Gonin, Alexis
Shared Pastures
- 2018.
42
Historical Sahelian commons used to protect herding mobility, but they have been dismantled. Herders no longer have a secure access to pastoral resources, which have been decreasing due to the extension of croplands. Mobility and crop/livestock integration, the two pillars of West African cattle rearing, have thus become jeopardized. Commons are a solution to legitimate new pastoral territories in farming areas and to rebuild a secure land tenure system. Yet, the delimitation of new pastoral territories raises the issue of sharing resources between insiders and outsiders. This is a political issue that can only be answered locally, as can be seen in the pastoral area of Barani.