An Introduction to Land Tenure in Sub-Saharan Africa: Dualism, Reform and the Roots of Conflict (Earthscan Studies in Natural Resource Management)

Written by a scholar-practitioner with over four decades of experience, this book is an accessible introduction to land tenure and its implications for African development.The book carries a clear warning: intensifying conflict over land across Africa is not the growing pains of a positive evolution in land tenure, but a problem that can only get worse without the state’s recognition of customary tenure systems when undertaking tenure reform.The author reviews Africa’s experience of evolution in customary land tenure and the often-difficult experience of the new nation in land tenure reform, including the failure to prevent further loss of land by rural populations and the unwitting contribution of some reform elements to that loss.The book has a broad reach across many countries in Africa and many different types of land, including farmland, pastures and rangelands, and forests.It is complemented by insights from a variety of disciplines to provide an accessible but nuanced introducti