Introduction
Tensions between sedentary and nomadic villagers in Morocco's Souss region garnered significant media attention in 2024. Despite the Moroccan government's adoption of Pastoral Law 113-13, which was enforced upon the publication of its implementing texts in 2018, significant problems have prevented the law from achieving its ambitious (or perhaps overly ambitious) objective of regulating Morocco's pastoral system. As well as wanting to promote pastoral livestock farming, the State has claimed to be driven by the urgent need to avoid the degradation of pastoral resources, which could lead to social conflict.
Regulating the pastoral system in Morocco is a complex task. Climate change is making pastoral lands, located mainly in arid zones, even more fragile. Traditional management of relations between users of these lands is based on a complex system combining traditional customs, Muslim law, and “modern” law, which was introduced during the colonial and post-colonial periods (Mahdi and Tozy, 1990; Bendella, 2016). The situation is made more complex both by the diversity of the actors and institutions involved and the complex and diverse nature of the land, which includes agricultural, forest, collective, and private lands. The State appropriates these lands to carry out its development projects, further complicating the matter.
In 2016, Morocco promulgated Law 113-13, governing transhumance and the development and management of pastoral and silvopastoral areas. In response to various clashes in the Souss-Massa region from 2011 to the present day, particularly in Tiznit province in southwest Morocco between villagers and nomads mainly from the Moroccan Sahara, the law has emerged as a means of regulation.
Based on the observation that public policy objectives are often out of sync with social reality (Pressman and Wildavsky, 1973), this article aims to analyze pastoral policy through the lens of public policy, focusing on certain aspects of its implementation. The analysis aims to demonstrate how a government, in devising a solution for a social problem, sees the initial lag reflected throughout the policy's life cycle. It is therefore necessary to examine the steps involved in the decision-making process.
This study was carried out in the province of Tiznit, the epicenter of the conflict between the two groups (sedentary and nomadic villagers). Tiznit is the first region to have use law enforcement to enforce the law. Our fieldwork was carried out during a transitional period, when the law was first applied (2020-2023).
To carry out this research, we conducted around 20 semi-structured interviews with representatives of the villagers, nomads, and local government. We also used participant observation to document the application of the law in the field. Finally, we analyzed reports from certain administrations as well as local press articles, which were of great help in tracing past events.
I. Setting the agenda for Pastoral Law 113-13
Before examining how government actors define the conflict over pastoral land access and use, we must consider social perception. This approach allows us to trace how the issue's formulation evolves among decision-makers in response to the population's expressed needs. Understanding this connection is crucial for our research into the dynamics of pastoral land conflicts.
1. The problem of pastoral land defined by villagers
Since 2011, tensions between villagers in the Souss region and nomadic herders, mainly from the Sahara, have become worrisome, sometimes reaching penal levels (El Yamani, 2021; Boubrik, 2022). Villagers accuse the herds of Saharan breeders of causing major damage to their agricultural property. Villagers often blame major investors in mobile livestock farming, especially camel farming, and their shepherds. The villagers and their representatives insist that the damage is not caused by the nomads, but by what they call al moukawiloune (the entrepreneurs) or mafia al rohal (the nomad mafia). These terms are used to differentiate between two categories of herders: anthropologically speaking, nomads who adopt traditional values and standards of respect and “good” cohabitation, and entrepreneurial herders or large-scale pastoralists. These pastoralists are typically “involved in intensive pastoralism and a mercantile pastoral mode.” They are often “large owners of camel herds, they are generally senior civil servants, businessmen, military officers, parliamentarians, elected local representatives, political figures, tribal notables, influential people and major traders” (Boubrik, 2022). Pastoralists differ drastically from nomads, whose herds typically do not exceed a few hundred heads.
The villagers particularly point the finger at extensive camel farming, which they see as the main cause of the damage to their plots. They claim that the investors employ several salaried shepherds who guide the herds onto their agricultural plots.
Faced with these growing tensions, the State's attempts to regulate the conflict through the creation of a provincial committee (representing the various local institutions concerned with pastoral land), were deemed unsatisfactory by the villagers and their representatives. The latter called for a ban on access to their land, especially with respect to entrepreneurial herders and their herdsmen.
2. The cause of pastoral land according to state actors
The inability of local institutions to apply a rule of exclusion to mobile herders was justified by the absence of a clear legal framework to regulate access to and use of rangelands. The need for a legal solution thus emerged and was subsequently supported by the population at rallies and meetings. It was also the subject of recommendations in reports sent by the local services of the Ministry of the Interior to the central directorates.
It is important to mention that the recourse to local administrations and the subsequent demand for a legal framework allude to a break with the traditional management of pastoral land. This break is due to the weakening (or “disappearance” by locality) of traditional institutions such as the jmaa and agdal, and customary norms that until recently (the post-colonial period) governed relations between villagers and nomads around access to and use of pastoral land.
The understanding of pastoral land issues has evolved in the decision-making arena depending on the central government actors that have addressed the topic and the occasion on which it has been discussed.
According to the local press, the first occasion was during the study days organized in 2012 in the town of Tiznit by the Department of Agriculture to discuss local problems and issues other than the pastoral conflict. The press reports that the Minister of Agriculture took the opportunity to talk about the cause described as “overgrazing” and mentioned the involvement of nomadic shepherds. The Minister focused on technical, institutional, and legal solutions as a framework for resolving the conflict. We'll come back to this in the following sections.
The second occasion was a study day organized in 2013 in Agadir to discuss the results of a study carried out by the Department of Agriculture on the issue of pastoral land, where the cause linked to dromedary breeding was addressed. But it was based on a ministerial note presenting the Pastoral Law sent to parliament that a definition of the cause of pastoral land could be deduced, without any mention of the problem linked to shepherds, livestock companies, or dromedary breeding.
The cause was mainly defined as competition for pastoral resources, for which the state had no responsibility. Contrary to the villagers' definition, the State presents the cause as follows: “the scarcity and continual degradation of pastoral resources in traditional rangelands have caused social conflict”. The note associates these problems with several factors: the reduction in the area of rangelands and pastoral resources, including villagers' practices such as land clearing and cultivation, plantations, abusive firewood harvesting, anarchic permanent and irremovable constructions, and de facto appropriation.
The cultivation of pastoral land has encouraged farmers to plant monocultures as part of the Green Morocco Plan (PMV), in particular, its pillar linked to solidarity farming. The majority of these plantations were carried out on pastoral land for the benefit of a group of farmers grouped into professional organizations. Indeed, the conflict between the villagers and the nomads was caused precisely by the degradation of several plots planted by the Department of Agriculture as part of a PMV prickly pear plantation project. These plots were planted on pastoral land traditionally used by nomads, increasingly reducing grazing land (El Yamani, 2021; Boubrik, 2022).
On this subject, the ministerial note adds that as far as nomads and transhumants are concerned, demographic growth has contributed to an increase in the “phenomenon of transhumance of populations and their livestock”, although statistics show, on the contrary, a decline in the number of nomads. Their numbers have fallen by 63% in 10 years, according to the 2014 general population census. Their numbers fell from 68540 in 2004 to 25274 nomads in 2014, according to statistics from the Haut-Commissariat au Plan.
It has to be said that the increase in the number of pastoral livestock is due to livestock entrepreneurs who have invested significant capital in mercantile breeding encouraged by the state to feed Morocco's major metropolises (Mahdi, 2014; Boubrik, 2022).
In this definition of the cause, the state's perspective was to deny its responsibility for the degradation of pastoral resources and the social tensions between villagers and mobile herders by promoting neoliberal public policies such as the PMV (Mahdi, 2014) and the development of intensive camel breeding (Boubrik, 2022) that did not respect the equilibrium of the pastoral system.
3. Broadening the cause: an ecological redefinition
An ecological dimension was an added contributing factor to the issue during a conference organized in Agadir in 2013, attended by over 200 participants, to discuss transhumance in the argan area. During this event, where the results of a study carried out on the pastoral system were discussed, the conversation around mobile livestock farming was directed toward grazing in the argan area, a symbol of ecology in the Souss. However, in addition to the argan tree, the rangelands are made up of collective land, forest, and private land. At this symposium, the argan tree emerged as a symbol in the fight against overgrazing, adding an environmental angle to the issue.
At the same time, during this study day, the discourse used by state actors reduced the entire pastoral system to the phenomenon linked to “transhumance”, without mentioning nomadism, which by definition constitutes a way of life and breeding that is in harmony with nature and should be preserved.
Thus, the framing of the ecological dimension as justified by the impact of climate change and the preservation of natural resources, subsequently constituted the main argument of the presentation note of the law sent to parliament for promulgation.
II. The decision-making process
1. A top-down approach despite participatory consultation
When it comes to decision-making, pastoral land was entrusted to the Department of Agriculture, which was mandated to carry out a study on rangelands. Contrary to what might be expected, i.e. that solutions would emerge from the results of the study, the expectation was that the Department of Agriculture would advise that previously formulated solutions be followed. The decision-makers at the central level (the Minister of the Interior, the Minister of Agriculture, and the High Commissioner for Water and Forests) agreed that the best way to solve the issue was legally. Other solutions were formulated by the Minister of Agriculture and were of a technical nature. For example, he suggested that “set-aside” zones be created within the framework of the Green Morocco Plan (Plan Maroc Vert), and of an institutional nature, through the creation of several new pastoral land management institutions, notably the Commission Nationale des Parcours, regional committees, pastoral cooperatives, and regulators.
This is a top-down approach, although the decision-making process may seem consultative with the population concerned, for the following reasons:
- The set of solutions adopted had been mentioned from the outset of the process by the Minister of Agriculture during the days organized in Tiznit in 2012, on a theme other than pastoralism, before being discussed as the results of a socio-technical study.
- The participatory approach adopted at the day on transhumance in the argan area, attended by over 200 people representing villagers, nomads, and several state institutions, steered discussions toward the application of solutions that had already been decided.
- As far as the legal solution is concerned, the population’s intention is to apply restrictions mainly to entrepreneurial herders who do not respect the norms or rules traditionally shared with nomads, such as camping away from villages, respecting the agdal of the argan tree, and not approaching farmland and watering points. Since the State does not distinguish between the two categories of herders – traditional nomads with a limited number of heads and mobile livestock investors with herds of several thousand heads – nomads find themselves subject to the same rules and restrictions as entrepreneurs. This situation highlights a major shortcoming in the development of the decision, which will undoubtedly have repercussions as the law is implemented.
Despite the State's use of a participatory approach, the management of participatory meetings reveals a top-down strategy in the development of solutions (Sabatier, 1986). Consultations with the population are mainly geared toward acceptance of the new alternatives proposed by decision-makers and serve to influence public opinion in favor of these already predetermined choices.
2. The urgency of the situation
Crisis narration and the use of symbolically charged words characterize the bill's presentation to parliament. This is a well-known method among decision-makers in crisis-related policies, for mobilizing public opinion around an immediate response to problems. The Minister pointed out that the problem of pastoral land has “social, economic and environmental implications”, stressing that the aforementioned practices of villagers and herders have impacts on the sustainability of the resource. He added that these practices were causing “increasingly serious degradation of rangelands, a reduction in the productive capacity of these rangelands, a loss of biological diversity and thus an environmental imbalance, and a disruption of the balance between forage supply and livestock feed requirements”.
In listing several adverse effects of climate change, he mentioned that the latter results in “major social conflicts” and added, “hence the urgent need to remedy this situation and its consequences by putting in place a specific and appropriate legal framework capable of providing solutions to the problems”.
III. Implementation
In order to move beyond the top-down nature of pastoral policy, it is necessary to understand how it generates changes among local players by forcing a new category introduced by the law, namely of the regulators, into interaction with traditional users of pastoral land, in this case, the nomads. The adaptation of law enforcement (Friedberg, 1993) by street bureaucrats (Lipsky, 1980) and the strategies adopted by nomads illustrate these changes, which may lead to inequality.
1. Livestock entrepreneur or nomad: the law applies to all!
Nomads, characterized by their frequent movements in search of grass and water to feed their livestock (a practice which is carried out in harmony with the natural supply of pastoral resources) are now faced with a number of administrative constraints that seem ill-suited to their way of life.
Under Moroccan Law 113-13, nomads must apply to the local authorities to move. Before issuing permits, local administrations have to carry out a considerable amount of preliminary work. Authorization depends on various factors linked to the location of the pasture and its integration into the “pastoral scheme” defined by law. This scheme, conceived as a detailed map of the pastoral area, specifies established routes, pastoral infrastructures (watering points, animal shelters, etc.), and grazing areas. This work is generally entrusted to consulting firms and must be validated at several levels of bureaucracy, notably by the national commission and regional committees. This coordination is difficult for an administration that is often understaffed and lacking in resources, especially in the transition phase.
Nomads, who are constantly on the move, are therefore obliged to obtain authorization based on the pastoral pattern, the number of livestock, the animal species, and the number of shepherds responsible for the herd. Authorization is granted based on pasture conditions and water availability and is limited in time and space. Any extension of the stay requires an extension of the authorization by the administrative authorities.
The administrative constraints do not stop there. Nomads must inform the authorities each time they enter or leave a pastoral area. Prior authorization from the forestry authorities is required to move onto silvopastoral land. On collective land, a grazing contract must be signed with the landowning groups, after consultation with the authorities.
In addition, nomads must be extremely vigilant when it comes to respecting the pastoral plan, which evolves according to available resources. They must also comply with procedures for relocation and adapt to environmental changes involving administrative modifications. These constraints make pastoral practices more cumbersome and accelerate the decline in nomadism, particularly for small-scale herders who travel with their families to feed their livestock.
The new administrative rules reinforce state control over nomads, reducing their autonomy and redefining power relations. The introduction of these constraints, in response to the activities of large-scale livestock entrepreneurs, is suffered by nomads and profoundly affects their traditional way of life. The bureaucratization of pastoral displacement can erode the cultural practices and traditional knowledge of nomads, threatening their identity and cultural heritage. Nomads are faced with a dilemma: preserve their ancestral practices or adapt to an administrative system that does not fully recognize their way of life.
The disparities between traditional nomads and entrepreneurial herders are exacerbated by these new rules. Entrepreneurial herders, often better equipped to navigate administrative procedures, may have a significant advantage. On the other hand, traditional nomads, with fewer resources and less familiarity with bureaucracy, are at a disadvantage, which may exacerbate existing inequalities.
2. Street bureaucrats and nomad strategy
- The street bureaucracy's lack of resources
The regulators, responsible for implementing Law 113-13, face a number of challenges in carrying out their duties. As street-level bureaucrats, they play a crucial role in enforcing public policy but often lack the means and resources to perform their duties effectively.
One of the main challenges facing these controllers is staff shortages. With only two enforcement officers for the entire province of Tiznit, their work is becoming extremely laborious. They have to carry out regular patrols, particularly in pastoral areas managed by the State. Due to a lack of supervision, some perimeters have not been transferred to the pastoral cooperatives that are supposed to manage them after completion of the work, because of various blockages, notably ethnic. One inspector told us: “Just imagine, I'm the one who's still watching over them; every time, I have to go round and round.”
What is more, these inspectors receive no reimbursement for the numerous journeys they have to make to carry out their duties. They face precarious conditions in their day-to-day work. For example, in order to draw up official statements of offense, the inspectors have had to finance the creation of a statement of offense book, based on the model provided by law. Their work is not valued, and because of the lack of infrastructure for enforcing the law, one official shared a revealing anecdote: when seizing a motorcycle belonging to a nomad who had caused trouble, he had to deal with logistical difficulties. He explained there is no room to store cars or motorcycles. He added: “There's no pound for animals, and even if they wanted to build one, there's no land.”
What is more, these enforcement officers sometimes have to intervene in situations of tribal or community conflict, which can put their safety at risk. For example, an agent recounted an incident where, following a quarrel, a nomad from the Azilal region injured a nomad from the Sahara with a stone before fleeing. That same evening, members of the Saharan community came to help. When the administration was informed, an inspector went to the scene but had to drive over rough roads without being able to turn on his car's headlights, for fear of being mistaken for the aggressor and attacked.
These examples illustrate the many challenges and risks faced by inspectors in the performance of their duties. As street-level bureaucrats, their crucial role in implementing Pastoral Law is hampered by a lack of resources and institutional support. Their situation also highlights the tensions inherent in the management of pastoral resources, where local and community issues complicate the implementation of public policies.
- Street bureaucrats: flexibility in applying the rules of Pastoral Law
In accordance with Law 113-13, the control of rangelands and the recording of offenses are entrusted to local agents of the Department of Agriculture, known as regulators, or, as the locals call them, chortate al mara'i (the rangeland police). These officers represent “street-level bureaucracy” (Lipsky, 1980). Their work began after the law's application texts were published in 2018.
In the absence of a pastoral map or plan, the enforcement officers decide to carry out controls according to specific cases: in the event of confrontation, following meetings of the provincial security council where directives are given to the provincial rangeland committee to carry out patrols, or following a complaint from local authorities, or systematically in cases of land that is still under the protection (mises en défens) and responsibility of the Department of Agriculture.
In the absence of a pastoral scheme delimiting grazing areas, enforcement officers often choose to limit their checks to verifying whether or not a movement permit is in their possession, even though the issuing of this document has not yet begun due to the lack of a pastoral scheme.
Enforcement officers recognize that a significant gap exists between when a new law takes effect, and the practical conditions needed to fully implement it. In this period of transition, although the majority of nomads do not yet have permits, an officer explains: “When I see that he has just arrived [referring to the herder], I give him a week to leave; if he stays too long, I give him two or three days.”
In the event of infringement, fines are not systematically drawn up. A ticket is issued when “the nomad is caught in flagrant transgression concerning the goods, or on the second occurrence” if he fails to leave the premises after the first warning, explains the ticket inspector.
An analysis of the official statements of offense reveals that the number of animals in breach of the law is relatively low. To avoid excessive fines, one inspector explains that they mention a small number of animals. He adds: “If I give him a fine of 20 million dirhams, he'll kill me”, referring to the breeder. This shows a way of adapting the application of the law, but also a precaution that the owner is threatening his life. He recounts how, on one occasion, they discovered that the owner of an offending herd was in prison for drug trafficking and smuggling.
- Breeders' strategies for dealing with offenders:
- Not revealing one's identity: a concealment tactic
When confronted by ticket inspectors, farmers deploy skillful concealment tactics, as illustrated by several testimonials we gathered. One inspector explained to us a way in which breeders evade their inspection by taking refuge in the mountains at the time of the inspection, or by making sure to hide any papers revealing their identity. He tells us:
At one point, they [the nomads] really got on my nerves. They leave the herd and go up the mountain. On my first visit to his place, he attacked the people; on the second visit, he threw stones at us. On the third visit, I decided to arrest him. We set up a roadblock, he had a motorcycle, we stopped and searched him. We took off all his clothes, but he didn't have any ID or driver's license. I told him I was going to call the administration truck to seize the motorcycle. Finally, we found the papers under the seat of the motorcycle, hidden under a blanket.
Others also mention a tactic linked to the use of their wives who replace them at the time of control, which creates a hesitancy on the part of the ticket inspectors to intervene when faced with vulnerable women with no identity papers. As one officer explained: “They do it on purpose; sometimes they leave a woman or a little girl at the campsite. She doesn't have an ID card or any other documents. You stay a while, you can't do anything, and then you end up leaving.”
Other accounts illustrate how, through well-thought-out maneuvers, herders manage to get around administrative requirements, transforming concealment into a survival tactic by using foreign herdsmen. As one controller tells us: “Sometimes they bring back herdsmen from Mauritania who have no papers and don't know where to go.” They may also use people wanted by the law. The controller added: “Otherwise, they bring people sentenced to prison. They stay in hiding until their file is put on reserve after 4 or 5 years, and then they leave. When you ask them for their identity card, they tell you it's with the boss.”
- Legal loopholes in the law, according to nomads
During this transitional period, before the full implementation of the regulations and infrastructure required for the application of the Pastoral Law, notably the pound for the seizure of offending animals, nomadic herders tended to exploit legal loopholes. This illustrates the challenges faced by the administration in enforcing the law. For example, one enforcement officer explained to us how some nomads calculate fines to demonstrate the ineffectiveness of the law in certain situations, highlighting loopholes that require particular attention.
In fact, according to an article concerning the fixing of fine amounts, in the event of an offense caused by a breeder's animals, the latter is punished by a fine per head which varies according to the species of animal: 100 dirhams for sheep and goats, 250 dirhams for cattle, equines and donkeys, and 500 dirhams for camelids (Article 42 of Law 113-13). Seized animals are impounded for one week before being sold at auction.
As to the application of the fine, a controller explains:
If we catch a dromedary, there's no problem. It costs a million and a half (dirhams); its owner will come and collect it and pay 500 dirhams per head, as well as for what it has eaten, as stipulated in the law but if you catch a donkey... the donkey costs 100 dirhams at the souk, its fine is 250 dirhams, its food 50 dirhams a day. If you keep him for a week, it'll cost 1,500 dirhams... and he's worth nothing. What are you going to do with him?
Even in the case of ewes, a nomad did the math for 10 ewes and explained: “They cost between 120 and 130 dirhams each at the market. If you take them, I won't come and get them. Take them back to the souk [marketplace]! They're worthless.”
Conclusion
Designed to organize the pastoral system in Morocco, Law 113-13 faces real challenges in terms of its implementation. A critical analysis of Moroccan pastoral policy reveals that when the decision-making process starts out of sync with social reality, there can be repercussions on its implementation. This, in turn, can become a source of inequality.
While the law appears to result from a collaborative process, the government's approach to consulting local stakeholders seems largely symbolic. This strategy appears aimed at lending public legitimacy to the law, rather than genuinely incorporating diverse viewpoints. In reality, it may serve to reinforce predetermined policy decisions made by central authorities.
Our case study also highlights the changes brought about by public policy among local players. These changes are justified, on the one hand, by the strategies of adaptation in the application of the law adopted by the local bureaucracy, represented by the enforcers, who have to adapt to the working conditions and lack of infrastructure necessary for the accomplishment of their mission, and on the other hand, by the strategies of nomads, who, when interacting with the enforcers, adopt behaviors aimed at escaping the payment of fines.
The central actors of the State must be aware of the disruptions that pastoral policy may entail for the survival of nomadic stockbreeding, which is subject to the same administrative constraints as mercantile stockbreeding, thus threatening to accelerate its decline.
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The views represented in this paper are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Arab Reform Initiative, its staff, or its board.
