A way of life characterized by keeping herds of animals, such as cattle, sheep, camels, reindeer, goats, or llamas. It is common in dry, mountainous, or severely cold climates not suitable for agriculture, although some groups combine pastoralism with agriculture. Many pastoralists are nomadic, having to move around in search of good grazing ground, but the amount of nomadism varies considerably, some living in settled areas for most of their lives. Because they travel around and can use their animals to transport goods, many pastoralists have become important long-distance traders. During the colonial period, pastoral migration and movements were severely curtailed in many parts. As agriculture expanded into areas which had previously served pastoralists (eg in Masailand, Kenya), pastoral communities found themselves confined to a diminishing area, which was inadequate, particularly in the dry season. As a result, many pastoralists have been victims of devastating famines.
Pastoralism is a form of farming, such as agriculture and horticulture. It is animal husbandry: the care, tending and use of animals such as camels, goats, cattle, yaks, llamas and sheep. It also contains a mobile element, moving the herds in search of fresh pasture and water.
Pastoralism is found in many variations throughout the world. Composition of herds, management practices, social organization and all other aspects of pastoralism vary between areas and between social groups.
Origins
Some researchers believe that pastoralism followed mixed farming (rainfall-dependent agriculture with animal husbandry). The increased productivity of irrigation agriculture ultimately resulted in population growth and pressure on resources, which lead to greater land and greater labour requirements for intensive farming. Marginal areas of land were often all that was left for animal rearing. This resulted in a higher labour requirement for animal tending.
Another theory is that pastoralism derived directly from hunting and gathering. In this view, hunters of wild goats and sheep already had knowledge of herd dynamics and the ecological needs of the herd animals. These groups were already mobile, and followed wild herds on their seasonal round. The process of domestication began before the first wild goat or sheep was tamed as result of the selective pressure of hunter prey-choice acting upon the herd. In this way, wild herds were selected to become more manageable for the proto-pastoralist nomadic hunter and gatherer groups. Smith,1992), ecological, and economic shift (Alvard and Kuznar, 2001) had to occur in order to be able to defer harvesting herd animals until a later date.
Resources
As explained in the origins section, pastoralism takes place mainly in marginal areas, where cultivation (and the higher energy achieved per area) is not possible. Animals feed on the forage of these lands; The herds convert the energy into sources available for human consumption: milk, blood and sometimes meat (Bates, 1998:105).
There is a common conception that pastoralists exist at basic subsistence. pastoralists rarely exist exclusively with the products of their herd.
Resource management
Pastoralism is well adapted to the environments where it exists; The key to the pastoralist adaptation is maintaining a small population, mobility &
Mobility
Mobility allows pastoralists to simultaneously exploit more than one environment, thus creating the possibility for arid regions to support human life.
Different mobility patterns can be observed:
Nomadic pastoralists: 1) it is a generalized food-producing strategy with its main base relying on the intensive management of herd animals for their primary products of meat and skin, and for their secondary products such as wool or hair, milk, blood, dung, traction, and transport; 2) because of the different climates and environments of the areas where nomadic pastoralism is practiced and because of the ecology of their herd animals, this management includes daily movement and seasonal migration of herds; 3) because a majority of the members of the group are in some way directly involved with herd management, the household moves with these seasonal migrations; and 4) while the products of the herd animals are the most important resources, use of other resources, such as domesticated and wild plants, hunted animals, goods available in a market economy, is not excluded.
Transhumance: where members of the group move the herd seasonally from one area to another, often between higher and lower pastures.
Mobility throughout altitudes and the resulting precipitation differences is important. In East Africa, different animals are taken to different regions throughout the year, to match the seasonal patterns of precipitation.
The actions of herders are carefully planned, but also constantly adjusted, to match changing conditions.
Information
Intrinsically linked with mobility is the complex “maps” that pastoralists keep in their minds, marking out the usefulness of certain areas at different times of year.
Elders discuss and cautiously plan in advance, using the knowledge they acquire, in order to act in the most appropriate way.
Disruption of management strategies
This ability for careful control and planning was wiped away with colonialization.
Tragedy of the commons?
Hardin’s Tragedy of the Commons (1968) described how common property resources, such as the land shared by pastoralists, ultimately become overused and ruined.
Following this paper, the pastoralist land use strategy suffered criticisms of being unstable and a cause of environmental degradation (Fratkins, 1997).
A particularly strong example of this is based in the Sahel zone in Africa, where human mismanagement by pastoralists was blamed for desertification and depletion of resources (Fratkins, 1997).
Examples of this throughout the world are believed to provide further evidence that the pastoralist way of life is an efficient system;
Social organisation
Each pastoralist adaptation occurred in different contexts;
Mobility allows groups of pastoralists to split and regroup as resources permit, or as desired with changes in social relations.
Examples of pastoralist societies
Traditional:
Ariaal of Kenya Yörük of Turkey Maasai of Africa Navajo of North America Bedouin of North Africa and the Arabian Peninsular
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