The relationship between herders and trees in space and time in northern Cameroon

Extensive herding is an important activity in northern Cameroon, in terms of both the local social economy and local land management. However, this activity is strongly linked to the availability and accessibility of fodder resources. Due to territorial processes, such as land clearance and wood harvesting, this resource is receding and pasturelands are becoming fragmented. Herders are facing new challenges to secure their livelihoods, and, in this context, fodder trees are emerging as a key resource, allowing herds to subsist up to the end of the dry season. Increasingly, trees are playing a significant part in the herders' strategies to feed their herds in time and space and to 'root' their activities to particular lands. This trend requires an analysis of the importance of fodder trees in the definition of territorial strategies operated by herders in northern Cameroon, in the context of various herding systems (nomadic herding, agro herding using transhumance, and settled agro herding). A discussion of herding strategies needed to address the decreasing access to fodder resources highlights the problems of current extensive herding systems and leads to proposed alternatives.