Search Results (31)

Extreme climate events are increasing in severity and frequency and affecting the livelihood of pastoralists. Understanding these impacts is crucial for developing effective management strategies. Thus, this study examines the effects of drought on livestock production and market dynamics in semi-arid Ethiopia and explores the adaptation strategies employed by Borana pastoralists. Both the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) and Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) were used to calculate indicators of drought severity between 1993 and 2022. Surveys were also conducted in 244 selected households. In addition, focus group discussions and field observations were conducted to investigate the adaptation practices of Borana pastoralists to drought. A line graph was used to illustrate the relationship between the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) and livestock market prices. The study found extreme drought in 1985, 2000, and 2011, with the most severe to moderate dryness occurring in the Arero, Elwaya, Dubuluk, Guchi, and Yabelo areas. The study found that severe droughts are increasing, affecting pastoralists’ livelihoods. The recurring drought led to a shortage of feed and water, which resulted in the starvation and death of livestock and jeopardized the livelihoods of pastoralists. In addition, the decline in milk production and falling market prices are said to have had a negative impact. Diversification of livelihood sources, mobility of livestock to seek out forage and water resources, and diversification of herd composition to take advantage of varying drought tolerance have been the usual long-term adaptation strategies of Borana pastoralists. Given the multiple negative impacts of climate change, development interventions in pastoral and agro-pastoral areas of Ethiopia should focus on proactive measures to reduce the impacts of climate change on livestock production. Full article

In agrarian systems where animal mobility is crucial for feed management, nutrient cycles and household economy, there is a notable lack of precise data on livestock mobility and herding practices. We introduce a methodology leveraging GPS-based behavioural models to analyse and document pastoral mobility in the Sahel. Over 2.5 years, we conducted a continuous collection of GPS data from transhumant and resident cattle herds in the Senegalese agropastoral semiarid rangelands. We developed a Hidden Markov Model robustly fitted to these data to classify recordings into three states of activity: resting (47% overall), foraging (37%) and travelling (16%). We detail our process for selecting the states and testing data subsets to guide future similar endeavours. The model describes state changes and how temperature affects them. By combining the resulting dataset with satellite-based land-use data, we show the distribution of activities across landscapes and seasons and within a day. We accurately reproduced key aspects of cattle mobility and characterised rarely documented features of Sahel agropastoral practices, such as transhumance phases, nocturnal grazing and in-field rainy season paddocking. These results suggest that our methodology, which we make available, could be valuable in addressing issues related to the future of Sahelian pastoralism. Full article

We present a rare insight into the biodiversity of a remote, mountainous area of central Asia and outline challenges to conserve the critically endangered keystone argali (Ovis ammon ammon L.), the largest subspecies of mountain sheep. Existing conservation is set in the context of competition with livestock grazing and disturbance by local pastoralists. We suggest how this pressure would increase as pastures become degraded by a future more arid climate. Focusing on the transboundary population, migrating between the Russian and Mongolian Altai over the Sailugem Ridge, we track historical population numbers. Due to increased protection, the argali’s local population is currently growing. However, most argali populations live outside the protected areas where they are forced to compete for forage with livestock. Due to ever-increasing anthropogenic pressures, argali has almost reached the region’s environmental capacity, so the number of local populations is decreasing. Consequently, even the current situation requires more areas of protection, and climate change will accelerate pasture degradation, thereby further increasing competition with livestock. We present various ways to predict the impacts of changes in climate, e.g., the “7 M’s approach” and grazing pressure and then recommend additional conservation measures acceptable for the indigenous population of traditional pastoralists. Full article

This study assesses the role of grazing reserves and transhumance corridor systems in enhancing sustainable transhumant pastoralism, drawing on the collaborative planning theory as its theoretical framework. This research aims to understand how these land management strategies impact the sustainability of pastoral practices from the viewpoints of various stakeholders, including farmers, herders, policymakers and local community leaders. This study adopted a mixed-method research design and an exploratory sequential mixed-method approach. Based on the research approach, this study first gathers data through key informant interviews and, subsequently, cross-sectional surveys of 254 crop farmers and 82 herders in the Sekyere Kumawu and Sekyere Afram Plains Districts of Ghana. The findings indicate mixed perceptions among stakeholders regarding delineating grazing reserves and transhumance corridor systems. While most farmers and herders recognise the potential benefits of delineating grazing reserves and corridors in reducing conflict and promoting environmental sustainability, concerns persist about land rights and the flexibility of resource use. While herders see these policies as providing secure grazing territories, farmers fear losing land for agricultural expansion. This study also notes a “paradox of pastoral land tenure”, where herders gain access to grazing resources but face mobility restrictions. Socioeconomic factors like age, education, experience, and association membership significantly influence stakeholders’ perceptions, particularly among herders directly dependent on these resources. These findings underline the complexities in policymaking for land use, emphasising the need for inclusive and well-informed approaches. Full article

Scientifically identifying the impact of urban development levels on the ecological environment in China’s grassland regions from a classification perspective is crucial for stabilizing grassland ecosystems and optimizing urban development in grassland cities. Using the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region as a case study, this research constructs a conceptual analysis framework for the coordinated state between the urban development level and the ecological environment in China’s grassland regions based on the theory of dual economic structures. Employing the Granger causality test, nonlinear fitting, and coupling coordination degree model methods, the heterogeneity and coordination between urban development levels and ecological environment in China’s grassland areas from 2000 to 2020 are comprehensively analyzed. The findings reveal the following: (1) Capital-type central cities and growing resource-based cities, with high levels of development, positively nurture the grassland ecology, exhibit high labor mobility, and experience low endogenous and exogenous pressures, resulting in high coordination. (2) Pure agro-pastoral cities, with low development levels, negatively impact the grassland ecology, have low labor mobility, and face high endogenous and exogenous pressures, resulting in low coordination. (3) Regional central cities, with moderate development levels, exert a neutral counterbalance effect on the grassland ecology, with opposing endogenous and exogenous pressures, leading to moderate coordination. (4) When the impact relationship ranges from “positive-neutral-negative,” the endogenous and exogenous pressures on the grassland ecology by declining resource-based cities and developing agro-pastoral cities are determined by their specific development levels, showing variations from “large → balance → small” to “small → balance → large,” with coordination fluctuating between “high-moderate-low”. (5) Special ecological cities are less affected by urban development levels, with coordination levels determined by the ecological foundation. Analyzing the heterogeneous coordination between urban development levels and the ecological environment for different types of cities in grassland regions is significant for improving the overall quality of the grassland ecological environment and exploring distinctive urban development models. Full article

Comparison of the ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr signatures of archaeological osteological material with features of geological provinces can be applied to determine the places of birth and living of individuals. Such reconstructions were conducted for both humans and domestic animals at the Late Bronze–Early Iron Age sites of the Crimea. The Crimean Peninsula is an interesting testing polygon for such research because it is characterized by a diverse geological situation within a relatively small area. The initial data allowed us to distinguish between three groups of mobility at the Bai-Kiyat I settlement and two groups at the Dolgii Bugor site. The Bai-Kiyat I site is located on the seacoast, so the proxy line for this area will correspond to the value of the ratio of strontium isotopes in seawater (0.7092). The inhabitants of this settlement, including a child from a burial on the settlement, are characterized by this value of strontium isotopes. Other groups include nonlocal people. The data obtained indicate that the steppe zone of the Northern Black Sea region was an ecumene, within which active mobility of groups of people was registered. This mobility is associated primarily with the pastoral type of economy in the period from the Chalcolithic to the Early Iron Age. Full article

At the beginning of his Creole opus The Grandissimes, George Washington Cable refers to Louisiana as “A land hung in mourning, darkened by gigantic cypresses, submerged; a land of reptiles, silence, shadow, decay”. This anti-pastoral view of Louisiana as an ecosystem of horrific nature and the very human melancholy it breeds is one that has persisted in popular American culture to the present day. However, the literature of Louisiana itself is marked by its creativity in blending elements of folktales, fairy tales, and local color. This paper proposes to examine the transhuman, or the transcendence of the natural by means of supernatural transformation, in folk horror tales of Louisiana. As the locus where the fairy tale meets the burgeoning Southern Gothic, these tales revolve around a reworking of what Vladimir Propp refers to as transfiguration, the physical and metaphysical alteration of the human into something beyond the human. The focus of this paper will be on three recurring figures in Louisiana folk horror: yellow fever, voodoo, and the Devil. Drawing upon works including Alcée Fortier’s collection of Creole folktales Louisiana Folktales (1895), Dr. Alfred Mercier’s “1878”, and various newspaper tales of voodoo ceremonies from the ante- and post-bellum periods, this article brings together theorizations about the fairy tale from Vladimir Propp and Jack Zipes and historiological approaches to the Southern Gothic genre to demonstrate that Louisiana, in its multilingual literary traditions, serves as a nexus where both genres blend uncannily together to create tales that are both geographically specific and yet exist outside of the historical time of non-fantastic fiction. Each of these figures, yellow fever, voodoo, and the Devil, challenges the expectations of what limits the human. Thus, this paper seeks to examine what will be termed the “Louisiana gothic”, a particular blend of fairy-tale timelessness, local color, and the transfiguration of the human. Ultimately, the Louisiana gothic, as expressed in French, English, and Creole, tends toward a view of society in decay, mobilizing these elements of horror and of fairy tales to comment on a society that, after the revolution in Saint-Domingue, the Louisiana Purchase, and the Civil War, was seen as falling into inevitable decline. This commentary on societal decay, expressed through elements of folk horror, sets apart Louisiana gothic as a distinct subgenre that challenges conventions about the structures and functions of the fairy tale. Full article

Pastoral nomadic regional confederations, states, and empires have assumed a prominent place in the histories of the Eurasian steppe zone; however, anthropological theory devoted to understanding these political systems is still debated and relatively inchoate. A major question concerns the techniques of political integration that might have brought together dispersed mobile herders under the aegis of these complex, large-scale steppe polities. The first such polity in East Asia, the Xiongnu state (c. 250 BC–150 AD) of Mongolia, has been characterized as a polity built by mobile herders, but in fact the steppe populations of this period followed quite diverse lifeways. Most notably, the establishment of more permanent settlements for craft and agricultural production has complicated the typical narrative of the pastoral nomadic eastern steppe. This study considers ways to conceptualize these interesting variations in lifeway during the Xiongnu period and raises the question of how they might have promoted a novel Xiongnu political order. We analyze transformations within the Egiin Gol valley of northern Mongolia to better understand the organizational, productive, and settlement dynamics and present the first regional landscape perspective on the local transformations incurred by the creation of a Xiongnu agricultural hub. To understand these radical changes with respect to the long-term pastoral nomadic and hunting-gathering traditions of the valley’s inhabitants, Salzman’s flexibility-based model of multiresource pastoralism is of great use. Egiin Gol valley transformations indeed attest to a scale of political economy far beyond the bounds of this local area and suggest an innovative role for indigenous farming in Eurasian steppe polity building. Full article

Land degradation is a major issue in the Sahel region. Numerous investments have been made in implementing sustainable land management (SLM) actions to reverse land degradation. Our work aims to (i) describe the variety of degraded land reclamation actions (DLRAs) and (ii) map the stakeholders acting in Niger. A time series (2008–2021) of georeferenced public data was collected and organized using a harmonized nomenclature. The results show that about 279,074 ha could be analysed in our study. Dug structures are the most widespread technique, while treated land is mostly devoted to single agricultural or pastoral uses. DLRAs are unevenly distributed in the Niger. More than 100 stakeholders were part of the effort to restore degraded land in the country—some playing a specific role, while others, such as the Government of the Niger, were responsible for mobilizing funds for implementing sustainable land management programs, while also carrying out certain programmes of their own. Our study points out the added value of creating a geolocalized dataset and, in future, a spatialized database management system to (i) deploy targeted sustainable land management actions complementing past and ongoing actions and (ii) create synergy between all the stakeholders. Full article

The residential Mongolian yurt is representative of nomadic culture and its mobile residences. Behavior forms the closest connection the environment and people. There is almost no research about the residence and lifestyle of Mongolian yurt dwellers from the perspective of housing behavior. This study applied grounded theoretical methods to analyze the theoretical model of the influence mechanism of Mongolian yurt dwelling on behavior. Interviews were conducted according to the principle of purposive sampling, and were summarized in five categories: production lifestyle, natural environment, residential characteristics, cultural beliefs, and emotional experience. Production lifestyle is the core category and the critical factor in dwelling behavior, which interacts with the other main categories. Pastoral policy is the factor that has worked most quickly and directly to influence housing in yurts. Mongolians living in yurts on the prairie show higher satisfaction compared to those in urban housing, which is related to the Mongolian advocacy for nature and freedom. Full article

In order to manage important transformations affecting a steppe area, it is necessary to analyze the existing pastoral system by evaluating the sustainability of its subsystems of production. For this reason, in this study, a tool for the evaluation of the sustainability of livestock production in the steppe area was used in order to identify the most sustainable systems. The study was conducted using a survey of 87 livestock farmers (production units) in the region ranked first in terms of sheep production. Principal component analysis (PCA) enabled us to identify two production systems: (i) the pastoral production system, characterized by the mobility of livestock and its high dependence on concentrated feed; (ii) the agropastoral system, combining fodder and livestock production, which is sedentary and semi-extensive. Using a grid for evaluating the sustainability of livestock systems in steppe regions, the impact of each system on the environment (environmental, economic, and social) was examined, and the results showed that the feed system was unbalanced, with high pressure on steppe rangelands. Nevertheless, multiple ways of improving these systems emerged from the analysis, such as encouraging the production of fodder and its association with livestock, on new spatial, temporal, regional, and national levels. Full article

This review focuses on the Sahel/Savannah belt, a large region of Africa where two alternative subsistence systems (pastoralism and agriculture), nowadays, interact. It is a long-standing question whether the pastoralists became isolated here from other populations after cattle began to spread into Africa (~8 thousand years ago, kya) or, rather, began to merge with other populations, such as agropastoralists, after the domestication of sorghum and pearl millet (~5 kya) and with the subsequent spread of agriculture. If we look at lactase persistence, a trait closely associated with pastoral lifestyle, we see that its variants in current pastoralists distinguish them from their farmer neighbours. Most other (mostly neutral) genetic polymorphisms do not, however, indicate such clear differentiation between these groups; they suggest a common origin and/or an extensive gene flow. Genetic affinity and ecological symbiosis between the two subsistence systems can help us better understand the population history of this African region. In this review, we show that genomic datasets of modern Sahel/Savannah belt populations properly collected in local populations can complement the still insufficient archaeological research of this region, especially when dealing with the prehistory of mobile populations with perishable material culture and therefore precarious archaeological visibility. Full article

Many pastoralist communities around the world rely on the traditional livestock farming sub-sector for a living and to meet their food consumption needs. Food insecurity, on the other hand, is a growing concern in these communities, and the reasons for this must be understood in order to implement appropriate policy measures to improve food security. Based on data collected from Aramis-Adaar and the Asale pastoralist and agro-pastoralist (hereafter (agro)pastoralist) communities in Afar, Ethiopia, this study investigates the relationship between social–cultural–economic characteristics and food (in)security. To measure the severity of food insecurity and assess the associations, we used the household food insecurity access score (HFIAS) and ordered logistic regression, respectively. Our findings show that food insecurity in the study area is persistent where improvement in food security is significantly constrained by some culture elements (the (agro)pastoralists’ cultural orientation). It has also been found that the (agro)pastoralists’ market exchange practices, as well as the centuries-old practice of guro (livestock mobility as a traditional coping strategy), help to reduce food insecurity. These findings contribute to our understanding of food insecurity in the (agro)pastoralist context and thereby add to the ‘move-up’ or ‘move-out’ pastoralist development policy debate. Therefore, the results suggest that there is a need for a combination of approaches that combine pastoral production services and market production orientation and capitalize on (agro)pastoralist traditions, such as mobility, to promote sustained (agro)pastoral livelihoods and ‘move-up’ the pastoral production system. Full article

Black gospelwoman and pastor Shirley Ann Caesar Williams, better known as “Shirley Caesar” to her listeners over the last several decades, entered a professionalization phase of her ministry and career from 1958 to 1966 when she joined and performed with The Caravans. Being a Caravan member brought with it the possibility of being in compromising situations while on the road, which would expose Caesar—a Black woman—to the possibility of sexual (and racial) violence. Caesar’s first night as a Caravan in 1958 provided such a circumstance, a failed sexual advance that she describes in Chapter 5, “On the Road with the Caravans”, of her 1998 autobiography, The Lady, the Melody, and the Word. Caesar’s identities (Black, woman, Christian, chaste) intersecting with a potential sexual advance and her reaction to it is fodder for the reinforcement of Black male authority, power, privilege, and dominance in the Black Sanctified Church as well as the assertion of sexual agency. Today Caesar continues to shape her complex public identity born out of a set of negotiations embracing and challenging specific gendered, racial, sexual, and religious norms, the conditions of Black and white mobility, and patterns of religious authority. However, for her, religious authority remains paramount. Full article

Augmented reality (AR) provides excellent learning potential, especially in a school environment. Multiple students can share the virtual scene and interact with it using the mobile interface as a hand-held display in AR children’s books. Students’ participation is an essential element of learning, and one of AR’s greatest strengths is its ability to promote collaborative experiences. An augmented reality children’s book edutainment through participatory content creation and promotion based on the pastoral life of Psiloritis has been recommended through this study, highlighting the features of AR to reveal educational values unique to AR and studying approaches for incorporating these characteristics into the typical education curriculum. Full article