Hired herders and herd management in Fulani Pastoralism (northern Cote d'Ivoire)

This case study examines herding practices as the outcome of political-ecological processes in northern Cote d'Ivoire. The political ecological approach encourages one to examine herd management at the intersection of the politics of production and agro-pastoral ecology. It argues that power struggles between herders and owners over the quality and control of labour adversely affect herding practices. The most dramatic manifestation of careless herding is the widespread problem of crop damage. Farmer-herder conflicts over this issue have led, to the expulsion of Fulani herds from favored transhumance zones. Such restrictions on herd movements indicate that the Fulani's ability to take advantage of changing range conditions is constrained by their productive relations with salaried herders. In the end, this paper argues that it is at the juncture of environmental and social processes that one can begin to explain why optimal grazing strategies as delineated in models of opportunistic management are not being realized in northern Cote d'Ivoire. -from Author