A livelihood perspective on natural resource management and environmental change in semiarid Tanzania

The aim of this paper is to explore how social relations influence land use and natural resource management at the local level. Through empirical anal ysis that tracks changes in land use and environment over 40 years, we pres ent evidence of a process of agrarianization based on commercialization of crops and expansion of cultivated land. With the concept of livelihood stra tegies as an analytical framework, subcommunity processes are analyzed for their impact on intensification and degradation. Accumulating strategies ar e linked to expansion, commercial crop production, and selective intensific ation through high-value inputs, while at the other end of the scale, peasa nt-labor households endure exhausted or marginal potential land resources c ombined with lack of flexibility in input consumption. The article shows ho w degradation and intensification occur simultaneously and how incomes may increase even during processes of land degradation. We argue that a livelih ood approach can be useful in uncovering and explaining these processes.