Ariell Ahearn (University of Oxford)
Rights to the ‘Commons’: Herders caught between privatisation and expropriation of public land in an extractivist state
Large-scale extractivism across Mongolia has emerged chaotically and with little regard for social safeguarding or attention to its social impacts on mobile pastoralists across the country. In this paper, I draw on 6 years of qualitative research on the interface between large infrastructure development such as mines, roads, and wind farms conducted in collaboration with the NGO, Steps without Borders across Omnogovi and Dornogovi provinces. We argue that Mongolia's state-owned land regime, which has successfully enabled and supported long-distance pastoralism across the country, now presents a primary threat to common use of natural resources and traditional mobility practices. The lack of hard, legally-protected land rights for herder use of their own nutag territories (legally classified as public land outside of ovoljoo and havarjaa camp possession contracts) for herders has come into sharp focus as the central government licenses large tracts of land for exclusive mineral extraction, export roads and new energy infrastructures. Forced resettlement and displacement is rife, violating international norms which recognise the value and importance of usufruct land rights. This situation presents a dilemma, as public lands remain vulnerable to land acquisition for mineral development while privatisation disables traditional pastoralist mobility and further fragments the commons. The answer may lie in legal innovation which can move beyond the 'sedentist imaginary' infused in contemporary understandings of space and territory. Drawing on recent analyses exploring rights to mobility and nomadic land use, as well as a legal analysis of Mongolia's current land laws, this paper tentatively explores ways to secure a national commons based on nomadic traditions and pastoralist livelihoods.
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