Paper short abstract:

This study aims at understanding resource-use conflicts between herders and farmers from changes in the governance of agro-pastoral areas. Furthermore, this study is to shed light on the adaptive mechanisms performed by transhumant pastoralists and local farmers for facing these changes.

Paper long abstract:

Increasing climate variability in the Sahel provokes an earlier arrival of transhumant pastoralists in their host areas located in further south in West Africa's coastal countries. These areas witnessed an extremely rapid growth of their population due to the introduction of perennial and cash crops. In Côte d'Ivoire, this precarious situation has deteriorated substantially due to the sociopolitical crisis that rocked the country from 2002 through 2011. As the rebellion of the Forces Nouvelles (FN) led to a retreat of the state and its administration in the area, the crisis also accelerated the transformation of institutions of natural resource management in northern Côte d'Ivoire. Indeed, the FN rebels established new rules for resource management, especially by regulating access to pastoral resources for transhumant pastoralists from the Sahel. These institutional dynamics caused a change in interactions between various actors in the governance of resources, aggravating conflicts between transhumant pastoralists and local farmers.

This study aims at understanding resource-use conflicts between herders and farmers from changes in the governance of agro-pastoral areas. Furthermore, this study is to shed light on the adaptive mechanisms performed by transhumant pastoralists and local farmers for facing these changes.