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Protection of pastoralist land resources has taken on a new urgency in light of the rapidly expanding global and national demand for land and land-based natural resources for large-scale commercial agricultural production, conservation initiatives, and mining. These activities threaten pastoralist land use systems. The most important measures needed to protect pastoralist land resources is restraint on the part of government in supporting such land use reallocation, and—to this end—for government to: a) take into account the very considerable trade-offs such investments often impose in terms of livestock production and damage to livelihoods of vulnerable populations; b) radically limit the extent of such reallocations both generally and in each case to realistic levels; and c) initiate reallocations only in locales where they do not undermine pastoralist land use systems.
