The semi-arid pastoral system on the central Borana Plateau is subjected to multiple social, economic, and ecological stressors. A driver of change is the steadily growing human population; more people lead to more livestock, and more livestock lead to environmental degradation in the form of gully erosion and bush encroachment. Livestock production becomes increasingly vulnerable to drought-induced shortages of forage and water when the local carrying capacity is exceeded; wasteful animal deaths add to millions of USD in financial losses for pastoralists. A declining ratio of milking stock to people means that per capita income and assets are ratcheting downwards, creating pockets of persistent poverty. A small minority is becoming wealthier while everyone else becomes poorer; traditional safety nets—as well as social compacts where the rich help the poor—have disappeared. Add to this troubling scenario a warmer, drier climate and the systemic outcomes become worse. This, then, is the vicious cycle. Pastoralists are attempting to adapt to climate change by herding more drought-resistant browsing camels and goats relative to drought-vulnerable grazing cattle and sheep, but this process is insufficient to mitigate the large array of challenges that are faced. Solutions must go beyond the traditional pastoral sector.
Results/Conclusions
This presentation focuses on a conceptual synthesis illustrating a more radical approach to better manage systemic change. It involves linking the pastoral sector to the rapidly growing urban sector in these rangelands. A dozen expanding towns and cities here offer new investments for citizens in the form of land, housing, banking, and small-business opportunities. Some of the wealthy pastoral elite—despite being largely illiterate—are already investing in urban options in preference to livestock reinvestment, which is deemed too risky due to high stocking rates and drought shocks. Urban investments not only offer options for pastoralists to better shelter assets, but a large infusion of livestock capital could transform urban areas in terms of job creation, expansion of loan capital, and stimulating urban demand for pastoral livestock products. Alternative investments to livestock could also provide incentives for creative destocking initiatives to benefit rangeland management. This, then, is the virtuous cycle. Accelerating such a process would involve a novel array of outreach activities along with action-oriented research. This would include education of the general pastoral population, having the wealthy pastoral elite serve as opinion leaders and change agents, and major efforts to connect pastoral investors with urban investment opportunities.