ABSTRACT
Pastoralism is a way of making a living and a way of life for millions of people around the world. Pastoralists can be found on all continents (except Antarctica) and in a wide range of environments, including the mountains of the Himalaya, the Sahara Desert, the Arctic tundra, the Andes Mountains, and Eurasian steppes. Pastoralism is an early human adaptation to make a living in highly variable environments, and it continues to provide livelihoods for hundreds of millions of pastoralists and nutrition and other benefits for two billion more along the value chain. By using vast landscapes in distinctive ways to raise livestock, pastoralism also provides many important ecosystem services. Pastoralism is not just an economic activity. It involves particular ways of organizing social and political life. It also shapes the shared meanings through which people understand their world. In this way, pastoralism provides the foundation for how people build community and society. This handbook offers a comprehensive overview of pastoralism, covers major theoretical and practical aspects of this way of life, and uses an interdisciplinary and comparative approach that considers the diversity and dynamics of pastoral systems across the world. It is an argument about why pastoralism and the study thereof matter.
