Competing Paradigms in Pastoral Development? A Perspective from the Far North of Cameroon

Summary The debate over the future and development of African pastoral systems is dominated by two paradigms that are considered mutually exclusive: the modernization and the mobility paradigm. However, an ethnographic study of a peri-urban pastoral system in the Far North Province of Cameroon shows that these paradigms need and should not be mutually exclusive. Peri-urban pastoralists combine intensive and extensive strategies to cope successfully with the disappearance of grazing lands in peri-urban areas. I discuss what the implications are of this autonomous development for pastoral development in Africa.