Indigenous fodder trees can increase grazing accessibility for landless and mobile pastoralists in northern Pakistan

Degraded hillsides in Northern Pakistan are rehabilitated through social forestry campaigns using fast growing exotic trees. These plantations on former scrublands curtail access by livestock owned by landless pastoralists and create social tension. This study proposes an alternative strategy of planting indigenous fodder trees and shrubs that are well-suited to the local socio-ecological characteristics and can benefit all social segments. The choice of fodder tree species, their nutritional value and distribution within the complex socio-ecological system is explained. This study also explores the suitability of these trees at different elevations, sites and transhumant routes. Providing mobile herders with adequate fodder trees could relax social tensions and complement food security.

Assessing dynamics of forced livestock movements, livelihoods and future development options for pastoralists/agro-pastoralists in Ruvuma and Lindi Regions, in the Southern Tanzania

The study that aimed at understanding the dynamics of forced livestock movements and pastoral livelihood and development options was conducted in Lindi and Ruvuma regions, using both formal and informal approaches. Data were collected from 60 randomly selected Agro-pastoralists/Pastoralists and native farmers using a structured questionnaire. Four villages were involved; two in Lindi region (Matandu and Mkwajuni) and the other two in Ruvuma region (Gumbiro and Muhuwesi). Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics of SPSS to generate means and frequencies. The results indicate that a large number of animals moved into the study area following the eviction order of the government in Ihefu wetlands in 2006/2007. Lindi region was earmarked by the government to receive all the evicted pastoralists. However, by 2008 only 30% of the total cattle that were expected to move into the region had been received. Deaths of many animals on transit, selling of the animals to pay for transportation and other costs while on transit and many pastoralists settling in Coastal and Ruvuma regions before reaching their destinations were reported to be the reasons for the discrepancy observed. To mitigate anticipated conflicts between farmers and pastoralists, Participatory Land Use Management (PLUM) plans were developed in all the study villages in order to demarcate village land area into different uses, including grazing, cropping, settlement and forests. Land units for grazing were supposed to be provided with all necessary livestock infrastructures (dips, charcoal dams, livestock markets and stock routes). However, the land use plans were not able to prevent the anticipated conflicts because most of the livestock infrastructures were lacking, the land use boundaries were not clearly demarcated and there was limited enforcement of village by-laws, since most had not been enacted by the respective district councils. Similarly, the areas allocated for grazing were inadequate for the number of livestock available and thus the carrying capacity exceeded. Thus, land resource-based conflicts between farmers and pastoralists were emerging in the study areas for the reason that most of the important components in the PLUM plans were not in place. Nevertheless, the arrival of pastoralists in the study areas had positive effects on food security and growth of social interactions between pastoralists and farmers including marriages between them. Environmental degradations due to the arrival of livestock were also not evident. Thus, there is a need for the government to purposely set aside enough grazing land with all necessary infrastructures in place for the agro-pastoral/pastoral communities in the country.

Translocal Practices on the Tibetan Plateau: Motorised Mobility of Pastoralists and Spatial Transformations

Tibetan pastoralist communities in Amdo, the north-eastern region of the Tibetan plateau, have undergone tremendous change due to a number of state induced modernisation processes. Road infrastructure is but one development that aims to facilitate transition from subsistence to a market economy and to link remote pastoralist production into the global or regional market. This paper starts from the local perspective and examines how the expansion of road infrastructure and increased ownership of motorised vehicles has impacted on the mobility of pastoralists. It argues that motorisation and the increased availability of roads creates an interface for pastoralists through which they negotiate a newly emerging translocality. Roads are embedded into everyday movements and provide pastoralists with ways to integrate new developments into their lives.

Estimating population and livestock density of mobile pastoralists and sedentary settlements in the southeastern Lake Chad area

Mobile pastoralists provide major contributions to the gross domestic product in Chad, but little information is available regarding their demography. The Lake Chad area population is increasing, resulting in competition for scarce land and water resources. For the first time, the density of people and animals from mobile and sedentary populations was assessed using randomly defined sampling areas. Four sampling rounds were conducted over two years in the same areas to show population density dynamics. We identified 42 villages of sedentary communities in the sampling zones; 11 (in 2010) and 16 (in 2011) mobile pastoralist camps at the beginning of the dry season and 34 (in 2011) and 30 (in 2012) camps at the end of the dry season. A mean of 64.0 people per km2 (95% confidence interval, 20.3-107.8) were estimated to live in sedentary villages. In the mobile communities, we found 5.9 people per km2 at the beginning and 17.5 people per km2 at the end of the dry season. We recorded per km2 on average 21.0 cattle and 31.6 small ruminants in the sedentary villages and 66.1 cattle and 102.5 small ruminants in the mobile communities, which amounts to a mean of 86.6 tropical livestock units during the dry season. These numbers exceed, by up to five times, the published carrying capacities for similar Sahelian zones. Our results underline the need for a new institutional framework. Improved land use management must equally consider the needs of mobile communities and sedentary populations.

Indigenous knowledge related to climate variability and change: insights from droughts in semi-arid areas of former Makueni District, Kenya

This article describes the indigenous knowledge (IK) that agro-pastoralists in larger Makueni District, Kenya hold and how they use it to monitor, mitigate and adapt to drought. It examines ways of integrating IK into formal monitoring, how to enhance its value and acceptability. Data was collected through target interviews, group discussions and questionnaires covering 127 households in eight villages. Daily rainfall data from 1961–2003 were analysed. Results show that agro-pastoralists hold IK on indicators of rainfall variability; they believe in IK efficacy and they rely on them. Because agro-pastoralists consult additional sources, the authors interpret that IK forms a basic knowledge frame within which agro-pastoralists position and interpret meteorological forecasts. Only a few agro-pastoralists adapt their practices in anticipation of IK-based forecasts partly due to the conditioning of the actors to the high rainfall variability characteristic of the area and partly due to lack of resources. Non-drought factors such as poverty, inadequate resources and lack of preparedness expose agro-pastoralists to drought impacts and limit their adaptive capacity. These factors need to be understood and effectively addressed to increase agro-pastoralists’ decision options and the influence of IK-based forecasts on their decision-making patterns. The limited intergenerational transfer of IK currently threatens its existence in the longer term. One way to ensure its continued existence and use is to integrate IK into the education curriculum and to link IK with formal climate change research through the participation of the local people. However, further studies are necessary to address the reliability and validity of the identified IK indicators of climate variability and change.

Conserving indigenous animal genetic resources as a coping strategy to adapt to climate change: the Azikheli Buffalo in Northern Mountains of Pakistan

There are clear signs that the agro-pastoralists in the Himalayan and Hindu-Kush mountain ranges will have less cropping opportunities due to reduced possibilities for irrigated agriculture as a result of climate change. The importance of extensive livestock production based on well adapted livestock species may once again increase. This calls for a better documentation and understanding of the adaptation capabilities of indigenous breeds considering a changing environment. The current study investigates the adaptive traits of the Azikheli buffalo to mountain environments through calculating mean, standard error and percentages for different variables. Results from this study suggest that the brown coat color, the small body size and the high fertility are adaptive traits of the Azikheli buffalo that may well suit harsh mountainous environment conditions with greater climate variability. Local farmers find it hard to sustain the Azikheli buffalo’s key adaptive traits because of a low bull to buffalo ratio, possibility of insemination with semen from imported breeds and a lack of institutional support to conserve the Azikheli breed. The breed is crucial for sustaining custodian communities in these mountains and thus needs to be conserved.

Structural and procedural properties important in promoting bio-enterprises as alternative livelihoods to pastoral and agro-pastoral livelihoods

Alternative livelihoods to pastoral and agro-pastoral livelihoods are increasingly gaining attention in rural development but few empirical evidence exist on how to go about supporting such initiatives. As pastoral and agro-pastoral production conditions change due to various factors including market conditions, climate variability and change, pastoralists and agro-pastoralists are increasingly faced with the challenge of finding alternative livelihoods. Bio-enterprises offer such alternatives or complementary activities for rural actors to adapt to changing socio-ecological conditions. This study examines the roles of bio-enterprise initiatives from a livelihood perspective and identifies the features important for such initiatives to reduce poverty and improve the adaptive capacities of pastoralists and agro-pastoralists. It draws on four different bio-enterprise initiatives on agro-pastoral and pastoral livelihoods and on improved natural resources management (NRM) in the drylands of Kenya. Data were collected through interviews, focus group discussions, informal discussions and the study of reports. Results shows among other factors that diversification into enterprises requires cooperation among the stakeholders with their varying experiences in development, NRM and business development. Other factors such as sustained financial support, capacity development to survive the market introduction phase, as well as quantity and quality of the product, are critical. Mentoring proved to be a driver of success in some initiatives.

Carbon sequestration in Himalaya's alpine meadows: Mitigating cropping encroachment on pastures in Northern Pakistan

Rangelands store about 30% of the world’s carbon and support over 120 million pastoralists globally. Adjusting the management of remote alpine pastures bears a substantial climate change mitigation potential that can provide livelihood support for marginalized pastoralists through carbon payment. Landless pastoralists in Northern Pakistan seek higher income by cropping potatoes and peas over alpine pastures. However, tilling steep slopes without terracing exposes soil to erosion. Moreover, yields decline rapidly requiring increasing fertilizer inputs. Under these conditions, carbon payment could be a feasible option to compensate pastoralists for renouncing hazardous cropping while favoring pastoral activities. The study quantifies and compares C on cropped and grazed land. The hypothesis was that cropping on alpine pastures reduces former carbon storage. The study area located in the Naran valley of the Pakistani Himalayas receives an annual average of 819 mm of rain and 764 mm of snow. Average temperatures remain below 0°C from November to March while frost may occur all year round. A total of 72 soil core samples were collected discriminating land use (cropping, pasture), aspect (North, South), elevation (low 3000, middle 3100, and high 3200 m a.s.l.), and soil depth (shallow 0-10, deep 10-30 cm). Thirty six biomass samples were collected over the same independent variables (except for soil depth) using a 10x10x20 cm steal box inserted in the ground for each sample. Aboveground biomass and coarse roots were separated from the soil aggregate and oven-dried. Soil organic carbon (SOC) and biomass carbon (BC) were estimated through a potassium dichromate oxidation treatment. The samples were collected during the second week of October 2010 at the end of the grazing and cropping season and before the first snowfall. The data was statistically analyzed by means of a one-way analysis of variance. Results show that all variables taken separately have a significant effect on mean SOC [%]: crop/pasture 1.33/1.6, North/South 1.61/1.32, low/middle/high 1.09/1.62/1.68, shallow/deep 1.4/1.53. However, for BC, only land use has a significant effect with more than twice the amount of carbon in pastures [g m-2]: crop/pasture 127/318. These preliminary findings suggest that preventing the conversion of pastures into cropping fields in the Naran valley avoids an average loss of 12.2 t C ha-1 or 44.8 t CO2eq ha-1 representing a foreseeable compensation of 672 € ha-1 for the Naran landless pastoralists who would renounce cropping. The ongoing study shall provide a complete picture for carbon payment integrating key aspects such as the rate of cropping encroachment over pastures per year, the methane leakage from the system due to livestock enteric fermentation, the expected cropping income vs. livestock income and the transaction costs of implementing the mitigation project, certifying it, and verifying carbon credits. A net present value over an infinite time horizon for the mitigation scenario shall be estimated on an iterative simulation to consider weather and price uncertainties. The study will also provide an estimate of the minimum price of carbon at which pastoralists would consider engaging in the mitigation activity.

Droughts and famines: The underlying factors and the causal links among agro-pastoral households in semi-arid Makueni district, Kenya

Famines are often linked to drought in semi-arid areas of Sub-Saharan Africa where not only pastoralists, but also increasingly agro-pastoralists are affected. This study addresses the interplay between drought and famine in the rural semi-arid areas of Makueni district, Kenya, by examining whether, and how crop production conditions and agro-pastoral strategies predispose smallholder households to drought-triggered food insecurity. If this hypothesis holds, then approaches to deal with drought and famine have to target factors causing household food insecurity during non-drought periods. Data from a longitudinal survey of 127 households, interviews, workshops, and daily rainfall records (1961–2003) were analysed using quantitative and qualitative methods. This integrated approach confirms the above hypothesis and reveals that factors other than rainfall, like asset and labour constraints, inadequate policy enforcement, as well as the poverty-driven inability to adopt risk-averse production systems play a key role. When linking these factors to the high rainfall variability, farmer-relevant definitions and forecasts of drought have to be applied.

The Contested Floodplain. Institutional Change of the Commons in the Kafue Flats, Zambia

The Contested Floodplain tells the story of institutional changes in the management of common pool resources (pasture, wildlife, and fisheries) among Ila and Balundwe agro-pastoralists and Batwa fishermen in the Kafue Flats, in southern Zambia. It explains how and why a once rich floodplain area, managed under local common property regimes, becomes a poor man’s place and a degraded resource area. Based on social anthropological field research, the book explains how well working institutions in the past, regulating communal access to resources, have turned into state property and open access or privatization. The study focuses on the historic developments taking place since pre-colonial and colonial times up to today. Haller shows how the commons had been well regulated by local institutions in the past, often embedded in religious belief systems. He then explains the transformation from common property to state property since colonial times. When the state is unable to provide well-functioning institutions due to a lack in financial income, it contributes to de facto open access and degradation of the commons. The Zambian copper-based economy has faced crisis since 1975, and many Zambians have to look for economic alternatives and find ways to profit from the lack of state control (a paradox of the present-absent state). And while the state is absent, external actors use the ideology of citizenship to justify free use of resources during conflicts with local people. Also within Zambian communities, floodplain resources are highly contested, which is illustrated through conflicts over a proposed irrigation scheme in the area.