Transcript The world of pastoralism - Capacity4Dev

Agriculture and
Rural Development
the case of pastoralism
Michele Nori
AIDCO E6 – Quality Support
natural resources – rural development
Contents
This presentation aims at answering these main questions:
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Who are the pastoralists ?
Why they behave as such ?
Why do they rank so low, today ?
What have gone wrong ?
What can be done to readdress the current
situation ?
WHO ARE THE PASTORALISTS
Pastoralist are the people living on arid lands through mobile
livestock keeping
1) LIVESTOCK as the main livelihood source; the vital ‘technology’
that allows translating land resources into valuable products for
people.
2) MOBILITY as the way to make the best use of marginal natural
resources, while enabling their recovery through time.
3) FLEXIBLE arrangements regulating access to resources.
Pastoralism is an entire way of life, involving ecological, political,
economic, technological, cultural and social dimensions.
PASTORALISM
supports some 200 million pastoral households
covers 25 percent of the world’s land area
provides for valuable products (protein of milk & meat, fibres)
from marginal lands
bio-physical marginality
HARSH ENVIRONMENTS
Arid territories (drylands or highlands) with extreme
climatic patterns. Water limiting factor, not
allowing continuous crop cultivation.
3 main characterizing features:
- Limitations of overall resource endowment / low
average biomass production - limited productivity
- Variability of resource distribution through space
and time – patchy in time and space
- Unpredictability of resource endowment and
high degree of risk of extreme climatic events
Rainfall index variation in the Sahelian region.
source: Yann l’Hôte et Al.(2001)
socio-political marginality
FRONTIER LANDS
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Geo-political borders (i.e. mountains or deserts),
‘divide et impera’, nations mix and communities divided,
Cross border networks
Areas remote from mainstream central state decision making
Unfavourable policy and market dynamics,
Poor access to services and infrastructure
External interests appetite on Rangelands#
• Land grabs - alienation for: natural conservation, biodiversity, tourism,
water, underground resources (oil), biofuel, Intl. land contracts
Recent trends: where civilizations clash:
Darfur, Kurdistan, Afghanistan, Somalia, Sahara, Middle East, etc…
EXPOSURE to Climate Change
as to IPCC: increase in temperature and extreme events,
raising variability and unpredictability
• Amongst most affected groups
(i.e. mountainous and drylands)
• Potential skills to tackle CChange implications
Coping capacities
• Many oil resources found in drylands
Competition and conflict
• Important role of properly managed grasslands as
carbon sinks as well as biodiversity stocks
THE SILENT HAZARD: drought
Reported Death of Natural Hazards globally (1974-2003): 2.066.273 persons
Source Hoyois und Guha Sapir (2004); courtesy prof. HG Brauch, UNU-EHS Berlin
Current dynamics
• From better off to those ranking amongst the poorest and most destitute
agriculture peoples in the world (World Bank, 2009)
• A number of development syndromes: poverty, desertification, famine, food
and social insecurity, migration, conflict and recently insurgency
• Most excluded / hardest to reach from primary social services (UNICEF &
WHO, 2005)
• Currently HD and MDGs indexes and are at their lowest in such regions
(e.g. Kenya)
A biased approach
Backward agricultural system
Economically irrational & irrelevant
Environmental damaging
MISINFORMING PARADIGMS:
Cattle complex – Herskovitz, 1926
Tragedy of the Commons – Hardin, 1968
Desertification threat – UN 1980s
Pastoral development to be conceived as the END of mobility
and communal land access (SEDENTARISATION
PARADIGM), meaning the end of pastoralism.
Development approaches in pastoral areas
Period
1950s to 1970s
1980s to 1990s
Focus
technical aspects of
the livestock
production system
efforts aimed at
readdressing range
management
Actions
new breeds, forage
production, feeding
supplementation, animal
health / veterinary systems,
availability of groundwater
grazing reserves, regulating
herd sizes, group ranching,
land titling, herders’
organizations
Failure
By the end 1980s and through the 1990s a series of reports clearly showed
that the pastoral sector experienced the greatest concentration of
failed development projects in the world.
For most herders neither productivity nor income improved. For most
rangelands, the sustainable capacity to produce useful browse and
graze was not enhanced. For most donor and lending agencies,
anticipated financial rates of return were not achieved.
Somewhere something had gone wrong
Immediate consequences:
1) pastoralists exited the development agenda (20 years ago)
2) undermining of pastoral resource management patterns.
REFERENCES: Sandford, 1983; Walshe et al., 1991; Waters-Bayer & Bayer, 1994; Scott, 1998; Harrison, 1987; Cernea, 1991; Bonfiglioli, 1992;
Horowitz & Jokwar, 1992; de Haan, 1994; UNDP, 1994; Abdullah, 1995; FAO, 2001; Sivini, 2006
Neglect
The high degree of failure induced Intl. Donors to
downscale consistently investments and operations in
pastoral areas (rather than readdressing them)
This was compounded by SA Programs, with consistent
retrenchment of public investments in marginal areas
The Modernisation through Sedentarisation
paradigm shifted to the Disaster and Emergency
The current large number of reiterated emergency interventions in pastoral areas
stands as the best indicator of the failure of past development approaches
(Humanitarian Food Assistance meeting on 16/6/2009)
BREAK
INTO WORKING GROUPS
Working Groups
Basically 4 groups debating on two main informing
paradigms which proved wrong:
- the ‘cattle complex’
- the ‘tragedy of the commons’
The two groups (one in defence, the other opposing)
will be equipped with information and data to
undertake their task (15’) and then challenge each
other in an open debate (10’*2 groups)
BREAK
BACK TO COMMON SESSION
New thinking I
ECOLOGY Rangelands are resilient and biodiverse
• Overgrazing not a main problem
• Environmental degradation higher when mobility is hampered / people settle
• Extensive livestock production with lower ecological footprint
Properly managed grasslands store approximately 34% of the global stock of CO2
– a service worth $7 per hectare. African and Asian grasslands have vast
carbon sequestration potential.
ECONOMY Economic relevance of pastoral production
Proteins produced on pastoral lands represent an important factor of food
security for rural and urban people, especially in Least Developed Countries
The livestock sector represents 20% to 25% of agricultural GDP across Africa,
and is mostly based in pastoral areas. However, national accounts are
incomplete and tend to underestimate these contributions, due to informal and
cross-border marketing.
New thinking II
SOCIAL Pastoralism set to minimise survival risk for community
members – rather than maximize individual profit
GEOGRAPHY Pastoralism recognised as the best possible use of arid
environments
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Pastoralism is not the intermediate development stage between mobile hunting and
gathering on the one hand, and settled agriculture on the other – but rather the result of a
process of specialisation in marginal ecosystems and a means of coping with a variable
and unpredictable climate;
• These contributions are likely to become even more important in a
Climate Change perspective, as pastoralists hold comparative better
knowledge and skills to better tackle climatic variability.
Reverting cause - effect relationships
Desertification: Culprits or victims ?
Conflict: Land encroachment, frontiers,
manipulation
Famines: marginal lands, limited investments,
misconceived policies, unfair markets
CChange: doomed or better equipped*?
Operational implications
Cost/benefit analysis
- Political long term engagement
High transaction costs
- Importance of communities active involvement
Mobile livelihoods
- Innovative approaches of service delivery
Access to resources
- Governance matters
Exposure to climate vagaries
- LRRD and regional approach
RESHAPING LANDSCAPES
triggers for change
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Population growth
Livestock Revolution & fair market remuneration
Climate Change
Land grabs
CDM and carbon finance mechanisms
Good governance
Political decentralization
Regional dimension
Effective ‘civil society’
Thanks you for your attention
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