Land Alienation in Borana: Some Land Tenure Issues in a Pastoral Context in Ethiopia

This paper discusses the land rights of the Borana pastoralists as an example of pastoral land tenure in Ethiopia. Pastoral tenure rights are usually a simplified version of much more complex tenurial arrangements found in agricultural areas. The pre-eminence of state rights is characteristic of the situation. Pastoral tenure rights usually involve unclear group user rights to the resources, with poor legal protection from pastoral competitors or agricultural expansion into the