African pastoralists are undergoing significant changes in livelihood strategies, from predominantly mobile pastoralism to agro-pastoralism in which both livestock raising and cultivation of crops are practiced, to agro-pastoralism combined with wage labor and petty trade. These changes often result in fixed settlements or a process known as sedentarization.

Since 2017, ICARDA has been facilitating the transition to improved policies for sustainable management of rangelands in Tunisia. PIM-supported methods and approaches on the quantitative assessment of alternative rangeland governance approaches have been used as inputs into the development of the future new pastoral code.

The pastoral code aims at achieving a more sustainable management of Tunisia's rangelands. The draft code was informed by ICARDA's research on assessment of rangelands governance under PIM.

Traditional enclosures are widely used by pastoralists in East Africa. However, the response of basic soil properties to the establishment of traditional enclosure management remains poorly understood. The aim of this study was to investigate the impacts of traditional enclosure on soil organic carbon and total nitrogen stock in the Bordade rangelands, eastern Ethiopia. Soil samples were collected from twelve area enclosures and openly grazed areas at a depth of 0-30 cm. The samples were analyzed for soil organic carbon, total nitrogen and bulk density.

Within discussions of land and resource rights, there is growing attention to women’s rights, mostly in terms of household and individual rights to private property. This leaves unanswered questions about whether and how women’s land rights can be secured under collective tenure, upon which billions of people worldwide depend. There is an important gap in conceptual tools, empirical understanding, and policy recommendations on women’s land rights within collective tenure.

Rangelands can be described as land on which the vegetation
is predominantly grasses, grass-like plants, forbs or shrubs,
and often with trees that are grazed or have the potential to be
grazed by livestock and wildlife. They are diverse in their vegetation
driven by highly fluctuating rainfall, temperature and other climate
phenomena, and habitat for a wide range of wildlife, many species
of which are found nowhere else. Rangelands store vast amounts of
carbon and either originate or serve as freshwater catchment areas for

Climate change threatens the ability of global rangelands to provide food, support livelihoods and deliver important ecosystems services. The extent and magnitude of potential impacts are however poorly understood. In this study, we review the risk of climate impacts along the rangeland systems food supply chain. We also present results from biophysical modelling simulations and spatial data analyses to identify where and to what extent rangelands may be at climatic risk.

Rangeland management in former tropical rainforest areas may affect ecosystem services. We hypothesized that management practices like burning and overgrazing reduce supporting (soil quality) and consequently also provisioning (forage productivity and quality) and regulating (nutrient cycling) ecosystem services.

PIM support to work from ILRI and partners contributed to adoption of a woreda (district) participatory land use planning approach in Ethiopia and to expansion of the joint village land use planning approach in Tanzania, resulting in more secure tenure rights for pastoralists in rangeland areas.

Human populations and their use of land have reshaped landscapes for thousands of years, creating the anthropogenic biomes (anthromes) that now cover most of the terrestrial biosphere. Here we introduce the first global reconstruction and mapping of anthromes and their changes across the 12,000-year interval from 10,000 BCE to 2015 CE; the Anthromes 12K dataset.