ABSTRACT
The idea of Tanzania as a land-abundant nation needs to be altered to include the intensifying contemporary competition for arable and grazing lands. Tanzania is now experiencing an increasing number of land conflicts between different interest groups and between various types of land use. There are more and more cases of land struggles between groups of pastoralists and the state; disputes between villages over village boundaries; individual farmers against each other and/or the village government; land disputes between family and clan members, between rural and urban dwellers, between old and young people, and between men and women. There are examples of farmers joining forces to try to get their fellow pastoral villagers out from the areas where they live. The fairly recent creation of notably pastoral organisations attempting at a general level to defend the rights of pastoralists to land is an indication that some pastoralists are trying to strike back. I In other words, the scramble for land in Tanzania is in full swing. This situation poses challenges of how land rights are to be negotiated.
