Tenure and Transition:

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Tenure and Transition
Kyrgyz Pastoral Land Management and the Soviet
Legacy
Jake Fleming UW - Madison April 2008
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100 mi
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Jumgal region, Kyrgyzstan
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summer site
winter site
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CIA 1982
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Song Kol area
20 km
Jumgal
Kochkor
Naryn
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Song Kol area
20 km
Jumgal
Kochkor
Naryn
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Land reform mid 1990s to present
The task, therefore, as in other states, was to
privatize, put land in the hands of individuals,
and make farms responsible for their economic
activity. Bloch Rasmussen 1998

• Open competition among all interested citizens,
  administered by village, rayon, or oblast,
  depending on pasture location
  
• Individuals lease a pasture for 5 to 49 years,
  receive documentation, and pay rent annually to
  government land registry
  
• 2005-2008 Chemonics project Land Reform and
  Market Development - the use of transparent
  auctions and tenders has stimulated land market
  activity

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Land reform mid 1990s to present
The task, therefore, as in other states, was to
privatize, put land in the hands of individuals,
and make farms responsible for their economic
activity. Bloch Rasmussen 1998

• Open competition among all interested citizens,
  administered by village, rayon, or oblast,
  depending on pasture location
  
• Individuals lease a pasture for 5 to 49 years,
  receive documentation, and pay rent annually to
  government land registry
  
• 2005-2008 Chemonics project Land Reform and
  Market Development - the use of transparent
  auctions and tenders has stimulated land market
  activity

THIS DOESNT HAPPEN MUCH
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Informal extralegal pasture management and a
local Soviet legacy
INSTEAD

• Government plays little role in land management
  no auctions, no mapping, no documentation, no
  rent
  
• Some local officials choose not to enforce the
  laws
  
• Persistence of Soviet arrangements the same
  shepherds in the same places
  
• Spatial organization of herding...

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Grazing at Kyz Art
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Informal extralegal pasture management and the
local Soviet legacy
INSTEAD

• Government plays little role in land management
  no auctions, no mapping, no documentation, no
  rent
  
• Some local officials choose not to enforce the
  laws
  
• Persistence of Soviet arrangements the same
  shepherds in the same places
  
• Spatial organization of herding...
• Not static, but change is driven by local needs,
  not land reform ancestral land claims, kinship
  links, tourism

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Comrade, come join our collective farm! 1930
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The link from village to capital...was tenuous,
perforated by long distances, bad roads, poor
communications, and grievous misunderstandings of
what it meant to rule in a communist way.
Kate Brown, A Biography of No Place 2004, p 38
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Acknowledgements
Matthew Turner, Leila Harris, Robert Kaiser, Karl
Zimmerer University of Wisconsin-Madison Center
for Russia, East Europe, and Central Asia
(CREECA) Ak Jol Bazarov, Aida Jumasheva, Myrzabek
Ozubekov, Aidai Osmonalieva, the herders of Kyz
Art and Kol Ukok
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The End