Publicaciones

The authors discuss the main climate change impacts on pastoralist societies,
including those on rangelands, livestock and other natural resources, and their
extended repercussions on food security, incomes and vulnerability. The impacts of
climate change on the rangelands of the globe and on the vulnerability of the people
who inhabit them will be severe and diverse, and will require multiple, simultaneous
responses. In higher latitudes, the removal of temperature constraints might
increase pasture production and livestock productivity, but in tropical arid lands,
the impacts are highly location specific, but mostly negative. The authors outline
several adaptation options, ranging from implementing new technical practices and
diversifying income sources to finding institutional support and introducing new
market mechanisms, all of which are pivotal for enhancing the capacity of pastoralists
to adapt to climate variability and change. Due to the dynamism of all the changes
affecting pastoral societies, strategies that lock pastoral societies into specified
development pathways could be maladaptive. Flexible and evolving combinations of
practices and policies are the key to successful pastoral adaptation.