Accounting for pastoralists in Pakistan

Rangelands are the main land use in Pakistan, providing forage for livestock and supporting millions of pastoralists. Traditional pastoralism is a centuries-old production system, sustained by nomadic, transhumant and sedentary pastoralists. Major pastoral regions in Pakistan include the Hindu Kush-Himalayan and Karakoram ranges, arid and semi-arid scrublands of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, and the sandy deserts of Thal, Thar and Cholistan.
Pastoralists contribute significantly to national food security, subsistence and economy. But they face numerous challenges: land degradation, land grabbing, socio-political marginalization and competition over natural resources, unfavourable policies, climate change and environmental hazards. Pastoralists are not officially recognized, so their contributions are often not accounted official records. Reliable data is lacking. Pastoralism in Pakistan is declining due to various socio-political and ecological challenges.

  • Title: Accounting for pastoralists in Pakistan
  • Author: Khurshid Muhammad
  • Description: Information brief
  • Format: Pdf
  • Pages: 6

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    Valorizando pastoralistas em Moçambique

    O agro-pecuária é a principal forma de produção pecuária em Moçambique. Está concentrado nas províncias mais secas, centrais e meridionais, longe das áreas infestadas pelo tsé-tsé. Enquanto as galinhas e cabras são mais numerosas, o gado bovino é o tipo de gado mais importante. São uma fonte de rendimento e poder de tracção, uma reserva de riqueza e importante culturalmente. O gado é uma fonte de rendimento vital para um grande número de agricultores, especialmente no sul do país.

    O agro-pecuária e a segurança alimentar poderiam ser melhorados através de melhores serviços veterinários, melhor alimentação e abeberamento na estação seca, e criação com base em raças locais. O agropecuária não é oficialmente reconhecido como uma forma de gestão, e não figura de forma proeminente nas políticas governamentais. Serão necessários dados melhores, mais frequentes e mais detalhados se Moçambique quiser tirar partido das oportunidades apresentadas pelo gado para o seu desenvolvimento agrícola.

    Também em inglês.

  • Title: Valorizando pastoralistas em Moçambique
  • Author: Jacob Wanyama e Romuald Rutazihana
  • Description: Resumo informativo
  • Format: Zip
  • Pages: 6

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    The role of pastoralism in Germany

    Evelyn Mathias, Günther Czerkus and Andreas Schenk

    This study investigates the situation of pastoralism in Germany. It gives an overview of the data sources on livestock and pastoralism in Germany, the pastoralist systems and the definitions of pastoralism used. Germany has three main types of pastoralism: sheep transhumance (Wanderschäferei, the long-distance movement of mobile shepherds and their flocks between winter and summer pastures), location-bound herding (standortgebundene Hütehaltung, where pastoralists graze their sheep and goats in a more or less wide radius around the homestead), and mountain farming (Almwirtschaft, where cattle, plus some sheep, goats and horses, stay with their herder on mountain pastures during the summer months, returning to the valleys in the autumn).

    The definitions of the various forms of pastoralism vary from state to state within Germany. There are an estimated 1,000 full-time shepherds in Germany, most of whom are mobile. Smaller enterprises with fewer sheep are less likely to be mobile and more likely to run part-time or hobby operations, or as part of a mixed farm. The 1,000 large, mobile operations graze perhaps 3.4% of Germany’s permanent grasslands.

    Livestock products include meat, milk, cheese and wool. These are worth a total of EUR 83.9 million per year for the 1,000 large operations. Environmental services include enhanced biodiversity through seed and insect dispersal, pasture fertilization by the animals’ manure, a dense grass cover, and moderate soil compaction compared to the use of machinery. Taken together, these environmental services are worth between EUR 207 and 347 million – more than the income derived from the sale of products. Other benefits include landscape maintenance for tourism and recreation, improved groundwater quality, and control of erosion, flood and wildfires. It is hard to put an economic value on these benefits.

    Mobile herding is declining because of low profitability, a growing shortage of suitable grazing land, attacks by wolves, and excessive bureaucracy. Even though the number of pastoralists in Germany is small, they make a disproportionate contribution to Germany’s economy and environment. More reliable data focusing on pastoralism is needed to obtain a better picture of the status of pastoralism and to provide a basis for efforts to support it.

  • Title: The role of pastoralism in Germany
  • Author: Evelyn Mathias, Günther Czerkus and Andreas Schenk / League for Pastoral Peoples and Endogenous Livestock Development / 2022
  • Description: Paper
  • Format: Zip
  • Pages: 46

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