TY - JOUR A1 - Ouédraogo, Karim A1 - Zaré, Alhassane A1 - Korbéogo, Gabin A1 - Ouédraogo, Oumarou A1 - Linstädter, Anja T1 - Resilience strategies of West African pastoralists in response to scarce forage resources JF - Pastoralism : research, policy and practice N2 - Finding sufficient natural fodder resources to feed livestock has become a challenge for herders in the Sahel zone of Burkina Faso. Despite the existence of pastoral reserves, the issue of fodder shortage remains unsolved. This article highlights the changes in behaviour and the evolution of pastoral practices caused by the scarcity of forage resources. These changes are defined and classified as resilience strategies. Thus, this paper aims to analyse these strategies using new semantics that calls for other forms of perceptions or approach to the questions of pastoralists' resilience strategies. Interviews (semi-structured and casual conversations), ethnographic observations and ethnobotanical surveys were used to collect data. In rangelands, such high value fodder species as Andropogon gayanus, Pennisetum pedicellatum and Dactyloctenium aegyptium that were abundant herbaceous plants during the last decades are disappearing. Concomitantly, species with lower forage value, such as Senna obtusifolia, which are more resilient to ecological disturbance factors, are colonizing rangelands. Faced with these ecological changes, pastoralists are trying to redefine and reconfigure their practices, and this implies a redefinition of their identity. They use resilience strategies such as mowing grasses, building up fodder bundles, conserving crop residues, exploiting Senna obtusifolia (a previously neglected species), using woody fodder and adapting the type of livestock and the size of the herds to the ability of pastoralists to feed them. Strategies that are older than these are the integration of agriculture with livestock and decollectivized transhumance. It is these resilience strategies that this article exposes and analyses as defence mechanisms of Sahelian pastoralists in the face of the depletion of forage resources in their environments. KW - Pastoralism KW - Forage values KW - Burkina Faso KW - Ecological changes Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1186/s13570-021-00210-8 SN - 2041-7136 VL - 11 IS - 1 PB - SpringerOpen CY - Heidelberg ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Foerster, Verena A1 - Vogelsang, Ralf A1 - Junginger, Annett A1 - Asrat, Asfawossen A1 - Lamb, Henry F. A1 - Schäbitz, Frank A1 - Trauth, Martin H. T1 - Environmental change and human occupation of southern Ethiopia and northern Kenya during the last 20,000 years JF - Quaternary science reviews : the international multidisciplinary research and review journal N2 - Our understanding of the impact of climate-driven environmental change on prehistoric human populations is hampered by the scarcity of continuous paleoenvironmental records in the vicinity of archaeological sites. Here we compare a continuous paleoclimatic record of the last 20 ka before present from the Chew Bahir basin, southwest Ethiopia, with the available archaeological record of human presence in the region. The correlation of this record with orbitally-driven insolation variations suggests a complex nonlinear response of the environment to climate forcing, reflected in several long-term and short-term transitions between wet and dry conditions, resulting in abrupt changes between favorable and unfavorable living conditions for humans. Correlating the archaeological record in the surrounding region of the Chew Bahir basin, presumably including montane and lake-marginal refugia for human populations, with our climate record suggests a complex interplay between humans and their environment during the last 20 ka. The result may contribute to our understanding of how a dynamic environment may have impacted the adaptation and dispersal of early humans in eastern Africa. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. KW - Archeology KW - Paleoclimate KW - African humid period KW - Push factor KW - Adaption KW - Migration KW - Hunter-gatherers KW - Foragers KW - Pastoralism KW - Chew Bahir Y1 - 2015 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2015.10.026 SN - 0277-3791 VL - 129 SP - 333 EP - 340 PB - Elsevier CY - Oxford ER -