IIED issue paper no. 148
May 2008
Michele Nori, Michael Taylor, and Alessandra Sensi
Climate change leading to rising temperatures and increasing rainfall variability will affect different regions and people in different ways. The implications of climate change for pastoral livelihoods are not yet fully understood. Two opinions prevail. Some see pastoral groups as the ‘canaries in the coalmine’ in the sense that that they will be the first to lose their livelihoods as rangelands and water points dry out. Others argue that pastoralists are the best equipped to adapt to climate change, as pastoral livelihood strategies are honed to respond to scarce and variable natural resources and cope with difficult and uncertain agro-ecological conditions. In this scenario, climate change could result in an extension of territories where pastoralism could show comparative advantages.
Enhancing and securing pastoralists’ access to strategic resources is essential if they are to respond effectively to the effects of climate change. Yet, as most contributors agree, these capacities have been eroded as a result of their historical and social marginalisation. Today, pastoralists’ vulnerability is thus more a consequence of this marginalisation than climate change per se, although the former will clearly exacerbate the latter.
This paper presents a brief overview of pastoral systems, analyses the rationale behind mobility as a strategy to cope with scarce and variable resource endowment, and finally addresses the rights concerning the access to and the control of resources in the context of climate change. The historical and geographical dimensions of the debate are illustrated by examples from various pastoral areas in the world. Recommendations for appropriate policy options and development initiatives for pastoral areas considering the challenges of climate change are provided in the final section.
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