Her Work and its Contribution to tHe tHeory and PraCtiCe of Conservation and sustainable natural resourCe ManageMent Policy Matters iuCn CoMMission on environMental, eConoMiC and soCial PoliCy issue 19 aPril 2014

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An Assessment of Community Management of 

Traditional Woodland Enclosures (Hiza’ti) 

in the Highlands of Eritrea

Bereket Tsehaye Haile

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POLICY MATTERS 2014: REMEMBERING ELINOR OSTROM

48

An Assessment of Community Management 

of Traditional Woodland Enclosures 

(Hiza’ti) in the Highlands of Eritrea

Bereket Tsehaye Haile

1

Abstract

In rural Eritrea, people’s lives are closely linked to local natural resources. Villages in the 

highlands of Eritrea have a long-standing tradition of forest and woodlands management. The 

hiza’ti

 system (traditional woodland enclosure), which is practiced by systematically restricting 

grazing and biomass harvesting, is one example. However, efforts to understand such traditions 

and assess their effectiveness as management systems have been limited. This research 

explores how communities manage their traditional woodland enclosures (hiza’ti) and assess 

their effectiveness, through qualitative research conducted in the village of Lamza. Four focus 

group discussions were conducted in addition to several key informant and household-head 

interviews. Ostrom’s Design Principles for commons management were then used to analyse the 

robustness of the management regime. The study found that the village held a strong attachment 

with their natural resources and traditions of managing the local woodland. The community 

played a major role in protecting and monitoring their enclosure, with a mutual monitoring 

and sanctioning system that was commensurate with the benefits that villagers drew from the 

woodland enclosure. Analysis shows that the hiza’ti system fulfills most of Ostrom’s design 

principles through a robust set of institutional arrangements. However, the study identified 

potential threats to Design Principles three and seven, particularly in relation to interference 

from lower level government institutions that may affect collective choice among the villagers, 

as well as other actors that threaten to weaken the autonomy of the village assembly (baito) and 

their right to organise. 

Keywords: Traditional woodland enclosure (Hiza’ti), Common Pool Recourses (CPRs), Ostrom, 

Design Principles, Eritrea

1

 School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, UK, Email [e-mail]

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POLICY MATTERS 2014: REMEMBERING ELINOR OSTROM

49

INTRODUCTION

Eritrea is an agrarian state located in the 

horn of Africa. From a total population of 6.2 

million people (July 2013 estimate), 80% of 

Eritreans depend on traditional agriculture, 

characterised by rain-fed subsistence farming 

and a pastoral livestock system relying 

primarily on family labour (NSEO and ORC 

Marco, 2003; Sibhatu, 2006). In rural areas, 

people interact daily with their natural 

environment, and have acquired significant 

knowledge in the use and management of 

their shared (communal) resources. If such 

resources are utilized without regulation, 

they are exploited on “a first-come, first-

served” basis (Gebremedhin et al. 2003), 

possibly resulting in their eventual depletion. 

Communities tackle the problem of 

overexploitation by crafting local institutions 

to regulate and ensure the sustainable use of 

these communal resources. 

Several villages in the highlands of Eritrea 

have a management system in place for 

their forests and woodlands called hiza’ti 

(traditional woodland enclosure). The 

hiza’ti

 system is practiced by systematically 

restricting grazing and biomass harvesting. 

The main objective is to enhance the natural 

regeneration of those native species that 

contribute to sustaining local community 

livelihoods. The hiza’ti system is believed to 

have started when a shortage of firewood 

and pastoral resources began to impact rural 

communities, and rules were established 

to ration their use (FAO 1997). Hiza’ti are 

managed and monitored by local communities, 

with monitoring taking place either through 

a rotational scheme that each household 

is obliged to participate in, or by hiring 

permanent guards whose salaries are paid 

collectively (Sibhatu 2006). 

Despite the rich tapestry of grassroots forest 

management practices evident in Eritrea, 

government policymakers have, on the whole, 

ignored them. The top-down approach of 

deploying government-appointed forest 

guards and enacting strict regulation is still 

the predominant management approach in the 

country, with minimal efforts to understand 

traditional practices and evaluate their 

effectiveness. This study thus looks to assess 

the current role played by local communities 

in managing woodland enclosures and to 

appraise the effectiveness (robustness) 

of their management using the criteria 

developed by Nobel Laureate, Elinor Ostrom. 

While Garrett Hardin (1968) suggested 

that communal resources will inevitably 

suffer overexploitation unless transferred to 

private or government ownership, he failed 

to recognise that commons can be managed 

by a group of users with exclusive rights to 

regulate the resource under customary tenure 

arrangements, with effective local institutions 

enabling user access to be regulated. It was 

Ostrom’s work, 

in particular, that 

openly challenged 

the limitations of 

Hardin’s thesis 

and argued for 

solutions beyond 

state or private 

property (Ostrom 

1990). 

Due to the complex 

interactions that 

link society and 

environment, 

analysing the 

effectiveness of 

common property 

regimes is no 

easy task (Ostrom 2007). Most of the ‘success 

factors’ are site specific, while Agrawal (2001) 

argued that the variables that determine the 

success of Common Pool Resource (CPR) 

institutions are numerous, correlated and 

interrelated. Nonetheless, some common 

attributes are shared by many successful 

common property management systems 

(Ostrom 1990; Tucker 1999). In her ground-

breaking work, Governing the Commons, 

Ostrom (1990) pointed to eight general design 

principles characteristic of successful CPR 

institutions (Table 1). According to Ostrom, 

a design principle refers to “an essential 

element or condition that helps to account for 

the success of these institutions in sustaining 

the CPRs and gaining the compliance of 

The usefulness 

and validity 

of Ostrom’s 

design 

principles 

have been 

shown in their 

application in 

CPR studies 

over the past 

two decades.

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