These guidelines introduce and promote the essential elements of participatory rangeland management (PRM). Based upon the successful experiences of participatory forest management, the guidelines provide a process following three stages of investigation, negotiation and implementation. The sequential steps of this process lead to the development of a rangeland management plan and a legally binding rangeland management agreement between a local rangeland management institution and the appropriate local government office.

Ill advised, uncoordinated, and badly planned interventions have been blamed for continuing poverty and food insecurity in rangelands. Water interventions in particular have had negative impacts. Not only have these interventions failed to improve the livelihoods of people living there, but in many cases they have served to undermine them and the environment on which they depend. Rangeland development interventions have been sectoral in their approach.

A new way of thinking This study reflects emerging awareness of the need to see disasters as primarily social, rather than natural, phenomena. Individuals and societies can act and take decisions to reduce the likelihood of a disasters occurring or, at the very least, to reduce their impacts and the levels of loss and damage associated with them. Disasters are thus no longer being perceived as ‘acts of God’ but instead as something over which humans exert influence.

Community-Led Rangelands Assessment promotes the use of traditional or indigenous knowledge of pastoralists, as the dominant group utilizing rangelands, to guide planning and management of rangelands resources to support and build resilient pastoral livelihoods. Use of traditional knowledge is considered cheaper, easier to use and replicable. It promotes the respect of local communities’ culture and its integration into scientific methods.

This rangelands management framework is a product of a rapid pastoralist-led rangeland health assessment that was conducted in three sampled districts of Karamoja; Moroto, Napak and Kotido.

The technical guide on improving the governance of pastoral lands is designed for several audiences including government and non-government actors. It covers specific challenges of pastoral tenure that are unique to pastoralism and considers how these different facets of pastoralist tenure (issues of the commons; free, prior and informed consent (FPIC); gender etc.) can be combined in a coherent approach to securing pastoral lands.

This report consolidates findings from previous activities by FAO and other stakeholders, and identifies in the four focus countries (Ethiopia, Sudan, Djibou

Pastoralism is a livelihood strategy and a system of mobile livestock production that makes wide-ranging use of grazing lands in arid and semi-arid environment that doesn’t uphold sustainable crop cultivation. The freedom of mobility over outsized land for seasonal pastures is indispensable to pastoralist production primarily in order to convert the pastures residues into human food. The people and livestock in pastoral communities may move to avoid various natural and/or social hazards, to avert competition with others, or to seek more favourable conditions.

The goal of the Rangelands Initiative is increased tenure security of local rangeland users through improved implementation of enabling policy and legislation. By connecting, mobilising and influencing, the Initiative strengthens ILC members’ activities in-country and across its continental platforms.

Extensive grazing is the predominant form of land use on at least a quarter of the world’s land surface, in which livestock are raised on food that comes mainly from rangelands. The term livestock includes both domesticated animals such as cattle, sheep, goats, camels, horses, llamas and alpacas, and a broad range of wild animals kept for meat or game viewing. It is estimated that tropical grasslands alone cover 18 million square kilometres, where the natural vegetation is used by mobile animals requiring forage and water throughout the year.

Participatory digital mapping using satellite imagery and digital earth and other open source Geographic Information Systems (GIS) is a practical tool bridging the knowledge and communication gap between pastoral communities and county government planners. It is offering an effective option for participatory planning and decision-making in support of climate change adaptation in the drylands of Kenya.

Informed livestock sector policy development and priority setting is heavily dependent on a good understanding of livestock production systems. In a collaborative effort between the Food and Agriculture Organization and the International Livestock Research Institute, stock has been taken of where we have come from in agricultural systems classification and mapping; the current state of the art; and the directions in which research and data collection efforts need to take in the future.