Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Recreating Pastoralist Futures, T. J. P. Lynam

IGC Proceedings (1997-2023)

Research experience in southern Africa is used to reflect on key determinants of pastoral futures and how they might need to be addressed. The paper begins with a brief review of what we mean by marginality. A set of observations on key issues defining the option sets for pastoralism in the future is then presented. The first of these is that only a small number of structures or processes actually control the behaviour of social-ecological systems such as pastoralist systems. A second observation is that the future is so uncertain that there is a need to learn to design for …