NEWS
Pastoralists are an asset to the world – and we have a lot to learn from them
Ian Scoones
Current Address : Professorial Fellow , Institute of Development Studies Reprinted from : https :// bit . ly / 44vcLaU
Pastoralists are livestock keepers who are frequently on the move , sometimes across huge distances . Following mobile lifestyles and living far from centres of power , they are often inaccurately dismissed as backward and in need of modernisation .
Many policies are directed at transforming mobile pastoralists into settled agriculturalists or urban dwellers . This aims at recasting them into the dominant image of “ civilised ” living . And , despite their positive contributions to livelihoods , economies and the environment , the world ’ s many millions of pastoralists have been vilified as contributors to climate change and destroyers of the environment .
I am a social scientist with a background in ecology . Over more than 30 years I have been researching land , livelihoods and agrarian change , mostly in sub-Saharan Africa . Contrary to the dominant , negative views on pastoralists , research in six countries
Figure 1 . Getty Images
Grassroots Vol 23 No 2 July 2023 28