Common Pool Resource Management and Conflicts in the Niger Inland Delta (Mali): Strategies and possibilities of action for conflict transformation.

Political, economic, technological and climatic changes have considerably affected the patterns of ownership and exchange during the past 60 years in the Niger Inland Delta. External actors, such as the state, traders and townspeople have entered the local agenda. Local resource users have intensified their use of the natural resources, such as fish, pasture and land. Relations of power have considerably changed, mainly to the advantage of people with a traditional or administrative position. Local traditional institutions of access and use of natural resources do not work any longer, or work primarily to the profit of a few powerful people. At the moment, the decentralisation partly enforces these developments, since mainly an educated or rich minority is able to benefit from the advantages of the decentralisation process. Rising competition among resource users, degradation of the resources and conflicts are the result. Conflicts arise mainly due to ambiguous access and use rights and due to the damage or theft of equipment or of parts of the produce. The behaviour of some traditional chiefs who manage access rights is an important factor leading to conflicts, since it is marked by cheating and corruption. Having a significant power position in the local setting and having an important bridging function between the local people and the external actors, traditional chiefs are rarely exposed to criticism or involved in conflicts. For the local people cooperation with the powerful and rich local elite (that is, besides the traditional chiefs, retail dealers and educated people) is still better than being cut out of their benevolence, which would mean losing benefits or their help in cases of need. Many state agents – pointing out on tradition and self-governance – do not intervene in many instances of illegal conduct of the local elite, since they profit from the economic power of the latter, through presents, bribe or other advantages. There is a new tendency among NGOs of promoting traditional chiefs in their projects, oblivious of the complex power relations playing at the local level. Hence, conflicts arise mostly between ordinary users: between individuals, groups or villages of the same or of different user groups. The conflict resolution mostly lacks transparency, because it can be controlled by factors such as economic and/or social capital and is exposed to rent seeking by the parties involved in the resolution. If a regionally well-respected and neutral mediator is involved, the resolution is promising, since it is basically accepted by the parties. But in general, at the local level, sedentary people with a good social network and specifically good relations to the people involved in mediation (such as the village chief) tend to win the case. If arbitration is not accepted, the case can be taken to the next level, which is the municipality or the court. Social capital still plays an important role there, but even more does economic capital. All these factors lead to an increasing gap between rich and poor resource users. Poor users are marginalized and forced to use the less productive resource spaces or to migrate to the cities – which are by no means ready to receive so many new residents. Also, resource users tend to enter the different seasonal resource spaces – due to climatic changes and rising competition – ever earlier, which disturbs the reproduction of the resources.

The research is based on fieldwork carried out in the Niger Inland Delta during the period May to December 2001 and October 2003 to January 2005. In 2001, the research concentrated particularly on the organisation and institutional changes in the fishery sector during the past 60 years. In 2004, it focused on agriculture, stockbreeding and the conflicts among the different resource users and on conflict transformation mechanisms.

 

Picture 1: A village in the Niger Inland Delta of Mali during the seasonal flooding.

 

Picture 2: A Bozo fishermen

 

Picture 3: Fishermen often accuse cattle of damaging their fishing equipment.

 

Picture 4: Rice sheaves are often left for drying in open fields, easily accessible to hungry cattle. This causes many conflicts.

 

 

Contacts:

Sabrina Beeler Stücklin
Stauffacherstrasse 54
CH-8004 Zurich
E-mail: sabrinabeeler@yahoo.de

RESEARCH PARTNERS IN MALI

Tiero Mamadou
Spécialiste en développement rural intégré
INACO: Bureau d'ingénierie et d'appui
BP 113
Sévaré/Mopti
E-mail: tieromamadou@yahoo.fr

Dr. Noumou Diakité
Consultant International/Sahel Consult
BP 116
Sévaré/Mopti
E-mail: noumou_diakite@yahoo.fr

Ogobelem Teme  
Socio Anthropologue           
Boulkassoumbougou, Bamako
E-mail : ogobelemt@yahoo.fr

Haby Traoré      
Etudiante en Socio Anthropologie à la FLASH (Faculté des Langues et des Sciences Humaines)
Université de Bamako
E-mail: habiplus@yahoo.fr

Youssouf Koné   
Etudiant en Socio Anthropologie à la FLASH (Faculté des Langues et des Sciences Humaines)
Université de Bamako
E-mail: nankoman@hotmail.com


UNIVERSITY OF ZURICH/LUCERNE

Prof. Dr. Jürg Helbling
Institute of Social Anthropology
Kasernenplatz 3
6003 Luzern
E-mail: J.Helbling@access.unizh.ch