ABSTRACT
Pastoralism, as a complex system of livestock and rangeland management, provides many examples of natural resource governance that combines people’s livelihoods with nature and biodiversity conservation in extremely challenging climatic, territorial, economic and social conditions. Examples of these governance systems exist throughout the world, adapted to the great variety of circumstances and local contexts. The sustainable management of natural resources depends on the existence of regulations, compliance and enforcement of the processes by which they are governed. Failures in rangeland governance are often at the heart of biodiversity loss, breakdown in ecosystem function, land degradation and loss of resilience. Governance failures are also frequently identified as the cause of wider development challenges and vulnerability among populations that depend on such land.
