Using the example of pastoral and agricultural groups in northern and southern rainfall zones of Niger, this study illustrates the concept of divergent adaptation by identifying changes to the adaptive capacity of users who are currently engaged in conflicts over access to natural resources.
In this paper, the author describes an alternative, comparatively low-cost approach that could make possible poverty/vulnerability mapping at high resolution across the inhabited territories of entire Sahelian countries.
In Niger, economic factor represents the mechanism through which the environmental damage influences migration, introducing hereby the term "environmentally induced economic migration".
L'agriculture nigérienne connaît de profondes mutations sous l'influence de nombreux facteurs climatiques, démographiques, sociaux, environnementaux, etc. Ces mutations qui aboutissent à la recomposition des systèmes agraires constituent la « transition agraire ». Quelles sont les modalités de cette transition au Niger ? Quels sont ici les enjeux et les exigences du développement durable ?
In Niger, almost everyone in the country relies on the environment on daily basis which is why people leave if the environmental condition gets affected. However, migration occurs in a very gradual, 'creeping' process, i.e., the people move to the nearest next possible place to live.
The Sahelian environment of West Africa has been transformed by social, economic and environmental change. Problems of land degradation, food and water shortage cause frequent hardship and disruption for the indigenous farmers and herders. Non-agricultural income is scarce, and often requires Sahelian people to migrate southwards in search of paid work or trade. These and other aspects of rural poverty are compounded by political and economic crises.
The existence of no man's lands created and maintained by endemic violence is one of the characteristics of West African settlements. The case studied here is that of the region defined by the Tapoa, Alibori and Niger rivers, which was brought under the protection of the colonial authorities and named Park "W" of Niger between 1926 and 1954.
A special issue of Land Degradation and Development on "Environmental Histories, Access to Resources and Landscape Change" [10(4): 279-396, 1999]. The papers arose from a conviction that 'resource use histories' help explain contemporary and past landscapes, and more sophistication is required in their analysis. The editors are Simon Batterbury and Tony Bebbington. Reprints are available from individual authors. Contents: Batterbury, Simon .P.J.; Antony.J. Bebbington. Environmental Histories, Access to Resources and Landscape Change: An Introduction. pp 279-288.
This paper introduces a special issue of Global Environmental Change: Human dimensions on the Sahel of West Africa. Despite the quarter century of research into the West African Sahel that followed the great droughts of the 1970s, there are still strong disagreements about how to achieve more prosperous, yet sustainable livelihood systems in the region'.(excerpt from introdutory paper by Batterbury and Warren). Other papers in this volume include: C. Raynaut. Societies and nature in the Sahel: ecological diversity and social dynamics. pp. 9-18; M. Hulme.
