or forest products. Game guards who work directlyunder Nyaminyami District Wildlife Trust have been seconded toKanyati. Their duties include policing tree cutting in the area.

Kanyati villagers requested the District Administrator and policeto set up a police constabulary to prevent the poaching of Oxyten­anthera abyssinia (used for making baskets and mats) by residents ofthe neighboring village. The villagers were unwilling to establish anunpaid volunteer patrol of their own. The fact that they reside in aheavily subsidized scheme may have influenced the development ofthis dependence on the largesse of the state. Second, the very exis­tence of the problem was a result of immigration and the emergenceof competing claims to the resource. The Kanyati villagers felt thatthe trees that were within their VIDeO boundary were clearly theirsand should not be taken by others. The others, one can well imagine,'whohad been using these trees long before any ofthe present Kanyatiresidents had even heard of the area, probably failed to see why theyshould relinquish rights to resources they had always used. Tenurein the communal woodland is in transition both in terms of area dueto pressures of privatization, reflecting in turn the pressures of amonetized capitalist economy and in terms of effectiveness of man­agement due to the breakdown ofcivil contract controls. In this nicheintervillage conflict might be reduced with negotiated co-manage­ment agreements.

Trees on indicidualls-controlled land in communal andresettlement areas

Although communal area land is legally vested in the state, undercustomary practice male residents have reasonably secure tenure inthe homestead plots and arable fields' comprising this niche. Thetenurial security of this land is indicated by the fact that in all sitespeople planted and protected trees in their compounds. Althoughthe number and variety of trees seemed to be directly related tohousehold wealth, even the poorest households both planted andprotected trees in their compounds. Within this niche conflicts mayarise from competing claims based in varying interpretations of cus­tomary law, changing definitions ofthe household, and the expansionof new economic and social relations based in statutory law into thissphere.

While the land in this niche was clearly controlled by the household,even within the compound trees are subject to varying property re­lations. Usually the person who planted the tree was reported to

7 '\'omen's rights are significantly more insecure than men's (Fortmann and Nabane1992a).

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control its products, particularly for sale. In general, people who didnot live in the compound could not take fruit from compound treeswithout asking permission, although some variations on this werefound on a household (rather than a village) basis. In some house­holds, relatives could help themselves to fruit. In others wild fruit ina compound was treated as an open-access good. Children receiveda special fruit-taking dispensation from some households. The ruleabout asking permission seemed to be rarely, if ever, breached. Inmost cases there was no mechanism other than embarrassment forpunishing an offender, although a few people said they would take athief to a village official to have himjher fined, particularly if thestolen fruit was to be sold.

The difference between land and tree tenure can be seen in thedifferent rights in compounds and arable plots in the study sites. Inboth compounds and arable plots, the land was clearly controlled bythe household. But household trees were subject to more control bythe household than were trees in arable fields. There was considerablevariation over which private individuals could use trees in arablefields. For the most part, these were naturally regenerating indige­nous trees, although some people plant exotics in fields close to thehomestead. Some asserted that trees in fenced arable land were justthe same as the crops and could be used only with the plot-holder'spermission. Others stated that these trees were open-access resourcesin the dry season but could be used only by relatives during thecropping season when tree use could result in crop damage. Yet othersconsidered these trees to be open-access goods since they were "plant­ed by God." Trees in fenced fields were more likely to be consideredprivate property. Sometimes use made a difference; fruit on indige­nous trees in arable fields that ripens during the dry season wasconsidered an open-access good but the trees could not be cut byothers.

Conclusions

The property relations involved in the forests and woodlands of Zim­babwe are more complex than can be encompassed in a simple rec­itation of private, public, and common property or dualistic legalsystems. It is necessary to incorporate the full complexity ofpropertyrelations and actors involved in conflicts over property. The conceptof tenure niche is one tool for doing this. For example, in strugglesover both trees claimed by District Councils in communal areas andthe trees planted by groups or institutions, land tenure is an importantdimension, but the basis of the claim to the trees-statute in onecases, labor in the other-is quite different. These are different nicheswith different players and the resolution of the conflicts will rest ondifferent grounds. Similarly, the concept of the tenure niche allows

Tenures in Transition - Bruce et al. 639

us to distinguish between secular and sacred property relations thatare masked if the more blunt-edged category of common property isused.

A vexing problem in the analysis and resolution of tenure conflictis the evolving definition of insiders and outsiders. A major issue,particularly for indigenous woodlands in communal and resettlementareas, is the control of activities and demands of outsiders. Villagersare frustrated over their inability to control either the allocation oftimber harvesting concessions in communal areas by District Councilsor the activities of the concessionaires themselves. In addition, it isoften difficult for villagers to exercise the same control over newmigrants, particularly those from a different tradition, that they ex­ercise over people with kin ties in the village. Thus, traditional con­trols begin to erode with the introduction ofnew residents and, some­times, new religious beliefs.

A particular twist to this problem is found on resettlement schemeswhere the theft of firewood by residents of the adjacent communalareas is frequent and blatant. 'While interviews were being conductedwith resettlement scheme residents, two groups with carts heavilyloaded with firewood calmly proceeded down the road in broad day­light. The wood poachers reported that they could not request accessto the woodlands as they were not gathering from anybody's fieldsnor did they know from whom to ask permission. They asserted thatsince they had used the woodlands when the farms were still privateproperty, the area rightfully belongs to them.

Three kinds of outsider activities can be distinguished: use by im­migrant residents who are defined by long-standing residents as out­siders, subsistence use of nonresident outsiders, and harvesting forcommercial purposes by nonresident outsiders who may also enticeinsiders to do the harvesting for them. While quite different ap­proaches could be used in dealing with these situations, once theproblem has been defined in terms of insiders and outsiders, reso­lution can be sought in variations on the theme of co-management.

Immigrants have been especially criticized for disobeying the rulesofthe spirit mediums. Since wholesale religious conversion is unlikely,immigrants need to be appealed to on other grounds. Pragmaticcontrols are the most likely candidate for success. It might be worthexploring how to increase the income-generating potential of treesparticularly as an inducement to conserve trees in tree-rich areas­a horizontal rather than a vertical form ofco-management. In dealing'with outsiders who take wood for subsistence purposes, care must betaken to set up a win-win situation. That is, punitive exclusionarymeasures are likely simply to generate resistance and subterfuge.Rather, efforts should be made to incorporate outside users into ajoint management strategy, again a horizontal form of co-manage­ment. Dealing with outsiders who take or entice others into taking

640 Rural Sociology, Vol. 58, No.4, Winter 1993

tree products for commercial purposes will probably require the pow­er of the state to protect the integrity of village boundaries unlessthey, like the state, can be enticed into co-management activities.

An obvious concern in these cases is that just who is the insider orthe outsider is a matter of debate. The more finely the tenure nicheis defined, the clearer these problems of definition and power can beseen and resolved. Again, this is something that can not be accom­plished with either the triune or dualistic approach to property rights.

Tenure relations must be recognized as evolving rather than staticforms of social organization even when their legal status remainsstatic. For example, indigenous woodlands in many areas are under­going piecemeal conversion from common property to private prop­erty as they are annexed by individuals who fence them for theirexclusive personal use. These woodlands are also undergoing whatMatosa (1992) calls "group privatization" when they are the sites ofcommunity woodlot plantings, which tend to benefit the wealthiermembers of the community disproportionately (Fortmann and Na­bane 1992b). The de facto rather than de jure status of commercialfarm land also has fluctuated between greater and lesser private con­trol. At some times the woodland resources ofcommercial farms (bothlarge-scale and small-scale) have been used on an open-access basisby residents of nearby communal areas. At other times, there hasbeen greater (but never total) private control of the resource. Theongoing changes, then, are far from being a steady march towardsprivatization. Rather, woodlands and tree resources continue to becontested and evolving tenurial terrain. The tenure niche allows amore accurate analysis of the complexities ofwhat is being contestedby whom in property struggles, what is changing in tenures in tran­sition, and a better understanding of the outcome of such strugglesfor the people and the land.

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