Collective action for grazing land management in mixed crop-livestock systems in the highlands of northern Ethiopia

Communal grazing lands are important sources of feed in developing countries.The uncontrolled and free grazing system prevalent in many developing countries has caused sever degradation of the grazing lands.Several alternative managementoptions have been recommended to solve the degradation of common property resources, including state ownership , imposition and enforcement of use rules and regulationsby external organisations such as the government, private ownership and community resource management.This paper examines the nature and determinants of collective action for grazing land management in thehighlands of Tigray, northern Ethiopia .Results are based on a survey of 100 villages in 1998 -99.Indicators of collective action used in the study include area of grazing land under use rules and regulations per household , whether community pays for guard to protect the grazing land, average value ofhousehold contributions for grazing land management, whether community esta blished penalty system for violations of use rules and regulations, and whether violations of use rules and regulationsoccurred .Total number of households per village, in volvement of external organisations, distance to nearest market town , if cattle rearing is second most important source of livelihood in village, total number of local organ isations in village, heterogeneity in oxen ownership and total area of village were used as determinants of collective action for grazing land management.Analysis ofdescriptive information , and Tobit and Probit statisticalmodels have been employed.We find that collective action for grazing land management iswidespread in the highlands of Tigray and reportedly contribute to sustainable use of the resource.Most collective action is locally initiated and is organised at the village level.Wefind evidence for an inverted U -shape relationship between population and collective action.Market access detracts from collective action as doeswealth heterogeneity of community .Community experiencewith local organisations favours collective action .These results imply that collective action for grazing land managementmay bemore beneficial and more effective in areas with intermediate population and higher social capital, that are far from market places.In communities with higher wealth heterogeneity and closer to markets, alternative resource management arrangements such as privatisation may be more effective.1. Highlands are defined as those areas which are 1500 meters above sea level.