21 MARTINDALE CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF PRIVATE ENTERPRISE which makes payments to compensate the Berber Aït Ougrour community that used the land for seminomadic purposes before expropriation. These payments are held by the Ministry of Interior on behalf of the community. The Community Supervisory Council then decides with the Ministry how to spend the money, so that “local community expectations are better addressed” (Rignall, 2015). The creation of one of the largest renewable energy plants in the world, and the process the government took to expropriate the land it was built on, demonstrates the opportunities and challenges that come with privatizing the country’s communal land. Protests over communal land Community members have not taken inadequate reform and expropriation attempts lightly. Numerous protests have resulted in response to different legislation passed (or not passed). Specifically, protestors are strongly opposed to the 2019 Law 113.13, which regulates the governance of pastoral areas to prevent overuse and was passed without input from those it would affect. Additionally, it also allows noncommunity members to gain access to pastureland by registering and obtaining a permit. In the protestor’s eyes, Law 113.13 has led to the expropriation of nomadic pasturers, who are now required to have a conditional government-granted permit to be allowed to have herds graze a piece of land. Law 113.13 is another example of regulation that promotes private land over collective, and the protests to it are a demonstration of resident commitment to the sovereignty of the communities (Ben Saga, 2019). The Sulaliyyates movement is another communal land movement to increase women’s rights to land ownership in Morocco. On collective land, as well as in the country in general, it is extremely difficult for women to gain rights to land ownership. This struggle has been captured and followed closely on social media around the world. By tribal decree, collective land can be passed down from father to son, upon the age of 16 (Alami, 2017), thereby barring women land ownership benefits, unless accessed indirectly through a male relative (Salime, 2016). Thus, older unmarried women, widows, divorcees, and women with no sons are vulnerable to dislocation. The movement for greater land rights began in 2007, when women protested in Kenitra, a city near Rabat (ATTAC Maroc, 2020). Their struggle exemplifies the two main challenges communal women face living on collective land. On one hand, they are not allowed to benefit from land inheritances when they remain as collectives, and, on the other, they do not receive compensation when the land is privatized. In cases of land sales or rentals, women are entitled to a share in the profit only if they are right holders (Balgley & Rignall, 2015). Since the movement’s birth, hundreds of women living on collective land have joined the movement, going from leadership roles on the farm to organizing protests (Alami, 2017). Protests for fair compensation when land is sold were carried out predominantly by men and have gained momentum in the wake of the 2019 privatization regulations (Chaudier, 2023). Women took on leadership roles in these protests recently, after realizing they were less susceptible to police brutality and incarceration than men, and the movement evolved to include rights of women living on collective land. These protestors are not necessarily against privatization; in the words of Saida Soukat, a local farm woman, speaking before a protest audience and capturing the movement, “We aren’t against development projects, but we demand our rights to be respected” (Alami, 2017). Alternative systems The many issues regarding communal land and the size of the ensuing protests are not completely lost on the Moroccan government. In December 2015, King Mohammed VI addressed a conference on real estate policy and its role in the economic and social development of Morocco. He discussed the need to reform the country’s Sulaliyyates (communal) land system; “I hope the results and conclusions of this dialogue will be leveraged to rehabilitate communal land, so it may contribute to the development process and serve as a means whereby right holders can be involved in the nation’s dynamic process, in keeping with the principles of social justice and fairness.” (King Mohammed VI’s..., 2015). The King realizes there are important social problems, like the women’s Sulaliyyates movement, as well as economic and development issues, that must be addressed. Regrettably, the government's actions post-2015 have generally ignored these social issues. If no reform is made, and Morocco stays the course with its current laws, a slow and possibly painful wave of privatization could overtake the country until collective land ceases to exist. This policy or, more precisely, lack of policy would appear to be the government’s current approach, made apparent through laws such as Generation Green. While privatization could be a beneficial option if done equitably, there have been too many situations of unjust expropriation of communal land to say that everyone would be compensated fairly. In the words of Mou-
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