Gives a brief overview on how the gender debate featured in the process of land reform in Tanzania and asks why socio-economic arguments have to be used by advocates of gender equitable land rights. Focuses on the Uluguru mountains and shows that the need for registration is rather a consequence of its possibility and not of deficiencies of tenure security within the customary system, and that informal access to land can be experienced as more secure than formal registration. Further argues that demand to use land as collateral is low and risk-awareness especially among women high. Concludes by pointing out that lobbying for change of legislation might not be the most effective way to achieve gender equitable rights to land.

Published in Journal Entwicklungspolitik (Austrian Journal of Development Studies), XIX, 1, 2003, 75-90. This was part of a special edition devoted to land reform in Africa edited by Birgit Englert and Walter Schicho.