Report: access to land at the northern peripheryof Niokolo-Koba National Park, Senegal

Melis Ece

Published online: 25 February 2009

� Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009

Abstract Based on research conducted in Senegal in 2004, this field report

focuses on the politics of access to land at the northern periphery of the Niokolo-

Koba National Park, where a group of villages evicted from the national park were

resettled in the 1970s. Conflicts over the allocation of land resurfaced in the 1980s,

following the application of laws authorizing rural community councils to allocate

use rights in village agricultural lands. The land claims of evicted villages were

challenged by the rural council and local state authorities, who sought to define such

claims as illegal or ambiguous based on exclusionary discourses of productive use

of land, autochthony and citizenship. The politics of access to land at the northern

periphery are shaped by land and administrative reforms undertaken since the end of

colonial rule in Senegal and the on-going local transformation of authority and

property relations under increasing commoditization and insecurity of land use

rights.

Keywords Decentralization � Land tenure reform � Nature conservation �Niokolo-Koba National Park � Senegal

Introduction

The forced eviction of the villages of the Niokolo-Koba National Park is seen as an

‘unfortunate’ result of conservation policies by state authorities and a symbol of the

state’s coercive power by those who experienced it. It was announced by

governmental decrees soon after Independence and was carried out by the army

M. Ece (&)

Department of Anthropology, Graduate Center of the City University of New York,

365, Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10016, USA

e-mail: melisece@gmail.com

123

Dialect Anthropol (2008) 32:353–382

DOI 10.1007/s10624-009-9088-7

between 1972 and 1976.1 The evictions led to an influx of immigrants from the Park

into the neighboring villages, regions and countries. A group of villages from the

Park were allowed to resettle on land adjacent to the northern limits of the National

Park, next to a ‘host’ village, which had also been a local centre for colonial

administration. Centrally appointed government officials (governor and prefect) also

helped carry out the evictions and have continued to play a key role in the

resettlement of the evicted villages and in the arbitration of land conflicts between

the members of evicted villages and those of the ‘host’ village, who claimed

customary ownership of the land. This state of affairs changed at the beginning of

the 1980s, when the state started to disengage from rural development and new

territorial administrative units; ‘rural communities’ were created on the lands

surrounding the National Park. A new rural council was authorized to allocate and

withdraw land use rights on lands included within the rural community, and the

‘host’ village was designated the ‘new’ administrative centre. Subsequently, the

rural community council began denying the land claims of evicted villages with the

tacit approval (and under the supervision) of centrally appointed state administra-

tors, while it continued to allocate large tracts of land to urban entrepreneurs who

could put land in ‘productive use’ as banana plantations. After the adoption of a new

decentralization law in 1996, land conflicts, already acute at the northern periphery,

further intensified. Following the disputes with the rural community council, some

members of evicted villages have lost the land that they had been using since their

resettlement at the northern periphery.

In the first part of this report, I present an overview of conditions of unequal

access to land established in Senegal during colonial rule and how these conditions

were adapted by the independent Senegalese state to reappropriate land as national

domain and to put in place new administrative-territorial units: the rural

communities. I argue that through land laws, administrative reforms and develop-

ment policies, colonial and independent states played an important role in the

transformation of authority and land relations in Senegal and, in particular, within

the South-Eastern region of the country, where the Niokolo-Koba National Park is

located. The second part of the report focuses on the politics of access to land at the

northern periphery of the National Park by examining the application of national

domain law and the recent decentralization law, which extended the authority of

rural community councils and opened up the possibility of a future privatization of

the national domain. I analyze the rural community council’s land commission

meetings held between 1989 and 2003. This analysis indicates that up to 1996, the

newly ‘elected’ rural community council, authorized to allocate and withdraw land

use rights under the supervision of centrally appointed state authorities, used its

power to refuse land demands from evicted villages, while approving the allocation

of land to urban entrepreneurs and to those who ‘belonged’ to the centre village of

the rural community. Land demands both from within and outside the rural

community increased considerably after the adoption of the new decentralization

1 The decision regarding the eviction of the resident villages of the Niokolo-Koba National Park was

approved by the President and the Council of Ministers in 1971 and the actual evictions took place

between 1972 and 1976 (DPN 2000, p. 33).

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law in 1996. While land conflicts intensified, urban entrepreneurs, and increasingly,

development programs and peasant commercial groupings, became the main

avenues of access to state-recognized ‘secure’ land rights for most members of

evicted villages, who were drawn into new commercial agricultural plantations as

share croppers.

Unequal conditions of access to land: private property, citizenshipand development

The Niokolo-Koba National Park, situated in the South-Eastern region of

Tambacounda of modern day Senegal, lies on a vast territory ranging from the

drier savannah forests south of the Sahara to the lush peaks of the Guinean

mountains. Beginning in the 1900s, the colonial administration undertook the

administrative and territorial reorganization of West Africa, which involved the

adoption of administrative and land laws, allowing the extension of colonial control

over the ‘lands of the protectorate’ and the incorporation of large tracts of land as

‘vacant and without owner’ into the colonial state’s domain (DPN 2000, p. 145).

The creation of game and forest reserves in this land-locked area was made possible

not only through colonial forestry and hunting laws, but also through governmental

decrees organizing French colonial territories and administration in West Africa.

Access to ‘vacant and ownerless’ land: private property and customary userights

The category of land ‘vacant and without owner’ was first introduced in French West

Africa with the adoption of the French Civil Code, which was defined as ‘free of

rights’, lands on which neither absolute individual ownership nor absolute state

ownership rights were established. The ‘vacant and ownerless’ lands were made part

of the colonial state’s private domain, which in theory did not belong to the state, but

was made potentially alienable in the name of the state (Cubrilo and Goislard 1998, p.

365).2 Initially, ‘vacant and ownerless land’ played an important role in justifying the

colonial state’s claiming of rural land as part of its ‘eminent’ domain by ‘right of

conquest’ (Berry 2002; Caveriviere and Debene 1988).3 This implied the imposition

of colonial rule over ‘customary authorities’ and African territories, which comprised

lands that were, after all not ‘free of rights’, as they were used and occupied by

Africans at different points in time (Coquery-Vidrovitch 1982, pp. 73–75; Caveriviere

2 According to the Civil Code adopted in French West Africa, the domain of the colonial state was

divided into private and public domains. The ‘private domain’ incorporated all ‘goods’ where alienable

only in the name of the state. The inclusion of ‘vacant and ownerless’ land into the private (alienable)

domain of the colonial state made this type of land potentially open to privatization under the control of

the state.3 The sovereignty of the colonial state over ‘vacant and ownerless land’ was first affirmed by the

declaration of the ‘eminent domain’ of France over its colonies by a decree signed by Faidherbe in 1865,

which announced that ‘vague terrains’ belonged to the colonial state by ‘right of conquest’. The decree of

1904 organizing the government of French West Africa reaffirmed that land ‘vacant and without owner’

in the colonies and territories of French West Africa belonged to the colonial state.

Access to land at the northern periphery of Niokolo-Koba National Park 355

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and Debene 1988, pp. 11, 68). As the colonial policy of ‘development’ (mise en valeur)

started to take shape after the First World War, ‘vacant and ownerless’ land also

became central to the creation of ‘reserve lands’ (such as nature reserves or areas

reserved for intensive agriculture) that could either be alienated as private property or

reallocated for the purposes of ‘productive use’ by the colonial state (Cubrilo and

Goislard 1998, p. 305). Definition of the ‘vacant and ownerless land’ as ‘free’ of state

ownership rights did not prevent the French colonial state from appropriating it as part

of its territories, but made the struggle over ‘vacant and ownerless’ land a foil for

struggle over authority between the colonial state and Africans (particularly

‘customary authorities’). As access to rural land became dependent on the conditions

of ‘productive use’ approved by colonial administrators and its exploitation carried out

through ‘customary authorities’, debates over ‘vacant and ownerless’ land also

became central to debates over privatization in rural areas, constituting part of the

enduring legacy of colonial rule.

As opposed to British settler colonies in South and East Africa, the French colonial

administration in West Africa did not create a system of ‘native reserves’, where

‘customary ownership rights’ over land were officially recognized (Mamdani 1996;

Cousins 2002, p. 69). Instead of engaging in a codification of ‘customary ownership’

of land as communal property, the French sought to impose a selective private property

registration regime (regime d’immatriculation), which would be applied throughout

the colonial territories under the administrative ‘supervision’ (tutelle) of the central

colonial state. Land registration laws adopted at the beginning of the twentieth century

aimed at providing state-recognized secure property rights (for investors and

entrepreneurs) and at bringing property transactions (especially those between

citizens and ‘natives’—indigenes) within the state control (Caveriviere and Debene

1988, p. 33). The full application of these laws was possible in limited areas where the

colonial state had already established a legal base, centralized administration and

allocated enough resources to implement them. In Senegal, these were the ‘four

communes’ (Goree, Saint-Louis, Rufisque and Dakar) that became administrative

extensions of the metropole through their incorporation into the municipal system in

France (Diouf 1998, pp. 673–674).4 In these urban areas of dense colonial settlement

and commerce, the inhabitants were entitled to citizenship through residence and by

virtue of ‘originating’ from the French soil. They were also subject to the French Civil

Code and to intense colonial efforts to ‘assimilate’ them into French culture and

civilization (Diouf 1998). Although the colonial civilizing discourse assumed that the

inhabitants of the four communes, originaires, would (and should) adopt practices and

understandings similar to the conception of private property enshrined in the French

Civil Code (as an ‘exclusive and absolute right of the individual’),5 property

registration laws in urban areas did not necessarily facilitate the acquisition of private

4 Goree and Saint-Louis acquired the municipal status of French ‘communes’ in 1872, becoming ‘fully

empowered’. This status was later extended to Rufisque (in 1880) and Dakar (in 1887). The originaires(Africans born and residing in the four communes) obtained the right to vote, elect their own

representatives and send their elected deputies to French National Assembly.5 The French Civil Code established the right to property as a human right based on article 17 of the

Declaration of Rights of Man and the Citizen (1789). However, it also introduced the idea that private

property was an exclusive and absolute right of the individual (Le Bris et al. 1982, pp. 383–384).

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property for Africans claiming the status of originaires (Dieye 2004, p. 14;

Caveriviere and Debene 1988, p. 38, 44).6 However, outside the four communes, if

French citizens or originaires wanted to ‘invest’ in rural land, they were under the

protection of the French Civil Code and had right to ‘secure’ private titles issued by the

colonial administrators (Dieye 2004).

The application of the property registration regime in the ‘lands of the

protectorate’ lying outside the four urban communes posed a different problem.

Although vast tracts of lands had been incorporated into the colonial state’s domain

as ‘vacant and ownerless land’, these were still under the control of ‘customary

authorities’, seen as a barrier between the French colonial administration and the

governance of ‘natives’ (Mamdani 1996, p. 83). Unlike originaires of the four

communes, ‘natives’ (indigenes) were subject to a special native penal code, which

defined their personal status based on their ‘origins’, firmly rooted outside the

European territories.7 Initially concerned with expanding its influence over newly

acquired territories, the French colonial state sought to generalize a uniform,

centralized and hierarchical administrative and legislative system which would also

break the power of ‘customary authorities’ (Delavignette 1968, p. 79; Mamdani

1996, p. 82; Cousins 2002).8 Outside the four urban municipalities (communes), the

colonial territories were divided into districts (cercles), where the state’s admin-

istrative and territorial control was exercised through district administrators

(commandant de cercles). District administrators were drawn among French

officers or originaires, and were appointed and controlled by the central

administration through a system of supervision (tutelle administrative) similar to

the one that existed in France (Delavignette 1968, pp. 71–84). They had executive

powers and acted as judges in native courts, applying the Civil Code (to citizens and

originaires) and ‘customary law’ and the Native Penal Code (to ‘natives’).

Reflecting its rigid attitude towards the ‘customary ownership’ of land, the

colonial state’s discourse on land tenure in rural areas promoted the idea that private

property was a concept alien to indigenes (Coquery-Vidrovitch 1982, p. 73). It was

assumed that indigenes did not share the conception of private property

6 The acquisition of private titles over the buildings in urban areas depended on the establishment of

‘personal status’, as originaire, which also conferred citizenship. In order to claim access to private

property, Africans had to first prove birth and residence in the four urban communes. The property

registration regime made also permanent use and occupation an important condition of access to the

buildings, which in 1932 extended over a period of thirty years. Furthermore, the allocation of private

land titles was still subject to approval by colonial administrators (conservateur or profession

magistrates).7 The Native Penal code (also known as le code d’indigenat) was introduced in French West Africa in the

1880s. The Native Penal Code provided the legal definition of the ‘natives’ (indigenes) as persons

«originating from a land included in these territories or neighboring territories, who, in their country, do

not have the status of European national» (Chabas 1955, p. 52). Although the Native Penal Code was

abolished in 1946, the categories that it introduced continued to influence the practice of law under

colonial rule.8 According to Delavignette, the colonial policy of administrative-territorial division relied on racial and

religious homogeneity of the country and focused on ‘establishing and concentrating the administration in

the neighborhood of the chief’, who was a ‘feudal grantee’ appointed by the colonial administration.

However, if the chief’s power seemed ‘troublesome or dangerous’, the colonial policy was to partition the

territory into different districts (cercles) or subdivisions (cantons), which would break his power.

Access to land at the northern periphery of Niokolo-Koba National Park 357

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encapsulated in the French Civil Code, the corner stone of French civilization. They

had their own ‘communal land tenure’ under the authority of ‘customary’ village

chiefs, but these were subsumed under the overarching authority of the French Civil

Code. Until the 1950s, land registration laws did not recognize ‘customary

ownership’ of land and did not consider ‘customary use rights’ the basis for the

acquisition of state recognized private land titles. Even if the village chief was

allowed to claim ‘customary ownership’ based on ‘customary use rights’ in local

courts presided by district administrators, these claims were not recognized in

higher courts (such as the Court of Appeal located in Dakar) presided by

professional magistrates (Delavignette 1968, p. 111). From the perspective of the

colonial state and centrally appointed administrators that applied the French Civil

Code, ‘natives’ could not claim ‘customary ownership rights’ but could only claim

‘customary use rights’ over land.

During the early years of consolidation of colonial power, ‘customary use rights’

were also seen as standing in the way of acquisition of land by French citizens and

urban investors who were best placed to put land to permanent and productive use

according to land registration laws. The French colonial administration tried to

overcome this obstacle through decrees modifying land registration laws, which, up

to the 1930s, required ‘native occupants’ to provide ‘valid’ proof of the existence of

‘customary use rights’ for land not to be declared ‘vacant and ownerless’ (Coquery-

Vidrovitch 1982). This proof was approved by the district administrator, who not

only acted as judge in the arbitration of rural land conflicts, but also had the

authority to oversee the sale and allocation of agricultural land (Delavignette 1968).

As a result, colonial long-term concessions—as agricultural plantations or forest

exploitations—were allocated under the strict control of the central state and

uniquely to those who could claim citizenship, without taking into consideration

pre-existing ‘customary use rights’ (Coquery-Vidrovitch 1982).9 Simultaneously,

access to private property titles in rural areas was made difficult (if not impossible)

to Africans. The elaborate property registration procedure10 worked to the

advantage of French citizens and Africans of urban origin who had access to

French education and to colonial administrative networks, and very few Africans

saw an advantage in registering their ancestral land by undergoing the scrutiny and

approval of district administrator. Even if they did, decoding and overcoming the

conditions set out by the law demanded considerable resources.

9 A good example of how ‘vacant and ownerless’ land was used to deny customary use rights over land is

fallow land. In rural areas in the Sahel, shifting agriculture and long fallow periods are noted as common

agricultural techniques. A particular piece of land that was heavily cultivated and lost its fertility could be

left unused for as long as 15 years. Even though the fallow land had an owner(s) and was put into use over

a long period of time by local residents, from the perspective of the colonial government and land laws, it

was still considered as ‘vacant and without owner’ because there was no proof of its ‘productive use’

(Coquery-Vidrovitch 1982).10 The French land registration regime in West Africa was inspired by the land registration method

developed by Torrens, the Director of Colonial Domains in Australia. The procedure was based on the

establishment of the proof of existence of ‘real rights’ (droits reels) over land or buildings. After the

‘observation’ of these ‘real rights’, they were inscribed on the registry and the private property title was

granted to the beneficiary (Cubrilo and Goislard 1998, p. 325).

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Productive use of ‘vacant and ownerless’ land: development and privatization

of customary rights

Beginning in the 1920s, the French colonial state engaged in a series of

administrative and economic reforms, which would quickly come to have important

implications for land relations in rural areas in West Africa (Van Beusekom 2002;

Mamdani 1996, pp. 83–85; Bonneuil 1991). A new administrative policy of

‘association’ was adopted, allowing the French colonial state to create new

subdivisions (cantons) within districts (cercles) headed by native chiefs (chefs decanton) (Mamdani 1996, p. 84; Delavignette 1968, pp. 72–73). In creating these

subdivisions and nominating the villages that would become their administrative

centres, the colonial administrators took into consideration the ‘economic impor-

tance’ of these areas for colonial development. In addition, native chiefs would be

nominated according to their functions as ‘feudal lords’ over land and they would be

brought under the direct control of district administrators (Delavignette 1968, p. 79).

After World War I, the ‘development’ (mise en valeur) of colonies became the

responsibility of colonial administration as a vast programme of economic

development was adopted to generalize the ‘rational’ and ‘productive use’ of land

and natural resources in colonial territories (Van Beusekom 2002, p. 3; Bonneuil

1991, p. 41). However, its application depended primarily on the availability of land

and mobilization of labour, which had been a major challenge for colonial

administrations. At first, the administrators had recourse to forced labour (corvee) to

produce cash crops on lands classified as ‘vacant and without owner’ granted as

colonial concessions to French citizens or under the direct supervision of district

administrators on ‘commander’s fields’ (champs de commandant) (Mamdani 1996,

p. 150; Bonneuil 1991, p. 476; David 1980). While concessions were limited to a

few areas, it was also difficult to expand agricultural production to entire colonial

territories, which could only be accomplished with the coercive power of colonial

officers. The colonial development policy adopted in the 1920s undertook several

avenues and attempts to impose intensive cash crop agriculture on colonial

territories. One of them was to strengthen centralized state institutions and research

centres, which would become ‘technical services’ that would carry out intensive

agricultural production. While agronomic research centers were set up to determine

the kinds of agricultural products and areas most suitable for their intensive

production, agricultural offices coordinated this research with colonial agricultural

cooperatives, which were in turn responsible from for the distribution of grains and

material as well as extending the state’s ‘scientific expertise’ to peasants (David

1980, p. 81; Bonneuil 1991, p. 396).11 Colonial agricultural development policy

depended not only on state restructuring of agricultural organizations but also on

securing labour force and land for intensive cash crop production. In areas where

‘customary authorities’ or Muslim leaders were increasingly drawn into cash crop

agriculture (such as the peanut producing region of Senegal), colonial administrators

11 The colonial agricultural cooperatives, called Societes de Prevoyance, were created in 1910. They

became one of the main motors of colonial development policy through buying of grains and agricultural

material as well as ‘popularizing’ (vulgarization) of peanut production.

Access to land at the northern periphery of Niokolo-Koba National Park 359

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focused on integrating them in colonial agricultural cooperatives and granted them

large tracts of land, material and grains (Cruise O’Brien 1971; Copans 1988; Diop

and Diouf 1990, p. 29).12 As Muslim leaders became increasingly important in

peanut production under the new colonial policy of development, land registration

laws also adopted an ‘evolutionary’ view of ‘customary land tenure’. A

governmental decree promulgated in 1925 brought a significant change in land

registration laws by making possible the registration of ‘customary rights’ in

‘customary tenure registries’, as codification of customary rights was seen as the

first step forward in the ‘evolution’ of customary rights to exclusive private property

rights (Caveriviere and Debene 1988, p. 39). The second step, which was

undertaken in 1956, involved the transformation of ‘customary rights’ into private

property rights through the registration of individual ‘customary’ rights, which

could then be converted into private titles.

In areas where land seemed to be ‘plentiful’ and the population ‘scarce’ (such as

French Soudan) and/or where Muslim leaders had not become powerful enough to

turn cash crop production in to their own advantage (making it difficult for colonial

administration to seize land, as was the case in South-Eastern Senegal), the French

undertook the large scale organized ‘implantation’ of entire villages (colonizationindigene) of migrant agricultural workers (called navetanes or sourga13; see David

1980; Van Beusekom 2002; Bonneuil 1991, p. 467). These migrant workers and

new villages were established in areas appropriated as ‘vacant and without owner’,

and which were put into use for intensive agriculture, under the supervision of

district administrators.14 In 1935, a new executive decree announced that a plot of

land could only be considered ‘vacant and ownerless’ if it was not ‘exploited or

inhabited’ for more than 10 years (Caveriviere and Debene 1988; Coquery-

Vidrovitch 1982). This implied that unless the permanent occupation and

exploitation of land (and buildings) over a period of 10 years was proven, the

state could still declare the land as ‘vacant and without’ owner and put it to

‘productive use’. The condition of ‘productive use’ of land required by the colonial

state had become an important way of accessing the land or keep preventing it from

being reappropriated.

Africans were granted citizenship rights in 1946 and cash crop production was

entirely carried out under centralized agricultural offices (dominated by urban elites)

and by agricultural cooperatives (dominated by Muslim leaders or ‘customary

12 Membership in Societes de Prevoyance was made compulsory in 1915 and their presidents were

chosen from among native chiefs and religious leaders (Van Hoven and Cruise O’ Brien 1971, p. 268). In

areas of Senegal where commercial peanut production was considered a development priority, district

administrators who presided over agricultural cooperatives would grant large tracts of land to marabouts,

who they thought would be most ‘competent’ to put land in use in the most ‘productive’ way with the help

of their disciples (talibe).13 The term navetane, originating from Wolof and ‘frenchified’, was used by the colonial administration

to designate seasonal agricultural workers. Over time, the term navetane was replaced by the term sourgain certain regions of Senegal, such as Tambacounda.14 In Senegal, where peanuts had become a priority of colonial development, peanuts were produced by

navetanes brought not only from other regions of Senegal, such as the Sine, but also from the

neighbouring Gambia, Guinee and Mali. Their installation and transportation was organized by district

administrators, who also issued them identity cards.

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authorities’; see Diouf 1993, p. 232). From the beginning of the 1950s, the colonial

administration had started to take further steps towards the privatization of rural

land. In 1956, the colonial administration allowed Africans living in rural areas to

transform their ‘customary rights’ into private property rights (Caveriviere and

Debene 1988, p. 44); however, to be able to do so, they were required to fulfill the

conditions of ‘productive use’ (that is, permanent and continuous occupation and

exploitation), as well as to prove the existence of ‘customary’ individual rights,

which provided the most effective control over land. The colonial state started to

grant individual ‘customary’ rights over land, under the condition that land was put

to use regularly and without interruption, unless the contrary was justified by the

exigencies of then ongoing agricultural cultivation. As ‘customary rights’ were

increasingly ‘assimilated’ within the private property regime and recognized and

registered by the colonial state, in 1955, it became increasingly difficult for the

colonial administration (or claimant) to prove that there were no ‘customary’ rights

over land (in order to declare it ‘vacant and without owner’or claim private property

rights over land; see Coquery-Vidrovitch 1982), and by the 1960s, the notorious

category of ‘vacant and ownerless’ land had disappeared from legal texts. However,

the patterns of appropriation and its justification were clear, and serve as an

important inspiration for the appropriation of land by the future independent state,

where the colonial notion of ‘productive use’ as a condition for access to rural land

would be fully applied.

The park and its residents before independence

The Niokolo-Koba National Park, situated in the South-Eastern region of

Tambacounda of modern day Senegal, was created in 1954 (DPN 2000). On this

fertile land, rich in game and forest resources, the French colonial administration

had created a game reserve in the 1920s (DPN 2000). Before the arrival of the

French, the area covered by the national park had been home to Pulaar and Mande

speaking Empires and Kingdoms, connecting people and extending their control

over an area covering parts of today’s Gambia, Guinee Conakry and Guinee Bissau

(Barry 1998). In this area, already contested among African and other European

states, the French colonial regime sought to establish control over the land and

people through trade, warfare and signing of treaties, all of which would eventually

bring them under colonial rule as French ‘protectorates’ (Barry 1998; Van Hoven

1995).15 Until the 1920s, however, the colonial administrative control over this

region remained fragile, as administrative divisions and centres shifted (cercles) to

concentrate the power in the hands of those ‘customary chiefs’ that seemed more

15 The African polities claiming parts of the area now enclosed within the National Park included

Mandinka-speaking Kingdoms of Niani, Wuli (Senegambia) and Kaabu (Senegal-Guinea Bissau) and,

Pulaar-speaking Muslim States of Fuladu and Futa Jallon (Senegal-Guinee Conakry). These polities were

caught up in wars with each other and with French, British and Portuguese colonial powers, which were

trying to control the Gambia River and Southern River region (Barry 1998, pp. 169, 249). The colonial

partition of the area was not completed until the end of the nineteenth century, after which each colonial

state focused on extending its territorial and administrative control over African polities and peoples.

Access to land at the northern periphery of Niokolo-Koba National Park 361

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amenable to French rule and strategically placed for French commercial interests

(Van Hoven 1995).

With the inauguration of the era of ‘productive use’ (mise en valeur), the colonial

administration would become increasingly interested in developing agriculture in

the North, along the axes of the railroad linking South-Eastern Senegal to coastal

urban centres. The town of Tambacounda became increasingly important as a transit

point for goods and migrant workers (navetanes), traveling between Mali, Guinee,

Gambia and Senegal (David 1980). In 1920, due to its importance for the

transportation of peanuts, Tambacounda became the definitive permanent admin-

istrative centre of the district (cercle), to which all southern areas, previously part of

different districts, became attached (Van Hoven 1995, p. 44; David 1980, p. 32). In

densely forested areas to the south of Tambacounda, towards Guinee Conakry and

Casamance, hunting and forest exploitation would become the priority of

development. In 1926, the French colonial administration had the Niokolo-Koba

game reserve in this area, on land classified as ‘vacant and without owner’ (DPN

2000, p. 145). Laws that applied in the game reserve reflected the same principles of

exclusive access and productive use that characterized colonial land policy (Ribot

2001). Those economically valuable natural resources (i.e. particular tree and

animal species) were ‘protected’ by limiting ‘customary’ use rights; but were also

put to ‘productive use’ through the selective granting of forest and hunting

concessions to citizens. In and around Niokolo-Koba, the coercive power of the

colonial state was felt primarily through the colonial ‘native chief’ (chef de canton).

The native chief resided in a village located to the North of the game reserve, closer

to the town of Tambacounda, where the French had also granted a sisal plantation as

a colonial concession to a French citizen. Men recruited from the villages though

forced labor (corvee) within the game reserve and surrounding forested areas were

sent there to work in the sisal plantation or for the construction of the roads

connecting the area to the regional colonial capital.

Until the 1930s, the production of peanuts in the North was not important

compared to other regions of Senegal, even less in the southern region, where sisal,

produced in the village acting as the centre of the colonial canton, rivaled peanuts.16

However, during the 1930s the colonial administration started to look for areas

alternative to the ‘peanut basin’ (where Muslim leaders had gained control over the

production of peanuts; see Bonneuil 1991). The North-Eastern part of Tambacounda

(neighboring the peanut production areas in Sine) was designated by the colonial

administration as ‘New Lands’ (Terres Neuves) for the promotion of peanut

production. With the authorization and incentive/encouragement of the district

administrator and some prominent ‘customary authorities’, agricultural migrants

(navetanes) were brought from peanut producing regions of Senegal (particularly

the neighboring Sine) and from other West African colonies (Bonneuil 1991,

p. 476). These migrant workers were installed in new villages and provided the

material for production by colonial agricultural cooperatives. With the shifting of

16 The French had introduced peanuts around Tambacounda in 1910. They were produced primarily near

the railroad and transported to the town of Tamba or Kaolack, where they were sold to French and

Lebanese merchants (David 1980; Diene 1986).

362 M. Ece

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the agricultural ‘frontier’ from peanut producing regions in the East towards

Tambacounda, peanut production was intensified in the North, without reaching

(yet) the same dimensions in forests and game reserves in the South. Until

independence, within the game reserve and surrounding forests, the production of

peanuts was not a priority, as herding, and particularly hunting, were considered to

be more profitable activities, and daily subsistence was provided by the cultivation

of staple crops (such as millet, maize and rice) and gathering of forest products

(Diene 1986). In certain villages, hunting had become the most important revenue

generating activity, through the incentive of the colonial administration, which tried

to develop game tourism. Older villagers from the Park remember that the French

tourists and hunters came regularly to hunt in private concessions or in ‘camps’

established within the villages. Villagers were hired as hunting guides (pisteurs) and

the villages hosting the French (or European) hunters and tourists received money in

kind and bush meat. After the creation of the Niokolo-Koba National Park in 1954,

new restrictions were applied to hunting. Some villages had become involved in

peanut production particularly through colonial agricultural cooperatives; however,

in general, hunting and tourism were much more important than intensive

agricultural production. This was not the case for the village acting as the centre

of the canton located to the North of the National Park, which had become an

important center for the distribution of grains and sale of peanuts. By the 1960s, the

sisal field implanted at the village had been sold to another French citizen of

Lebanese origin, who cultivated peanuts using seasonal agricultural workers coming

from areas within and outside the National Park. This same village became the

‘host’ village for a group of villages after their eviction from the National Park.

Productive use of national domain and decentralization

After Independence, the Senegalese government introduced a series of reforms to

the legislative and administrative system, which aimed at consolidating state control

over national territories and reorganizing the rules of access to land inherited from

colonial rule (Galvan 2004, p. 128; Le Roy 1980, pp. 124–125; Caveriviere and

Debene 1988, p. 63). All protected areas (national parks and classified forests)

established under colonial rule were reappropriated as part of the ‘national domain’

(le domaine national) through a new land law, which incorporated them into

‘classified zones’. The application of the new land law on the ‘national domain’ had

two important implications for the area where the National Park is located. First, the

state had undertaken a series of extensions of the National Park through

governmental decrees, which included within the limits of the new national park

all the classified forests surrounding the initial national park (DPN 2000). Second,

soon after the inhabitants of the National Park were evicted and resettled outside its

limits, they found themselves more dependent than ever on their ‘host’ village,

which was already reinforced by expanding peanut production and as the centre of

colonial administration. In 1980, this same ‘host’ village’ also became the centre of

a new rural community, the new territorial administrative unit of the Independent

state. The rural community council was authorized by the new land law to allocate

Access to land at the northern periphery of Niokolo-Koba National Park 363

123

and withdrawal land within the designated limits of rural communities. The

implications of national land and administrative policies have been far reaching in

transforming the authority and property relations in the area where the National Park

is located and, particularly for villages evicted from the National Park.

In order to understand the current politics of land allocation at the periphery of

the National Park, where the evicted villages were resettled, it is necessary to sketch

the general outlines of the land law and administrative reforms that had been

implemented after Independence.

National domain, village terroirs and rural communities

The new land law, also known as National Domain Law (NDL),17 was promulgated

in 1964 and brought two ‘innovations’: the national domain and rural communities.

The ‘national domain’ comprised lands that were neither the property of the state

nor registered according to the colonial property registration system, which was also

adopted by the independent state after colonial rule. The national domain echoed the

principles underlying ‘vacant and ownerless land’, where the colonial state was now

replaced by the Senegalese state, which held the land in the name of the Senegalese

Nation. However, unlike ‘vacant and ownerless land’, the new national domain was

not open to state-controlled selective privatization. The national domain law froze

all private titles after a period of grace of six months, during which those who were

‘occupying and personally exploiting the land’ could register their land (according

to the colonial property registration regime adopted by the independent state). After

this period, land fell within the category of national domain (which consisted of

95% of Senegalese territories at the time of Independence; see Caveriviere and

Debene 1988). The national domain included all rural lands that previously had

been the site of intense contestation between the colonial state and ‘customary

authorities’. At the time of Independence, some ‘customary authorities’ were

already deeply implicated in cash crop agriculture supported by the colonial state,

which had prepared the ground for the recognition of ‘customary rights’ as private

titles. The Independent state reversed this process by abolishing customary rights as

well as the possibility of privatization of rural land. At the time of promulgation of

the new land law in 1964, Senghor declared that ‘in traditional Black Africa’ land

could not be alienated as private property, but it could only be the object of

‘collective use rights’ (quoted in National Land Tenure Plan 1996, p. 82).

The New Land Law reflected two important tendencies that marked the state’s

approach to land tenure after Independence. The first one was a socialist tendency,

which supported the view of a new organization of land according to the principles of

self-sufficiency and autonomous agricultural production (Galvan 2004; Le Roy 1980).

This was achieved through agricultural cooperatives and through a ‘rural development

programme’ (animation rurale), which was implemented by young agricultural

‘experts’ sent out to the countryside to ‘educate’ peasants according to the principles of

African socialism and ‘development’ (Galvan 2004, p. 128; Cox and Kessler 1980,

p. 329). However, before the promulgation of the land law, this more radical socialist

17 Law of 64–46 of 17 June 1964 on National Domain.

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alternative and its rural development programme were abandoned. Instead, the new

policy reflected the perspective of Senghor, who, refusing to completely alienate

western financial and technical aid and the marabouts controlling much of the peanut

production since the 1930s, adopted ‘the middle road’ to ‘African socialism’ (Le Roy

1980, p. 122; Hazard 1965, p. 796).18 The ‘middle road’ was mainly traced by

centralized state agencies and bureacrats (Gellar 2002). While the new land policy

seemed to be inspired by the socialist option (particularly in its terminology) it

continued to rely, as the colonial state had done, on the criteria of ‘development’ and

‘productive use’ to manage land and natural resources. The National Domain Law

reflected these two aspirations, socialist and developmental in all its aspects. The

national domain was managed by the Senegalese state based on ‘rational use and

exploitation of land’ and according to state development plans (Le Roy 1985). It was

divided into four zones according to their ‘productive uses’: 1. habitation and

residence in the communes (urban zones); 2. protection of nature (classified zones); 3.

agriculture and herding (terroir zones); and 4. state-led intensive agricultural

development (pioneer zones) (Le Roy 1985, p. 668). All of these zones and their

management were to be defined by executive decisions as the colonial state had done to

alter the conditions of access to ‘vacant and ownerless’ land. These governmental

decrees spelled out not only the limits of the four zones, but also who and under which

conditions they could be used.

Among the four zones defined by the National Domain Law, two in particular,

the ‘classified zones’ and ‘pioneer zones’, served as ‘reserve lands’ (Caveriviere and

Debene 1988, p. 80). Pioneer zones were thought of as areas of temporary extensive

use, and they could be expanded to incorporate village lands to put them to

productive use for specific ‘development’ purposes (such as cash crop agriculture).

Once they had ‘fulfilled’ their term, they would then be returned to village

agricultural zones. At the end of the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s, the state

delegated the management of pioneer zones to state-owned companies, which

undertook large scale cash crop agriculture and irrigation programs (Diop and Diouf

1990, p. 30). Classified zones, however, were ‘permanent’ reserves whose limits

could be only extended, not reduced. In this way, the limits of the Niokolo-Koba

National Park—included within the ‘classified zones’—were extended through a

series of governmental decrees to reach its present limits by 1980 (DPN 2000, p.

146).19 In addition, as opposed to other classified zones (such as classified forests),

all use and exploitation rights were abolished within the National Park, leading to

the eviction of all villages during the mid-1970s.

As opposed to these two zones, where the state’s managerial and interventionist

role was strongly asserted, ‘terroir zones’ were the main areas where the

Independent state could apply its land tenure reform (Le Roy 1985). Proposed as

18 Senghor objected to an ‘African socialism’ based on the idea of ‘self-sustaining communities’ rooted

in ‘traditional values’ proposed by his opponents. He also refused to adopt Russian and Chinese

communist models, which undertook a complete nationalization, redistribution and reorganization of

productive sources in the form of collective state farms.19 The Niokolo-Koba National Park created in 1954 enclosed an area of 260,000 ha. With the latest

enlargement of the Park after its inclusion on UNESCO’s Biosphere Reserves List, the Park reached

913,000 ha, a size more than three times that of the colonial National Park.

Access to land at the northern periphery of Niokolo-Koba National Park 365

123

a ‘work tool’ for Senegalese peasants, terroirs were defined by a decree

promulgated the same year as the National Domain Law to be a ‘homogeneous

group of lands of the national domain, necessary for the development of populations

or villages, which are united by common rural interests and had been implanted on

it’ (Caveriviere and Debene 1988, p. 81).20 The same decree emphasised that the

limits of the terroir had to be such that it would ‘permit an agricultural cooperative

[to] function profitably and with optimal self-management’. As it was a ‘work tool’,

terroir was also to be the basis of a new administrative-territorial unit that was put

in place by the Independent state: the rural community. The limits of the rural

communities were to correspond to the limits of the terroirs, which would be

determined by governmental decrees and in consultation with the governor

according to the criteria of development set by a regional committee (Article 8 of

NDL). Once the rural communities were created, their management would be

transferred to rural community councils, which would ensure the ‘productive use of

land while continuing to exploit it under the control of the State’ (Article 10 of

NDL). The village terroir zones would be managed under state supervision by ‘rural

community’ councils.

The National Domain Law had also allowed for the creation of rural community

councils responsible for the management of rural land and authorized to allocate and

withdraw lands within the rural community. The lands on terroir zones were to be

allocated by the council to the members of the rural community, who assured their

productive use and exploitation under the control of the State. The conditions of

allocation of land were determined according to one condition: membership of the

rural community. The rural community council members were also elected among

the ‘ressortissants’ of rural community. Rural community councils included

members elected by and among the persons residing within the terroir, represen-

tatives of the state designated due to their ‘functions’ indicated in governmental

decrees and representatives of the agricultural cooperatives that operated on the

terroir (Article 10 NDL 1964).

Village agricultural lands could be withdrawn from the terroir through two

different processes. The first was through the appropriation of land for a ‘public

cause’. If the state included the lands in the national domain by registering them

under the private domain of the state and reallocated them for public cause, all use

rights on the land could be abolished. This was the case in the extension of the

Niokolo-Koba National Park. The second process of withdrawal of land from use

was through rural community council decisions. The rural community council could

withdraw land (under the administrative tutelle of governor, prefect and subprefect)

within terroir zones based on ‘the insufficiency of productive use or development’

or if the person had ceased to ‘exploit the land personally’ (NDL, Article 15). The

decree of application of the NDL added to these conditions the one-year usufruct

rule, according to which the land could be withdrawn if it was not exploited for

more than one year. The rural community could also withdraw lands either for

‘reasons of general interest’, which could include the establishment of cattle roads,

water works or the reallocation of land for habitation. In the case of withdrawal for

20 Decree No. 64-573 of 30 July 1964 on the conditions of application of the law on National Domain.

366 M. Ece

123

public utility (or general interest of the rural community), either the state or the rural

community was to be held responsible for providing a new terrain for the person

whose land has been reallocated, and for the indemnities to be paid to the person or

his/her heirs either by the state (or the person to whom the land was reallocated)

based on the value of the constructions and crops existing on the land at the date of

reallocation (The Tenure Action Plan 59). This, together with the abolition of

‘customary use rights’, would lead to the state appropriation of land on national

domain—usually by registering them under its ‘private domain’ and then

reallocating the land for ‘public cause’. This was the case in the creation of a

National Park, a special category of protected area where all use rights on land were

denied. And this is what had happened in the case of the Niokolo-Koba National

Park, whose residents were evicted between 1972 and 1976. The evicted villages

soon found themselves within the ‘territories’ of new rural communities created on

terroir lands adjacent to the National Park.

Decentralization of authority and land privatization

Starting from the beginning of the 1970s, the Senegalese state undertook a new

administrative and territorial reform (Le Roy 1980, p. 125; Vengroff and Johnston

1989, pp. 5–9). The new administrative law adopted in 1972 created the rural

communities as ‘local collectivities’.21 This meant, on the one hand, that terroirs

lands to be put to the use by peasants had become administrative-territorial units,

whose limits were designated by the state. The rural communities and their limits

were to be determined according to the opinion of land management ‘technicians’,

which included the representatives of local state agricultural offices (CER- Centred’Expansion Rurale) and regional committees presided by governors of each region.

At the end of the 1960s, ‘test’ terroirs were already chosen to establish the list of

villages that would make up rural communities (Le Roy 1980). Considered as

administrative units, rural communities were put under the administrative control of

the centrally appointed authorities (prefect and governor) as well as local

agricultural offices (CER) attached to the government. Furthermore, governmental

decrees spelling out the conditions of the allocation and withdrawal of agricultural

lands gave prefects (and governors above them) the authority to determine the

‘conditions’ of allocation and withdrawal of land on national domain.22 The prefects

would make these decisions in consultation with state technical experts (such as the

chief of CER and Forestry Service) and promulgate them through executive

decisions. Yet few of the executive decisions spelling out these conditions of

allocation and withdrawal were ever promulgated (Traore 1997, p. 91), meaning

that the legal status of these decisions was left in question.

The administrative reform undertaking in 1972 had important consequences for

allocation of land in terroir zones. First, rural community council’s decisions

became administrative decisions. This made the appeal process of its decisions very

21 Law on Rural Communities in the law of 72-05.22 These conditions were spelled out in the Decree No. 72-1288 of October 1972 and later altered by new

decrees in 1980 and 1986, which modified the conditions of the state tutelage over the rural communities.

Access to land at the northern periphery of Niokolo-Koba National Park 367

123

difficult for those seeking to overturn unfavourable results (Le Roy 1980). This

procedure consists of appealing either to centrally appointed state authorities—who

were themselves approving the land allocations—or to the Court of Appeal in

Dakar, requiring important financial resources and connections that the villagers

often lacked. In addition to land allocations, the rural community council also acted

(and acts) as the court of first instance in the resolution of land conflicts (Galvan

2004). A similar difficulty exists with the appeal process for land conflicts in

general. Although a series a decrees have reduced the supervision of central state

authorities since the 1990s, they did not totally remove the control of the central

state over rural community councils (Traore 1997).

Second, and more importantly, rural communities thus became the centre of

debates over privatization of land after the adoption of a new administrative law,

also known as the Law on Regionalization.23 The Law on Regionalization,

considered the last step in state ‘decentralization’ of land tenure, gave rural

community councils extended powers, which, in addition to the management of

land, include the management of natural resources within terroir zones. Comple-

menting this law, a new land tenure plan was also proposed in 1996 (Land Tenure

Plan 1996). This plan showed that international donor pressure and efforts for

privatization of land (and natural resources), ongoing since 1980s, were then being

implemented. The Land Tenure Action Plan of Senegal aimed at reforming the law

on National Domain, while continuing to implement IMF and World Bank

programs. The Plan considered three scenarios:

1. The first scenario would be to keep the status quo; that is, not to change the Law

on National Domain and its decrees of application. The new Management Plan

argued that this would put constraints on access to land, credit and the security

of investments.

2. The second ‘Liberal Option’ reflected the current structural and financial

adjustments demanded by supra-national donors, and proposed an appropriation

of the land in the entire country for an open market privatization.

3. The third ‘middle’ way to privatization involved the creation of a ‘private

domain’ of rural communities, ‘in consultation’ with the central state. These

‘private domains’ could then be managed either by private companies or

converted into private titles.

The Law on Regionalization was the first step opening up this ‘middle’ way, as it

allowed the possibility of privatization of ‘pioneer zones’. Should privatization reach

terroir zones, that is, the land allocated by rural community councils, the

‘beneficiaries’ will not be those who have already insecure and precarious use rights.

Park residents after independence: from eviction to participation

Senghor had taken a personal interest in National Parks in Senegal, and the Niokolo-

Koba National Park became one of the first testing sites of land and nature

23 RDS 1996a, Law No. 96-06 of 22 March 1996 on Code of Local Collectivities (le Code desCollectivites Locales).

368 M. Ece

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conservation policies that would be applied nation wide (Dupuy 1991).24 During the

1960s, a series of decrees classified other areas and gave them the ‘status’ of

National Parks in the areas surrounding the original game reserve turned into a

national park by the colonial state in 1954 (DPN 2000, p. 146). These were

incorporated within the Niokolo-Koba National Park at the end of the 1960s,

making the Park three times its original size.25 By the 1970s, the Niokolo-Koba

National Park had become a model for the coercive approach of the independent

state towards nature conservation. A new National Park Service, separate from

Forestry Service and directly attached to the Government, was established shortly

after Independence (Dupuy 1991; DPN 2000, p. 146), and the new director of the

National Park Service (Conservateur) was a former French army officer who

recruited and trained soldiers as park rangers for the National Park. As ‘customary

use rights’, which had been reestablished at the end of the colonial rule, were

abolished by the Independent state, and as the new park rangers assumed their

assigned role of ‘surveillance’ within the park, the use of natural resources

(particularly hunting of game animals) became subject to increasingly coercive

policing. Finally, through executive decisions of the governor of the region and his

regional prefects, all the villages residing within the new park boundaries were

eventually evicted.26 Although evictions were carried out by force (through park

rangers and the army, which was brought to help to carry them out), they were also

made possible by the process of state (re)appropriation of rural land and natural

resources, based on the laws and rules of access established since colonial rule. The

evictions from the Park also showed the precariousness of ‘use rights’ recognized by

the state on national domain.

After their eviction, most of the residents of the Park migrated to neighboring

countries and regions.27 A group of villages originating from areas included within

the original game reserve and surrounding forests had been allowed to reinstall at

the northern border the National Park. Although the state had to pay indemnities to

some village members, according to some villagers, these were often paid late or not

paid at all. Furthermore, the amount paid did not compensate the present and future

value of land, trees and natural resources. Evicted residents were also impoverished

through the loss of cattle. Some villagers and village chiefs had managed to bring

24 Senghor often visited the National Park and had even constructed a ‘hut’ where he spent his time off

from his governmental duties. He was also proud of the National Parks of Senegal, which were often

praised by foreign ministers in meetings that he attended in overseas.25 The Niokolo-Koba National Park created in 1954 enclosed an area of 260,000 ha. With the

incorporation of new ‘classified forests’ turned into national parks within the Niokolo-Koba, its area

reached 813,000 ha. The latest enlargement of the Park would take place after its inclusion to UNESCO’s

Biosphere Reserves List, including the ‘buffer zones’ within the Park and extending the protected area to

913,000 ha.26 The decision regarding the eviction of the resident villages of the Niokolo-Koba National Park was

approved by the President and the Council of Ministers in 1971 and the actual evictions took place

between 1972 and 1976 (DPN 2000, p. 33).27 According to the interviews I conducted in 2004, the evicted residents migrated to other regions of

Senegal and, to neighboring Guinee Conakry, Guinee-Bissau and Gambia, where they had relatives and

kin. These migratory movements show that the relations (familial, economic or political) established

between peoples even before the colonial rule continue to be maintained.

Access to land at the northern periphery of Niokolo-Koba National Park 369

123

their cattle outside the Park, but their herds slowly perished, as they got lost in the

forest, poisoned by agricultural fertilizers, or sold. None of the villagers (whether

chiefs or not) were able to keep their original herd from the Park.28 In addition, the

vast majority of the now evicted villages found themselves dependent on a ‘host’

village located at the northern limits of the National Park. This village had acted as a

centre for ‘native chiefs’ who had been part of the local colonial administration

since 1920s. It had also served as an important point of transit (and installation) for

migrant workers who worked in intensive agricultural production, first of sisal, then

of peanuts.

This meant that the evicted villages, where they were able to gain access to land,

were necessarily reinstalled on the fields over which the ‘host village’ claimed

‘customary rights’. Further, their installation was carried out by government

officials who had also played a central role in the evictions from the National Park.

For members of the evicted villages, reconstituting their villages under old or new

chiefs, as well as finding land for subsistence cultivation, was a priority.29 Some

men from evicted villages did manage to obtain land from the members or

‘customary authorities’ residing in the ‘host’ village. Others, particularly some

village chiefs, were able to rely on the mediation of centrally appointed government

officials to obtain land for cultivation. However, most evicted village members

worked as sourgas, through temporary work agreements on the peanut fields of the

members of the ‘host’ village. What tenure people gained was necessarily fragile.

When land conflicts arose among the evicted villages and the ‘host’ village

members, it was again up to centrally appointed state officials (governor and

prefect) to arbitrate these conflicts.

To make matters more complicated, beginning in 1965, a series of regions-

specific land tenure changes were introduced to the area. Just after independence,

another protected area was created further North of the ‘host’ village (Cuisinier-

Raynal 1997). This was forest land taken as part of the ‘classified zone’ of the

national domain. However, unlike the National Park, which was ‘governed’

through special ‘internal regulations’, there the Forestry Service continued to

grant contracts for commercial exploitation and allowed the exercise of use

rights. During the years of the evictions, the regions surrounding the National

Park were encouraged to become new agricultural ‘frontiers’ under state-directed

agricultural development policies. In order to ‘decongest’ the peanut production

zones (the ‘peanut basin’), the newly independent state decided to revive the

colonial project of the 1930s and allow colonization of ‘new lands’ (terresneuves) in Tambacounda for intensive peanut production. This time, again, and

in the same area and the neighboring region of Kolda (Eastern Casamance), large

tracts of land were incorporated into the national domain of the independent state

as ‘pioneer zones’ under the management of a state-owned development society

28 Interviews 2004.29 The reconstitution of the evicted villages was a complex process requiring a more detailed analysis,

which I will not undertake here. However, kinship ties, relative importance of chiefs and their villages

prior to the eviction (as centres of religious or economic activity) played an important role.

370 M. Ece

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(David 1980, p. 159).30 By the end of 1970s, the surface area of peanut

cultivation had doubled and peanut production had already started to ‘eat up’ the

classified forests surrounding these areas included within the ‘pioneer zones’

(Diagne and Lericollais 1980; Fanchette 1999, p. 76).

The beginning of the 1980s was marked by two important developments that led

to further transformation of politics of access to land at the northern periphery of the

National Park. The first was the administrative reorganization of the lands adjacent

to the National Park through the creation of rural communities, discussed above (the

delimitation of the terroir zones and the election of new rural community councils),

which together gave local authorities the right to allocate and withdraw land use

rights on the ‘territories’ of the new rural communities. In 1984, a governmental

decree announced the administrative centres and areas of jurisdiction of rural

communities in Tambacounda and, local elections were held to determine the

members of the rural community councils (Vengroff and Johnston 1989, p. 43).31

The regional committee of development that was responsible for determining the

administrative centres of the new rural communities in Tambacounda surrounding

the National Park proposed the village hosting the evicted villages as the best

candidate for such a role due to its role in the commercialization of peanuts and its

relatively better development infrastructure.32 Not surprisingly, the ‘host’ village

subsequently became the centre of the rural community and the ‘elected’ members

of the rural council composed a majority of the members of the ‘host’ village

claiming the ‘customary rights’ over land since colonial rule. This group had

already gained considerable ‘experience’ in agricultural cooperatives or the semi-

governmental NGOs and were well established within both the commercial and

governmental structures.33

A second issue magnified this process. After 1980s, the northern periphery of the

Niokolo-Koba National Park became an important target for intensive agricultural

production carried out by state-owned firms and new semi-governmental NGOs,

which introduced cotton and banana as new cash crops on the lands adjacent to the

northern limits of the Park. Coupled with the expanding peanut industry, the

changes further intensified the divisions between landed and displaced populations,

but it was largely enabled by outside policies.

30 Under the colonial rule, ‘New Lands’ (Terres Neuves) came to be known as areas where cash crop

agriculture was ‘encouraged’ by the colonial administration, which facilitated land acquisitions and the

establishment migrants (navetanes). After independence these areas of intensive agricultural production

would be incorporated as ‘pioneer zones’ managed by the state-owned society (Societe des TerresNeuves).31 Decree No. 84-502 of 2 May 1984, fixing the territorial jurisdiction and centres of regions and

departments.32 The rural communities were created based on the existing infrastructure, which facilitated

development of (such as the existence of roads for the transportation and sale of agricultural products)

but also, based on the existence of ‘customary authorities’ (Direction de L’Amenagement du Territoire

(DAT) 1980).33 The main occupation of the rural council members is agriculture and herding. However, most of them

had important roles in agricultural cooperatives, and had considerable ‘experience’ in extensive peanut

and cotton production.

Access to land at the northern periphery of Niokolo-Koba National Park 371

123

The expansion of cotton was promoted through the support of the state-owned

cotton development society (SODEFITEX),34 which had chosen this area as a ‘test’

terroir for the expansion and ‘popularization’ of cotton (Diagne and Lericollais 1980;

Fanchette 1999).35 Cotton, cultivated mostly in the classified forest in the North of the

‘host village’, with grains and agricultural material provided by SODEFITEX,

subsequently became the primary cash crop in the area. As a result, the classified forest

shortly became a magnet for the members of the ‘host’ and evicted villages, the latter

joining relatives who had been installed in the classified forest after the evictions from

the Park. Cotton production was carried out within the classified forest with the tacit

approval of the Forestry Service and after the designation of the limits of the rural

community covering the northern periphery of the Park by the rural community

council members (Cuisinier-Raynal 1997). The second cash-crop which made its entry

to the periphery was bananas. A semi-governmental Senegalese NGO (OFADEC),36

supported and financed by a Canadian NGO, had chosen the northern periphery of the

Park as one of the ‘test sites’ for purposes of ‘improving the living conditions of

populations by establishing their autonomy on a sustainable and profitable economic

base through the production and sale of banana’ (Sarr 1999, p. 62). Together, these two

new crops put increasing pressure on land access mechanisms amid rapidly changing

legal conditions.

Within the Park, changes were being put in place as well. Following the path of

previous structural adjustment programs and the new ‘participatory’ variety of

nature conservation, the Niokolo-Koba National Park was incorporated into

UNESCO’s list of Biosphere Reserves in 1981 (DPN 2000, p. 146). This made

the one kilometer belt surrounding the National Park a ‘buffer zone’, where land

could only be used by local residents with the ‘support’ of international environment

and development programs.37 As banana production was carried out in the areas

bordering the Gambia River, which also served as the ‘natural limits’ for the

34 SODEFITEX (Societe de Development des Fibres Textiles) was one of the state-owned societies (like

the Societe des Terres Neuves) responsible from carrying out the expansive agricultural production.

SODEFITEX distributed the grains and materials to peasants and bought back their produce (together

with grains).35 Cotton was first introduced to the region of Tambacounda in 1963 and 1964 by Companie Francaise

des Fibres Textiles, which was nationalized in 1974 as the state owned SODEFITEX (Societe de

Developpement des Fibres Textiles). In the mid 1970s, the region was producing almost one-third of the

cotton in Senegal. Villagers who engaged in cotton production in the Northern classified forest confirmed

that commercial cotton production gained importance after the 1980s. Most members of the evicted

villages did not know about the extensive production of cotton before their resettlement outside the Park.

The cotton was produced within the Park but consisted mostly of local varieties and cultivated by women

as well as men for local consumption.36 OFADEC (Office Africain pour le Developpement et la Cooperation) was responsible from carring out

different «rural development» programs all over Senegal with the financial and technical support of a

Canadian Catholic Missionary Organization, acting within the ‘sustainable development’ and fighting the

desertification in the Sahel (The Mission Magazine of United Methodist Church).37 The term ‘buffer’ zone was initially proposed and applied by UNESCO through the Man and

Biosphere Program. It refers to ‘lands adjacent to the parks and reserves where human activities are

restricted to those that will maintain the ecological security of the protected area while providing benefits

to local communities’. However, as noted in other parts of Africa, these areas became the primary target

for new brand of development projects, promoting ‘participatory conservation’ and financed by

international NGOs and donor agencies.

372 M. Ece

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Northern and Eastern parts of the National Park, land for banana cultivation was

obtained by negotiating with the regional administrators (i.e. governor) and the

National Park authorities responsible from the management of the ‘buffer zone’.

The ‘colonization of land’ for banana production next to the banks of the tributaries

of the Gambia River created an influx of migrants, who in turn ‘revived’ the

deserted sisal plantation (converted to peanut fields), where a large migrant village

was growing next to the group of evicted villages (Sarr 1999, p. 82).

In response to these changes, in 1984, a new commercial law allowed the

formation of local ‘economic interest groups’ (GIE),38 organized either by villagers

themselves or with the initiative of entrepreneurs originating from outside the region

(Blundo 2000). After 1984, OFADEC,39 the semi-governmental NGO that had

started the production of banana with international aid, left its operation to a local

peasant organization consisting of commercial peasant organizations involved in

banana production (called GIE’s). By 1996, when OFADEC finally dissolved itself,

its role had been taken over by a multitude of small or large GIEs, which then had to

carry out the banana production themselves without outside support (Sarr 1999).

Some of these GIEs, including the members of evicted villages and migrant

workers, were now scrambling to obtain land and material competing against other

new GIEs created by urban entrepreneurs and marabouts originating from the

‘peanut basin’.

It has been argued that the formation of this multitude of commercial peasant

organizations has contributed to the fragmentation of peasant cooperatives (Blundo

2000). However, more importantly, these organizations have become the only way

to access land for agricultural use. As discussed below, given the conditions of

‘productive use’ and the requirements of providing an application file (dossier),

which would show the applicant’s ‘capacity’ to use land productively, access to land

has become increasingly tied to the ability to be part of successful GIEs, which in

turn means those GIE’s favoured by the rural community council or centrally

appointed state authorities.

Decentralization and politics of access to rural land

The land commission of the newly ‘elected’ council at the northern periphery of the

National Park held its first meeting in 1989.40 The debates and decisions that

38 Starting from the 1984, the commercial codes allowed the creation of GIEs (Groupement d’Interet

Economique). These ‘economic interest groups’ could be formed by peasant groups, which were

constituted from as little as two persons, with or without common capital. While GIEs provided a way for

peasants to organize themselves, these initiatives have often been overwhelmed by the number of other

GIEs formed by agricultural entrepreneurs or some ‘customary authorities’ (marabouts and chiefs) who

had enough capital and resources to support agricultural production.39 Office Africain pour le Developpement et la Cooperation.40 Land commission’s meetings are public records and are registered in French. Although I was not able

to attend the council meetings during my stay in Senegal, I was able to consult the meeting records with

the authorization of the Secretary of the rural community council. In order to preserve the anonymity of

the members, I will not use their names in this analysis.

Access to land at the northern periphery of Niokolo-Koba National Park 373

123

followed over the next several years(from 1989 to 2003) form a record of the

arguments made to authorize or deny land claims by the commission members and

the state officials attending these meetings, including the sub-prefect, the chief of

the local agricultural office (CER) and the Forestry Service representative. In the

analysis that follows, the focus will be on the claims that the commission members

and the sub-prefect discussed in more detail (suggesting the importance of the

claims from their perspective) to justify their decisions to accept or deny these

claims.41 At the beginning of each section, I will give a summary of land allocation

patterns, which, even though does not provide the entire picture of practices of land

allocation, will nevertheless give an indication of the growing commercialization of

land at the northern periphery.

Whose claims are legitimate? Discourses of productive use, citizenship

and autochthony

Between 1989 and 1996, almost all land allocations (either for agriculture or

habitation) were denied by the rural community council-based on the arguments that

I will discuss further below—with the exception of a large tract of land allocated in

1997 on the banks of one of the tributaries of the Gambia River, marking the limits

of the National Park.42

Among those land demands refused by the rural community council was a

demand formulated by an evicted village chief in 1989 who wanted 200 ha for his

village to be established within the rural community. The president of the council

objected to this demand by insisting that this was ‘an attempt of implantation’ at the

entrance of the ‘host’ village, which is the administrative centre of the rural

community. Another member of the council supported the allocation of 1 ha of land

for habitation to the ‘old village chief’ himself who had ‘personally come to inhabit’

the administrative centre of the rural community and had a vegetable garden. While

both the president and the council member stressed the importance of belonging to

the rural community as a basis for land allocation to this particular village chief, the

sub-prefect justified the refusal of land allocation to the chief on the basis of

arguments that downplayed the membership of the rural community and stressed the

authority of the state. The sub-prefect reminded the council members that the land

allocation in terroir zones should be done ‘without distinction between the people

who are not always members of the rural community’. He later commented on the

‘inopportuneness of the eviction of the village which was the result of an

administrative procedure’. The village in question was evicted from the Park in

1976 and was installed within a neighboring rural community according to the terms

established by a governmental decree of 1982, which also created the rural

41 The land commission’s debates are often summarized in a few sentences and sometimes have

important omissions, such as the exact placement of the allocated land and sometimes the purpose of

allocation, habitation vs. agriculture. Furthermore, after 1995, the original land demands were no longer

mentioned in the meeting records, replaced by the final allocation decisions of the commission.42 In 1989, close to 95% of land demands were refused, and in 1992, almost all land demands were

refused.

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123

communities in Senegal Oriental (the region of Tambacounda).43 Therefore, he

concluded, ‘the eviction of this village is neither authorized nor planned by the

administration and it does not justify the land claim of 200 ha for habitation’. As a

result of the meeting, the rural council refused to allocate 200 ha for habitation to

the inhabitants of the village but allocated 1 ha of land to the village chief himself.44

During the same meeting, the commission also discussed the allocation of

20 ha for agricultural use to a retired government employee. A commission

member expressed reservations about the allocation of land to government officers

‘who have no ties within the rural community’. However, he supported this

particular decision because the government official in question was already

‘established’ at the centre village and therefore ‘should have the same rights as

any citizen (‘ressortissant’) of the rural community’. Another member of the

commission also proposed accepting this land demand even if there were

government officials among those who would be allocated land, this will not be a

major issue because these are ‘natives’ [of the centre village] and their families

were residing there. The commission accepted the demand on condition that land

was put to productive use and suggested seizing it back if any ‘speculations’ [of

land sale] were detected.

In 1990, the commission allocated the largest amount of land that was allocated in

the period up to 1996. This was the demand of 600 ha for a GIE, which was founded by

an entrepreneur who was not residing in the rural community but drew his employees

from it. The commission members supported the initiative of the entrepreneur on the

grounds that in the area where the land was requested, there were enough terrains

‘available’, as there were no ‘customary use rights’ on land, according to the members

of the commission who went to explore it. The members had concluded that there were

no use rights existing on this area and that it would be favourable to the development of

the rural community. Despite the concern of one of the councilors about the

importance of the acreage to be allocated and the development capacity of the person

who demanded it, the demand was accepted by the rural community council.

An important debate over the refusal to allocate land had taken place during the

1992 meeting, when the deputy sub-prefect, the head of CERP and an agent of the local

Forestry Service were present. During this meeting, the commission was asked by the

deputy sub-prefect to scrutinize land allocation demands submitted during this year

very carefully. These demands included those formulated by the GIEs, which were

created after the dissolution of the APROVAG to continue to carry out banana

production. The deputy sub-prefect was sent to the meeting to relay the message of the

sub-prefect, who was rejecting the land demands because of their ‘excess’. The

objection of the sub-prefect, who did not come to the meeting himself but sent his

deputy, was specified by the ‘technical agents’ of the state, the head of CERP and the

43 The sub-prefect refers to Decree No. 82-281 of 3rd of May 1982 delimiting the rural communities and

the villages included in their territories in the region of Tambacounda. The rural communities were

created by governmental decrees which determine the name of the rural community, which is that of the

place chosen as the centre (‘chef-lieu’) and fix its limits.44 Although it was not a considerable piece of land (3 ha), the council also debated the demand of land

for habitation by an evicted village chief and decided that this demand was acceptable based on the

condition that the land was requested for habitation and it is not sold in the future.

Access to land at the northern periphery of Niokolo-Koba National Park 375

123

head of the local Forestry Service. The first objection concerned the reallocation of

land which had already been allocated (the deputy sub-prefect did not specify by

whom). The head of CERP, clarifying the sub-prefect’s argument, advised the

members not to ‘deviate from the method’, namely visiting the terrain before the

allocation of land. The council had the authority to allocate land based on the ‘capacity

of exploitation of the beneficiaries’ and withdraw it in the case of ‘lack of productive

use’. However, according to the head of CERP, the commission had to ask his opinion

first for the delimitations of land. Adopting a more authoritative tone, the deputy sub-

prefect added: ‘the rural community council is not a weekly market, so it is necessary

to respect the norms and the precedent of the rural council, which presides the

meeting’. He also reminded the commission that the Forestry Service Agent, the chief

of CERP and himself were attending the meeting to provide ‘technical assistance’ to

the commission. Clearly this intervention was more than a ‘technical assistance’, as

the deputy sub-prefect added: ‘Everyone can assist the meetings but not everyone has

right to speak, except those authorized by the rural council’.

The second objection raised by the sub-prefect was outlined by the chief of

CERP as the practice of village chiefs to act as judges in land conflicts and in selling

the lands of the national domain. He outlined the role of the village chief as follows:

‘in case of land conflict the village chief is responsible for giving clarification [to the

rural council]’. He also emphasized that ‘only the council members have the right to

give plots of land’ and that the village chief ‘does not have the right to give plots of

land without the approval of the council members and village chiefs who do so must

be punished [by the rural community council]’. The sub-prefect’s third objection,

which justified the presence of the Forestry Agent in the meeting, was the allocation

of land in classified zones. The Forestry Agent was there to remind the council

members that ‘land cannot be allocated for habitation but for agriculture’. The

Forestry Agent, referring to the forest in the North, reminded the commission that

there existed ‘specific procedures’ such as the contracts permitting the temporary

exploitation of the forest (contrats de culture) and these contracts and lands had to

be allocated by the Governor and the Prefect. As a response to these imposing

affirmations of the authority of the sub-prefect and ‘technical’ experts, a member of

the rural community responded that in allocating the land the commission ‘should

give priority to the inhabitants, because they are established there and they should

benefit from the land the most’. In addition to the above-mentioned reasons, the land

demands of local GIEs were rejected because of the existence of a ‘private title’ on

land and the lack of financial support in the files (dossiers) of land demands. As a

result of this meeting, all land demands from the local GIEs were rejected.

The commission’s decisions and debates around the land claims during the period

between 1989 and 1996 indicate that the centrally appointed state representative

(the sub-prefect) and the representatives of the ‘technical’ services of the state (the

chief of CERP and the Forestry Agent) played an important role in influencing the

decisions of the commission. The sub-prefect’s administrative supervision had

effectively worked to refuse the land allocations for the newly formed GIEs at the

northern periphery. The interventions of the representatives of the state services

responsible for the planning and management of land and natural resources was

justified as ‘expert opinions’ but clearly served to legitimize the decisions of the

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sub-prefect. The refusal to allocate land to locally formed GIEs by the sub-prefect

and the members of the ‘technical services’ due to lack of necessary financial aid

supporting their ‘files’ led to the denial of access to land (at least during this period)

for these peasant organizations to carry out banana production, on which they had

become dependent since the 1980s. The interventions of state representatives point

to their concern about the allocation of land without their consent, particularly

within the classified forest. They clearly asserted their authority both over the rural

community council and the village chiefs, whose role in land distribution was

rejected and even threatened by coercive action through the rural community

council. This negation of ‘custom’ and ‘customary authorities’ was also expressed

in the self-positioning of the sub-prefect against the arguments deployed by the

council members to assert the importance of belonging to the rural community.

These arguments were mainly expressed by the commission members, who used

them both in denying access to land to members of evicted villages (who were

implicitly designated as ‘foreigners’) as well as authorizing the land allocation for

those who are made to fit the criteria of belonging. These criteria are expressed in

contradictory terms but showed that these arguments were of primary importance

for the commission members. Belonging to rural community was expressed either as

being the ‘citizen’ or a ‘native’ of the village acting as the administrative centre of

the rural community, which had claimed customary use rights since the colonial

period. Similarly, the council’s decision to allocate the largest plot of land for a

large banana plantation based on the argument of lack of ‘customary use rights’ also

indicates that these continue to be tacitly recognized by the council members, who

use them as a basis to justify their current interests in land.

Prelude to privatization: fixing the children of the terroir

Between 1996 and 2003 the number of yearly meetings45, as well as the total

acreage allocated for agricultural production increased considerably.46 Before 1996,

land demands for agricultural production ranged between 1 and 3 ha. Larger land

allocations (often 10–20 ha) demanded by GIEs had been refused with the

exception of the single land demand of 600 ha granted for banana production to the

rural entrepreneur. After 1996, land allocations for 50 ha or more became frequent

and these were granted to GIEs, among which figured several marabouts from other

regions of Senegal. Clearly, the northern periphery had become a magnet for such

demands. During this period, land allocation debates were recorded in much shorter

form than the previous debates of the commission. Thus, the most important

decisions concerning the withdrawal of all previous allocations based on the

condition of lack of productive use for more than 3 years were expressed by a short

45 Between 1989 and 1996, the commission met four times (no allocations were made in 1991, 1993 and

1994). Between 1996 and 2003, the commission met each year. Two meetings were held in 1996, 1998

and 2001, and in 1999 and 2000, the commission met three times during the same year.46 Starting from 1995, there is no information on land demands but only on land allocation decisions.

Between 1989 and 1996, the total land allocated for agricultural use was approximately 800 ha; after

1996, this area was approximately 2,000 ha.

Access to land at the northern periphery of Niokolo-Koba National Park 377

123

sentence at the end of the meeting records. These decisions taken in 1998 and 2003

were announced at the very end of meetings. The year 2003 also marks a new

development, as the commission allocated the largest terrain (a total of 25,000 ha)

for two ‘community nature reserves’ covering part of the classified forest in the

North and enclosing parts of lands included in the rural community.

From 1995 onwards, the discourse of the sub-prefect concerning the land

allocations started to change. During the meeting of the land commission held in

that year to debate a land demand of 50 ha of land for a GIE founded by

‘youngsters’ from the centre village of the rural community, the sub-prefect

reminded the councilors about the criteria of ‘capacity of productive use’ but also

added that the councilors ‘should not forget about the future of their children in their

own terroirs.’ The council member who backed up this particular land demand

urged the commission to approve the demand by arguing that ‘these youngsters can

exploit more than 300 ha’. The appeal to the membership of the rural community,

which was now supported by the state officials, was reaffirmed by council members

who continued to stress that the allocation of land should not be made to

‘foreigners’.

After the adoption of the decentralization law in 1996, the sub-prefect also started

to take on the role of ‘expert’ in decentralization laws. During the first meeting of

the commission held in 1996, the sub-prefect justified his presence during the

commission meetings through his role in ‘clarifying’ the new law on decentraliza-

tion, which had rendered ‘the land of the national domain much more interesting’

for the rural community council. During the same meeting, the commission

considered two land demands (one of 100 ha and the other of 60 ha) for GIEs for

banana plantations, and accepted them after a very short debate, which simply

mentioned that the files supporting land demands showed that they were backed up

financially and should be granted with the possibility of extension in the future. The

attraction of the lands of the northern periphery for new GIEs was such that in a

meeting in 1997, the sub-prefect proposed establishing a land registry for the rural

community council and advised the councilors to remind the projects ‘that they have

to valorize land together with the sons of the terroirs in order to eradicate

unemployment’ and ‘to profit the populations by providing new jobs’. The next

year, the commission decided to accept the proposition made by the sub-prefect for

the establishment of a land registry, and had created a sub-commission to answer the

increasing land demands for habitation within the rural community, showing the

extent of migration to the area.

In 1998, the chief of CERP, who had attended the meeting as the representative

of the sub-prefect was underlining the importance of allocating ‘a good size of land

to the project promoters’ as this was an ‘advantage for the rural council and for the

populations which could benefit from these projects as ‘labour force’. Some

members of the commission who were favourable to this point of view adopted the

same discourse as the chief of CERP and agreed on the importance of ‘preparing the

future of the children of the terroirs in the management of the lands on national

domain’. The pressure on the protected areas was also growing as the rural council’s

president was warning the councilors not to accept land demands within the

classified forest or areas bordering the Park. Again in 1998, the councilors were

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summoned for a second meeting where the chief of CERP urged the councilors to

allocate land for a tourist encampment, which was proposed by an association of

tourist guides working in the National Park. He also supported his proposal by

stressing the importance of allocating ‘a good amount of land to project promoters,

as this was to the advantage of the rural council as well as for the populations which

would benefit from it as labourers’. Similarly, the president of the rural council

urged the council members to be very careful about land allocations as the ‘future of

their children depended on it’. The land was allocated with the condition that the

president of the rural council was chosen as the president of the association. One

council member attempted to object, but he had to accept that this was a ‘good

initiative for employment for the young people in the rural community’. The same

year, the commission also decided to withdraw all lands already affected but not

exploited since 1989 for ‘new persons who are capable of putting them in

productive use’.

The 2003 meeting was significant as the commission allocated the largest terrains

(15,000 and 10,000 ha) for the creation of two ‘rural community natural reserves’,

which incorporated both areas within the rural community and parts of the classified

forests in the North.

Despite the (undetailed) ‘loud objections’ of the council members about lack of

‘vital space’ within the rural community, and about the lack of land for agriculture

for the members of the rural community, these land allocations were also accepted.

Although the debates were not recorded in their entirety, this decision to include

lands of village terroirs as a classified zone indicates the importance of the pressure

exerted over the rural community council by the sub-prefect and other state officials.

Council meetings after the adoption of the 1996 law show that discourses

justifying land allocation and withdrawal decisions had shifted. After 1996, while

the commission members continued to oppose land allocations to ‘foreigners’, the

sub-prefect as well as the chief of CERP have also started to appeal to discourses of

belonging but only as arguments supporting the employment opportunities offered

by ‘projects’ and GIEs for the young inhabitants preferably originating from the

centre village of the rural community. Furthermore, the discourse of ‘productive

use’ was now also adopted by the commission members who visibly considered the

amount of financial support backing up the projects as an important criterion of

productive use. What the rural community council decisions show represents the

perspectives of the state officials, council members and the representatives of state’s

‘technical services’, which carry out the agricultural production and the protection

of nature at the Northern periphery. What the decisions do not show, however, are

the actual practices of council members at the northern periphery. For example, in

none of commission meeting minutes does one find debate over the withdrawal of

lands.

However, after 1996, one of the most important land conflicts involving some

members of the evicted villages concerned the allocation of a cattle road used by the

members of evicted villages for cotton production by one of the members of the

rural community council. The allocation of the cattle road as an agricultural field

considerably disrupted the subsistence of some members of the evicted villages.

This particular land conflict, which surfaced after 1996 and lasted for 2 years, was

Access to land at the northern periphery of Niokolo-Koba National Park 379

123

unique as the evicted village chiefs had refused to accept the decision of the rural

community council member. One of the village chiefs explained to me that after the

rural community council member had ‘seized’ the cattle road, he had converted it to

a cotton field and refused the villagers the access. As a response, the villagers left

their cattle to graze in the cotton field and the matter was brought in front of the

local gendarmerie. The rural council member claimed indemnities for the loss of his

produce and the evicted villagers claimed their cattle road. At the end, the gendarmehad one of the village chiefs taken away and told him: ‘Listen, you have to leave

this affair aside; because if you don’t, you will create for yourself a lot of trouble’.

Knowing that they could not appeal to the sub-prefect (who was acting as a member

of the rural council) or to any other authority that will defend them, the evicted

village members had to accept this fait accompli. This example alone shows the

importance of what is omitted from the meetings. Another important omission is, of

course, the ongoing extensive cotton production in the classified forest in the North.

In fact, most of the members of the centre village have large cotton fields in the

classified forest and continue to profit from them. This also explains the heated

arguments against the creation of a ‘community reserve’ on the lands of the rural

community. This latter development is entirely related to national level develop-

ment programs and is supported by funding international agencies. The ‘community

forests’ are designed to allow the exploitation of forests within the terroir zones and

they constitute a new form of enclosure whereby the lands included in terroir zones

are now reappropriated by the state to be reallocated for commercial exploitation.

While this constitutes the most apparent form of state intervention in the name of

development, the allocation of land for GIEs (most of which are founded by urban

entrepreneurs deemed to posses the necessary ‘capacity’ to put the land in

productive use) seems less evident yet equally ‘effective’ form of land appropri-

ation, which then draws on those who had lost their land as a result of conflicts with

rural community council to work as share croppers in intensive cash-crop

agriculture.

Conclusion

The current politics of access to rural land at the northern periphery of the Niokolo-

Koba National Park are shaped by past and present struggles over property and

authority. Colonial and National land and administrative laws put in the service of

state and international ‘development’ goals have repeatedly sought to establish

private property relations in rural areas. At the northern periphery of the Park, as

state-recognized claims of access to rural land became increasingly tied to

arguments over ‘productive use’ and belonging, the same arguments also became

important justifications for authorizing or denying access to rural land by the rural

community council. The rural community council, designated as the administrator

of rural land and territorial administrative extension of the state became increasingly

a ‘market’, where land rights are allocated or withdrawn under the administrative

control of the state. Although rural communities were conceived as ‘work tools’ for

peasants, the debates over the politics of access to rural land show that the opposite

380 M. Ece

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is true. These ostensibly local institutions are the means for national level political

manipulation of local situations. This particularly applies to evicted residents of the

Niokolo-Koba National Park, who had been first defined as ‘users’ of land supposed

to be ‘vacant and without owner’ by the colonial state than, then became ‘illegal’

residents on land appropriated as national domain. Despite the colonial state’s claim

to extend private property as the most ‘secure’ relation to land, the result has been to

concentrate the control over authority and property in the hands of few. While the

independent state tried to break through this colonial legacy, it has adopted the very

legislative and administrative instruments that created the colonial system, and has

used them to form new versions of unequal relations to land and natural resources.

Recent ‘decentralization’ discourse and practice (since 1996) suggests a curious

return of the directly colonial situation. The new ‘local authorities’, reminiscent of

colonial-era ‘customary authorities’, are placed in between the ‘rural populations’

and the state, as designated administrators and as ‘representatives of people’.

However, today, they operate within a context where land is assumed to be ‘held’ by

the state in the name of the nation as national domain, on which use rights are

increasingly commoditized by continuous (re)appropriation of land for different

‘productive uses’. This means that although the language of ‘customary’ and the

arguments about autochthony emerge as specters of colonialism, they are

profoundly transformed to adapt to present relations of property and authority.

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