Towards Endogenous Livestock Development: Borana Pastoralists’ Responses to Environmental and Institutional Changes

Abstract

Borana pastoralists in southern Ethiopia are faced with the challenge of developing more efficient and sustainable use of natural resources. In past decades poorly adapted development interventions and inadequate land-use policies aggravated by population growth have weakened pastoral rangeland management. Ignoring pastoralists' technical and organizational capacities has contributed to progressive land degradation, the erosion of social structures and poverty. The Endogenous Livestock Development concept recognises pastoralists' indigenous knowledgebased strategies and priorities, and uses them as the bases for further development of their production system and social relations, to be utilized, improved and combined with modern technologies. This paper explores the Borana pastoralists' adaptive strategies for improved utilization of natural resources and the manner in which they respond to environmental risk and external influences such as water development and new formal administration. The adaptive responses include controlled integration of crop production and protection of grazing reserves, as well as changing cattle breeding priorities and the adoption of camel husbandry. The pastoralists have started negotiations with the administration to regain control of land utilization by strengthening directives for settlements, land use pattern and extraction rates. To support these initiatives the study recommends that pastoralists and other stakeholders enter into an institutionalized process of negotiation that builds on indigenous knowledge and organizational structures and facilitates validation and implementation of newly generated knowledge.

Characterisation of camel breeding practices in the Ansongo Region, Mali

“…Therefore, sedentarisation and the search for rapid profitability diminish the importance of camels as a tool for drought risk management. Homann et al (2008) describe an inverse situation in Ethiopia, where sufficiently endowed household, facing environmental and socio-political uncertainty, opt for mobility and invest in camels and small ruminants to increase and secure their production. A strategy of sedentarisation and adoption of small-framed cattle is also observed in other groups by these authors, but is interpreted as a sign of distress in less-endowed households.…”

“…Moreover, any evolution of the breeding systems implies an evolution in the management of animal genetic resources on which they are founded. Modifications thus affect the composition of the animal portfolio by species substitution, interbreeds substitution and breed reorientation (Homann et al 2008). In order to understand the diversity of camel breeding strategies in Northern Mali and their implication for animal genetic resources, this study propose a characterisation of camel breeding systems and their evolution in Ansongo, in the Gao province, Mali.…”

Local knowledge production, transmission, and the importance of village leaders in a network of Tibetan pastoralists coping with environmental change

“…The erosion of Tibetans' LEK, without replacement by the production of new knowledge suited to new circumstances, could reduce local capacity to cope with environmental changes and have cascading effects for ecosystem health and the provision of ecosystem services. Loss of LEK also represents a missed opportunity for pastoralists' knowledge to inform and improve regional climate adaptation policies and western scientific understandings of the ways in which this remote system is being affected by global change (Homann et al 2008, Reid et al 2009, Chaudhary and Bawa 2011, Fu et al 2012, Laborde et al 2012, Oba 2012, Smith and Sharp 2012). …”

Attitudes of Livestock Keepers to Breeding Strategies – Threats and Opportunities for on-farm Conservation of the Borana Cattle Breed

“…More recently land in this area is being privatized and converted to cropland, causing pastoralists to lose access to former pasture land (Homann et al, 2008). Population pressure has exacerbated the rate of change in land use.…”