Unit 3.2: Enclosure, Fragmentation and Conversion of Rangelands

Blench, R.M. (1999). Hunter-gatherers, conservation and development: from prejudice to

policy reform. Natural Resource Briefing Paper, 43, London: Overseas Development Institute. https://cdn-odi-production.s3.amazonaws.com/media/documents/2879.pdf 

Blench, R.M. and Sommer, F. (1999). Understanding Rangeland Biodiversity. London:

Overseas Development Institute. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/42765518_Understanding_Rangeland_Biodiversity

Kain, J.P., Chapman, John and Oliver, R. (2004). The Enclosure Maps of England and

Wales 1595–1918 A Cartographic Analysis and Electronic Catalogue. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-82771-X. https://assets.cambridge.org/97805218/27713/frontmatter/9780521827713_frontmatter.pdf

Liddy, C.D. (2015). Urban Enclosure Riots: Risings of the Commons in English

Towns, 1480–1525. Past & Present (226): 41–77. https://doi.org/10.1093/pastj/gtu038

McCloskey, D. (1989). David W Galenson (ed.). Markets in History: Economic

studies of the past. The openfields of England: rent, risk and the rate of interest, 1300-1815. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-35200-2. https://www.deirdremccloskey.com/docs/pdf/Article_50.pdf

3.2.3 Use of Legal and Policy Instruments to Enclose the Lands

It is pertinent to understand two cases of legal tools to occupy the grazing lands and dispossess the pastoralists from accessing the grazing resources. Foremost case is the historical move of England during Industrial Revolution. Second example is contemporary China where laws and policies have deprived and marginalized the pastoralist people in Tibet.

Historical Case of England

The more productive enclosed farms meant that fewer farmers were needed to work the same land, leaving many villagers without land and grazing rights. Many moved to the cities in search of work in the emerging factories of the Industrial Revolution. Others settled in the English colonies. English Poor Laws were enacted to help these newly poor. Some practices of enclosure were denounced by the Church and legislation was drawn up against it. However, the large, enclosed fields were needed for the gains in agricultural productivity from the 16th to 18th centuries. This controversy led to a series of government acts, culminating in the General Enclosure Act of 1801, which sanctioned large-scale land reform. The Act of 1801 was one of many parliamentary enclosures that consolidated strips in the open fields into more compact units and enclosed much of the remaining pasture commons or wastes. Parliamentary enclosures usually provided commoners with some other land in compensation for the loss of common rights, although often of poor quality and limited extent. [Source: History of Western Civilization II]

Historically, the initiative to enclose land came either from a landowner hoping to maximise rental from their estate. The first enclosure by Act of Parliament was in 1604 (the Melcombe Regis and Radipole, Dorset (Church) Act 1603 (1 Jas. 1. c. 30)) and was for Radipole, Dorset. This was followed by many more acts of Parliament and by the 1750s the parliamentary system became the more usual method (Friar, 2004). The Inclosure Act 1773 created a law that enabled "enclosure" of land, at the same time removing the right of commoners' access. Although there was usually compensation, it was often in the form of a smaller and poorer quality plot of land (Friar, 2004). Between 1604 and 1914 there were more than 5,200 enclosure bills which amounted to 6,800,000 acres (2,800,000 ha) of land that equated to approximately one fifth of the total area of England (UK Parliament, 2021). Parliamentary enclosure was also used for the division and privatisation of common "wastes" such as fens, marshes, heathland, downland and moors (McCloskey, 1989). 

Tibetan Plateau Case

Rangeland resources in China include 400 million hectares — more than 40 percent of China’s land (Schwarzwalder et al., 2002). Of that, Tibetan Plateau rangelands encompass about 1.65 million km2 or one-quarter of China’s total area (Miller, 2001). China has 266 pastoral and semi-pastoral counties accounting for 161.5 million people, who herd the world’s largest population of sheep and goats along with other livestock (Liu, 2010; Williams, 1996a,b). Kenneth Bauer and Yonten Nyima (2011) wrote that pastoralism is long-lived in Tibet, e.g. domestication of yaks dates back to 4,000 years. Therefore, we must recognize that cultural institutions, livelihood practices, wildlife and plant communities have co-evolved on the Plateau (Miller 2000). As such, there are continuities in patterns of resource use, animal husbandry strategies, and property regimes among Tibetan pastoralists, which China’s recent political and economic reforms have not wholly transformed.

According to Miller (1998), Chinese government policy for privatization of grassland is based on the mistaken belief that traditional systems did not give nomads any responsibility for rangelands and, thus, households tried to maximize herd sizes without concern for the grassland ecosystem. In fact, traditional Tibetan systems were often well managed and had elaborate regulations to periodically reallocate grazing, depending on the number of seasonal pastures (Bauer 2008; Goldstein and Beall 1991; Goldstein et al. 2003).

Photo Courtesy: Herbert Bieser, Pixabay

Critical to the enclosure process has been a series of laws and regulations, listed in box below, which funded the institutions and provided the bureaucratic rationale for enclosure and the shift toward privatization. Next Unit 3.3, we will discuss Tibetan case again narrating the legal and policy trajectory. Here the list of laws would help underlie the long series of legal instruments used in China to enclose the land resources from pastoralists.

Box: Laws Governing Privatization and Enclosure of Grazing Commons of Tibetan Plateau 

References Cited

3.2.4 Fragmentation and Conversion of Rangelands

Students are advised first to comprehend the following description derived from the literature.

In pastoral lands, scientists and managers have long highlighted the high degree of landscape heterogeneity or vegetation pattern (Pickup & Chewings, 1994), but rarely have conducted observational or experimental studies on habitat loss or fragmentation caused by human action (Reid et al., 2003). Landscape fragmentation may be defined as processes in which large continuous cover is subdivided into a number of smaller patches of smaller total area that are isolated from each other by a matrix of habitats (Mhangara and Kakembo, 2012). These patches are unlike the original (FAO, 2007). Some of the effects of fragmentation on landscape structure are: a decrease in the overall amount of habitat and mean patch size, incrementing of the edges, decrease of the core area and isolation of the habitat patches (FAO, 2007; Herold et al., 2003; Turan et al., 2010). Turner et al. (2001) suggest that a close relationship exists between landscape patterns and processes occurring in the landscape.

Photo Courtesy: Tatiana S., Pixabay

Mining and large-scale resource extraction are responsible for increasing land use change (Chatty and Sternberg, 2015) and restrict the pastoralists’ movement and access to water. For example in China, more than 90% of the rangelands are degraded with about one-quarter of them under severe degradation or threat of desertification (Shaoliang and Sharma, 2009). Similarly, mineral mining is a strong contributor to pasture degradation in Kazakhstan. Brokpa pastoral community of Arunachal Pradesh (India) is reported facing newer challenges due to degradation of high altitude pastures, and subsequently shortage of feed and fodder.

3.2.5 Impacts of Fragmentation and Conversion

Some argue that the fragmentation does not cause any big loss to rangelands. Reid et al. (2003) have clearly clarified this process of fragmentation. According to them, the very process of destruction or reduction in the quality of part of a habitat also breaks the habitat into pieces or fragments it, unless the entire habitat is lost. When a linear feature is built in a rangeland (a road or a railway, for example), the principal process initiated is fragmentation, not loss or modification. Although very little of the landscape is lost or modified (under the road or rail bed), various species of animals (e.g. elephant) will change their behaviour and movement patterns because of the traffic on a road or rail (Barnes et al., 1991). Thus, the minor loss of habitat under the road or rail can cause modification and fragmentation of much of the surrounding habitat. Analyzing landscape transformation and structure in terms of composition and configuration is essential when evaluating its state and response to disturbances (O’Neil et al., 1999). Landscape metrics are used to quantify specific spatial characteristics of patches, classes of patches, or entire landscapes mosaics (Blench and Sommer, 1999). Kamusoko and Aniya (2007) indicate that analysis of land use/cover change and landscape structure is useful in understanding the extent and implications of fragmentation within landscapes.

The conversion of pastures into arable land has caused one of the most significant environmental impacts of land degradation on Earth”. Example of Kazakh steppe is best to understand such a disaster where 25 million hectares of pasture lands were converted into arable land within a span of only 7 years (Succow, 2004). Pastoralists were ‘developed’ into farmers. 

Reading for Research Skills

References Cited: