Extensive livestock farming and nomadism are probably amongst those traditional livelihoods that are facing greatest challenges in our times, with a continuous weakening and disappearance of herders, flocks and migration routes, amongst others. Such rich knowledge and practice is being eroded by rapid socio-environmental change and a multitude of factors, many times without taking into consideration how such practices directly connect to sustainability, resilience and adaptability, all of them essential for the many threats we currently face. The High Atlas Cultural Landscapes Programme of the Global Diversity Foundation has been collaborating with transhumant and nomadic populations in the High Atlas for more than 7 years in order to support communal pasture land governance, civil participation, livestock health and traditional cultural practices relating to subsistence mixed agro-ecosystems where livestock is an essential component.
In this GEN in conversation online and on-site event, coinciding with the start of the Marrakech Harvest Festival (Spring 2022), we will be screening the award-winning documentary “Ait Atta: Nomads of the High Atlas”, produced by Karma Motion and GDF in 2020. After that, we will have an informal roundtable discussion on the present and future of pastoralism and transhumance with herders, NGO representatives and academics from the Mediterranean basin and beyond. In the discussion, we hope to find similarities and differences between cases, and bring to light strategies and mechanisms that have been successful in maintaining pastoral livelihoods on the move which could be replicated in different contexts, as well as responding to questions from the audience.