The limitations of an equilibrial view of dryland ecosystems (chapter 4) are now recognised. The concept of instability, or disequilibrium, offers an alternative basis for understanding their short-term dynamics. What of long-term changes? As soon as we extend the timeframe of our analysis, it becomes apparent that many dryland ecosystems are in transition between one state and another, or always have been intransition, driven by climate change, the progressive development of soil formations, erosion cycles, and episodic natural events like volcanic eruptions, droughts and floods. Indeed, when the timeframe is lengthened, all ecosystems may be vulnerable to extreme or ‘surprise’ events, whether they emanate from outside or from within the system, as ‘accidents waiting to happen’ (Holling 1987).

For policy purposes, the timescale is important. Because of their frequency, extreme events in the drylands offer a challenging laboratory for working out an appropriate interface between technology and nature. Two main management modes are available (ibid.). The ‘technological–industrial’ mode seeks to control variability and reduce diversity – as in livestock ranching systems. It thereby increases the vulnerability of both ecosystems and production systems (unless financial institutions protect the latter). On the other hand, a ‘low technology’ mode of management – as used by indigenous dryland peoples – seeks to adapt to variability and to exploit diversity. It thereby strengthens the resilience of both the ecosystem and the production system.

The ‘crisis of sustainability’

In the previous chapter, it was argued that the crisis of sustainability is often represented in terms of negative feedback loops in an equilibrial system, disturbed by ‘external’ factors, such as the growth of the human (and livestock) populations, drought, or the market. For neo-classical economic analysts, population growth is uppermost; in socialist critiques, the market; while technical appraisals emphasise the role of rainfall and bioproductivity constraints. In this chapter, the hypotheses that population growth, rainfall variability and monetisation cause increased environmental degradation will be put to empirical test by means of a comparison of two farming systems in which these parameters vary.

Conservation has different meanings for different people. For some it implies the exclusion of humans from protected natural reserves, and for others, the protection of threatened species or habitats in ecosystems that are already occupied or exploited by human populations. The impracticability, as well as the controversial ethics, of giving human needs second place to those of ‘nature’, has suggested to some writers the need for a multi-purpose strategy which not merely reconciles the sometimes contradictory demands of humans and nature conservation, but goes further to integrate the economic and conservationary management of the same habitats. In urbanised and industrialised Europe, such ideas have far-reaching implications (Adams 1996).

In dryland Africa, conservation thinking has two tributary traditions. The first is the demand, emanating from conservation lobbies in northern countries and tourism ministries of African governments, for protected reserves – protected, that is, from Africans. The drylands contain most of Africa's best known tourist game parks, and tourism is a major earner of foreign exchange in several national economies. The second is the soil conservation movement, which, having its historical roots in the USA in the 1920s and 1930s, became influential in colonial governments in the 1940s and 1950s (Anderson 1984; Huxley 1937; Stocking 1996). The thrust of soil conservation propaganda, particularly in its early years, was that African smallholders were recklessly destroying their natural resources by inappropriate land use practices.

Life in the Pacific Islands has been transformed over the last century and a half, economically, geographically, politically and socially. Nevertheless, for the majority of islanders land is still central to their life and the land tenure arrangements which people use help shape their settlement patterns and agricultural systems, and are important components of socio-economic and political structures. The majority of land in all South Pacific Island countries remains under what are commonly described as ‘traditional’, ‘customary’ or ‘native’ land tenure systems. This book argues that in many parts of the region the ways in which the ‘customary’ land is now held by owners or users have changed to a much greater degree than is commonly acknowledged. The changes are intimately linked to concurrent changes in the socio-economic and political organisation of Pacific Island communities, but they are not unique to the region. They are specific cases which have, or have had, parallels in other parts of the world. The details are not identical, but the general processes of transformation have led to a widening range of situations in which land formerly held in common, or used through various communal arrangements, is now controlled and used exclusively by individuals or small family groups. In a broad sense much customary land is being privatised. Historical parallels can be found in Japan and China over the last millennium or more, in the mediaeval and later enclosure movements in Europe, and in Africa and insular Southeast Asia in the present century.

A central component of the socio-economic transformations, of which the tenure changes are part, is the change from subsistence to market economies.

Individual land tenure is now widely established in Western Samoa, and with it economic individualism. The process has taken well over a century, however, and it has not been easy. Early missionary attempts to instil individualism in the Samoans went unheeded (Meleisea, 1987:18). The missionary, George Turner, lamented that:

Speaking of that early era, Meleisea argued that:

Later, the New Zealand administration's attempts to ‘press the evolution of land usage toward individualism provoked opposition, even though of their own momentum changes seem to be slowly setting in that direction’ (Keesing, 1934:287). On the eve of independence, Marsack warned that ‘while the matai [chiefly] system still stands in Western Samoa there can necessarily be no individual ownership of small pieces of Samoan customary land or small plantations thereon’ (1961:28).

During the last century and a half, Fijians have made great changes to the ways they allocate and control land. Some changes now have the sanction of ‘custom’ or government law. Some current practices are sanctioned by either custom or law, or both; others by neither. Government land and labour policies of the 1870s and 1880s were designed to protect Fijians from loss of their land and from the social disruption which, it was thought, would follow such loss. These policies, which codified a quasi-traditional order, ran the risk of creating a strait jacket preventing adjustment to new social, political and economic situations. The longer-term consequences have not been as serious a constraint on socio-economic change as they might, largely because people have simply ignored the regulations and their intent. Older flexible practices of land allocation and use continued, or new practices emerged which, though unsanctioned by ‘custom’ and sometimes illegal, have met new needs. What is often assumed to be a ‘traditional’ land tenure system now differs from the practices followed prior to codification of Fijian land tenure by the colonial government. Major discrepancies now exist between those registered as owners of land held under ‘customary’ tenure, legally called ‘native land’, and those who use it; and between legally sanctioned means of allocating use of native land to non-Fijians and the way much native land is made available to such people. These discrepancies are rarely acknowledged publicly in policy-making circles.

Land tenure in the Pacific Islands has always been subject to change. Even in pre-colonial times, which are sometimes portrayed as a time of stability and little change, land tenure practices were modified pragmatically to meet changing conditions, and control of land frequently passed from one group to another as a result of warfare, changing demographic pressures, or migration. Indeed, all tenure systems change over time, conditioned by broader socio-political shifts, demographic trends, technological and economic innovations, and alterations in the extent to which land is a scarce good. The current complexity and state of flux in the tenure arrangements for what is usually defined in the Pacific Islands either as ‘native land’ or ‘customary land’ is not unique. Comparable situations can be found in many other places and at many other times. One of the themes of this book is the occurrence in the Pacific Islands of particular cases of what is arguably a world-wide trend for communalistic forms of land tenure to be replaced by forms in which individual ownership plays a much greater role.

What makes the South Pacific Islands unusual is, first, the relatively recent occurrences of major changes in land tenure. Second, many of the changes have been unusually rapid. Third, national leaders in the region often refer to traditional land tenure as one of the important markers of national or cultural distinctiveness. At the same time a reluctance to acknowledge the extent to which the customary practices of today differ from those of a supposedly immemorial tradition is coupled with a willingness to ignore the divergence between current practices and the law where the conventions of land tenure have been codified.

Most Pacific Islanders living in rural areas use land tenure arrangements which are commonly described by islanders and outsiders alike as ‘traditional’ or ‘customary’. Yet current tenure practices on ‘customary’ or ‘native’ land often differ considerably from the ‘customary’ practices described by early observers, land commissions or in recorded oral history. What are now described as ‘traditional’ or ‘customary’ tenure arrangements are often greatly simplified or modified models of what was ‘customary’ in the mid-nineteenth century or earlier. Fiji and Tonga provide examples. In the former, ‘the land tenure system which exists today evolved from the varied administrative decisions of a colonial government’ (France, 1969:174). In Tonga, the indigenous government acted more drastically and officially replaced the customary practices of the early nineteenth century by an entirely new system of land tenure under a constitutional decree promulgated in 1875. In fact, practice was slow to adapt to the constitution (see Chapter 5), but today many people in Tonga feel towards their land rights like those in Fiji who regard the colonial creation as ‘immemorial tradition’ which ‘enshrine[s] the ancient land rights … [and] is a powerfully cohesive force in Fijian society’ (France, 1969:174–5).

In many countries the idea that the maintenance of ‘traditional’ forms of land tenure is essential for the integrity of culture and way of life is expressed as a basic article of faith by politicians, planners, and others (Fingleton, 1982). During the nineteenth century, some colonial governments sought to protect indigenous rights to land as these were seen as being vital to the survival of the people as a community (e.g. see Chapter 6).

For the past generation, and while they have been endorsing the ideology of development, the leaders of most Pacific Island countries have also emphasised the importance of ‘culture’ and ‘tradition’ as the bases of national identity and the integrity of national institutions. The crucial role of culture is proclaimed in many national constitutions and the need for its maintenance is taken as a basic article of faith by many politicians (Henry, 1991; Somare, 1991), at least in their public utterances. Almost everywhere, native (or customary) land tenure is regarded as one of the cornerstones of national culture, in spite of the fact that what is now proclaimed as traditional may be different from what was customary in the nineteenth and, presumably, earlier centuries.

The case studies presented above show that many current land tenure practices run counter to what is said to be customary in appeals to ‘immemorial’ and unchanging tradition or to the law where land tenure has been codified. The discrepancies arise in part as consequences of growing population pressures, increased participation in wage labour, greater urbanisation, and the demands of cash cropping and commercial grazing. All create changes in the relative demand for and value of different pieces of land according to location and quality attributes related to the needs of new crops or animals or new types of land use. Land tenure practices have changed as a result, although there is often little public or political acknowledgement of the changes. New forms of socio-economic organisation have allowed or required some individuals to opt out of the older communally oriented forms of organisation.