Rangeland Ecology and Management

Our paper "Ideal Free Distributions of Mobile Pastoralists within Multiple Seasonal Grazing Areas" is available online on the Rangeland Ecology and Management website. Here is a brief summary of the paper: The pastoral system in the Far North Region of Cameroon is best described as an open system in which mobile pastoralists have open access to common-pool grazing resources. We examined whether mobile pastoralists distribute themselves over grazing resources in an ideal free distribution. We used GPS/GIS technology and remote sensing data to map the distribution of resources and pastoralists in two seasonal grazing areas and found evidence of an ideal free distribution. These findings offer further support for our hypothesis that this is a self-organizing complex adaptive system in which pastoralists distribute themselves effectively over available grazing resources.