Session 1. 19.

Before the colonial government began to bureaucratize land governance in the region which is comprised by today's Maharashtra, "Sheep Pastures" were an institution in the land governance system of the Maratha rulers. This institution allowed nomadic shepherds to graze freely in the non cultivated lands in this region in exchange of a fixed tax. As this institution allowed to graze in a vast area often demarcated by the banks of two parallel rivers, nomadic shepherding was institutionalizes as well. However the British government found the existence of sheep pastures inconvenient for land administration. The sheep pastures gradually disappeared from the land governance system. The colonial government brought the idea of "lands for special purposes" which made the legitimate existence of pasturelands limited only within the boundaries of a village.

Based on my archival work where I have surveyed the diaries of Maratha rulers, land laws made during the colonial times and the proceedings of debates about them in the governor's council, reports by colonial administrators etc., I have mapped the existence and disappearance of sheep pastures in Maharashtra region. Through this study, I have attempted to comment on the idea of common pasture lands, and have attempted to describe how this idea has been undergoing a constant change.

Seeking to create new foundations for life, the Maya people of Belize continue to create economies that allow their ways of living to persist and strive within a globalized world. The Maya people have relied on their surrounding natural resources to ensure their socio-economic and cultural well-being. One natural resource that has been vital for the Maya people is the jipijapa palm. Although the jipijapa palm is commonly used as a food source, men’s and women’s interaction with it differs. Men utilize the palm for farm work, whereas women have commodified it to create crafts to sell on the tourism market. Although jipijapa always had cultural value, the advent of tourism gave it monetary value, causing a transition in how Maya people related to the plant.

Tourism, the COVID-19 pandemic, and climate change are significant globalized changes that impacted the Maya’s relationship with the jipijapa palm. Partaking in the tourism industry led to the overconsumption of jipijapa palms and scarcity in some villages, pressuring the remaining source in San Jose, Belize. The pandemic stagnated the jipijapa craft production, revealing its fragility and hyper-dependency on the local tourism industry. Due to climate change, this year, the Toledo District experienced intense wildfires that burnt for weeks, destroying numerous farms and acres of jipijapa palms.

Learning from the year’s perils, the Maya People of San Jose Village seek to build a more resilient future. They aspired to engage in the international exportation of their crafts, alleviating the dependency on local tourism markets. They also aim to restore burnt farms, replant jipijapa palms, and adopt sustainable farming techniques such as agroforestry to protect their farmlands and the broader environment, ensuring the longevity of their natural resource in a constantly shifting world.

One of the most consequential transformations for many aboriginal societies was that from a foraging economy to a pastoral economy. Among arctic and subarctic reindeer-herding peoples in northern Eurasia, it manifested from the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries in a movement that implied a radical shift in economic focus. People went from living foremost on fishing-hunting and gathering, with small numbers of domesticated reindeer mainly for transport, to reindeer pastoralism with large reindeer herds. The geographical scale of the transformation was huge, as it took place among culturally divergent reindeer-herding groups throughout northern Eurasia, spanning from the Chukchee by the North Pacific in northeastern Asia all the way to the Sami by the Atlantic in northwestern Europe. It was also a fairly swift process; in just a couple of centuries almost all reindeer-herding societies in this vast area had either become pastoralists or disappeared. Although it was a massive transition, rather close to our time, remarkably little is known about what consequences it had on local governance and social relations for the groups involved, as well as on their relations to outsiders.

The presentation will address how the transformation of the economy impacted social relations by focusing on early modern Sami in Northwest Fennoscandia. Of particular interest is how the economy developed for foraging and pastoralist households. Did different way of utilising the commons lead to an economic gap between the groups? And if so, how was this inequality manifested?

The modernization of indigenous irrigation systems into large scale modern irrigation systems has witnessed tremendous interest and investments by the governments and international financial institutions in developing countries in recent years. These are high priority projects in national development plans that visibly aims for high farm productivity, import substitution and economic growth. Additionally, such projects come with an agenda of creating local livelihood opportunities and reduce youth out-migration. Evidence suggest that despite the expansion of large scale irrigation systems, youth mostly men, continue to out-migrate for labour jobs. Women, (mostly from marginalised sections) are increasingly stepping into roles traditionally held by men, however, they are largely excluded from decision making processes related to irrigation management. Furthermore, without adequate interventions to address underlying structural constraints, they are increasingly exposed to newer forms of gendered vulnerabilities and violence, issues that have been less documented.

These dynamics raise critical concerns about the future of indigenous irrigation systems, as well as youth’s relations to irrigation commons. Despite being integral to the questions of sustainable irrigation futures, the existing scholarship lacks a systematic assessment of knowledge regarding the intersection of irrigation and youth. This presentation aims to fill this gap by providing an overview of existing scientific literature on changing human-water relationships with a specific focus on youth (differentiated by gender, caste, class, age) and irrigation. The review will explore key questions including how youth’s engagement with irrigation water have been conceptualised in the literature, and what this means for youth’s future as stewards of irrigation commons.
This is a work in progress. In addition to the review findings, the presentation will include insights from exploratory field visit in Nepal.

Key words: Commons, Indigenous, Irrigation, Systemic review, Youth

In Kenya’s arid and semi-arid lands, which constitute 80% of the country’s landmass, pastoralists depend on mobile land use to manage common resources. Governance of these resources is guided by both legal and customary rules. Historically, community-based governance of the commons has facilitated sustainable resource use through collaborative management practices. However, in the last decade, these systems have been increasingly threatened by competition for rangelands from green energy initiatives, carbon projects, and government policies that often disregard pastoralists’ claims to control and access resources. This study aims to provide a better understanding of the underlying knowledge that informs decision-making within existing structures and practices of rangeland governance among the Borana and Rendille pastoral communities in Marsabit County. Data was collected using a mixed-method approach, including net maps, activity knowledge analysis, focused group discussions, and key informant interviews over twelve months. The study reveals that communities rely on elders’ knowledge from past experiences to ensure sustainable use of common resources. Among the Rendille, ‘Eween’ elders make important decisions regarding seasonal land use and allocation of resources to different livestock species. Similarly, the Borana ‘Jars Dedha’ elders are consulted on decision-making and solving disputes over resource use. However, among the Borana, there have been noticeable shifts towards individual decision-making of formal authorities such as chiefs as compared to the consultative and central decision-making nature among the Rendile. By understanding the embedded knowledge, local structures, and pastoral values, policymakers can better align reforms/policies with the realities of land-use practices. This alignment is essential for fostering more equitable and sustainable outcomes for pastoral communities. This research contributes to ongoing dialogues on empowering pastoralists through further explorations of the important role of local governance structure. It highlights the need for policymakers to acknowledge and integrate local governance systems into development strategies.