Challenges of Community-Based NRM in Rangelands

The paper “The challenges of community-based natural resource management in pastoral rangelands” (2021) by Lance Robinson et al, published in Society & Natural Resources 34(9): 1213–1231, compares five case studies – two from Kenya, two from Ethiopia and one from Tunisia – to identify contextual aspects that affect the implementation of community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) in pastoral settings. Sociopolitical and biophysical characteristics of the wider landscape where the community’s rangeland territory is located were found to be important, as well as the extent to which the territory is surrounded by other land-use and land-tenure types, major political boundaries and physical landscape features. The analysis suggests that, where pastoralist communities co-exist in large open rangeland landscapes, NRM interventions need to be multi-level and horizontally flexible, rather than taking a narrow community-based approach.