ABSTRACT
Livestock producers in sub-Saharan Africa are pastoralists, for the most part nomadic, who face unique problems as they tend their animals between the moving sands of the Sahara and the expanding areas of cultivated farming. The major drought that swept across sub-Saharan Africa from 1968 to 1974 caused political upheaval, widespread starvation of livestock and people, and focused the world's attention on this fragile environment. Although the sub-Saharan countries differ in their approach to land ownership and use, the region has no good system of "land capability classification." Marginal and submarginal lands in the drier zones are often burned, plowed with hand or animal-traction equipment, farmed for one or more years, and then abandoned. All forms of wood supplies virtually have been removed for large distances around most of the towns and villages in drier zones. One of the most visible changes in the sub-Sahara zones is the marked reduction in the density of forest stands.
