During the past decade, there has been a clear recognition of the relationship between environment and development, and that it is through the process of development that environment is often negatively affected. Therefore, to minimize the destructive effect of development, planning became a necessity. However, for any management goal, there are usually several alternative ways of developing a plan. My planning process began by a general resources inventory of the Republic of Mali including soils, vegetation, surface waters, groundwaters, land use, and population. Then, based on this inventory, I chose a planning area using pre-established criteria. The area chosen was the "Inland Delta of the Niger River." The Delta, with 30,100 km², has an enormous economic potential, and livestock raising is an important component of this potential. However, four main factors are limiting the development of livestock raising in the region: Lack of an official and consistent land right, uncontrolled increase of the number of animals, uncontrolled increase of cultivated fields, and persistent drought. The objective of this dissertation was to make a preliminary investigation which would help the Government of the Republic of Mali establish a coherent and integrated plan for all economic activities in the Delta. The economic, social and environmental components of the current livestock management and two management alternatives have been analyzed, using a model planning unit and also a herd model. The first alternative consisted of changing the herd composition, and the second alternative was a combination of changing the herd composition and the use of irrigation and fertilization to grow adapted forage species. The results showed that the two alternatives are better than the current management, and that the second alternative provided the highest economic returns and stability to the region. The implementation of the proposed plan will necessitate the creation of agro-pastoral units based on soils, vegetation, and social characteristics. The Government should adopt a more coherent and coordinated policy toward the different land users of the Delta, the final objective being high stable economic returns for the population, the preservation of the basic resources, and the equilibrium among different activities.

Prepared by the Arid Lands Information Center, Office of Arid Lands Studies, University of Arizona ; A. Paige Grant, compiler (with assistance from Doug Stotz).