#Pastoralism is facing existential threat in #West_Africa - ScienceDirect
▻https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0962629825000952
#Political_Geography
Volume 121, August 2025, 103363
Political Geography
Guest editorial
Pastoralism is facing existential threat in West Africa
Olivier J. Walther, Lacey Harris-Coble, Leif Brottem, Mirjam de Bruijn, Han van Dijk, Cletus F. Nwankwo, Adegbola T. Adesogan
▻https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2025.103363
In March 2025, pro-government militias killed more than 130 Fulani pastoralists in the western Boucle du Mouhoun region of Burkina Faso, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW, 2025). This attack against unarmed civilians is far from an isolated incident in West Africa. It reflects a larger and disturbing trend in the region, where pastoralists are routinely accused of siding with violent extremist organizations affiliated with Al Qaeda and the Islamic State, and targeted by government forces and their allied militias.
The increased frequency of such massacres is but one of the many threats facing pastoralism, a vital sector of the West African economy that contributes to the livelihoods of an estimated 25 million people in the Sahel and outskirts of the Sahara. From Senegal to Chad, pastoralists supply meat and dairy products to a rapidly growing population. Beyond the economic sphere, pastoralism is a cultural system in which animals are regarded as a source of social standing. Fulani, Tuareg, Moore and Tubu pastoralists are the carriers of unique conflict resolution mechanisms, knowledge of production systems, religious networks, political organizations, and gender roles.
While they remain crucially important to West African #societies, these #pastoral_systems have experienced major crises since the second half of the 20th century. In the 1970s and 1980s, the great #Sahelian #droughts decimated livestock and led pastoral populations to adopt other modes of subsistence based on mobility, such as trade, tourism, and war. A new form of pastoralism emerged, managed by absentee owners, #neo-pastoralists, politicians, and businessmen, who abandoned the traditional equilibrium based on ecological complementarities. More than a result of climatic conditions, these changes were encouraged by state policies implemented to control the movements of populations deemed too politically independent (Walther & Retaillé, 2021). #Sedentarization, intensification, and privatization policies were also widely supported by international donors, despite a history of failure in the region and the reluctance of the pastoralists themselves to change their way of life.
Je peux fournir le PDF si besoin !