Senegalese herders have raised livestock for centuries. Climate change is threatening their future.

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Cattle gather around a small pond of water in Senegal.

Leo Correa/AP Photos

Climate change is impacting grazing periods for livestock. Pastoralists in Senegal have to start their journeys earlier and travel further for their herds to graze.The UN estimates Senegalese pastoralists supply 65% of meat and 70% of milk sold at local markets in the region. 

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As the climate changes in Senegal, pastoralists — or cattle, sheep, and goat herders — are experiencing an evolving set of problems.

In the past, pastoralists would take their herds to graze on grass close to home. But with rainy seasons becoming less predictable, finding areas for herds to graze has been becoming harder. As a result, pastoralists have to travel further to feed their animals.

New grazing areas can bring new threats, and pastoralists have to start moving with their animals months earlier and sometimes travel almost 100 miles to find food.

The changes don’t just impact the animals. They can uproot entire families. While the men go with their animals to find land to graze on, their children and wives are left at home hundreds of miles away.

Fulani pastoralists in Senegal have been raising livestock for centuries.

A Fulani pastoralist leads his sheep to a water point in Loumbel Lana, Matam region.

JOHN WESSELS via Getty Images

Many men in the community learn about pastoralism from their elders to earn their living, the Associated Press reported.

Due to the impacts of climate change, there is less available land for livestock to graze.

A herd of cattle moves through the dry lands of Senegal.

Leo Correa via AP Photos

As a result, pastoralists have to travel further and earlier than they ever have before.

Usually, pastoralists wait until March or April to begin their journeys, but due to climate change, they now have to leave as early as December.

With less food available, animals find whatever they can to fill their stomach. Sometimes that includes plastic that can suffocate them.

A pastoralist moves his cows through the savanna towards the village of Dendoudy Dow in the Matam region of Senegal.

Leo Correa via AP Photos

The travel isn’t always lucrative, and herders are running into new problems.

A field of grass is blown by the wind on the way to Pointe Saint Georges, Senegal.

David Degner via Getty Images

Because herders are traveling so far and to places they may not be familiar with, they are encountering more conflicts with local farmers.

Sometimes herders happen upon land that hasn’t been fully harvested yet, leading to angry farmers killing some of their animals, the Wilson Center reported.

Farmers said they must harvest earlier for fear of their land being trampled by migrating herds.

Senegalese workers at a melon field at a farm in the village of Djilakh, south of Dakar.

GEORGES GOBET via Getty Images

Historically, farmers and pastoralists have had a symbiotic relationship. Herders would let their animals graze on the land and provide natural fertilizer. In exchange, farmers would feed the animals with agricultural waste.

As artificial fertilizer has become more accessible, farmers are less inclined to give away grain and grasses that they can sell.

Now many farmers block access to farms that cover large swaths of land, making it harder for herders to find places to graze.

The surrounding area has also been subject to erratic rainfall over the past six years, making water scarce and uncertain.

Amadou Tidiany Sow, top left, prays as a man collects water from a well with the help of a camel during the holy month of Ramadan.

Leo Correa via AP Photos

There was subpar rain in 2017, 2019, and 2021, per an article published by the Wilson Center. In 2020, Senegal experienced heavy rains that caused extreme flooding and the destruction of mud brick villages. By contrast, 2022 was a “rare good” year.

With less water and food available, herders are trading in cattle for less needy animals like goats and sheep.

A herd of cows lay down beneath a Baobab tree.

Leo Correa via AP Photos

Pastoralists are also digging into dried riverbeds to find water for their animals.

A pastoralist raises a bucket from a deep hole made in a dry river bed to provide water for their herd of goats.

JOHN WESSELS via Getty Images

Even by getting rid of their cattle, pastoralists still face loss and theft of sheep and goats.

A Fulani herder looks on at one of his dead sheep.

JOHN WESSELS via Getty Images

With less food available, animals are too underweight and sickly to fight disease, give birth, or feed the young they have.

As a result, herd sizes have been cut in half, and the animals that make them up are much smaller. Because of this, pastoralists are seeing strained profits.

Meanwhile, jobless young men have taken to stealing sheep and selling them to butchers to make extra money, sometimes stealing hundreds in a week.

Pastoralists today are turning to modern technology and NGO resources to find food.

A man plows his land during the wet season in Senegal.

JOHN WESSELS via Getty Images

Unpredictable weather makes it hard to know where to go and when to get there, but with increased access to technology, pastoralists have resources available to them to weather the storm.

Cell phones help pastoralists get information on where the best places to take their herds are.

NGO-led radio stations, like AfricaPinal and Radio Ferlo FM, broadcast weather forecasts and animal husbandry advice in the dominant pastoralist language of the region, per the Wilson Center.

Change in rainy and dry seasons isn’t necessarily new, but it hasn’t been as intense as it is now.

A baobab tree during Senegal’s wet season.

JOHN WESSELS via Getty Images

Elders in the village remember a time between the 1960s and mid-1980s when the area experienced intense, famine-inducing droughts.

“Things are hard now, very hard,” Madjen Madigniang, who has been a herder for 60 years, told the Wilson Center. “But we’ve seen bad conditions before.”

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