Winds of change and the threat of desertification: Case study from the Tunesian Sahara

Abstract

The former agro-pastoral system which prevailed in the Tunisian Sahara had developed a pastoral resource management which preserved the rather fragile ecological equilibrium. Nowadays in the Tunisian Sahara nearly all former nomads are settled around the villages and irrigated areas which were created with the official aim of utilizing the Sahara. The sedentarization of the nomads has provoked two phenomena: a concentration and an increased density of population around the newly founded oases on the one hand and a depopulation of the more remote steppes on the other hand. Actually this demographic disequilibrium threatens the ecological equilibrium which existed in the past. It has caused a multiplication of the stocking of the actual pastures and increases the risk of degradation of the peripheral and easily accessible grazing-grounds. It exercises an excessive pressure on the environment through the intensive human activities and the satisfaction of new needs. This pressure manifests itself in the enlargement of the circles of degradation around the oases and the intensification of aeolian dynamics. A regeneration of the former organically developed eco-system is impossible without conscious reference into the local traditions and without consideration of the complexity of interelationship of the various factors.