Ideology, Land Tenure and Livestock Mobility in Kazakhstan

Abstract

This chapter examines the importance of land tenure in causing changes in the scale of livestock movement. 'Land tenure' refers here to the legal principles, written or oral laws, or (more broadly) culturally accepted rights and privileges with respect to property in natural resources. Land tenure is an institutionalized system of ideas. 'Land use' refers to observable patterns of land holdings, access to and exploitation of resources. Livestock mobility is an important component of land use in pastoral systems. This analysis focuses on livestock mobility because it is the best available indicator of the extent of rangeland fragmentation across several centuries in Kazakhstan, a country roughly the size of western Europe.