Vulnerability of pastoral populations to climate change, territoriality of adaptation strategies among Fulani of Ferlo (Senegal)

Résumé

Among the people of Ferlo, particularly Fulani pastoralists, the socio-economic and symbolic links between their home territory and the other territorial entities of the country have undergone great changes since the end of the sixties. Moreover, the displacement of political and economic power (displacement of the capital from Saint-Louis to Dakar) and its consequences on the development of the country, the creation of hydro-agricultural development in the Senegal valley as well as the multiplication of weekly markets in the rural world, suffice to explain the emergence of political, socio-economic and institutional poles. These different poles have established very strong exchange relations on which people rely to adapt to the vulnerability of their activity. This situation seems to be more anchored in the daily lives of the populations of the sylvopastoral zone since the advent of droughts and reinforces the formulation of the hypothesis of a redefinition of the relationships to space that foreshadow territorial reconfigurations. These are based, among other things, on the levels of inequalities in the development of space that produce various modes of exploitation from which emanates a socio-spatial and socio-economic heterogeneity, carried by a network of actors who build space frames that can be adapted to adaptation territories of rural markets, an adaptation territory integrated into the urban framework and integrated adaptation territory in the Senegal River Valley.