From poverty to power - Oxfam-Québec

FROM POVERTY TO POWERA positive future would see those pastoralists who are active inmobile livestock production being able to combine the best of pasttraditions with modern technologies, such as solar-powered radiosfor education or satellite phones to check on market prices or outbreaksof disease. 122 Many households would also have a settled basewhere children would live for part of their schooling and where elderlyfamily members would stay. Indeed, pastoralists could be among thebest placed people to adapt to climate change, since they have beenadapting to climate variability for millennia. 123In the end, though, the ability to call on the support and resourcesof government to assist pastoralists to respond and adapt to climatechange is likely to be fundamental to their ability to cope. Many formerpastoralists would move to the towns and cities, enabling families toreduce their vulnerability by diversifying their livelihoods: the point isthat such migration would be a positive choice, rather than a desperateflight from drought, hunger, and violence.This vision cannot be achieved without real changes in the relationshipbetween pastoralists and their governments. The reasons whypastoralism is in crisis lie in the action and responses of duty-bearers,not flaws in the livelihood itself which, like any production system,needs to be understood and nurtured. To achieve genuine humansecurity, pastoralists need the right and capacity to decide their owndestinies. They also need governments to support them when timesare hard.272