Nomadic conflict

Nomadic conflict, also called farmer–herder conflict, is a type of environmental conflict where farming and herding communities overlap and has been used to refer to fighting among herding communities or fighting between herding and farming communities. This is sometimes referred to as conflict involving "pastoralists" or "nomadic" people and "agriculturalists" or "settled" people. The conflicts usually arise from destruction of crops by livestock and is exacerbated during times when water and lands to graze are scarce.

Background There are several hundred million pastoralists worldwide and Africa contains about 268 million pastoralists, over a quarter of its population, who live on about 43 percent of the continent's land mass.

Commercial displacement Displacement of local communities to make way for commercial farms or mining activities has put pressure on grazing areas, exacerbating conflict.

Climate change and land degradation Desertification in the Sahel, where much of the present-day conflicts between herders and farmers takes place, is expanding southward by about 1400 square miles a year. Climate change has apparently exacerbated land degradation, which leads to more competition over grazing areas.

History Malti Malik summarises relationships and inter-dependencies between sheep-herders and sedentary farmers in Mari, a city-state on the Euphrates (in present-day Syria) which flourished between 2900 and 1759 BCE. The "nomadic groups included the Akkadians, Amorites, Assyrians and Aramaeans. [...] Some of them gained much power and succeeded in establishing their own rule. For example, the kings of Mari were Amorites." Interactions included trade and employment (as harvest workers or hired soldiers) as well as "robbing and plundering".

Examples

Bolivia The colonization and incorporation to the Bolivian state of the lands of the Ava Guarani people from the 1850s to the early 20th century had aspects of a farmer–herder conflict. Non-indigenous settlement in eastern Chuquisaca was motivated by an expansion of cattle ranching contributing to a conflict between settlers and the maize-farming Ava Guaraní to assume aspects of a farmer–herder conflict.

Cameroon More than 30,000 people in northern Cameroon fled to Chad after ethnic clashes over access to water between Musgum fishermen and ethnic Arab Choa herders in December 2021.

Central African Republic

In the Central African Republic Civil War, a large portion of the fighting was between rebel groups known as ex-Séléka and rebel groups known as anti-balaka. While the ex-Séléka consisted of those who were largely Muslim and the anti-balaka consisted of those who were largely Christian and animist, an added dimension of the conflict was that ex-Séléka consisted of those from nomadic groups, such as the Fulani, Gula and Runga, and the anti-balaka consisted of those from agriculturalist groups.

Congo, Democratic Republic of

Ethnic conflict in Kivu has often involved the Congolese Tutsis known as Banyamulenge, a cattle herding group that largely migrated from Rwanda in the 19th century and are often derided as outsiders. They are pitted against other ethnic groups who consider themselves indigenous. Militias drawn from the Bembe, Bafuliru and Banyindu have attacked and stolen cattle from the Banyamulenge.

Kenya

Nigeria

Rwanda

Sudan and South Sudan

Nomadic conflict in Sudan has been a part of the Second Sudanese Civil War, the War in Darfur and the Sudanese conflict in South Kordofan and Blue Nile and has been a feature in ethnic violence in South Sudan.

References

Bibliography Des Forges, Alison (2011). Defeat Is the Only Bad News: Rwanda under Musinga, 1896–1931. Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 978-0299281441. Dorsey, Learthen (1994). Historical Dictionary of Rwanda (1st ed.). Metuchen, New Jersey: Scarecrow Press. ISBN 978-0-8108-2820-9. Tapia Matamala, Orlando; Prieto Serrano, Carla (2023). "Colonización y resistencia chiriguana: la conquista del cañón Abatiri, provincia de Azero, sureste de Bolivia (1850-1890)". In Harambour, Alberto; Serje, Margarita (eds.). La Era del Imperio y las Fronteras de la Civilización en América del sur (in Spanish). Bogotá-Santiago: Ediciones UniAndes-Pehuén. pp. 339–364. ISBN 9789587985108. O., R. (1963). "Rwanda Re-Examined". The Journal of African History. 4 (2). Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press: 298–300. ISSN 0021-8537. JSTOR 179545. OCLC 5548892882. Retrieved 11 December 2021. Tuttle, Kate (2010). "Rwanda". In Gates Jr., Henry Louis; Appiah, Kwame Anthony (eds.). Encyclopedia of Africa. Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acref/9780195337709.001.0001. ISBN 978-0-19-533770-9. Uvin, Peter (April 1999). "Ethnicity and Power in Burundi and Rwanda: Different Paths to Mass Violence". Comparative Politics. 31 (3). New York, New York: City University of New York: 253–271. doi:10.2307/422339. ISSN 0010-4159. JSTOR 422339. OCLC 205554027. PMID 20120547. Retrieved 16 July 2021.