Despite important advances following the challenge to equilibrium-based models in range ecology, pastoralism is still largely seen as a coping strategy that allows herders to get along with an 'inadequate' resource base. This stance can be traced to a long-established approach in the disciplines that inform pastoral development planning (natural resource management, range ecology, animal science) to rely on analytical tools based on standard statistics and average values. However, pastoralism is better understood as a sui generis production system, that deliberately exploits the transient concentrations of nutrients that represent the most reliable feature of dryland environments; a system geared at maximising the production of economic value while stabilising its performance in environments where 'uncertainty' is harnessed for production. As average values and standard statistics fail to capture non-uniform distribution (relied upon for production in dryland pastoralism), they should not uniquely or uncritically inform pastoral development planning.Malgre´les importants progre`s re´alise´s suite a`la remise en question des mode`les d 0 e´quilibre applique´s a`l 0 e´cologie pastorale, le pastoralisme reste largement conside´re´comme une strate´gie d 0 ajustement permettant tout juste aux e´leveurs de survivre a`partir de ressources 'insuffisantes'. Cette position trouve son origine dans une approche adopte´e depuis longtemps par les disciplines qui fac¸onnent la planification du de´veloppement pastoral (gestion des ressources naturelles, e´cologie pastorale, zootechnie) qui consiste a`s 0 appuyer sur des outils analytiques base´s sur des statistiques standardise´es et des valeurs moyennes. Pourtant, le pastoralisme se comprend mieux comme un syste`me de production sui generis, qui exploite de´libe´re´ment les concentrations fluctuantes de substances nutritives, ce dernier point constituant la principale caracte´ristique des terres arides; comme un syste`me conc¸u pour maximiser la valeur de la production tout en stabilisant ses performances dans des environnements ou`'l'incertitude' est exploite´e pour la production. Les valeurs moyennes et statistiques standardise´es ne permettent pas de prendre en compte la re´partition non-uniforme (sur laquelle repose la production pastorale dans les milieux arides) et par conse´quent ne doivent pas constituer les seules sources de la planification du de´veloppement pastoral.

No abstract

This paper explores the production strategy of a group of full-time mobile pastoralists from the perspective of their cattle-breeding system. The system is geared towards high reliability of good performance rather than towards maximizing peak productivity. At the core of the system is the organization of the cattle population along matriarchal lineages, for structuring animal diversity and ensuring the transmission of economically crucial functionality. The paper argues for a more sophisticated notion of pastoral mobility, capable of reflecting the herders' understanding of mobility and its role in enhancing the standard productivity of the bush, transforming unpredictable variability into a key resource.

No abstract

The setting of abstract impossible goals turns the means by which these goals are to be achieved into ends (Illich 1973: 40).In a paper on development interventions in Karamoja, presented at a large conference on African pastoralism, the author draws attention to the tendency of focusing on 'technical' targets, defi ned in abstract, with little connection to the production systems and the societies of producers on the ground. Examples of this kind of 'system-blind' approach discussed in the paper include the prevention of bush burning in order to fi ght soil erosion, the construction of dams and valleytanks in order to increase production, as well as initiatives for the control of animal disease, and for disarmament. In each case, the author examines the long-term effects of interventions showing how, once integrated into the actual (but ignored) context of production and social dynamics on the ground, the 'solution' in principle resulted in even bigger problems in practice. System-blind cessation of burning lowered the nutritional value of dry-season grazing, while favouring bush encroachment and the spreading of ticks and tsetse fl ies. System-blind water development resulted in large-scale soil erosion and the dramatic disappearance of perennial grasses, as well as social unrest as the stocking rates supported by the expansion of accessible dry-season rangelands at the periphery of Karamoja became unsustainable for the (unexpanded) central belt during the wet season. System-blind control of epizootics triggered even more unsustainable herd growth rates (as well as topdown destocking measures unmatched by existing marketing infrastructure). With droughts, crops failed as expected, but now in the areas where the annual grasses had replaced the perennials, exceptionally large stock numbers were left without fodder. As the introduction of dysfunctional relationships in the production and livelihood systems at the regional level triggered abnormal outbursts of violence, system-blind law-enforcement measures were focusing on disarmament and punishment, exacerbating and expanding, rather than reducing, the reasons that had triggered the increase in violence in the fi rst place.That paper was published almost forty years ago (Baker 1975). In fact, Baker writes about development measures pursued in Uganda under the British administration including water development in Karamoja with dams and valleytanks, a modernization idea from 1938, 1 the successful fi ght against the East Coast Fever, 'the great drought of the early 1950s' and those of 1961 and

No abstract

No abstract

Two-thirds of the agricultural land on planet Earth is grassland on which no other crops can be grown, either because of limited rainfall, high altitude or mountainous conditions. Most of these semi-arid and high-altitude pastoral ecosystems are used by livestock husbandry systems with various forms of mobility and are not in competition with crop production for human nutrition. By devoting an issue of its Scientific and Technical Review to pastoralism, the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) is encouraging debate on this important topic and helping to shape the future of pastoralists and their livestock. Pastoralism is a complex system, driven by interacting ecological, social and economic factors that cannot be adequately addressed by one discipline or sector alone. For its future development, we must engage with local knowledge systems and with all stakeholders. This issue of the OIE Review endeavours to take a broad view and provide a synthetic vision for the sustainable use of pastoral ecosystems, with innovative ideas for livelihoods, economic development, sustained ecosystem services and social and institutional development as the context for animal and human health and wellbeing.