Help pastoralist communities around the world preserve their livelihood, by providing them access to information and resources (e.g grass land, water, safe routes) to prepare and support their migration journey.

The objective of the project is to design a working prototype for a mobile application which provides pastoralists community with information on land monitoring: water availability, grassland, and assist communities in networking.

Mobile pastoralism is a socio-cultural and economic way of living that is reliant on the rearing of livestock and sustained through regional migration. For centuries, mobile pastoralists have managed and preserved common rangelands in a sustainable way that supported livelihoods while fostering co-dependence and intricate economies with other communities (e.g., manure-for-grazing agreements with farmers; wool-for-cloth arrangements with weavers). The pastoralists of Asia continue to manage rangelands through elaborate systems of governance based on customary rules and regulations, the authority of customary institutions and sustainable animal rearing practices.

In which way might a mobile application be helpful for pastoralist?

• Mobile applications would connect to resources and support networks as they arrive in unfamiliar communities.
• Include important information related to their livestock, natural disasters, access to emergency management (police, medical, etc), and weather.

What kind of information could be provided by this application?

Two sets of information are considered useful:

• Information on grass land, water points, safest routes to follow for migration journey (obstacles to avoid: e.g encroachment), market points, weather information.
• Information related to land rights and information on laws of common land, laws affecting / related to pastoralist or legal issues, information related to diseases, feed breeding, value added products.

What are the constraints one has to take into account in the project:

• Apps should be intuitive, perhaps symbol-or picture based to make accessible to the widest possible audience.
• Unreliable internet/data connectivity: simplicity and low data use recommended.
• Availability of smartphones may be limited.