The Unregistered Lands Act of 1970 was a
Sudan
Sudan ( or ; ar, السودان, as-Sūdān, officially the Republic of the Sudan ( ar, جمهورية السودان, link=no, Jumhūriyyat as-Sūdān), is a country in Northeast Africa. It shares borders with the Central African Republic t ...
legislation. The law stipulated that all lands not
privately owned and registered would automatically belong to the state. The law effectively abolished communal
land ownership under customary practices and was known as the "terror" for most of the society. Although mostly Muslim,
Darfur
Darfur ( ; ar, دار فور, Dār Fūr, lit=Realm of the Fur) is a region of western Sudan. ''Dār'' is an Arabic word meaning "home f – the region was named Dardaju ( ar, دار داجو, Dār Dājū, links=no) while ruled by the Daju, ...
is not an Arab region; this plays a role in the ethnic based conflicts. The various ethnic groups have different ways of
land tenure systems. Some with special allocations for local groups and others with outsiders getting access to the land by paying rent, the rent collected is often shared amongst the landholding families. With the development of the
acacia gum, the collection of rents became popularised over the land.
Millet
Millets () are a highly varied group of small-seeded grasses, widely grown around the world as cereal crops or grains for fodder and human food. Most species generally referred to as millets belong to the tribe Paniceae, but some millets al ...
and
sorghum
''Sorghum'' () is a genus of about 25 species of flowering plants in the grass family (Poaceae). Some of these species are grown as cereals for human consumption and some in pastures for animals. One species is grown for grain, while many othe ...
grains were often used by farming communities in Darfur. This is because they were and still are staple crops, however, the risk of
crop failure was always there, due to
drought
A drought is defined as drier than normal conditions.Douville, H., K. Raghavan, J. Renwick, R.P. Allan, P.A. Arias, M. Barlow, R. Cerezo-Mota, A. Cherchi, T.Y. Gan, J. Gergis, D. Jiang, A. Khan, W. Pokam Mba, D. Rosenfeld, J. Tierney, an ...
and pest. Therefore, alternative income possibilities were important, mostly for their livestock, but also for the other agricultural crops as well as gathering fruits, seeds and roots from plants. Studies have shown that about half of man's labour and most of women's labour was taken up with millets and sorghums during difficult seasons. This became a major problem in cultivation and other activities that were engaged in. The round of cultivated plots was an important characteristic as no
fertilizer
A fertilizer (American English) or fertiliser (British English; see spelling differences) is any material of natural or synthetic origin that is applied to soil or to plant tissues to supply plant nutrients. Fertilizers may be distinct from ...
was available, but due to population increase people were forced to stay longer on the land, this created degradation. Land rotation was common in earlier times, increasing
population pressure has led to situations in which people cultivated their plots more often.
Conflict over land soon became politicised by the 1970 Unregistered Lands Act. The act was a Sudanese legislation, it was made to stipulate that all lands that were not privately owned and registered would directly belong to the state
[Ryle, John. ]
The Sudan Handbook
'. Suffolk: James Currey Ltd, 2011. p. 112
References
Law of Sudan
{{sudan-stub