In some of the most marginal areas of the world where arable farming is not practical, people cope and are able to survive through the raising of animals. Usually, these systems are highly mobile, meaning the livestock keeper must follow or drive their animals to different pastures and rangelands. Often, such systems are neglected or looked at as backwards, traditional or somehow out-of-style. But this year's Tropentag held a full session devoted exclusively to oral presentations on research in extensive livestock production. Here are a couple results from the session... (read more) Home on the Range A take-home message from the extensive livestock session was that mobility is key in resilient livestock systems. Tobias Feldt, one speaker at the session from the University of Kassel, presented his team's results concerning the effects insecurity and conflict have on mobility and its implications towards sustainable livelihoods. Findings showed that decreased mobility of herders in southwest Madagascar led the pastoralists to return to certain grazing areas too early leading to degradation of these pastures as they did not have enough time to regenerate. A side-effect of this is that pastoralists illegally graze their animals within National Park boundaries, further complicating their situation. The lesson learnt from the work of Feldt and his team is that when mobility is decreased within extensive systems, pastoralists suffer. In this case specifically, the seasonal rangelands that pastoralists depend on were being degraded because available rangelands were left idle due to fears of conflict. Mapping for Mobility There is often a high regard for the ingenuity of those who manage extensive production systems as they are often quite complex. Therefore, Hussein Wario and his team were curious to discover more about how pastoralists manage their systems, especially communal pastures, in respect to ongoing changes. Wario discussed how Borana pastoralists have a unique system of managing communal pastures and watering points across different areas. Such managements allow the community to take full advantage of the differences in pastures with regard to the changes that occur in both space and time. In order to gain a better sense of such grazing management, Wario and his team utilized participatory mapping of rangelands -- sitting down together with the pastoralists to identify and discuss where they graze and don't graze, at what times, and where they go to next. They also created seasonal grazing calendars together and conducted interviews with respected pastoralists to discover more about how management of resources is coordinated and the effects that certain constraints have on their ability to maintain such management. Unfortunately, Wario and his team found that mobility was becoming constrained to more predictable patterns due to political intereferences and increases in settlement densities. The loss of complexity thereby reduced the need for the community to organize and manage communal pasture resources. This lack of mobility also poses threats in the form of greater vulnerability to pressures and sudden changes that may occur within the pastoral system.