This article explains the ongoing new land policy formulation in Tanzania as led by the Ministry of Lands. Tanzania’s current land policy of 1995 requires urgent review in order to help address current land-related challenges being experienced in the country. Critical issues include longstanding and increasing incidences of land conflict between different land users and particularly between farmers and pastoralists, the increasing shortage of fertile land due to the growth in the country’s population which has almost doubled since 1990, a need to better address land grabbing, and the need to correct a problematic contradiction in the land laws.

Tanzania has progressive land and natural resource management policies and laws, which provide a comprehensive framework for enabling local communities to varyingly administer, manage and sustainably utilize their land and natural resources.

This paper provides an overview of these laws and analyses how effective these laws have been, particularly over the last 15-20 years when most were promulgated, in enabling communities to secure tenure over and sustainably manage their common property resources – principally grazing, forests and wildlife.