Community Location Map
📍 Location: Arid & Semi-Arid Lands (ASALs), Global (Sub-Saharan Africa, Central Asia, Middle East)
Overview & Cultural Background
Global dryland pastoralists inhabit the planet’s most arid, variable, and non-arable environments, covering nearly 40% of the Earth’s land surface. Through high mobility, flexible herd structuring, and opportunistic grazing strategies, dryland herders convert sparse vegetation into nutrient-rich milk, meat, fiber, and hide without requiring permanent irrigation or synthetic fertilizers.
Pastoralism in drylands is a highly efficient economic system tailored to environmental unpredictability. Rather than overgrazing, mobile herds stimulate plant regrowth and seed dispersal, demonstrating that mobile livestock management is key to combating desertification and building climate resilience in global drylands.
Key facts
- Estimated Population: Estimated 200 million mobile and semi-mobile dryland herders globally
- Primary Livestock Herded: Dromedary and Bactrian camels, zebu cattle, sheep, goats, and donkeys
- ️ Contemporary Challenges: Accelerating desertification, prolonged erratic droughts, policy marginalization favoring crop cultivation, loss of customary land rights, and climate change displacement.
Featured Films in the Festival Program
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Climate change and pastoralism ⏱ 4 min | 🌍 Global | 🎬 Saverio Krätli & IIED