Many work for wages or otherwise supplement their pastoral incomes. Their multipronged efforts reveal livelihoods not limited to pastoralism; they practice what anthropologists of nomadism describe as “multi-resource nomadism” based on “risk minimization” (Dyson-Hudson 1972; Salzman 1972; Moritz et al. 2011). Movement between pastures following rainfall is a common pattern of pastoral nomadism within much of the study area,
as is dependence on browse from perennial tree resources. The northern Ababda and the Ma‘aza move wherever occasional rain has fallen. The Beja and some of the Ababda in the southern part of their territory practice a seasonal movement pattern, moving within the Awliib (a seasonal pasture area west of Milciclib Sudan’s Red Sea Mountain watershed) after occasional summer Selleckchem AZD1480 and autumn rains and the Guunub (a seasonal pasture area on the coastal plain east of the mountains) after winter rains (see Fig. 1). However, the crucial fodder resource is the acacia trees in wadis and alluvial plains of their specific tribal areas. The Hadandowa also take their animals to graze in the inland deltas of Gash and Tokar/Khor Baraka located in the southern
part of the RSH, close to the Eritrean border (Fig. 1). Today these areas are mainly state-owned agricultural schemes, but pastoralists can work there during the cultivation season and can bring their animals to eat the leftovers after harvest (Dec.–Feb.). One means of securing fodder during prolonged dry spells is to move the herd into the territories of other tribal groups where rain
has fallen, as permitted by the “usufruct” principle of mutual non-destructive use of resources. Acacia trees have had enormous importance in the pastoral strategies of the five groups while seasonal ephemeral pasture constitutes an appreciated surplus when available. A. tortilis provides its nutritious leaf fodder throughout almost the entire year (Andersen et al. 2014). During oxyclozanide the dry season, when the trees have few or no leaves, ripe seed pods of subsp. tortilis are especially valuable. Acacias provide fodder during rainless periods lasting as long as 5–20 years, according to our informants. Preserving the capital of trees, maintaining or increasing their biomass production, and harvesting them are Citarinostat therefore vital. All these people have harvested tree fodder cut from the branches of subsp. raddiana using similar techniques (they never cut from the multi-stemmed, flat-topped subsp. tortilis because it does not regenerate well after pruning). The pruning techniques are described in more detail in Andersen et al. (2014). People cut off branches from mature trees either to feed their animals or to renew the health of drying, weak or overgrown trees using procedures called waak by Beja, janii by Ababda and tahsiin or taghsiin by the Ma‘aza.