Pastoralist societies face more threats to their way of life now than at any previous time. Population growth; loss of herding lands to private farms, ranches, game parks, and urban areas; increased commoditization of the livestock economy; out-migration by poor pastoralists; and periodic dislocations brought about by drought, famine, and civil war are increasing in pastoralist regions of the world. Mongolia and China, however, have seen a revitalization of pastoral production with decollectivization. This review examines problems of pastoral governance and development including the “tragedy of the commons” debate, threats to common property rights, the effects of commercial ranching on pastoral economies, decollectivization in the former socialist countries, and the current state of development policies of Western donor countries. Case examples from the Maasai and Barabaig of East Africa and pastoralists of Mongolia and China illustrate these changes.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/2952522.pdf

Pastoralism: Governance and Development Issues

Many analyses of the "woodfuel crisis" in developing economies take little account of the significant difference between physical and economic woodfuel scarcities. Even when woodfuels have become physically scarce, households have a great deal of latitude in changing their consumption patterns in response. This paper questions whether the usually understood impacts of the woodfuel crisis are clearly the outcome of physical scarcities, or instead are an outcome of much more fundamental features of the socioeconomy involving labor use, land tenure and usufruct, the transition from subsistence to market economies, and cultural practices. It suggests that the singular focus on woodfuel production in many forestry project interventions has obscured more fundamental issues related to household resource allocation and factor endowments.

The Woodfuel Crisis Reconsidered: Observations on the Dynamics of Abundance and Scarcity

The woodfuel crisis reconsidered: observations on the dynamics of abundance and scarcity.

This article considers the relationships between selected demographic structures (total fertility, infant and child mortality, sex-age distribution, divorce rate, causes of death) and childcare patterns among hunter-gatherers, horticulturalists, and pastoralists. Demographic data from fifty-seven preindustrial societies indicate that the demographic structure of a population can be useful for understanding intercultural variability in caregiving practices identified in "traditional" characterizations of childcare in these populations (e.g., indulgent care, multiple caregivers, multiage play groups). Analysis of demographic structures also identifies two "emergent" features of childcare in preindustrial populations that are infrequently mentioned in socialization studies of these populations: stepparent-stepchild relations and differential investment in sons and daughters.

Demography and childcare in preindustrial societies.

This paper examines land-use practice among the Turkana pastoralists of Kenya. Drawing on work of both ecologists and anthropologists, it examines the argument that posits that pastoralism is inherently destructive to the environment, commonly referred to as the “Tragedy of the Commons.” Results of this research suggest that the livestock management practices of East African pastoralists do not degrade the environment, that livestock numbers do not exceed the carrying capacity of the land, and that social institutions successfully function to cope with environmental problems.

Turkana pastoralism: A case against the Tragedy of the Commons

A large number of fields of study are relevant to the genesis of the Sahel famine of 1968-1973, so I have chosen to focus this review on three issues that seem to me the most important: (a) some aspects of the Sahelian pastoral economy and its relation to wider market economies; (b) the demography of Sahelian pastoralists; (c) changes in the last half century, corresponding to the period from the imposition of French colonial rule. Hard information is scarce in all these fields, so it is hazardous to theorize; but without some attempt at explanation of the recent events in terms more satisfactory than "population growth" or "climate change," little progress can be made. I have not drawn specific development policy conclusions from this, preferring to let the historical record speak for itself.

Jeremy Swift

Papers

Sahelian Pastoralists: Underdevelopment, Desertification, and Famine