PASTORALISM: A LIVELIHOOD SYSTEM IN CONFLICT

Pastoralism is a subsistence in which people make a living through tending livestock. Under colonial rule, the life of pastoralists changed, their grazing grounds shrank, their movements were regulated and the revenue they had to pay increased. To colonial authorities, all uncultivated land was unproductive hence viewed as wasteland. Independence African governments viewed pastoralism with scepticism and pastoralists suspicious. With dwindling resources pastoralists were easily dominated by their agricultural neighbours both economically and politically. With the ever reducing land size compared to the ever increasing human population, there is a considerable pressure on available land and therefore pastoralism gets into conflict with itself and the world order. Matters attributable to the pastoral predicament include; porous international borders where communities sit astride international borders and yet are forced to belong to one state, interaction with cultivation is a major challenge to pastoralists as cultivation is highly favoured by modern land policies, in their immediate environment pastoralism is in direct competition with wildlife and often wildlife is more favoured and yet benefits accrued do not directly benefit pastoralists and the changing land tenure systems threaten to wipe out traditional pastoralism. This article is a product of a desk review and analysis of secondary data, and primary data from informal interviews to validate data from secondary sources. The article is grounded on the scarcity based theory and land use change. It aims at elaborating the pastoralists’ predicament in modern times.