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Description and implementation

Moroccan land tenure continues to include the domain of the state, registered private property and the collective lands. In the Ait Arfa du Guigou study site, land tenure is a combination of local customary law, French civil law, Moroccan decrees, and Islamic law.

The extent to which the formal laws governs a particular situation as well as the interpretation of the laws is dependent on various factors, such as the location of the land, its ownership, and local control of land matters. Formal law generally governs large commercial land transactions, while residential plots in informal settlements are generally transferred under principles of customary law. The main laws and regulations governing collective land ownership include the following.

Dahir of 27 April 1919 on delineation of collective lands. In order to politically control ethnic communities and encourage the installation of European settlers, the Protectorate established supervision of tribes and their lands. The Minister of the Interior became the guardian of ethnic communities for collective lands with a mission to:

• ensure the implementation of decisions of the Trusteeship Council and send to it all reports relating to ethnic communities and their goods (disputes, sales, etc.);
• examine records relating to claims;
• represent ethnic communities in court or allow themselves to appear, especially for the preservation of communal lands;
• allow jmaas to spend with third parties contracts concerning agricultural association; and
• maintain accounting of ethnic communities whose funds are deposited in the Treasury bank.

Since all pasture lands are "common land" ( "terres collectives"), they are managed by the Dahir of 1919, which also formalizes territorialism and enforces rules regarding the customary use of grassland (maintenance transhumance, maintenance of Agdal) and respect for tribal pacts about reciprocal use of resources between tribes.

The management of collective resources, land distribution, and assignment is not the responsibility of the Dahir of 1919 and in principle escapes the control of the administration. Communities retain authority over the internal management of the territory.

Regulation 2977 of 13 November 1957 on sharing of communal lands was a turning point in the management of communal lands. Under its provisions:

• the division of land between collective heads of families must reflect the quality of the soil, and be of equal area unless otherwise decided by the Jmaa
• sharing must be maintained for at least 10 years and must not be altered in any way;
• collectivists returning to the tribe can benefit from sharing from the first marketing year following their return. Also, immigrants to the area may receive the same benefits as collectivists and participate in common expenses, with permission of the tribe; and
• collectivists who left the tribe for more than a year and collectivists who argued against Jmaa, are excluded from sharing.

Dahir 9 mai 1959 concerning the termination of the concession rights of perpetual enjoyment and the revision of long term lease loans on collective lands. The objective is to recover the collective lands that ethnic groups were obliged to assign or lease by the Protectorate Authority to settlers at low prices. This law enabled the recovery of 35,000 ha. to former owners and the council of Tutelle of the Ministry of Interior.

The basic legal and institutional principles relating to the conservation, management, operation and development of collective lands are laid in dahirs and orders or ministerial viziriels covering:

• responsibilities between local ethnic and courts (1962)
• role of enforcement officers at the local level in the defense of property interests of ethnic groups (1963)
• competence of governors of the northern provinces in fighting against collective dispossession of land
• topographic operations and administrative procedures on requisitions collective land registration (1967, 1971)
• the issuing of certificates of ownership, Moulkya (1973, 1974)
• lease of communal land for stone and sand quarries (1977)
• the right of ethnic communities to oppose registration of requisitions by third parties. (1992)

Impacts

In the study site, 50 percent of the land is collective and belongs to four ethnic groups. Accordingly, there are four grazing blocks, one for each fraction with an administrative delimitation for each. Within each block, every sheep breeder from the fraction is free to use the land from the fraction. There are, however, minor conflicts between fractions about the land tenure. The impacts of the collective land tenure are the following.

• The persistence of tribalism without mobility. In the past herders used to move from winter ranges to summer pastures.
• There is a sedentarization on rangelands since the transhumance between the low lands (Azarhar foothils) the high lands no longer occurs.
• People start to settle and use the grazing land around the settlements.
• The numbers of animals and herders are increasing since there is limits on the flock size owned by sheep breeders.
• Small farmers value their tribal membership by passing contracts with foreigners to their ethnic group.
• Grazing pressure reached an average of 5 to 6 ewes per hectare, which resulted in great amount of degradation.
• People are aspiring for a better life. They want more qualitative education opportunities for their children, permanent equipped home. They take care of their farmlands. This explains the changes in the mobility and the trend to sedentarization.
• Emergence of large sheep breeders with large herds. This type of breeders start to take individual initiative to manage their flocks (rent of lands for grazing their herds).
• Decrease of the power of the Jmaa (tribe council).
• A new mobility is taking place on rangelands. Rather their the animals move to the resources, the resources come to animals.
• Supplementation of animal feed with concentrates.
• All space is explored.

Effectiveness

To this day, Ait Arfa du Guigou land is governed by the same Dahir and divided among the four fractions of the tribe (Ait Beni Yakoube, Ait Hcine ou Hand, Ait Beni Hcine and Ait M’Hamed). The main provisions of the Dahir are:

• recognition of collective land ownership only to ethnic communities with legal personality;
• consecration of the inalienable communal lands;
• competence of jmaas (assemblies of delegates, leaders) in the management of public goods (including land)
• providing a simple right of enjoyment to the household head.

However, those provisions are no longer compatible with the current situation given the profound economic, social and demographic changes undergone by rural areas. With regard to collective rangelands, specific problems include:

• every collectivist claimant is entitled to access and pasture for his flock, without limitation or space nor in time, nor in the herd size or in animal species (sheep, goats, etc.).
• The collective traditional seasonal grazing (agdal) pasture is less practiced or less respected, especially in times of drought.
• Former pastoral pacts lose their effectiveness and, are not renewed.
• Collective land routes are mostly in a state of degradation (sometimes very advanced), the situation that irreversibly impacts on the livelihoods of farmers on collective land, especially during periods of drought.

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Agricultural policy: description

Since independence, agriculture has been at the heart of development policy in Morocco. Initially, the goal was to modernize Moroccan agriculture by launching several operations, including the operation fertilizers, seeds and plowing. This phase was followed by more intense agricultural activities conducted until the late 1970s, promoting large-scale irrigation to achieve the "Million hectare". Export crops were promoted alongside and the substitution of imported food products. The third phase concerned the rainfed areas, which benefited successively from the Integrated Development Project (IDP) and Enhancement Projects in "Bour" (PMVB). The last project - the "Plan Maroc Vert" - was launched in 2008.

Operation Labour Policy. This policy is structured around three components: mechanization, consolidation, and management.

Million Hectares Policy. The government sought to improve productivity and expand irrigation in order to achieve "one million hectares of irrigated land". The state committed to building a dam each year and ensure the equipment to irrigate for 15,000 - 24,000 hectares per year. In addition, the state executed internal work, imposed crop rotation and cultivation techniques and supported farmers through irrigation perimeters and legal and economic incentives.

The Agricultural Investment Code, enacted in 1969, provided budgetary support of this policy. During 1968-1972, more than 40% of the agricultural budget was directed to the irrigated sector even though it accounted for only 10% of the arable land. Irrigated area reached 880,200 ha in 2000 and infrastructure includes more than a hundred dam.

The policy has had remarkable results, including the reduction of the devastating impacts of severe droughts, increases of farmers income, reduction of the rural exodus, and improved access to basic services. Deficiencies are also present: results with regard to modernization have been limited and the dam policy was widely criticized for the differences in consequences it generated. Thus, by marginalizing rainfed areas, the state contributed to increasing the duality of agricultural development and consequently to the impoverishment of large segments of the rural population.

Agricultural Investment Code (CIA). The Dahir No. 1-69-25 Agricultural Investment Code (1969) aimed to develop the natural potential of the country to meet its needs in vegetable and animal products, to increase the income of the farmers and to contribute to the general development of the economy. The CIA distinguished between the irrigated sector (equipment and valorization) and the rainfed area (creation of a global network of sanitation, drainage work) and dealt with a variety of issues such as agricultural mechanization, provision of assistance to increase productivity, protection of animal health, research and training, land conservation and organization of markets, rules relating to land consolidation, modifications in cropping patterns and water rates. The CIA also lists a variety of instruments as aid to agricultural investments: incentives and subsidies, bank loans, technical assistance, material and utilities of the public sector, especially the Ministry of Agriculture and Agrarian Reform.

The CIA has become the real legal system governing irrigated agriculture. It is usually presented as a contract between farmers and the state, defining their mutual rights and duties.

With regard to rangelands, the Dahir of 1969 defines the state involvement in the management of collective rangelands: under decrees proposed by the Minister of Agriculture (after consultation with the Ministers of the Interior and Finance), special areas including collective land may be designated for "pastoral perimeters improvement" in order to halt degradation and improve upon traditional management. These schemes may include infrastructure works (water points, nurseries, runways, terminals, ditches, markers, dips, silos, feeding centers, animal shelters, housing guards), the regeneration and enrichment of pastures (work conserving water and soil, fertilizers and amendments, seeding or planting shrubs or herbaceous forage species, elimination of harmful plant species and establishment of shelter belts). In addition, associations (contracts to split benefits between contractors) for livestock are prohibited.

Law Number 33 –94 (Perimeters of promotion of non irrigated crops). The relative failure of pastoral perimeters prompted the state to change its strategy for bour, (i.e. rainfed zones located outside of irrigation perimeters and sanitation dry areas). Law 33 of 1994 defined a new framework for implementing projects known as "PMVB" in order to decrease disparities between favourable and unfavourable areas. The strategy is based around:

• provision of basic information;
• creation of adapted technologic packages;
• fostering operational dialog, focused around the participation of shepherds from conception to planning and implementation;
• established of autonomous management and planning by populations concerned;
• appropriate guidance and supervision of the pastoral profession.

Once a perimeter boundary enhancement is made, the state carries out an operations plan. These operations may include: 1) the clearance and improvement of land ownership structures, 2) the development work and the internal and external equipment of agricultural properties and 3) the mobilization of extension and technical support necessary at both the production process as well as at the level of the valorization of agricultural products.

This law has opened a new approach to state intervention and development bour areas, namely:

• identification of and localised intervention in rainfed perimeters;
• integrated implementation of rural development to intensify the development of land and increase investment at the farm level; and
• participation of affected populations in decision making but also in investment in farm level as well as their involvement in actions in a contractual framework.

Under the Act, around 200 perimeters rainfed development have been identified in various agro-ecological zones of Morocco, but only 40 projects have been finalized. Constraints are related to bureaucratic procedures, the difficulty of involving different stakeholders, the lack of jurisdiction or the reluctance of some stakeholders, while other constraints are at the rigidity of financial procedures.

As far as rangelands, the law aims to improve pastoral perimeters within the context of the ethnic communities by establishing cooperatives of breeders to implement actions of pastoral water facilities, improved herd management, rehabilitation of the vegetation and the organization of its conservation management. The strategy also guarantees farmers access to markets and credit.

For the implementation of development projects in pastoral zones, different constraints arise (absence of technological packages, insufficient management, lack of financial resources). In fact, out of a total of 15 PMVB having a component "pastoral", 11 PMVB experienced blockages due to conflicts between beneficiaries of the bounds paths and rights of use, refusal populations on achieving improvements of pastures. They opt instead to cultivate and own a farm while it is pastoral land.

Plan Maroc Vert (PMV) (Green Morocco Plan) was adopted in April 2008 in order to rehabilitate agriculture as a tool of growth and the fight against poverty with a view to the year 2020. This new land policy aims to achieve private management of public lands, to establish conditions for promoting aggregation and public-private partnerships, to continue structural reform and to accelerate securitization. The PMV is built upon seven principles.

1. Agriculture as the main driver of growth in the next 10 to 15 years.
2. The model for the organization of agriculture should be aggregation, meaning the creation of a win-win partnership between upstream and downstream productive commercial and/or industrial areas.
3. Growth of Moroccan agriculture shall take place without exclusion or discrimination, addressing all types of agriculture. This includes a modern agriculture, localized in irrigated and favorable bour, (20% of cultivated area, highly modern and productive) as well as traditional agriculture and food (located at the unfavorable mountain areas and oases, occupying 80% of arable land).
4. Promotion of private investment.
5. Adoption of a contractual approach to achieve PMV.
6. Sustainable development of Moroccan agriculture.
7. Agricultural sector reform.

The PMV established the novel strategy based on two pillars and base of horizontal reforms. Pillar I aims to develop modern agriculture with high added value, be competitive and responsive to market rules, centering around new "aggregation models". Pillar II aims to support the small and medium agriculture enterprises with an approach oriented towards fighting poverty and improving the income of the most vulnerable farmers (nearly 560,000 farms), particularly in disadvantaged areas. For the two pillars of this strategy, the reform of the sector is of paramount importance. Horizontal reforms cover land, water and taxation.

The PMV plans to invest 147 billion dirhams for 1,506 projects, spread over a decade. The first sector plan of PMV occurs at the regional level with the preparation of 16 Regional Agricultural Plans (RAP).

Several criticisms can be made of the PMV. Firstly, it overstates the role of investment and claims that agriculture would be a "sector like any other". The pillar I-model ("big farm”) focuses on large farmers, aggravating land problems and destabilizing the balance of predominantly family farming systems. Secondly, the PMV production model is highly intensive and appears to be destructive to the environment and natural resources. In addition, production-level choices show little desire to safeguard the food security.

For the most part, aggregation is seen with scepticism, as it maintains the illusion that the land barrier may be circumvented, but also for its claim to be easily "duplicable". In addition, the plan does not address the sudden and unexpected arrival of cold weather, resulting in disastrous damages. In 2011, the Word Bank started a new project “Integrating Climate Change in the Implementation of the PMV”.

Agricultural Policy: impacts

Operation Labour Policy. The state provided farmers tractors through the work centers. In the Timahdit area, this ploughing operation has encouraged the development of land for agriculture and the the reduction of rangelands. have a strongly negative impact. Ploughing resulted in the development of motorization (trucks, tractors). Mechanization "solved" the issue of water availability: in pastures that were previously used only until the month of April (when animal needs can be covered by alimentary water in tender plants), tractors and trucks provided water (150 to 200 dh for tanks holding 3000 liters of water) increasing the continuous grazing pressure.

Million hectares Policy had no impact on the study area. Irrigation in the Middle Atlas is still done in a traditional manner and the conflict between upstream and downstream remains. On rangelands, the impact was neutral if not negative since there was a break down in the agreements among tribes regarding the reciprocal use of rangelands. Most of the tribes with land in the lowland area switched to agriculture, reducing available rangelands. Another negative impact of this policy is the development of motorization (trucks, tractors). The development of motorization switched the regional trend: instead of sheep going to the resources (feed and water), the resource is delivered to the animals.

Agricultural Investment Code (CIA). Since irrigation was not developed in the study area, the only impact of the CIA was the possibility of getting bank loans by Timahdit for agricultural development. Breeders contracted loans for purchasing feed concentrate for their cattle and for financing the crop, resulting in more widespread usage of concentrated feed. As a consequence, grazing animals changed from lean to fatty and had high requirements. The use of concentrates increased the period that yearling animals use rangelands, which in turn increased the grazing pressure.

Several groups of sheep breeders were created in the Middle Atlas since 1984 but only two remain. The policy also included the creation of "the Timahdit pastoral perimeter", planned on the Western range management style (fenced, divided in pastures with physical infrastructures such as roads and water points).

Law Number 33-94 (Perimeters of promotion of non irrigated crops). The delay in policies for rainfed areas has resulted in the degradation of resources and in a number of situations contributing to desertification. This law is the only policy that deals with the study area. However, most of the projects developed dealt with agriculture. As far as rangelands were concerned, two projects were developed in the study area. Their impact was reduced to building and purchasing equipment; no work was accomplished regarding the rehabilitation of rangelands. The main reason for this poor result was the absence of a participative approach in implementing the two projects (World Bank and French Agency for Development).

Plan Maroc Vert (PMV) (Green Morocco Plan). In the Timahdit area, the PMV promoted drip irrigation and the cultures of high added value crops, such as gardening and horticulture. According to stakeholders from the rural community in Timahdit, the policy of putting emphasis on agriculture in this area will have the consequence of reducing livestock numbers over the next 30 to 40 years. As result, people in the study area are willing to have their own dams built to benefit of their water. The intensification strategy raises question about the appropriateness of the Plan for the mountainous regions.

Agricultural Policy: effectiveness

Law Number 33-94 (Perimeters of promotion of non irrigated crops). This law has opened a new approach to state intervention and the development of bour areas, but results of the Law 33-94 have not been very encouraging. The law provides a framework and serves as a tool for coherent and integrated legal measures to be implemented for the development of agriculture and rural areas (including bour) but implementation encounters difficulties.

Code des Investissements Agricoles. Although its objectives included "To curb pasture degradation and to ensure its recovery”, in 1994 only 6 out of a total of 33 schemes identified for the improvement of pastoral perimeters were delineated, representing approximately 180,000 hectares in total. One of the 6 planned perimeters is in the Timahdit area. The failure of these planned perimeters was mainly due to lack of financial participation of pastoralist beneficiaries. Another constraint has been the difficulty in organise farmers into cooperatives (feeding centers) and to sustain their proper functioning.

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Water policy: description

As in other policies, Moroccan water institutions follow three distinct phases: before 1912 (pre-French years), 1912–1956 (French protectorate years) and 1956–1980s (post-independence years). While religious, historical and political factors guided the evolution of water institutions before independence, it is the demographic and socioeconomic requirements that played that role after independence. Since the 1980s, water institutional reforms have been shaped by macroeconomic necessities and resource-related realities, such as successive severe droughts (1980–1985), the macro economic crisis (1983) and the attainment of the physical limits for freshwater expansion through large-scale water resources development schemes in the early 1990s.

Main policies with respect to water

Law and decrees issued between in 1914 and 1925 established the hydraulic public domain: water cannot be privately owned, with the exception of water for which the rights have been legally acquired.

The most recent Water Law (Law 10-95) establishes a new national water policy, establishing the legal provisions for the rational use of water, widespread access to water, inter-regional solidarity, reducing disparities between urban and rural areas. The water act is the legal basis of the country's water policy and sets the following objectives:

• coherent and flexible planning of the use of water resources, at river basin and national level ;
• optimal mobilization and rational management of all water resources, taking into account the order of priority set by the national plan for water;
• management of water resources in water basin units, an important innovation to develop and implement decentralized management of water (the river basin is the natural geographical area best suited to understanding and solving problems of water resource management, as well as for achieving an effective regional solidarity between users affected by common water resource);
• protection and the conservation (both quantitative and qualitative) of the hydraulic public domain as a whole;
• proper administration of water to assist in the design the use and control of operations mentioned above, involving governments and users to any decision making related to water.

The Water Act will establish new rules for water use to fit new economic and social conditions and lay down the foundation for effective management of water to meet the expected challenge of security of supply. The law also creates the "High Council Water and Climate", to examine and formulate opinions on:

• the national strategy for improving knowledge of climate and control its impact on the development of water resources;
• the National water plan;
• integrated development plans of water resources of watersheds and in particular the allocation of water between different users and sectors, the provisions of valuation, protection and conservation of water resources.

Water policy: impacts

All rivers have their sources in the Middle Atlas. Water law as it exists does not differentiate between who produces the resources and who uses it. The law deals only with the management of the resources. In addition to the availability of drinking water for douars in the study area and water all over the study site poses a serious problem to the sustainability of water points in rangelands.

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Desertification policy: description

As part of the UNCCD implementation process, the National Action Programme to Combat Desertification (NAP) was designed and validated in 2001. The NAP is based on the principles of integration, decentralization, partnership building and participation. Morocco's NAP is a strategic framework for combating desertification and is integrated into the country’s sustainable development policies.

The strategy for rangeland development addresses the pastoral issue by encouraging the effective participation of the beneficiaries and the integration of rangeland in their socio-economic environment, represented by the local agricultural soil and the market.

Further programmes included in the PAN cover the

• mobilization of water resources,
• National Programme of Irrigation,
• Directory Plan for the Conservation Management of non-irrigated land,
• catchment basin planning Programmes.

Other Programmes have been set up as part of the PAN which deal with rural poverty and agricultural education, supply of drinking water in rural areas (PAGER), rural electrification (PERG), rural roads construction (PNCRR), and female empowerment.

The main point of interest of the national plan to fight desertification lies in its originality as an institutional framework: in the absence of such a framework, each of the actors continues his or her activities as usual. The state has no capacities flexible enough to intervene on a small scale. Instead, its administrative and accounting structures are better suited for carrying out large-scale operations.

Desertification policy: effectiveness

There is a strong political will and framework to address desertification problems, but no action seems to be able to stop the progression of desertification. Generally, there is a need to reinforce and review the laws. Morocco is still using laws that were used by the French Colonial System in an era that was different from this one. Thus, there is no evolution of the legal issue between the time and the evolution of the situation. There is also a need to rethink the structure of the collective lands and consider biodiversity. In addition, social policy should be linked with the problems of degradation at the study site. The realization that the fight against desertification is not mainly a technological problem, but rather a socio-political one is certainly not new, stated as early as UNCOD, 1977. Social policies supporting rural development and sustainable use of natural resources, such as the availability and opportunity cost of labour in rural areas, of infrastructure and education, and the promotion of non-farm income generating activities, can have a strong impact on land management decisions, given that many land management measures to combat desertification are labour intensive.

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Soil policy

The main legislation related to soil is the Dahir n°1-69-170, containing 19 articles dedicated to the conventions for the realization of works outside of the national target perimeters for soil protection and restoration (title 1), the question on national target perimeters for soil protection and restoration (title 2), the control of Civil Service and the sanctions (title 3), and other provisions (title 4).

The main measure is the creation of areas called "perimeter defence and land reclamation in the national interest", where the state may impose measures and works necessary for the fight against erosion at the decree of the Minister of Agriculture and Agrarian Reform after consultation with the Ministers of the Interior and Finance.