rice, fruit trees and small-scale market gardening. Extensive livestock farming is
increasing due to clearance of the tsetse fly, the contribution of cotton revenues and the
impact of migration from the arid northern areas. Despite the area being relatively wealthy
in terms of natural resources as compared to the rest of the country, it is severely
degrading due to a combination of factors. These factors indicate a high population
growth, an increasing livestock number, an important immigration, an important impact of
traditional tenure systems, archaic farming systems and inappropriate land use strategies.
For that reason, the province was chosen as a pilot to start implementing a communitybased land management approach. A participatory land management program financed
by the World Bank was initiated in 1992 with the objective of conducting a sustainable
land management based on a participatory planning, while improving the local social
conditions by increasing the household revenues. Based on the remarkable results of this
experience the government started at regional scale a sustainable land management
program for the period 2001- 2006. Two cases were used for studying the local to
regional integration.