Pastoralist Societies in the Sahel

This chapter focuses on ways that pastoralists respond to ecological and climate variability through strategies of pastoral mobility and exploitation of micro-ecologies throughout the Sahel. The chapter reflects recent scholarly work that argues for recognition of the viability of mobile pastoral systems and their long-term value to national economies and rural community nutrition. West African pasturelands are as biodiverse as woodlands further south, and herders exercise strategic decision-making not accounted for among most government decision-makers before the mid-1990s. In addition to policy challenges, twenty-first-century Sahelian pastoralists are faced with constraints on pasture access, criminal activity, climate instability, and religious radicalism. This chapter argues that intra-regional issues of land use policy and tension between extensive pastoral production systems and projects of nation-building are at the center of current political instability in pastoral communities.

Improving the integrated pastoral resource management of SAPARM information system using Landsat NDVI value for mobility decision making in Lege-Hidha district; Bale lowlands, Southeast Ethiopia

Availability of pasture and water are essential factors determine time and direction of pastorals movement. In Ethiopian pastorals mobility is a common coping strategy for dealing drought and its induced risks. Helping pastoralists more informed on decisions to manage their resource reduces response costs and livelihood losses. Matching scientific systems with traditional knowledge can lead to the successful resource managements. The aim of this study is improving the Integrated Pastoral Resource Management of SAPARM Information System using Landsat NDVI Value for Mobility Decision Making. The study was conducted on pastorals and agro-pastorals livelihood zones where livestock production is common. Data was collected in Lege-Hidha district using FGD, key informant interviews, community mapping and spatial satellite images from USGS. The spatial data was analysed using GIS/RS spatial data analysis tools. The data analysis on improving the integrated pastoral resource management (SAPARM and traditional system) using Landsat NDVI value is derived from USGS; Landsat at Path 166/167 and Row 54/55 (study area location found between 166/54, 166/55 and 167/54, 167/55) that verified and visualized using ArcGIS 10.3 and Google earth in order to compare Landsat8 NDVI values of 30m2 resolutions with SAPARM information from Meteosat NDVI at 10km2. Landsat8 analysis confirmed that areas where mobility is conducted have better and detailed vegetation (greenness) of enhanced reflectance than SAPARM. This was due to Landsat resolution capacity provides visible and detailed images of the invisible reflectance area on SAPARM, which improves pastoral mobility and decisions based on distances, direction, greenness, classification and allow knowing immediately specific places. Integration systems in this study attempted to apply traditional resource management with satellite assisted information using images of better resolution capacity enables to clarify and detailed reflectance. The improvement using NDVI values of Landsat ensure images with intensive areas of vegetation cover than Meteosat images of SAPARM.

'Where's the map?': integrating ethnography with maps to understand the complementarity between pastoral mobility and border formation

The resettlement of herders in pastoral zones is often criticized for hindering pastoral mobility, which is essential to survival. We integrate narratives of conflict and environmental change with maps to demonstrate the complementarity between pastoral mobility – porous borders – and border demarcation – rigid borders. We use evidence from the Sondré-Est Pastoral Zone in southern Burkina Faso, where herders were voluntarily resettled near agricultural villages following the droughts of the 1970s. Over time, however, farmers encroached on the borders of the pastoral zone and surrounding grazing areas declined. This increased land-use disputes. Tensions were exacerbated by the fact that these communities kept maps as community secrets. We re-created the administrative boundaries of the pastoral zone to map land-use/land-cover changes and conflict hot spots. The maps show that conflicts happened along porous borders where agricultural fields encroached. Herders called for a clear demarcation of the border of the pastoral zone to preserve exclusive access to resources within it. Simultaneously, they also wanted to maintain shared access to other resources outside the pastoral zone. The herders' desire for both border clarity and some form of flexibility underlines the complementary between both processes, especially in times of resource scarcity and land-use conflict. The mystery around the maps helps sustain ambiguity that is key for pursuing both goals. Keywords: GIS, land-use and land-cover change, farmer-herder border conflicts, pastoral mobility, Sahel, Burkina Faso