Socio-ecology of land use planning in semi-arid regions

Abstract

Land use planning in tropical developing countries has posted a tremendous challenge to planners owing to high ecological diversity. The problem is particularly complex in semi-arid regions where due to high degree of environmental uncertainity, the traditional land use practices have been evolved by farmers with a high degree of flexibility. Most of such intra and inter-household resource adjustment strategies have involved simultaneous operations of farmers in several resource markets. Thus the options of farmers in one market could not be analysed due to isolation of constraints. The socio-ecological, has been proposed to provide a perspective for land use planning which would be consistent with long term interests of ecological balance and short term interest of survival of the poor. This concept is fundamentally different from the traditional socio-ecological studies pursued by Park & Hawley. Contention is that ecology defined the range of economic enterprises that had been found suitable for survival typically by different classes of farmer. Access to institution coupled with other public intervention influenced the scale at which these enterprises were operated by different classes.