Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Methodology
The methodology involves usage of information accumulated from surveys in
the form of a database, and of information from iterative dialogue sessions and
interaction between a multidisciplinary team of scientists and collaborating
PLEC farmers, all under the UNU/PLEC project work in Ghana. Specific
approaches and techniques were general meetings, focused group discussions,
informal interviews, and keen observation in the homes and in the fields of
collaborating farmers during the period February 2001-February 2002.
Discussion of findings
In an attempt to identify and trace linkages between land access and distribution
and indigenous management diversity in the form of land use, the findings of this
case study are discussed under the following sections:
•
land access and distribution
•
land-use forms or stages
•
access and distribution, associated land-use forms, and diversity.
Land access and distribution
Access implies the right to use or benefit from a productive resource, while
control refers to the effective exercise of such rights (Berry, 1993). Control is the
ability and willingness to exclude other users (Convery, 1995).
On the basis of this clarification, holders of resource-use rights fall into three
broad categories, namely communal, landowning groups (family), and the
individual.
Communal rights are exercised over communal property, which is now
limited to the sacred grove and graveyards. For historical reasons linked to
the origin of the town and accepted by the entire community, access and
distribution of land is not uniform across the landowning groups. For example,
the royal Asona clan, originally from Bomwire, who first settled in and
named the town after their god, Tano, has more land than any other landowning
group.
As is well known, in Ghana, among the Akans in general and the Ashantis in
particular, access to land within the family is inherited with descent being traced
along matrilineal lineage, while distribution among households and individuals is
effected through a complex of determinants of household power relations, age,
gender, and social status.
