Satellite Symposium 3: Pastoral Systems
Description
Research experience in southern Africa is used to reflect on key determinants of pastoral futures and how they might need to be addressed. The paper begins with a brief review of what we mean by marginality. A set of observations on key issues defining the option sets for pastoralism in the future is then presented. The first of these is that only a small number of structures or processes actually control the behaviour of social-ecological systems such as pastoralist systems. A second observation is that the future is so uncertain that there is a need to learn to design for robustness across plausible futures. Coupled to this is the observation that a reliable understanding of how we might manage adaptive capacity in pastoral people and communities is needed. Lastly it is suggested that a vital frontier in research is the set of relationships between cognition, emotions and behaviour at the scales of the individual and society.
Included in
Agricultural Science Commons, Agronomy and Crop Sciences Commons, Plant Biology Commons, Plant Pathology Commons, Soil Science Commons, Weed Science Commons
Recreating Pastoralist Futures
Research experience in southern Africa is used to reflect on key determinants of pastoral futures and how they might need to be addressed. The paper begins with a brief review of what we mean by marginality. A set of observations on key issues defining the option sets for pastoralism in the future is then presented. The first of these is that only a small number of structures or processes actually control the behaviour of social-ecological systems such as pastoralist systems. A second observation is that the future is so uncertain that there is a need to learn to design for robustness across plausible futures. Coupled to this is the observation that a reliable understanding of how we might manage adaptive capacity in pastoral people and communities is needed. Lastly it is suggested that a vital frontier in research is the set of relationships between cognition, emotions and behaviour at the scales of the individual and society.
