Paper short abstract:

The Moroccan Agency for Sustainable Energy established the biggest Solar Project in the world, taken from communal land previously owned by an Amazigh Clan near Ouarzazate. This have led to loss of access to commons (land, water and plants) and in some cases, access is restricted due to enclosure of land.

Paper long abstract:

However, funds from the sale of the land and a fund from MASEN, labelled as, "fruits of the growth", through which all local people can access funds through local economic initiatives for their livelihood. These compensation initiatives serve as new forms of commons to the local communities in place of the loss of land (old commons). Therefore, the investment acts as a catalyst, through which the natural resources (land, water, and plants) is now transformed into new monetary resources that local actors can tap, under specific conditions, to sustain their livelihood. Pertinent, however, is the question of access (i.e., inclusion and exclusion) regulations, and equality of opportunities for meeting the different livelihood conditions previously supported by the old commons.

In this context, the paper explores the emic perspective on gains and losses to the local population because of the investment with a focus on gender relations at the household level. Specific questions to assess the case study include: How does the invested the livelihood activities of the local people and how do local people benefit from the project and its related new forms of commons? What conditions inhibit local people's from benefiting from the resultant new commons, who benefits and who loses from it? Finally, how are these new commons regulated and which regulatory institutions govern these new commons?

It also hints at how commons disappear and new commons emerge and the processes of accessing the resulting new commons as well as the unequal level of access to these new resources compared to losses in a gender relation perspective.