2.4
Conflict in Use
By Alexandra Weller
There is a risk of an existing designated purpose of the recognised site which poses the threat of conflict and may require alterations if present. This risk may arise if the land has been appointed a predetermined use due to the natural resources and soil conditions present, or if the land was classified and registered as a freehold during the colonial era, resulting in the land remaining under private ownership. This would establish a strong degree of conflict and tension between the Women’s House and the legal land holders which may hold the cutting rights; the rights acquired by the first person to clear a piece of virgin land to make it viable for production (Niang et al., 2017). This would create an issue as it is the holders of cutting rights who holds an authority of the land and the right of ownership is incorporated into the family or lineage group landholdings (Niang et al., 2017). As the land has been identified under the National Domain Law, and is being categorised as National Domain land; which is not the object of individual property as it suppressed customary rights, it is assumed there would be no conflicting rights to land and its natural resources on the identified plot, allowing the concept of land grabbing; the dispossession of land from Indigenous, small scale farmers, rural dwellers and communities post-independence, to be dismissed (Kachika, 2010). However, the rural council or the village chief may have prescribed designated uses for that land identified, as they hold the authority of management, planning, environmental and natural resource management and the defining of use under the Rural Community Law and the Code of 1996 (Faye, 2008 & USAID, 2010). Although, this potential of conflict in land use can be resolved through the discretion of the rural council and village chief, as they have the power to allocate land use rights with conditions and define its productive use, which may include its previously inscribed use (USAID, 2010). The Women’s Centre will then be required to alter its use, purpose and management of the natural resource in-line with set conditions. If this is not achieved, nor acknowledged, the rural council and village chief may withdraw the plot of land or end the leasehold.
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