The Individual in Drought Livestock Management Strategies: Mobility as a Proxy for Pastoral Resilience, the 1980s–2011

This chapter presents life histories of drought management strategies by ten herders, covering the decades of the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s. The ten herders (nine men and one woman) grouped into cooperative herders and others according to wealth ranks. We report their histories based on their strategies for managing cattle herds during multiple droughts, with herd mobility varying from regional to local levels. The decisions of individuals and cooperative herding units were influenced by access to labor, which is necessary for herd splitting into mobile and home packs. Unsurprisingly, drought management strategies varied among large and small herding units. Large herding units often used regional adaptive strategies, while small herding units practiced local and intensive drought management strategies (until the 2000s). During the 1990s, long-distance herd mobility across the southern Ethiopian–northern Kenyan frontier had ceased due to conflicts. Internally, due to the shrinking grazing lands, traditional herd splitting was abandoned by the 2000s. After that, herd drought management remained within the region, emphasizing the benefits of cooperative herding. The changing adaptive drought management strategies show how, over three decades, the Obbu Borana pastoralists shifted their adaptations from regional to local. Their transformation of resource management practices, including abandoning herd splitting, was in response to labor problems. Additionally, in response to dysfunctional resource management by indigenous institutions, the society built a hybrid institution (called mazingira—a Swahili term), combining elements of environmental conservation and traditional grazing associations.