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The dry-salted trade of Nile perch or kayabo is important for many along the shores of Lake Victoria. The kayabo trade started in the 1990s and has been increasingly restructured due to changing regional and global trade relationships. This shift has led to the emergence of hierarchical trading relations, which create an exploitative network in which powerful middlemen control the access of trade for women from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and marginalizes the Tanzanian women, changing the organization from a poly-centric to a more centralized trade organization in the hands of a small group of powerful business men. We show in this paper that whereas the women traders from the DRC manoeuvred themselves in positions from which they could manipulate the network through bribery and conniving to derive substantial capital gains from the kayabo trade, their Tanzanian counterparts however are excluded from the decision-making processes, access to fish resources, financial capital, and negotiation power. They persevere by operating in increasingly competitive markets, relying on illegal fish that they sell with little profit at local and domestic markets. They survive in jobs that are insecure and risky by nature.

It is widely accepted that environmental change can influence human migration. In particular, the environment plays a role in migration processes in drylands, in which environmental change—including increasing variability of rainfall, increasing frequency of droughts, chronic water shortage, and land degradation—can heavily influence migration. However, systematic large-scale studies of the relationship between environmental factors and human migration are rare, and a global, consistent picture of environmental drivers of migration is lacking. In this study, we sought to fill this gap by analysing spatial patterns of environmental drivers of migration in drylands by performing a cluster analysis on spatially explicit global data. In this analysis, we focused explicitly on precipitation, aridity, drought, land degradation, soil constraints, and availability of cropland and pastures as potential environmental drivers of migration in drylands. In addition, we linked the identified clusters to two observed hotspots of out-migration—Burkina Faso and Northeast Brazil—to gauge the cluster results. Our results show that environmental drivers can be grouped into eight distinct clusters, and we identified the most severe environmental constraints for each cluster. These results suggest that out-migration—both in absolute and relative terms—occurs most frequently in a cluster that is constrained primarily by land degradation rather than water availability.

This paper documents how the implementation of forest tenure policy affects the decision-making of farmers in mangrove-shrimp farming systems with regard to their access to and management of mangrove forest in Ca Mau, Mekong Delta, which is the largest remaining mangrove forest in Vietnam. Policies on land allocation, land tenure and use-rights are important since they potentially promote sustainable mangrove-shrimp management. Forest management policy in Vietnam has been changed to promote equality of benefit sharing among stakeholders and devolved State forest management to the household level. However, to what extent its implementation can stimulate both mangrove conservation and livelihood improvement is still being debated. We use access and its social mechanisms to investigate how State Forest Companies (FC) and farmers can benefit from mangrove exploitation. The study was conducted from September 2008 to August 2010 using both qualitative and quantitative methods and using a participatory approach. After group discussions and in-depth interviews with a wide range of stakeholders, we interviewed 86 households in four communities using structured questionnaires. Results show the imbalance in access to finance, markets, and differences in authority between the two actors, farmers and FC. The discussion focuses on the possibilities of “win–win” outcomes, i.e. land tenure regimes promoting the devolution of sustainable forest management to farm households to balance benefits of both mangrove conservation and livelihood improvement.

Drylands cover 40 % of the earth’s surface and provide the basis for the livelihoods of 2 billion people, many of whom belong to the poorest of the world. Dryland forests provide these people with woods, fruits, fibre and pasture. Drylands are among the poorest and most problem-ridden areas of the world. Therefore a different approach to drylands and dryland forest management is needed. The chapter develops a framework for analysing dryland forest management departing from a forestry approach to a landscape approach putting the diversity and interconnectedness of different forest and non-forest resources in the centre of analysis. It departs from the assumption that dryland ecosystems are not in equilibrium and extremely dynamic. Therefore, management should focus on forest ecosystems as providing a large diversity of resources niches in time and space for diverse groups of users, ranging from pastoralists to smallholders, men and women, indigenous peoples and caste. Rules of access and resource tenure should take account of this diversity.The aim of this book is to examine the management of dryland forests from the perspective of social diversity and the gender dimension. Globally, dryland forests have received much less attention from policymakers and scientists than permanent green forests in humid regions (Blackie et al. 2014). Yet, drylands occupy 41 % of the world’s land surface and host around 2 billion people (MEA 2005). The majority of the rural people whose livelihood is dependent on dryland forests belong to marginal groups such as women, youth, pastoralists and indigenous people. In general, dryland areas are regarded as problematic because of the combination of low rainfall, fast-increasing populations and what has been labelled unsustainable land use technologies, which are all said to contribute to extensive land degradation and desertification. Moreover, private investment has been limited, and whenever there are interventions they rarely benefit the local population. Trees and forests are a major component of dryland ecosystems despite the image to the contrary. Dryland forests and trees fulfil numerous functions underpinning the livelihoods of rural people and are important sources of income and products such as wood, fuel, fruits, fodder, fibres, incense, honey and even insects. These products contribute in a myriad of ways to local livelihoods, especially in times of drought and famine when agriculture and livestock-keeping become difficult.

Beach seine gear is one of the prominent fishing gears in Nile Perch fishery. Before Nile Perch was introduced to the lake, beach seines the species targeted with beach seine were Tilapia, Bagrus, Haplochromis, Protopterus and Labeo. In 1994, beach seines were banned in Tanzania and by 2004, this particular regulation and others, were harmonized and applied to the entire Lake as a result of implementation of Regional Plan of Action to Prevent, Deter and Eliminate Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated Fishing on Lake Victoria. The paper describes research findings on how the Nile Perch (NP) beach seine fishery is organized in Lake Victoria, Tanzania. The paper is guided by the following research questions: How is the Fisheries Department in Tanzania trying to govern the fisheries of Lake Victoria? How the beach seine fishery is governed in reality? What are the drivers for its continuity despite the ban? What are the counter-tendencies at local level and how and why do they emerge? We argues that it is the markets and associated graft – that drives coordination between the beach seine fishery; and the networks that depend on individuals’ network motivations – to get money, that together shape the fishery’s management and governance.

Mobility is the most important response by the inhabitants of the Sahel to climatic adversity. This 'condition sahélienne', characterized by unstable climatic circumstances, irregular rainfall patterns and periods of drought, has an important influence on people's decision-making processes regarding their livelihood. Migration studies mainly focus on labour migration to urban areas. Although mobility is part of the repertoire of Sahelian people, the form it takes varies considerably between social groups and individuals, and over time. In this article we focus on a neglected and almost invisible category of rural-rural migrants in the Sahel, more specifically on Fulbe pastoral people and their developments over the last three decades in the Sahel and the Sudan zone of West Africa and the economic and social conditions in which they find themselves. It concludes that these rural-rural migrations are deeply engrained in cultural patterns in West Africa, exemplified by specific institutions for dealing with hosts and strangers. However, mobility is often not a planned process, and all kinds of survival strategies are used in a very flexible manner. The phenomenon has given rise to a specific character of cultural dynamics and ways of defining identify for the people involved.

In many parts of the world long-term political instability combined with frequent droughts results in chronic poverty and high levels of malnutrition and child mortality. Despite the magnitude and importance of the problem in these areas, the relation between political instability, resource tenure systems and changes in food production systems that form the basis of the economy in many remote rural areas of the world, has rarely been investigated. This chapter investigates three case studies of villages in the Guéra region in central Chad. This areas was particularly hard hit during 25 years of civil war and recurrent drought between 1965 and 1990. The case studies shows that the functioning of food production systems in these villages differs widely depending on the particular context and the extent to which the villages were exposed to violence and other pressures such as drought and religious change.

The enormous diversity of responses to the drought conditions in the last thirty years makes it difficult to formulate general conclusions about people’s responses to climate change. It is important to study the pathways of decision-making units at the micro-level and even at individual level and to emphasize the socio-economic differences in changing patterns of responses and the gradual changes in people’s ‘habitus’. To understand the options available to people it is wise to focus on the technological changes in land use, the changes in the control over resources, migration and mobility, the trends of livelihood diversification and institutional change.

Indigenous knowledge of edible fungi and their utilization by local populations were investigated in southern Cameroon from 1996 to 1999. Some 100 participants from the major ethnic groups, comprising Bantu farmers and Bagyeli (Pygmy) hunter-gatherers, were interviewed. Mushroom usage by 30 families, (319 persons), was monitored daily for over a year. Mushroom knowledge among both groups was extensive. Over 50 vernacular names were provided by respondents. In Bantu households, women and children, and to some extent hunters, harvest mushrooms. In contrast, the whole Bagyeli household participates. Bantu harvest mushrooms preferentially in secondary forests while Bagyeli collect them predominantly in primary forests. Mushroom consumption is low for both groups, 1.1 and 1.4 kg of fresh mushrooms per person per year, respectively, a rate that is much lower than in central and eastern Africa. The apparent discrepancy between extensive mushroom knowledge and rather infrequent mushroom consumption probably relates to the social valuation of mushrooms.

This book is based on an articulate oral rendition of the history of the Haayre by Aamadu Baa Digi, a griot at the court of Dalla. It was made at the request of two anthropologists, Mirjam de Bruijn and Han van Dijk, with permission of the then ruling leader. This fascinating part of history of this lesser known region would have sunk into oblivion, had it not been recorded in 1991, two years before Aamadu Baa Digi passed away. The kings that have ruled over the Haayre in Mali are all descendants of its first king Alu Maana, hence Malians call this region the Haayre of Alu Maana. The word haayre 'rock, mountain' is from Fulfulde, the language of the FulBe majority in this region and it refers to the rocky mountains that dominate the landscape.

The present bibliography deals with the Sahel countries, i.e. the CILSS-countries (Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal and Chad). The focus is on the West- African part of the Sahel. The bibliography does not pretend to be exhaustive, we hope to have brought together here some of the most important references on the subject, notably pastoralism, the use and management, as well as the degradation of natural resources, the relationship between agriculture and animal husbandry, the land tenure problem and rural development in the context of decentralisation and the idea of popular participation. Several references which are not specifically dealing with the Sahel have been incorporated all the same, because of the considerable importance of their contents for the problems of dry areas in general. The bibliography lists both monographs, journal articles and chapters from edited works, as well as some bibliographies. In cases where the subject at hand was particularly interesting, you will find, besides the reference to the whole book, the references to separate articles. The bibliography covers the period 1985–1999; the research has been done between June 1999 and January 2000. The majority of the references included are in English and French. They are recuperated from the following sources: the Online Public Access Catalogue (OPAC) of the African Studies Centre in Leiden, the Netherlands; the database of IBISCUS, a French information system for development matters based in Paris which has been forced to cease its activities in the second half of 2001, the CD-ROM Tropag & Rural (Abstracts on tropical agriculture and on rural development in the Tropics) of the Royal Tropical Institute, Amsterdam, the Netherlands; AGRALIN (the Union Catalogue of Agricultural Libraries in the Netherlands), Wageningen, the Netherlands; the CD-ROM CAB Abstracts, Cab International,Wallingford, Slough, United Kingdom and the Africana collection of the Northwestern University Library, Evanston, Il., USA, that can be accessed through the Nucat OPAC. The entries are arranged alphabetically by author, and contain the following information: author/organization, title, edition, place of publication, number of pages (article: periodical, volume, issue, pages). Author and subject indexes, in English and French, are included.