Uncertainties of all sorts – environmental, market-based and political – are on the rise, as the world faces climate and environmental change, as well as market volatility and political turmoil. Learning lessons from pastoralists is therefore important for all of us, as well as ensuring that development efforts are more effective across the world’s rangelands, where millions of pastoralists live.
A new open access book – Pastoralism, Uncertainty and Development – makes the case that recognising how pastoralists make productive use of variability and embrace uncertainty is central to understanding how pastoral systems in marginal dryland and montane systems work. This offers wider lessons for rethinking development policy and practice for today’s uncertain, turbulent world. The book emerges from the work of the PASTRES programme, which is supported by a European Research Council Advanced Grant and is co-hosted by IDS and the European University Institute.
This article is from PASTRES, a research programme that aims to learn from pastoralists about responding to uncertainty and resilience, with lessons for global challenges. PASTRES is co-hosted by IDS.
