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8.1 (Spring 1984) Nomads: Stopped in Their Tracks?

Small-scale Projects and Sahel Nomads

In the aftermath of the 1968-1973 drought in the Sahel many development agencies were anxious to respond to the pressing needs of pastoralists. Herders in the northern Sahel had lost a large proportion of their animals and hence their means or livelihood. Four small scale projects, undertaken by private voluntary agencies (PVOs) are described in Section I: Tin Aicha village and the Kidal wells project in Mali, and the Habbanae and Kawrital projects in Niger.

Open Letter on the Ju/Wasi of Bushmanland

The Ju/Wasi people of Bushmanland need help and support to keep their land and develop a better way of life for themselves and their children.

Picture a people…

* who have lost 70 % of the land they had occupied for at least 1,000 and perhaps as long as 23,000 years…

* who were the last independent, self-sufficient hunters and gatherers in Southern Africa - still practicing their ancient way of life only 20 years ago…

Introduction - 8.1

Pastoral nomadism provokes highly contrasting images. The romantic image of the nomad as a free spirit, untrammeled by the restrictions of sedentary life - such as the desert Bedouin - is strongly represented in Western literature while portraits of tall, haughty Masai leaning on their spears surrounded by cattle compete for our attention on the glossy pages of coffee table books. In some instances, nomads are sometimes seen as ignorant, lazy, overbearing, and unproductive agents waiting to destroy agricultural villages and civilized life.

These views are not mutually exclusive.

Generating Interest

Money for human rights work is scarce. For the past ten years, Cultural Survival has spent eighty percent of its' budget directly on projects for indigenous peoples, and reports which publicize their plight here and abroad. The organization has restricted its overhead expenses - salaries, offices, supplies, telephone, etcetera - to 20% - of its annual budget, an extremely low figure for any human rights group, public or private.

East African Pastoralists

During the past fifteen years eastern African pastoralists have shown once again that they are vulnerable to food shortage and famine. Solving these problems will not be easy. Modernization has disrupted already inadequate traditional food systems and continues to threaten pastoralists. "Pastoral development" is proposed as a means of achieving long-term food security by increasing pastoralists' involvement in national food and economic systems. For pastoral development to become reality, however, daunting obstacles must be overcome.

Nomads in a Wider Society

Nomadism is found mostly in marginal areas which support only relatively sparse populations, particularly in the arid and semi-arid regions of Africa and Asia. It is a traditional form of society that allows the mobility and flexibility necessary for relatively even use of vegetation over large areas of low quality rangeland. It also facilitates more social interaction than would be possible among people living in small scattered settlements.

Land and Pastoralists

No issue is more critical to the future well-being of Kenya's pastoral populations than secure land tenure. Herders' access, particularly during dry months, to grazing land and water resources is the essence of any pastoral existence. Pastoralists' concern with security of land tenure overrides other development considerations - provision of technical assistance in the areas of animal health, marketing, cooperatives, and water development. Only when the land tenure issue is boldly addressed will sustained development take place in Kenya's rangelands.

India: The Bharvad Predicament

We are like stepchildren, we are the government's stepsons.

We are cattle people, we own no land, no fields; without fields we pay no tax to the government, farmers pay, and so you know "you look after those who feed yon."

Change and Egyptian Bedouins

Although they may appear as coastal communities on a map, Bedouin groups along the northern edge of the Egyptian Western Desert orient themselves south toward the desert where, until sedentarization, their migrations had taken them. Permanent water sources attract them to the coastal region during the summer season when the desert is parched. So does the need to sow barley in the fall and harvest in early summer. Coastal towns and markers, roads and a water pipeline also exert a pull. But their nostalgia for the inland desert, "up country" is strong.

Food and the Turkana in Kenya

The Turkana are nomadic pastoralists who live in the desert regions of northwestern Kenya. These people were one of many affected by a severe drought in 1979 and 1980. Although the famine which resulted from the sharp drop in food production was dramatized by the international press, insecurity of food availability is characteristic of pastoral production systems. The following discussion examines how the Turkana cope with the uncertainty associated with seasonal, annual and interhomestead variation in food production.

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