The document discusses initiatives by the Abolhassani nomadic pastoralist community in Iran to cope with drought through local ecological management and indigenous knowledge. [1] The community has faced increasing droughts due to climate change that have negatively impacted livelihoods. [2] However, the community has adapted using strategies like water storage, adjusting livestock numbers and migration patterns, renting farmland, and communally managing rangelands and water sources. [3] The document recommends supporting these indigenous communities and knowledge systems, and recognizing their rights over ancestral lands.

1. Reviving Indigenous Community Conserved Areas (ICCAs) in
Customary Territories of Abolhassani Mobile Pastoralists, Iran—
Coping with the Effects of Climate Change and Drought through
Local Initiatives and Ecological Management
Mina Esteqamat, Fatemeh A. Kamali, Khadija C. Razavi
& the CENESTA Team: Maede Salimi, Nahid Naghizadeh, Abbas Didari, M. Taghi Farvar
Union of Indigenous Nomadic Tribes of Iran (UNINOMAD)
Center for Sustainable Development and Environment (CENESTA), Tehran, Iran

2. The Centre for Sustainable Development (CENESTA), with the main goal
of empowerment of indigenous peoples and local communities for
taking into their hands their own livelihoods and conservation of
natural resources, has been working for decades to promote sustainable
community- and culture-based development all over the vast country of
Iran and in many other parts of the world.

3. Iranian nomads, throughout their history, have tried to deal with climate change by
Vertical Migration and Horizontal Migration in their territories.
The situation is more difficult for the nomad’s communities living in arid and semi-arid
areas who seem to be on the first line of vulnerability during the occurrence of drought
crisis due to their dependence on nature.

4. As climate change impacts indigenous landscapes, communities are responding and
adapting in unique ways and indigenous peoples of Iran are not the exception.
Incorporating indigenous knowledge into climate change policies besides modern
scientific knowledge can lead to the development of effective mitigation and
adaptation strategies that are cost-effective, participatory, and sustainable.

5. Successive droughts in recent years coupled with improper Agricultural
policies, promotion of industrial systems instead of customary systems and small-scale
livestock farming have led to negative effects to the nomads livelihood and upward
pressure to natural resources such as overgrazing, land degradation and salinization of
water resources.

6. Under the current situation the members of the Council of Elders in the Abolhassani
Tribal confederacy (ICCA) with the cooperation of UNDP/GEF/SGP and facilitation of
CENESTA (Centre for Sustainable Development and Environment) conducted a
participatory project to identify the effects of drought in mobile pastoralist’s
territories, assessment and analysis of applied initiatives and indigenous knowledge in
coping with the drought and expansion of local initiatives to other tribal communities.

7. Indigenous & Community Conserved
Territories & Areas (ICCAs)
“…natural and modified ecosystems including
significant biodiversity, ecological services and
cultural values voluntarily conserved by
indigenous peoples and local communities
through customary laws or other effective
means…”

8. The Abolhassani tribal confederacy of about 800 members lives in the north-eastern
margin of the central desert of Iran, known as Khartouran, one of the nine Biosphere
reserves in the world. Despite being a dry area, the rich ecological and biodiversity value
of this tribal territory is outstanding.
The Summering grounds of Abolhassani are located in the North East part of Touran
biosphere reserve. A part of their wintering ground is located in Touran region and
another part is on the margins of the Daruneh protected area.

9. A few of the 700 nomadic pastoral ICCAs/territories in Iran
The schematic participatory map with the help of local
community

10. The major source of livelihood and activity conducted by the Abolhassani people is
pastoralism. Sheep, goat and camel are the main types of livestock they raise. The
management of rangelands is undertaken communally, and the council of elders of
communities still plays a crucial role in deciding when, where and which kind of animals are
led to each pasture. The same applies to water resources; Qanats, springs and wells. In the
surroundings of the villages, agriculture (Rain-fed agriculture is the dominant practice) is also
being conducted, mainly barley and wheat, as well as gardening and fruit tree
cultivation, such as pomegranate.

11. Drought years have intensified recently due to the global climate change.
Meanwhile the great drought of the year 2000 inflicted such heavy loss in livestock—that
almost the entire tribal confederacy was forced out of the tribal territory. An estimated
70% of livestock was lost or sold at a pittance to intermediaries; the current population
that has returned is barely 40% of the pre-2000 level.
The detrimental impacts of the frequent and long
drought periods in recent years include; decreased
livestock and agricultural productions, water
shortage, decreased fodder, moving sand dunes
and loss of rangeland vegetation cover.

12. However, the small Abolhassani tribal confederacy has learnt to deal with this natural
disaster by implementing some adaptation strategies through customary laws and
practices based on their indigenous knowledge.
They gave innovative responses to this phenomenon by Water storage, reducing the
number of livestock, lengthening the migration path, renting the farmlands residues
and using the agricultural by-products to feed the livestock, etc.
The Abolhassani Tribal Confederacy –Copping with the Drought

13. In the recent project, the Abolhassani pastoralists highlighted the following factors as
the main causes of rangeland degradation: rainfall reduction; land reform;
overgrazing; changes in livestock breeds; and finally conflicts among local people.

14. The local communities in the Study area had successfully achieved some level of sustainable
livelihoods by adapting the proper ways of livestock husbandry, farming and other income-
earning activities.

15. Indigenous knowledge has been directly applied by Abolhassani people in climate change
and drought mitigation and adaptation through nomadism that is household and herd
seasonal movement between summering and wintering quarters, customarily communal
grazing system that is based on the agreement between the elders of the tribe, to decide
the quantity of livestock, the type of livestock, and the time of grazing in each pasture
land, reducing the number of ewes and increase the number of goats, as goats take
more benefit from desert pastures, ‘Boundless Grazing’ that is the herd grazing from April
to mid-May -45 days- regardless of pasture ownership.
This traditional system provides several benefits:
Distant or low water resources pastures are grazed in springs under favorable conditions
Reduces conflicts between the tribes
Delay in the grazing of the summering pastures to allow them to develop appropriately

16. The other strategies are;
Maintaining the traditional practices and calendar of the seasonal migration of the herd,
Lengthening the migration path and grazing in more distant pastures even into other
communities’ territories if necessary,
Renting the farmlands residues of other communities,
Adoption of multipurpose crops and fruit trees –e.g. watermelons, cotton, pistachio, red
pepper, sunflower, almond, pomegranate, etc., that are used as cash crops, livestock fodder and
self-consumption,
Selling a part of the herd to afford buying fodder for the remaining,
Application of ‘closed pastures’ and Land resting to allow appropriate grassland development
before grazing -this implies hiring a gamekeeper to protect the pastures,
Maintaining the customary laws by the elderly council of sending some pioneers to measure the
plant coverage of the migratory routes to assess the pasture conditions before the tribe move,
Avoid the land use changes in the area,
Decrease the size of the household and through migration to the cities in search of new sources of
livelihood,
Reducing the number of livestock particularly sheep –ewes,
Shifting towards the sheep and goat breeds which produce more milk and meat besides being
more adaptive with difficult condition,
Shift from pastoralism to agro-pastoralism with stall-fed sheep,
Multi-species composition of herds,
Expansion of rain-fed farming in rangelands,
Shift from mobile systems to semi-mobile,
Join in 3 or 4 herds together to pay less for shepherd and keep some of the livestock in the stalls
The sand dune stabilization plans and artificial windbreaks made of dried tree branches.

17. The indigenous people have developed several adaptation measures to cope with the
water shortage in the area and to reduce their vulnerability to climate change which
includes;
Digging of degraded wells
Storage of rain water in cisterns
Use of mobile tankers to provide water to those pastures with no water available,
Respect the traditional communal water resource management, e.g. distribute the access
to the water of Qanats among the neighbors in cycles of 12 days
Follow the pastoralist tradition of Henar, which implies watering the animals once every
two days, generally from the end of fall to late winter
Promote animals’ adaptation to lack of water
Reducing the pressure on low carrying capacity grazing areas through nomadic
pastoralists’ mobility and their movement from the dry areas to the wetter areas

18. The main achievements in dealing with drought crisis effects summarized in;
developing the cycle of “coping with the drought” and establishing a revolving
fund (micro credits) to compensate the losses and provide sustainable livelihoods.
Innovative Strategy of Abolhassani to Cope with Drought –
“Coping with the Drought” cycle

19. Traditional Annual Cycle of Migratory Livestock
Period A: Natural grazing cycle base on seasonal migration B: coping with the drought cycle
Spring grazing 6 March- 22 May, Grazing livestock on rangelands in way stations;
areas 23 May, separation of Lambs and kids from their mothers and their weaning
23 May- 22 September, Grazing livestock in summering grounds;
23 May- 22 September, milking livestock in summering grounds and preparation 5 June-22 August, separation of
Summering of dairy products; livestock for fattening from the
grounds 1 August, separation of rams from the herd and grazing them separately; herd and grazing them separately in
1 September: releasing the rams into the herd ewes for copulation; Fodder barley Stubble
6 September, releasing the he- goats into the herd of she- goats;
23 August- 6 November: Grazing
Autumn 22 September- 6 Nov. Grazing livestock on Rangelands around the settlements
of lambs and kids in pistachio
Grazing lands Late October: sale of goat kids
orchard weed and brush
6 Nov.- 6 Dec., grazing livestock
Wintering 22 October- 6 March, Grazing livestock on rangelands in desert; in Cotton field stubble;
grounds late January, sale of lambs 6 Dec. - 6 Mar., grazing livestock
1 February- 10 February, Birth of lambs and kids in Fodder barley Stubble by
underweight livestock.

20. Mitigation strategies of drought crisis summarized in five factors, namely as: Integrated
water resources management,
Institutional capacity building,
Targeted supporting,
Systemic planning,
Sustainable development of agricultural and livelihood systems.

21. Participatory Map & GIS and Participatory Video
final boundary of Abolhasani territory on the google map
the schematic participatory map with the help of local community
Community mapping of ICCA (territory)

22. Recommendations:
• The tribal peoples are the stewards of precious Indigenous knowledge and a
source of livelihoods for future generations. This knowledge should be recorded by our
tribes for their own use and their rights to maintain their customary law, spiritual and
material ownership, access and benefit sharing, but above all the right to their territorial
integrity should be formally recognized;
• ICCA communities should be supported to sustain their livelihoods through
pastoral activities and agriculture and gain additional income (e.g., through community
owned ecotourism, medicinal plants, handicrafts, etc.) including via their Sustainable
Livelihood Councils of nomadic tribes and their Sanduqs (community investment funds)
• indigenous knowledge should be better researched, recognised and applied
(respecting intellectual property rights of ICCAs and their collective governance);
• In many of the mobile pastoralists’ territories 95% of medicinal plants have not
been registered. These are priceless values and assets which should be restored and
conserved through a legal process and not allowed to disappear or fall prey to external
profit seeking agencies;

23. • Establishing a “Learning Group” on the governance and management of natural
resources. The learning group acts as a “Multi-Stakeholder Platform” whose participants
must be selected from; Government agencies, University schools of natural resources/
departments of range management, Department of the Environment, and schools of social
sciences, Civil Societies, Representatives/ spokespeople of indigenous nomadic tribes and
of traditional communities;
• Working sessions of the Councils of Elders that discuss in-depth issues of NR
governance and management, often comparing their customary institutions of governance
and indigenous knowledge with modern ways that come out of academic and government
institutions;
• Nomads should have the right of commenting on/revising draft laws and
regulations and Issuing their own verdicts through a series of declarations and statements;
• Giving priority to indigenous and local communities organizations for the
implementation of government projects related to management of natural resources;

24. • Solving the problem of lack of collateral for loans;
• Reduction of state governance and transferring rangeland management to
indigenous and local communities;
• Prohibiting the transfer of migratory routes and changing the land use of
nomadic rangelands;
• Impact of country level policies (overall) on FRWO policies;
• Following up article 44 of the constitution to delegate the rangeland
management to IPs and LCs;
• Alliances should be promoted to review and reverse inappropriate policies and
programs for natural resource management, such as nationalization of natural
resources, top-down government projects on rangelands management and other failed
national projects;
• Support and facilitating should be offered to the creation of national
Federations and Unions of camel herders, mobile pastoralists, forest peoples, small scale
producers, fisher-folk and trappers in the county;

25. Presence of local community in official meetings

26. Handicrafts

27. the Abolhassani peoples have, over the years, adapted to climatic extreme and managed
their ICCAs successfully, more than any one during the decades, through their
indigenous knowledge therefore they must have the right to govern their ancestral
territory to make it survive for the futures.
Although the modern knowledge is
gradually recognizing the value of
indigenous knowledge systems, but
yet, the value of indigenous knowledge
in a wide range of studies including
climate change has received little
attention.

28. Thank you….