L’anthroposystème pastoral du Ferlo sénégalais évolue dans un milieu historiquement négligé par les politiques agricoles en raison de ses caractéristiques biophysiques particulières, peu favorables à l’agriculture et à une forme de mise en valeur autre que l’élevage extensif, incluant une transhumance. Celui-ci permet d’exploiter des ressources très variables dans l’espace et dans le temps. Cette primauté de l’élevage itinérant est de nos jours de plus en plus contestée par le développement de l’agriculture dans un contexte marqué par l’amélioration des conditions de la pluviosité dans tout le Sahel ouest-africain, de l’épuisement des terres du Bassin aracohidier et de la multiplication des aménagements agricoles au niveau de la vallée du fleuve Sénégal. En combinant l’analyse d’images de télédétection pour la cartographie d’évolution de l’occupation du sol par le couvert végétal, l’étude de la flore et du paysage végétal et l’exploitation d’enquêtes dans les villages et les campements du Ferlo, ce mémoire de thèse tente de cerner la géographie de la vulnérabilité des populations rurales et des écosystèmes qu’elles utilisent. Ainsi les éleveurs et les pasteurs évoluent-ils avec des stratégies d’adaptation quotidienne dans ces milieux du Sénégal intérieur marqués par l’instabilité écologique profonde et par les transformations à l’oeuvre dans la société rurale sénégalaise. Ces changements socio-environnementaux considérables contribuent ainsi à la dynamique des paysages végétaux et par-delà pose la question de la dégradation des écosystèmes. / The pastoral anthroposystem of Senegalese Ferlo evolves in an environment historically neglected by agricultural policies because of its characteristics particular biophysics, unfavorable to the agriculture and to the shape of development other than the extensive breeding. This primacy of the itinerant breeding is nowadays more and more disputed by the development of the farming in a context marked by the improvement of the conditions of the rainfall in West-African Sahel, soil depletion in the Groundnut Basin and the multiplication of agricultural development at the valley of the Senegal River. By combining the analysis of remote sensing imagery for mapping land cover changes by the vegetation cover, the study of flora and vegetation landscape and the exploitation of the investigations in villages and camps, this thesis attempts to define the geography of the vulnerability of rural populations and ecosystems which they use. So, pastoralists evolve with daily adaptation strategies in these circles inside Senegal marked by deep ecological instability and by the transformations at work in the Senegalese rural society. These socio-environmental changes contribute to the dynamics of plant landscapes and raise the question of ecosystem degradation.

A presente tese se centra na compreensão do sistema pastoril em Santa María, Província de Catamarca, Argentina. Os grupos pastoris desta região apresentam mobilidade sazonal em busca de fontes hídricas e pastagens, indicando movimentos que tradicionalmente se distinguem entre os vales e o interior das serras. Especificamente, esta mobilidade que lhes é característica também atua na percepção e apreensão da paisagem. Neste contexto, a paisagem tem um valor ativo nestas práticas e no imaginário das pessoas do lugar. A partir de uma abordagem etnoarqueológica se buscará compreender a maneira como as características específicas do sistema pastoril atuam na relação entre humanos e o meio e na internalização da paisagem, considerando as implicações materiais dessas escolhas e comportamentos. / This dissertation focuses on understanding the pastoral system in Santa María, Catamarca province, Argentina. Pastoralists movements are based on a seasonal mobility to search water sources and pastures, indicating movements that are traditionally distinguished between the valleys and the mountains. Specifically, the mobility pattern also acts on perception and apprehension of the landscape. In this context, the landscape has an active value in practices and imagination of the pastoral people. The study uses an ethnoarchaeological approach, to investigate the pastoralist system, and the implications of the relationship between humans and the environment and the internalization of landscape, considering the material implications of choices and behaviors.

<p>The conventional view on the Kalahari in southern Africa expresses that the area is unsuitable for livestock herding. For this reason, it is argued that livestock herders avoided the Kalahari in the past and were only able to establish themselves in the later half of the twentieth century, when deep-reaching boreholes were introduced in the area. An effect of this concept was that the archaeological record of pastoralists in the Kalahari either was perceived as non-existent or received little attention from scientific enquiry.</p><p>Based on an archaeological survey in the Kalahari of the northeastern part of Namibia, the purpose of this study is to construct an alternative approach to the archaeology of livestock herding. The aim is to contribute to a better understanding of the areas unrecorded land-use history. </p><p>I depart from the notion that the main ecological constraint for dryland pastoralism is the availability of dry season water and fodder resources. For this reason, the fundamental basis for a pastoral land-use system is places that contain dry season resources. By reviewing recent ecological research, historical and anthropological accounts and previous archaeological research, I establish a link between livestock herders’ procurement of dry season key resources and the practice of digging wells. The link can be motivated from the pastoral ambition of accumulating livestock and high water requirements in the restrained dry season. On this basis, I suggest that artificial wells are useful indicators of pastoral land use in the Kalahari. </p><p>The most crucial task for the study is to address the archaeological visibility of pastoral well sites. By a research approach integrating the theoretical understanding of pastoralism and a methodology including ecology, archaeology, history and the knowledge of the people who keep livestock in the region today, the archaeological survey revealed 40 well sites, including nearly 200 well structures that have all been used for watering livestock. </p><p>However, it would be unfortunate if a study of pastoral wells would solely address the ecological foundation and the archaeological visibility of pastoralism. I suggest that the wells signify the labour of peoples with common or separate histories, with or without own herds, but probably talked about in relation to herds. I will also argue that the wells can be used for tracking and reconstructing a pastoral land-use system that predated the colonial era. Furthermore, the wells can be used to identify changes of the land-use that took place during the twentieth century, which involved that livestock herding was more or less abandoned in large parts of northwestern Kalahari. </p><p>The study surmises that the critical historical perspective is valuable for development projects and conservationist interventions active in the region, especially in the light of the recent trends in the dryland ecology, which shows a larger appreciation for the indigenous understanding of the management of dryland ecosystems. With modifications, the developed approach can be applicable for land-use historical research elsewhere in southern Africa.</p>

The conventional view on the Kalahari in southern Africa expresses that the area is unsuitable for livestock herding. For this reason, it is argued that livestock herders avoided the Kalahari in the past and were only able to establish themselves in the later half of the twentieth century, when deep-reaching boreholes were introduced in the area. An effect of this concept was that the archaeological record of pastoralists in the Kalahari either was perceived as non-existent or received little attention from scientific enquiry. Based on an archaeological survey in the Kalahari of the northeastern part of Namibia, the purpose of this study is to construct an alternative approach to the archaeology of livestock herding. The aim is to contribute to a better understanding of the areas unrecorded land-use history. I depart from the notion that the main ecological constraint for dryland pastoralism is the availability of dry season water and fodder resources. For this reason, the fundamental basis for a pastoral land-use system is places that contain dry season resources. By reviewing recent ecological research, historical and anthropological accounts and previous archaeological research, I establish a link between livestock herders’ procurement of dry season key resources and the practice of digging wells. The link can be motivated from the pastoral ambition of accumulating livestock and high water requirements in the restrained dry season. On this basis, I suggest that artificial wells are useful indicators of pastoral land use in the Kalahari. The most crucial task for the study is to address the archaeological visibility of pastoral well sites. By a research approach integrating the theoretical understanding of pastoralism and a methodology including ecology, archaeology, history and the knowledge of the people who keep livestock in the region today, the archaeological survey revealed 40 well sites, including nearly 200 well structures that have all been used for watering livestock. However, it would be unfortunate if a study of pastoral wells would solely address the ecological foundation and the archaeological visibility of pastoralism. I suggest that the wells signify the labour of peoples with common or separate histories, with or without own herds, but probably talked about in relation to herds. I will also argue that the wells can be used for tracking and reconstructing a pastoral land-use system that predated the colonial era. Furthermore, the wells can be used to identify changes of the land-use that took place during the twentieth century, which involved that livestock herding was more or less abandoned in large parts of northwestern Kalahari. The study surmises that the critical historical perspective is valuable for development projects and conservationist interventions active in the region, especially in the light of the recent trends in the dryland ecology, which shows a larger appreciation for the indigenous understanding of the management of dryland ecosystems. With modifications, the developed approach can be applicable for land-use historical research elsewhere in southern Africa.

Nomadic pastoralism is an ancient subsistence strategy, historically balanced and in continuity with sedentary societies. Sedentarization of nomads occurs normally because of ecological disasters, economic opportunities, urbanization, and government policy. In this paper, I examine the effect of changing land use patterns on nomadic pastoral populations in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, using biogeographic methodology to further explore the contemporary relationship between humans and their environments. Nomadic population information gleaned from diverse ethnographic studies, and GIS data on anthropogenic biome distributions, were used to calculate changes in nomadic population, area of developed land, and nomadic/sedentary population density over the last century in seven countries. There was a significant decrease in the proportion of national populations practicing nomadic pastoralism (paired t-test, p=0.0038, n=7), but no significant overall change in total nomadic populations (paired t-test, p=0.41, n=7); nomadic population decreased in all countries but Sudan and Somalia. There was also no significant change in undeveloped land available for nomadic pastoralism (mean change -12.5%, S.D. ±15.8, paired t-test p=0.07, n=7), though the area of land available for nomadic pastoralism decreased in most countries. There was a negative linear correlation between land development and nomadic population when Somalia and Sudan were omitted (r2=0.84). Nomadic population density decreased in most countries, but increased in Somalia and Sudan. Some nomadic populations may be experiencing an extinction debt effect, where habitat loss combines with increased population density (Somalia, Sudan), but in most others where the population seemed to decrease more rapidly than would be expected due to habitat loss (Saudi Arabia, Mauritania, Iraq, and Afghanistan). The variable relationship between density and habitat loss implies that social factors often overshadow the ecological: though there is a correlation between habitat loss and nomadic population decline, causation is unclear. Despite the limitations of this study, nomadic populations do seem to have a natural balance with their cultural and biological environments that is disrupted by changes in social dynamics with sedentary populations and their subsequent environmental impacts. The loss of cultural diversity inherent in this disruption may decrease the flexibility and adaptability of the overall biosocial human ecosystem.

The areas of study for this dissertation are the Turopon and Sirkas lappbyar (communities) in the parish of Jokkmokk during the period 1760—1860. The starting point for discussion is a decrease in population through migration to Norway, from 667 inhabitants in 1781, to 353 in 1868. The primary cause was the ecological instability of reindeer herding with recurring crises caused by poor grazing, adverse snow conditions, epizootics, and predators. The stability in reindeer herding is finally determined by the numbers of grazing animals and the carrying capacities of the pastures. A disturbance in the balance between people and animals could occur if competition from the settlers limited available pastures, or the government through taxes appropriated so much of the surplus that the subsistence level was markedly increased. A closer examination reveals, however, that no outside influences can be indicated as being responsible for the population decline. Attention must thus be directed toward the inner social processes of this pastoralist society. While the reindeer herding population diminished, the total number of reindeer remained on a relatively constant level. The resulting process of accumulation consolidated the reindeer into the hands of fewer owners. While these conclusions indicate an economically differentiated society, the marriage pattern shows that the social distance between the economic groupings was very small. By promoting economic differentiation, trade had an important potential as agent of social stratification. This potential was, however, not fully realized. The equalizing factors were stronger than the differentiating forces. / <p>Diss. (sammanfattning) Umeå : Umeå universitet, 1989, härtill 5 uppsatser</p> / digitalisering@umu

China's quest for sustainable development has given birth to a set of contested ‘ecological construction’ programmes. Focusing on ‘ecological resettlement’, a type of policy measure in a programme for restoring degraded grasslands, this thesis sets out a critical analysis in opposition to the dominant technical and managerial approaches to understanding environmentalisation. The aim is to draw out the politics of the formulation, implementation and effects of ecological resettlement at and across different scales. The study combines fieldwork, interviews, analysis of policy documents, and statistical analysis while theoretically, in addition to political ecology, it incorporates concepts and models from environmental governance, migration, and pastoralism studies. Environmentalisation is examined through three types of analysis: environmentalisation of the state, reshaping of state-society relations, and (re)territorialisation. A central theme is how local processes are linked to national considerations and how the local state acts as an intermediary between the central state and the pastoralists. The analysis exposes the practices that enabled the central state to define the problem of grasslands and devise interventions, illustrating the environmentalisation of the state. However, at the local level, incentives and interests defined by the political structure drove the developmental local state to pursue short-term-effective rather than sustainable practices. On the other hand, while the pastoral households responded to the projects with different strategies, their migration decisions suggested that social, economic and cultural considerations played a more important role than environmental concerns. Moreover, ecological resettlement has led to a significant change of Mongolian pastoralism. Land-tenure-based management further fragmented rangelands while the emergence of new social arrangements enabled migrant households to remain involved with pastoralism.

Diss. (sammanfattning) Uppsala : Sveriges lantbruksuniv., 2004. / Härtill 4 uppsatser.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of London, 1990. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 555-577).

L’intervention en périphérie d’aire protégée visant l’amélioration de la conservation est une démarche largement partagée par les programmes de conservation depuis les années 1990. Il s’agit pourtant d’un postulat, que nous voulons réexaminer grâce à la situation du Parc du W (Bénin, Burkina Faso, Niger). Ce Parc est un complexe transfrontalier d’aires protégées, confronté à la pénétration illégale de troupeaux bovins transhumants conduits par des bergers peuls à la recherche de pâturage.Nous identifions d’abord les différents espaces où se jouent les relations entre le Parc et les pasteurs. Au-delà d’une périphérie proche, déjà prise en compte par le Parc, les espaces d’interaction dépassent, par des effets indirects, l’échelle de la mobilité des pasteurs. Ils englobent non seulement une aire d’attraction mais des espaces plus lointains, qui comprennent tous les pôles d’accueil pastoraux de la région. Nous analysons les facteurs de l’attractivité relative de ces espaces. Nous décrivons ensuite les formes de mobilité des éleveurs et leurs relations avec le Parc. A l’aide d’un modèle de décision, nous mettons en évidence les facteurs influençant les pratiques de mobilité dans leur diversité. Enfin, nous étudions les stratégies du Parc en périphérie pour examiner leur influence réelle ou potentielle sur les pasteurs. Elles souffrent du manque d’explicitation d’objectifs d’intervention basés sur l’analyse des relations entre Parc et périphérie. Au delà, nous montrons les limites de tout projet de conservation, cantonné à une ingénierie écologique, alors qu’est mise au jour la nécessité d’une ingénierie territoriale menée simultanément à de multiples échelles. / Protected area managers act on peripheral zones because they hope that it will improve conservation. This is a common behaviour of most development programs since 1990s. However, this relies on a postulate, which we try to examine thank to the case of the W Park (Bénin, Burkina Faso, Niger). This transborder park is a complex of protected area that faces with cattle herds, led by fulan herdsmen, that illegaly enters to find pasture. We identify spaces where the interactions between Parc and pastors take place. Beyond close periphery that was already took into into account by the Park, interaction spaces are even greater than the spaces where the pastors move because of indirect effects. They encompass an attraction area, and even further, all the surrounding main pastures area. We explore all factors that make the attractivity of spaces, including Park, compared to each other. Then, we describe pastors mobility types and how they affect their relationships to Park. A decision model helps us to show the factors influencing various mobility practices.Finally, we analyse Park strategies in the surrounding to evaluate its actual or potential influence on pastors. Its intervention lacks explicite goals and should be grounded on an analysis of relationships between Park and its surrounding. Deeper, we bring out that any conservation program is limited because it implements ecological engineering though a multiscale territorial engineering would be necessary.