Adapting nomadic pastoralism to climate change

This paper presents the results of a detailed review of the research literature on how nomadic pastoralists are being affected by climate change, how they are adapting, and challenges with using traditional knowledge in adaptation. It focuses on research that investigates local, and particularly traditional, knowledge of water, pasture, their variability, and livestock. This knowledge underpins nomadic livelihoods, so is a foundation for effective adaptation. Changes in the total amount of precipitation, and particularly shifts in its timing, and increases in the frequency and intensity of extreme events, are having the greatest impacts on herding livelihoods. Herders in drylands worldwide face common adaptation challenges: declining traditional water sources and pasture degradation. Herders’ adaptation strategies fall into five major categories: movement to areas with better water and pasture, improving seasonal access to water, improving seasonal access to feed, shifts in herd composition, and livelihood diversification. Movement is central to nomads’ adaptation, yet, as climate change takes hold, restrictions on movement are increasing for both socio-economic reasons and climate reasons. Many papers emphasised the importance of combining traditional knowledge and current science to guide adaptation decision-making at household, locality, and national levels. There is widespread concern about the decline in traditional knowledge. All the papers reviewed emphasised the need to support passing on traditional know-how. Herder women’s know-how, in particular, is marginalised in the research literature, so their traditional knowledge should be a focus in further research. Herders’ adaptations are mostly localised, incremental, and have a relatively short-term focus. As nomadic pastoralism moves further outside the range of historical experience, the possibility of more profound transformations looms.