The Pastoral Development Network represents a world-wide network of researchers, administrators and extension personnel interested in the issues of pastoralism and rangelands. Between 1976 and 1996 the PDN was managed by ODI and published regular mailings including newsletters and a wide ranging series of papers on pastoralism and related issues. There were also a number of other related publications.

This website has been set up to revitalise the Network, allowing work to be disseminated more widely than has been possible in the past.

An extensive range of  Papers published by the Network are now available here online, and will in time be available on CD ROM.

As part of a continuing commitment to pastoralism FAO has commissioned a keynote paper on a wide range of pastoral issues taking a global perspective. This paper can be downloaded in Acrobat format, and is intended to stimulate debate. The bibliography tries to list as many of the major monographs on pastoral society as possible.  We would welcome additional references as well as comment on any section of the paper.

Livestock: Coping with Drought

The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, together with the Overseas Development Institute hosted an electronic conference in the summer of 1998. This conference took as its subject 'Livestock-coping with drought', and provided a forum for those interested in pastoralism and pastoralist issues to communicate with each other by email. The papers submitted to this conference are posted on this site, and cover many of the issues presently debated in this area. The discussion is on-going and the site is designed to allow further comment to be added.