Topic 2

The Climate Change and the Environment in pastoralism

While pastoral societies are historically adapted to climate variability they face new challenges. The characteristics of pastoralism in sub-arid zones, namely the intensity of interactions between people, animals and the environment, allowing pastors to make the most of heterogeneous and variable resources, are challenged by constraints of several types, and in particular by the medium-term climatic changes.

In pastoral breeding - environment interactions, beyond the recurrent issues of depletion of biodiversity in the rangelands and the conditions for securing practices and systems, other controversies are also emerging. They relate to climate change and the direct and indirect contributions of animal sector to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. These emissions come mainly from enteric fermentation, effluents, deforestation and crops destined for animal feed. In the debate, in view of the fact that these emissions are generally reported per units of products (kg meat, milk etc.), Sahelian pastoral systems whose productivity is limited by the extensive nature and seasonal constraints of the climate, are particularly critical of the need to reduce emission intensities and improve their efficiency.

The GHG controversies give rise to other correlated issues, on the non-renewable energy consumption, the losses and waste of nitrogen in the effluents, the fluxes and stocks of carbon that mobilize the livestock breeding. These controversies revive the interest of also highlighting the positive and certifiable externalities of environmental activities (management of the tree stratum, maintenance of landscape biodiversity , storage of carbon in the rangelands, avoided emissions ...) and of economic and social contributions to local activities (exploitation and valorisation of forest products, interaction between agriculture and pastoral livestock, training effects of livestock economy ...

Pastoral livestock also suffers first from the consequences of climate change in the evolution of seasonal climatic patterns, the recurrence of extreme events, and the reduced availability of resources. Pastoral mobility practices, which are at the center of the attention of several regional development research projects / programs, are at the same time severely compromised by agro-industrial investments that fragment landscapes and specialize territories.

The climate changes, what are the observable manifestations in the environments and in the daily or annual practices? How can we conceive the adaptation of practices and legal frameworks while mitigating the effects of livestock on the climate? How to better contextualize inventories of the accurate contributions to emissions, at territorial, national, regional levels? In the positive interactions between trees, herbaceous surfaces, animals, how to potentiate carbon storage in pastoral areas and certify practices in the access to eventual future payments? In interactions with agriculture, how to intensify trade flows and contribute to the mitigation of climate change contributions in crops and livestock? To what extent and under what conditions of collective action, private and or public, can, crops, forests livestock managing systems in dry areas be better articulated?