Agdal

(plural Iguldan).

   This word denotes pasture in private and communal property of an individual owner or community of users and serving only herds. In its classic form, an agdal is a communal pasture whose opening and closing dates are fixed by the community of users. An agdal is a collective property used by tribal and intertribal groups, and customary laws limit its boundaries and fix its closing and opening dates. Agdal systems exist at different levels of the social organization of the commons. Some are used by sedentary residents of a single village, while others are under the right of use of different transhumant clans and tribes. In the eastern High Atlas Mountains and the Saharan lowlands, for instance, the term agdal traditionally refers to collective pasture governed and managed by a local assembly of elderly men representing the tribes of the confederation who fix the opening and closing of pasture. This same assembly designates an amghar n-ugdal or n'tuga (grass administrator) to enforce the dates of closings and openings and to report violations of the customary rules of the agdal's administration.

   See also Droughts; Pastoral Nomadism.