Pastoralism, conservation and resilience: causes and consequences of pastoralist household decision-making.

Abstract

Recent estimates put global pastoralist populations at around 120 million people, those of sub-Saharan Africa at around 50 million (plus 200 million agro-pastoralists: Inter-Réseaux Développement Rural 2012), and those of the Horn of Africa (including East Africa) at between 12 million and 22 million people. These are debatable figures. There are different definitions of what constitutes a pastoralist, ranging from ‘someone who depends primarily on mobile livestock, extensively reared on open range’ to ‘someone who self-identifies socially and culturally as a pastoralist, even though s/he may own no animals and may rely primarily on other livelihood activities’. Many pastoralists and most observers of pastoralism agree that both definitions are valid. This is because the vagaries of pastoralist lives are such that any one individual, household, or community may move to and fro between the two extremes once or more in the course of their life cycle. As well as the fluidity of definitions, there are complexities around population estimates because of pastoralists’ spatial mobility (whether managing animals, or temporarily otherwise engaged) and their often remote locations. Few sub-Saharan nations have good census data on mobile people or on mobile production systems.