Rangelands in arid Tunisia are facing several problems with regard to their management. Deep transformations in land tenure status, due to collective rangeland privatisation and subsequent cropping and tree planting of the best pasturelands, have occurred over the past fifty years with strong technical and socio-economical impacts. In this contribution, different rangeland management practices are reviewed and analysed using results of rapid rural appraisals, household surveys and econometric analysis of 5 samples from communities of the Central and Southern Tunisia. Production systems are analysed for the different rangeland management options, current land use, and farm and off-farm income distribution. Finally, the paper reviews the main technical options for arid rangeland improvement: Deferred grazing, reseeding, shrub planting, and fertilizer application. Most of these techniques seem to be inefficient under harsh environments, and appropriate management tools involving users-communities and based on the promotion of local institutions remain probably the most promising solution.