Enabling Sustainable Dryland Management Through Mobile Pastoral Custodianship

The goal of this program is to enable sustainable land management in extensive rangelands. It will do so by helping to remove policy and capacity obstacles and to identify innovative practical ways in which sustainable drylands ecosystem management through livestock mobility can be made both viable and attractive. It will establish the necessary pre-conditions at national and local level to enable investment in pastoral sustainable land management. The global programme is intended to catalyse and coordinate donor action so as to address some of the root causes that prevent effective custodianship of drylands by pastoralists. Global benefits are expected in establishing the enabling framework for four key benefits: a) promoting viable pastoral sustainable land management through new and innovative sustainable land management approaches derived from traditional knowledge; b) safeguarding sustainable use and conservation of biodiversity in pastoral lands; c) ensuring ecosystem health and functions and thereby enhancing carbon sequestration; and d) reducing vulnerability of pastoralists to climate change-induced droughts. The immediate objectives of the medium sized project are two-fold: a) Advocacy, for greater recognition of mobile pastoralism as a sustainable form of land management, and greater awareness by national stakeholders of policy options to support pastoral livelihoods b) Capacities built, by cross-continental exchanges, disseminating best practices for support services to mobile populations, and building capacity of selected pilot pastoral communities for a second (later), investment phase of the program.