Outstanding Features

More than ninety percent of Iran's surface area of 1.6 million km² is made up of arid and semi-arid lands. Most of it consists of rangelands, largely inhabited, cared for, and used sustainably by the mobile pastoralists of the country. Arid lands are characterized by high variability in amount and location of precipitation, as well as intolerance of persistent sedentary and localized intensive use.

Uncertainty in the environment has given rise to an opportunistic adaptive management system practiced by the Qashqai nomadic pastoralists of Iran. The mode of land use and management system of the Qashqai is transhumant. In arid lands, mobility exploits climatic uncertainty, while in the process preserves productivity of the land by avoiding resource depletion. The Qashqai have developed very sophisticated systems to cope with seasonal variation such as droughts and rainfall, including flexible marketing decisions –based on the expected condition and carrying capacity of the rangelands during the coming season.

The rangelands of Iran contain a very high diversity of plants. Much of that plant diversity is unpalatable to humans but palatable to wildlife and livestock, particularly indigenous breeds of livestock that have been cultivated by the Qashqai nomads over thousands of years. Traditionally, Qashqai nomadic pastoralists have kept a variety of indigenous domestic animals, especially large herds of sheep and goats as well as transport animals like camels, horses and donkeys. The diversity of means of the Qashqai livelihoods and production of meat, milk, hides, wool, handicrafts, hunting, harvesting of native plants, fruits and herbs, is a direct reflection of their resource management practices.

The Qashqais' sustainable hunting practices have preserved wildlife for centuries. Adaptive methods for capturing and storing water in drylands while maintaining springs and water holes for their livestock, has also affectively provided water for wildlife. Most Qashqai know the name and properties of every single botanical species on the rangelands and can give long descriptions of their medicinal, food, feed and industrial properties for animals and people, as well as their place in the ecosystem.

The highly diverse vegetation of the rangelands of Iran has evolved together with the livestock and land management systems of the pastoralists. Mobile pastoralist range-management systems are among those most compatible with biodiversity conservation. Livestock stomping, gentle ploughing, browsing, seed spreading and deposition of manure while grazing and along migration routes serve to maintain rangeland productivity and biodiversity. The removal or drastic reduction of grazing often results not only in lower productivity over the long term, but also in a landscape dominated by shrubs and with significantly lower biodiversity.

The sophisticated techniques of using scouting and early warning systems to predict droughts, take preventive measures, and adopt coping strategies are well known among the Qashqai nomadic pastoralists. This information is used to regulate the size of flocks to migrate, the number of tent-holds of people who can move along, and the dates of entry and length of grazing period in each territory. The mobile pastoralists, therefore, have a traditional system of dynamic assessment of carrying capacity of rangelands.

Intimate dependence on the land for survival has led to skilled means for perpetuating the health of the land. Traditional social organisations established clear rights of access and control over use of natural resources. The Qashqai pastoralists have a strong feeling of spiritual connection with the land and hence strong feelings of responsibility for sound management of the land. Even through eight decades of concerted government efforts to disrupt tribal organization, change their land management practices and sedentarise the people, the Qashqai have maintained the integrity of their land management system, preserved in the knowledge of elders and continued practices of the tribe.

The Qashqai system was developed over centuries in response to varied and unpredictable environmental conditions. The continuity of the mobile way of life of the Qashqai, and their ability to thrive under such conditions, is a testament to the sustainability of this way of life.

Goods and Services Provided

It is estimated that the mobile pastoral peoples in Iran—although constituting abut 2% of the population—are producing about 1/3 of the country's need in livestock products. Among other things, the Qashqai are producers of meat, dairy products, varieties of wool, and unique types of traditional carpets (such as gabbeh carpets). During migrations, the tribes trade their live animals, wool, hair, hides, dairy products, and various knotted and woven textiles with villagers and townspeople in return for manufactured and agricultural goods. This economic interdependence between the mobile and settled populations of Iran has been an important characteristic of society for several centuries. Globally too many of these products, especially the handicrafts of the Qashqai, are highly valued and desired around the world.

Threats and Challenges

Threats to the Qashqai way of life include fragmentation of traditional migratory routes and grazing lands from municipal and industrial infrastructure, settled agriculture, and other competing land uses; continued government policies of promoting sedentarisation, imposing imported outmoded livestock management systems on nomads, and denigration of the mobile way of life in the educational system. Despite these threats, the Qashqai have shown to be highly resilient, and in this there may be lessons for other mobile peoples around the world.

Policy and Development Relevance

Social scientists as well as biologists and resource managers have begun to recognize the error of forced sedentarisation of mobile peoples, and the damage done both in social and biological spheres. After eight decades of top down policies that have resulted in the gradual marginalisation and impoverishment of the mobile pastoralists of Iran, there is presently momentum growing among non-governmental organizations and even some government agencies, to encourage the persistence and restoration of mobile pastoralism.

An intensive programme to document and expose policy makers to the benefits of mobile pastoralism for range management and biodiversity conservation will help promote the development of new policies in support of mobile pastoralism, and will weaken the pressures for sedentarisation and inappropriate land conversion. This would result in increased livelihood security, more effective land management for livestock production and conservation, and preservation of a unique and valuable agro-cultural heritage.

Global Importance

The Qashqai and other mobile tribes have suffered from hostile government policies throughout the Central and West Asia and Africa for many decades. As governments and scientists come to appreciate the unique positive attributes of their ways of life and land management practices, urgent efforts must be made to save the remnants of such systems. The Qashqai are also one of the few remaining mobile groups in the Middle East. Offering support for the Qashqai people is important not just for Iran, but for the rest of the world, because global warming is likely to increase the prevalence of environmental conditions under which the Qashqai system developed. Humanity will increasingly need to study and learn lessons from successful adaptations to unpredictability in natural systems. Their experience of revitalisation is also important for the other nearly two hundred million pastoral nomads in the world.

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