This What to Read digest examines livestock keeping in pastoral systems and features recent research that reviews the relationship between pastoral livelihoods and global climate change.
Mali is a landlocked country in the heart of the Sahel that faces land related tensions, food insecurity and severe security challenges despite the 2015 peace agreement. Agriculture accounts for 39% of the national GDP and Mali’s main exports rely on gold, cotton, and livestock.
Secure tenure and effective governance are central to the future of natural resources and agriculture. Although important on their own, tenure and governance are also embedded in the solutions to key global challenges: climate change; environmental management; poverty; gender equity and women’s empowerment; and nutrition and health.
In Mongolia, the word “rangeland” is synonymous with “homeland.” It is a clue to the importance of rangelands in a country where a quarter of Mongolians are herders, and the wider livestock economy provides sustenance, income, and wealth to nearly half of the population. For many nomadic societies herding is at the core of their life. Around the world, rangelands support the livelihoods, social traditions, and resilience of 500 million people, primarily in low-income countries.
An estimated 100,000 people died and livestock were decimated when a long drought hit West Africa in the 1970s.
Isa, a 61-year-old community leader from northern Mali, recalled: “At that time, we only had to search for food. We could move freely with our animals. Now, we can’t even search for food. We are forced to stay in place or move to cities because of the insecurity.”