Spilling Blood over Water? The Case of Ethiopia 265provide a feasibility study that includes assessment of environmental impacts
and proposed protection strategie~.~
The rights of secondary land users are affirmed under the 1997 Environ-
mental Policy. It states that secondary users have the right to uninterrupted
access to land and resources, including trees, water, wildlife and pasture. In
addition, the policy affirms the need to protect customary rights to access
land and resources, as well as customary uses that are constitutionally per-
missible."
Nonetheless, it will be some time before these policies are enforced and
land-holders and users enjoy the benefits of greater tenure security. The pres-
ent government has yet to formulate a clear land policy to indicate possible
law reforms to strengthen tenure rights for landholders and users. Until the
government formulates a land policy and proposed law reforms, most rural
populations will continue to have insecure tenure rights to land and
resources. Lack of tenure security has discouraged farmers and other land
users from making investments in physical infrastructure, planting and main-
taining trees, or replenishing soil fertility.
Officially, land is allocated through peasant associations. Moreover, peas-
ant associations are expected to educate their members about environmental
protection and sustainable farming methods. In other areas, traditional
authorities allocate land, such as in pastoral areas. In Borana, pastoralists
rely on deep well complexes for water during the dry season. These wells are
recognised as belonging to a particular clan or group of families. Economic
and religious life centres on the wells and they are a recurrent theme in
Borana politics. Wells require extensive maintenance and no one can use the
wells without the consent of the konfi, or traditional leader, who manages
the wells on behalf of the clan under the 'well council' (cora ella).
The konfi will rarely deny a migrating pastoralist access to the well since
it is imperative to preserve amiable social ties. However, he will instruct the
pastoralist when he can water his animals, as well as limit the number of
animals that can be watered and the length of the stay.72 The daily routines
at the well are supervised by an officer known as abba hirega, 'the father of
the watering order:73
Up to now, the development of land and natural resources was not guided
by long-term planning. As Shibru Tedla describes, the absence of a planning
framework for land and natural resources has resulted in uncoordinated
development, with many conflicts between different government agencies.
Examples include the extraction of soda from Lake Abijata (a protected area)
and the development of a state coffee farm in Bebeka (a priority state forest
area). Tedla suggests that "the absence of land use planning has become the
root cause of conflict between government and peasants or pastoral people
who traditionally depended on land prior to such development^".'^
The lack of coordination in developing land and resources is apparent else