Linking urban dwellers to changing rural land use and ownership: Lessons from Tanzania

Keywords: rural-urban linkages; tree planting; land markets; tenure; land use change
Abstract Type: Paper Abstract

Abstract

Globally, urbanization is linked to rural land use change, but the drivers are complex and hard to quantify. In sub-Saharan Africa, rural landscapes respond to urban pressures and face increasing marketization. For instance, urban demand for tree products drives rural forest loss, but where forests are scarce, the demand has led to rural woodlot establishment. Exactly who establishes rural woodlots includes not just rural citizens but also distal urbanites. Here I use southern Tanzania as a case study to analyze the urbanites’ role in transforming rural land use and ownership. Using woodlot establishment as an outcome, I tested for differences in villages’ woodlot extent given the proportion of rural vs urban-based landowners, and qualitatively analyze how urbanites acquire and manage rural lands for woodlots. 16% of village land was mapped as woodlots (range: 1-33%; overall accuracy: 0.48±0.048). In a third of surveyed villages, (n = 11), village leaders reported that urbanites own more woodlots than local citizens. Linking the leaders’ ownership estimates to satellite mapping, 33% of the mapped woodlots belong to urbanite owners (range: 5-76%). Qualitative study revealed that urbanites with no kinship ties to study villages have been seeking land as investments since the late 2000s. Informal brokers and online platforms (e.g., WhatsApp) facilitate land acquisitions and management. We conclude that rural land marketization is increasing participation of distant African urbanites in rural landscapes, ultimately changing rural land uses. Rural land policies must review these emerging rural-urban linkages to ensure equity in land ownership and land use decisions.