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Towards Endogenous Livestock Development: Borana Pastoralists’ Responses to Environmental and Institutional Changes

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Abstract

Borana pastoralists in southern Ethiopia are faced with the challenge of developing more efficient and sustainable use of natural resources. In past decades poorly adapted development interventions and inadequate land-use policies aggravated by population growth have weakened pastoral rangeland management. Ignoring pastoralists’ technical and organizational capacities has contributed to progressive land degradation, the erosion of social structures and poverty. The Endogenous Livestock Development concept recognises pastoralists’ indigenous knowledge-based strategies and priorities, and uses them as the bases for further development of their production system and social relations, to be utilized, improved and combined with modern technologies. This paper explores the Borana pastoralists’ adaptive strategies for improved utilization of natural resources and the manner in which they respond to environmental risk and external influences such as water development and new formal administration. The adaptive responses include controlled integration of crop production and protection of grazing reserves, as well as changing cattle breeding priorities and the adoption of camel husbandry. The pastoralists have started negotiations with the administration to regain control of land utilization by strengthening directives for settlements, land use pattern and extraction rates. To support these initiatives the study recommends that pastoralists and other stakeholders enter into an institutionalized process of negotiation that builds on indigenous knowledge and organizational structures and facilitates validation and implementation of newly generated knowledge.

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Notes

  1. The ‘non-equilibrium’ model by Ellis and Swift (1988) and the ‘state and transition’ model by Walker and Noy-Meir (1982) and Westoby et al.( 1989) also describe the relation between variable rainfalls and livestock impact on rangeland resources.

  2. Cossins and Upton used LSU (1 LSU = 230 kg) as standard unit for the calculation of potential stocking densities in their paper. They calculated the average adult Boran cattle with 160 kg live weight as 0.7 LSU. In order to allow easier comparison with stocking densities calculated by other authors, the LSU data were here converted to TLU (1 TLU = 250 kg, Jahnke 1982).

  3. Homann (2004) converted the mixed herds of the Borana pastoralists to TLU by using the conversion factors suggested by other authors for East Africa (1 dromedary = 1 TLU, 1 cattle = 0.7 TLU and 1 small ruminant = 0.1 TLU; Sandford and Habtu 2000).

  4. Sandford and Habtu (2000) defined a minimum requirement of 3 TLU per African Adult Male Equivalent (AAME).

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful to the Tropical Ecological Research Programme/Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (TOEB/GTZ) and the Borana Lowlands Pastoral Development Programme (BLPDP/GTZ) for providing financial and logistical support. We are deeply indebted to the Borana pastoralist communities for their warm hospitality and willingness to share their knowledge. Many thanks are to Swathi Sridharan for editing the English. The comments and suggestions of two anonymous reviewers to an earlier draft of this paper are gratefully acknowledged.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Livestock Ecology, Justus-Liebig-University Giessen, Ludwigstr.21, 35390, Giessen, Germany

    Sabine Homann, Barbara Rischkowsky & Jörg Steinbach

  2. Institute for Cooperation in Developing Countries, Philipps-University Marburg, Am Plan 2, 35032, Marburg, Germany

    Michael Kirk

  3. League for Pastoral Peoples and Endogenous Livestock Development, Müllenberg 5a, 51515, Kürten, Germany

    Evelyn Mathias

  4. International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-arid Tropics (ICRISAT), P.O. Box 776, Bulawayo, Zimbabwe

    Sabine Homann

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  1. Sabine Homann
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Correspondence to Sabine Homann.

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Homann, S., Rischkowsky, B., Steinbach, J. et al. Towards Endogenous Livestock Development: Borana Pastoralists’ Responses to Environmental and Institutional Changes. Hum Ecol 36, 503–520 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10745-008-9180-7

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