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Studies of accumulation by dispossession in the Global South tend to focus on individual sectors, for example, large‐scale agriculture or nature conservation. Yet smallholder farmers and pastoralists are affected by multiple processes of land alienation. Drawing on the case of Tanzania, we illustrate the analytical purchase of a comprehensive examination of dynamics of land alienation across multiple sectors. To begin with, processes of land alienation through investments in agriculture, mining, conservation, and tourism dovetail with a growing social differentiation and class formation. These dynamics generate unequal patterns of land deprivation and accumulation that evolve in a context of continued land dependency for the vast majority of the rural population. Consequently, land alienation engenders responses by individuals and communities seeking to maintain control over their means of production. These responses include migration, land tenure formalization, and land transactions, that propagate across multiple localities and scales, interlocking with and further reinforcing the effects of land alienation. Various localized processes of primitive accumulation contribute to a scramble for land in the aggregate, providing justifications for policies that further drive land alienation.

This paper deals with rural households’ decision regarding tree planting on farmland in developing countries. This has been the topic of numerous descriptive socio-economic studies. In many cases the findings and claims of these studies are ambiguous, although there is a general agreement about the importance of imperfect markets. In addition, no studies that we know of have formalised the tree planting decision in a prescriptive format. In this paper we develop and evaluate a predictive theoretical rational-behaviour model to explore the tree planting decision that encompasses household factor endowments and market characteristics. We elaborate upon the model characteristics and discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the model. In addition, we assess the data needs for the model and the data availability in a Tanzanian context.

The paper deals with issues of taxation in relation to decentralisation of forest resources. It presents preliminary empirical data from Tanzania in the form of forest taxation records from 12 villages that have gained jurisdiction over forest products taxation through a decentralisation reform. The analysis shows that (i) decentralisation of forest resources can lead to vast improvements of taxation effectiveness and (ii) taxation of forest products may be regressive or progressive in relation to income distribution. Thus, the effects of increased forest taxation effectiveness on poverty alleviation are ambiguous and highly dependent upon the local pattern of forest utilisation. The indication that forest decentralisation can lead to higher effectiveness in the taxation of forest products contradicts some of the general debate on the effects and potentials of decentralisation on taxation, and, hence, provides an argument for continued decentralisation of natural resources.