MOBILE PASTORALISM AND SOCIO-ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AMONG RURAL FULANI COMMUNITIES IN KWARA STATE, NIGERIA

This study makes a spatial analysis of mobile pastoralism and socioeconomic problems among rural Fulani communities in Irepodun Local Government Area of Kwara State, Nigeria. Specifically, the study assesses the socioeconomic characteristics of mobile pastoralists; identify the length of stay of mobile pastoralists in their host communities and identify socioeconomic problems confronting Fulani herdsmen in their economic activities. A multistage sampling technique was employed to sample 740 Fulani herdsmen from twenty Fulani settlements and from four adjoining villages. Descriptive statistical techniques such as tables cross tabulations, percentages and graphs were employed to analyze the demographic characteristics of the pastoralists, length of stay in their host communities and other sources of income. Matrix scoring was used to rank the socioeconomic problems identified. The results revealed that the mean average age of sampled respondents was 44.8years, 83.8% married and average household size of 11people. Dwindling pasture, land degradation and drought were the most pressing socioeconomic problems identified. The study concludes by recommending adult education for the Fulani pastoralists as this will assist in enhancing and improving the socio-economic life of the mobile pastoralists.

Grasslands

This chapter details Ottoman policies to regulate the exploitation of grasslands in the Tigris-Euphrates alluvial plain. The flow regime of the Tigris and Euphrates created extensive pastures that made the alluvium a major destination for pastoral groups, particularly during the harsh summer season. The Ottoman state regulated this lucrative pastoral economy by establishing herders’ associations, such as the Ahşamat, the Qara Ulus, and Qara’ul. This policy of social aggregation facilitated the monitoring, counting, and taxation of a mobile population that was difficult to control. The chapter demonstrates that mobile pastoralism was instrumental in Ottoman economic and political expansion into the challenging, peripheral environment of Iraq.

Origin and diffusion of human Y chromosome haplogroup J1-M267

Human Y chromosome haplogroup J1-M267 is a common male lineage in West Asia. One high-frequency region—encompassing the Arabian Peninsula, southern Mesopotamia, and the southern Levant—resides ~ 2000 km away from the other one found in the Caucasus. The region between them, although has a lower frequency, nevertheless demonstrates high genetic diversity. Studies associate this haplogroup with the spread of farming from the Fertile Crescent to Europe, the spread of mobile pastoralism in the desert regions of the Arabian Peninsula, the history of the Jews, and the spread of Islam. Here, we study past human male demography in West Asia with 172 high-coverage whole Y chromosome sequences and 889 genotyped samples of haplogroup J1-M267. We show that this haplogroup evolved ~ 20,000 years ago somewhere in northwestern Iran, the Caucasus, the Armenian Highland, and northern Mesopotamia. The major branch—J1a1a1-P58—evolved during the early Holocene ~ 9500 years ago somewhere in the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, and southern Mesopotamia. Haplogroup J1-M267 expanded during the Chalcolithic, the Bronze Age, and the Iron Age. Most probably, the spread of Afro-Asiatic languages, the spread of mobile pastoralism in the arid zones, or both of these events together explain the distribution of haplogroup J1-M267 we see today in the southern regions of West Asia.

Ecosystem services and disservices associated with pastoral systems from Patagonia, Argentina – A review

Pastoral systems worldwide secure rural livelihoods in the harshest environments on Earth. Their low productivity per area unit or head makes them the subject of much criticism with regard to their environmental impact, particularly in relation to global warming, desertification and land degradation. Such is the case of the traditional pastoral systems of Patagonia, a vast and isolated region where sedentary and mobile pastoralism coexist and contribute to shape landscapes and cultures. We argue that pastoral systems provide a wide range of ecosystem services that may compensate for their negative impact on the environment. We review the scarcely available evidence from Patagonia to identify ecosystem services and disservices associated with pastoralism, and pay special attention to the carbon balance: with C footprints between 10 to 40 kg CO2-eq.kg−1 carcass, pastoral systems in dry Patagonia are below or within the range of semi-extensive livestock systems worldwide (35–45 CO2-eq. kg−1 carcass). To inform development and policy, the assessment of trade-offs and synergies between ecosystem services needs to incorporate the intertwined social and ecological dynamics of complex pastoral systems, along resource regenerative trajectories.

Nomads and the State in Soviet Kazakhstan

After the military conquest of the Kazakh Steppe in 1920, Russian and Kazakh Bolsheviks implemented policies of hard decolonization (1921–1922): tens of thousands of Slavic settlers were expropriated and land was distributed to nomads. During the period of 1923–1927, soft decolonization prevailed: Kazakhstan was created as an ethnonational administrative region and agricultural immigration was prohibited. Kazakhs were given priority in access to land and water and they were included in the state and party administrations. No sedentarization plans were drafted. With the Soviet economic policy turn of 1928, Kazakhstan became the object of plans for expansion of grain cultivation (to this end, peasant colonization from Russia was made legal again) and of industrialization. Moscow lunched an offensive in order both to subjugate and to incorporate Kazakh society: Kazakh pastoral elites and former Tsarist administrators were expropriated and deported; and young Kazakh men were drafted into the Red Army for the first time. In 1929, plans for the total sedentarization of Kazakh nomadic pastoralists were suddenly proclaimed, then rapidly became of secondary concern as they were merged with the total collectivization drive. Policies toward nomadic pastoralists were dependent and auxiliary to grain production policies from 1928 to early 1930. Then, from late 1930 to 1932, Kazakh livestock was requisitioned in order to feed Moscow, Leningrad, and the army, as the Soviet peasants had slaughtered their animals during collectivization. Procurements turned an ongoing starvation crisis into a calamitous famine that killed one-third of the Kazakhs. When no livestock were left, procurements were discontinued in Kazakhstan. Private ownership of animals and pastoral nomadic ways were explicitly allowed again. Kazakh mobile pastoralism had been transformed: pastoral routes were shortened; pastoralists were a smaller share of the population; and their work was organized within state and collective farms. The famine turned the Kazakhs into a minority in Kazakhstan and forced them into Soviet state institutions.

The Interwoven Effects of Regionalism in Southeast Thessaly

This study investigates possible evidence of seasonal movement of animals – transhumance – in the Greek archaeological record. By engaging with the so-called Agropastoral Debate in Thessaly this analysis argues that regionalism and rising urbanization forced a marked reliance on wool-based economy. The increased demand for wool created herd sizes larger than what local subsistence agriculture could support. Shepherds were required to move with their herds and utilize either short- or long-distance transhumance within Thessaly. This multidisciplinary approach examines transhumant domestication through ethnographic, ethnohistoric and literary sources integrated with palaeobotanical, material, cultural, and zooarchaeological evidence at Classical-Hellenistic sites in the regions of Thessalian Phthiotis (Pharsalos) and Achaia Phthiotis (New Halos, and Kastro Kallithea) in southeast Thessaly. Preliminary data supports mobile pastoralism in antiquity and argues for transhumant domestication in Thessaly by at least the Hellenistic period. This study is part of a larger research project interested in animal management practices and domesticated sheep and goat herd movements in ancient Thessaly.

Climate Change, Mobile Pastoralism, and Cultural Heritage in Western Mongolia

This chapter addresses the impact of climate change on the cultural production of Kazakh mobile pastoral herders in the Altai Mountains of western Mongolia. It highlights the body of Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) that herders express in their music, instruments, textiles, and heritage actions such as work patterns and social gatherings. Extreme weather events, loss of water sources, and desertification have deeply impacted herders and this is expressed in their cultural forms. The study engages with rangeland and climate science and draws on the author's fieldwork with Kazakh herders in Mongolia.