Estimating population and livestock density of mobile pastoralists and sedentary settlements in the south-eastern Lake Chad area

Abstract

Mobile pastoralists provide major contributions to the gross domestic product in Chad, but little information is available regarding their demography. The Lake Chad area population is increasing, resulting in competition for scarce land and water resources. For the first time, the density of people and animals from mobile and sedentary populations was assessed using randomly defined sampling areas. Four sampling rounds were conducted over two years in the same areas to show population density dynamics. We identified 42 villages of sedentary communities in the sampling zones; 11 (in 2010) and 16 (in 2011) mobile pastoralist camps at the beginning of the dry season and 34 (in 2011) and 30 (in 2012) camps at the end of the dry season. A mean of 64.0 people per km 2 (95% confidence interval, 20.3-107.8) were estimated to live in sedentary villages. In the mobile communities, we found 5.9 people per km 2 at the beginning and 17.5 people per km 2 at the end of the dry season. We recorded per km 2 on average 21.0 cattle and 31.6 small ruminants in the sedentary villages and 66.1 cattle and 102.5 small ruminants in the mobile communities, which amounts to a mean of 86.6 tropical livestock units during the dry season. These numbers exceed, by up to five times, the published carrying capacities for similar Sahelian zones. Our results underline the need for a new institutional framework. Improved land use management must equally consider the needs of mobile communities and sedentary populations.

Re-infection with Fasciola gigantica 6-month post-treatment with triclabendazole in cattle from mobile pastoralist husbandry systems at Lake Chad

“…We were surprised that the prevalence of F. gigantica infection at followup was slightly higher than at baseline, and indeed, 6-month post-treatment egg shedding was above the baseline level. These observations might be explained, at least partially, due to suspected high pasture and water point contamination, resulting from high livestock numbers on the shores of Lake Chad towards the end of the dry season, prior to moving out of the Lake Chad wetlands (Jean-Richard et al, 2015). Our results are not conclusive whether re-infection occurred still in the Lake Chad area or during migration outside the wetlands.…”

“…The regions are located in the Sahelian ecological zone with borders to Cameroon, Niger and Nigeria in the West. The area is inhabited by fishermen, a sedentary population that predominantly lives of agriculture, and different ethnic groups of mobile pastoralists with large numbers of livestock (Jean-Richard et al, 2015). Participating animals originated from herds owned by one of the four predominant ethnic groups of mobile pastoralists: (i) Arabs; (ii) Buduma; (iii) Fulani; and (iv) Gorane.…”

“…The Lake Chad area and its seasonal flood plains are home to mobile pastoralists with a seasonally high population density of indigenous livestock. Especially towards the end of the dry season, large numbers of cattle, goat and sheep are grazing on Lake Chad shores (Jean-Richard et al, 2015). The basin is long-known to be a trematode-endemic area, including Paramphistomum spp., Schistosoma bovis and F. gigantica (Bouchet et al, 1969;Quéval et al, 1971;Tager-Kagan, 1978).…”

Stratification: An Entropic View of Society’s Structure

“…In the period of pastoralism, humans were clustered 50 times more than Hunter-Gatherers, and, when traditional farming was developed, clustering increased respectively (Table 1). At the same time, energy required per ha was ~100 and ~200 times more (Figure 9) [75,76,[79][80][81][82][83][84][85][86][87]. Sackett found that adults in foraging and horticultural societies work, on average, about 6.5 h a day, whereas people in agricultural societies work on average 8.8 h a day [88].…”

“…Prehistoric human, different types of living, minimum area, and energy needs for food production (present data as order of magnitude)[75,76,[79][80][81][82][83][84][85][86][87]. Prehistoric human, different types of living, minimum area, and energy needs for food production (present data as order of magnitude)[75,76,[79][80][81][82][83][84][85][86][87].…”