ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that without an adequate understanding of the social factors underlying behaviors that lead to overuse of the rural landscape, the proposed interventions are unlikely to achieve their desired effects. A techno-environmental event, desertification has been much discussed since the sudano-sahelian drought of 1968-1974. Desertification has been attributed by many to the abuse, through overgrazing and overcultivation, of nutrient-poor soils in an unfavorable hot and arid climate. A purely environmental approach to understanding and solving the problem of desertification is inherently inadequate because the causes of "mismanagement" are social, economic, and above all political. The social factors leading to resource abuse in the northern Sudan are largely of the origin. In the Sudan, as in other parts of the developing world, there are often gross discrepancies between formal and effective land tenure systems in rural areas. Access to most grazing land and rainfed agricultural land is regulated by local principles of tenure.
