ABSTRACT
Drought, war, famine, climate change, growing human and animal populations, environmental degradation, sedentarization, and government policies have increased the vulnerability of pastoral societies and semiarid grassland ecosystems, as well as absentee herd ownership, wage labor, and forms of sedentary pastoralism that overuse some range areas while underusing others. This chapter examines the characteristics of both temperate and tropical grasslands and the various adaptability strategies found in both types of areas. The chief problems presented by grassland ecosystems center around water and pasturage, herds, relationships between pastoralists and agriculturalists, and the balance between the human and the animal population under conditions of climatic uncertainty and frequent lean times. The social and cultural adjustments that characterize the occupation of temperate grasslands in North America result from various economic and ecological considerations. Subsistence on the plains evolved from hunting and gathering through specialized cattle herding to a combination of restricted herding and seasonal agriculture.
