In 1996, I had the opportunity to visit Iran, and to travel extensively throughout the country thanks to the generosity of IRIMO, the Islamic Republic of Iran Meteorological Organization. Below are transcripts of interviews conducted with representatives of four pastoral tribes. The interviews revealed some basic facts concerning household economies, the role of the post-Revolutionary Iranian state in daily life, personal views on sedenterization, and environmental degradation/landscape change.

The Kurds of eastern Khorasan province are an anomaly indeed, for they are far from their ancestral homeland. A small group of Kurdish dissidents was exiled by Shah Abbas (1587-1629), political hostages against rebellion by their kin in Kurdistan. Their descendents are now firmly part of the populace of Khorasan, with no links remaining to their homeland.

These two households try to rent pastures near highways (their tents were 100 m from the main Tehran-Mashhad artery), so as to take advantage of vehicular relocation of their flocks and household appliances. Being near a highway presents opportunities for purchasing supplies from nearby communities, and indeed one of the men owned a motorcycle. Another group of Kurds we encountered, approximately 50 people, were located much further from population centers, several hours walk from the nearest village. Transhumant rather than nomadic,two they had arrived at their summer camp some 10 days prior and were planning a stay of nearly 2 months duration. We were aware of their presence from a distance of 3 km, for the hill behind their encampment had been visibly stripped of their vegetation cover by their flock.

This Kurdish group returns so frequently to the same site that they have invested time and energy in building permanent mud-wall bases for their tents. In fact, this hilly country is their yélak, their summer grazing grounds, and consists of three possible sites, all in the same vicinity. Prior to moving to the area from keshlak, their winter grazing site, they dispatch scouts to ascertain the preferred location. The scouts are mostly the young men of the group, but all members are intimately familiar with the area. Travel between yélak and keshlak in Sarakhs, a road distance of approximately 300 km, is accomplished by truck.

Unlike the fixed rent of the previous group of Kurds, this group pays a flexible donation to the religious shrine in the valley that holds the property rights to the surrounding hills. Other costs incurred include payments to farmers for the right to graze sheep on post-harvest stover during years of insufficient pasturage, truck transportation, and supplemental fodder and barley during the winter months. These expenses limit the flock size to 2000 animals, with the flock increasing in size by about 50 percent each year. The excess animals are sold at a price of roughly 12500 tomans per adult animal (sales are actually by weight; 1995 prices were around 500 tomans/kg, with the expectation that 1996 prices would drop to 400 tomans/kg). Further sources of income include the sale of wool (approximately 200 tomans/kg), as well as butter, milk, and cheese when in excess of the households' needs.

The elders recognize that the pasture has degraded over time. They had heard from their parents that once there were trees in the locale. In the past, people had cut the trees and bushes for fuelwood. Woody plants are now protected, and only dead wood is gathered and burned; propane gas canisters have become the source of cooking fuel. They are cognizant that an increase in herd size has caused land degradation, and suspect that it is responsible for today's lower precipitation. However, they claim that a diminished flock size would render their livelihoods untenable.

The group of Turkmen we visited consisted of 2 households with 27 members who owned a total of around 2000 sheep and a small number of poultry. Turkmen are renowned for their horses and horsemanship, but this group no longer owns any equines; these have been replaced by motorized transport. They spend 2 months each year in the encampment where we encountered them because it is higher (and therefore cooler) than the winter keshlak, some 5 km distant, where they spend 5 months; summers are passed in higher mountains, 30 km away.

Prior to the 1979 Revolution, grazing permits had to be obtained from the Department of Forestry, which were on occasion - and apparently whimsically - denied. When Forestry refused permits, the group was forced to itself forage for fodder to feed its stockaded sheep. Now the state, far from impeding them, assists by (1) providing supplemental fodder during lean years, and (2) subsidizing barley and suger-beet molasses at one-half the market price, supplements particularly needed during the cold winter months.

The flock size has doubled since the Revolution, and is held constant because of costly expenses; even subsidized, supplemental inputs are expensive, as is the price of transporting the animals. This contrasts with the past, when supplemental feed was not required because the flock was smaller and the pastures were better. Currently, the group pays local farmers to graze their sheep on post-harvest fields; the rate is 1500 tomans/ha for sunflower fields, 1000 tomans/ha for fields of other crops. Cash income is earned through the sale of meat (500 toman/kg in 1995) from the annual 50% increase in the flock, and wool (240 toman/kg). They do not sell any milk products so as to allow lambs to take as much as they need.

Three factors operate concurrently to marginalize the group: (1) the increase of cultivated lands, (2) the spread of protected no-graze areas, and (3) competition for space from Khorasan's Kurds. These factors have combined to produce an overgrazed environment, a fact well-recognized by the group, who believe that they cannot do anything to protect the pasture except pray for rain. One of the elders we spoke with is 47 years old, and remembers that while he was a child, the snowpack was so deep that a household could not leave its yurt. Today, the greatest snow depth is only around 30 cm, and this may occur but once or twice a year. Other environmental change has also taken place: there used to be far greater numbers of both watercourses and bushes in the plains, and far greater numbers of trees in the mountains. The group believes that the solution to land degradation is in Allah's hands, and that there is nothing that they themselves can do to reverse it.

Certainly, not all depletion of woody biomass in the mountains can be blamed on the Turkmen, for as they pointed out, the population of Chenaran, the nearby village, was small not long ago but is now 150 households, around 2000 persons. Competition is not with the settled villagers, however; it is with the Kurdish nomads, but since the Department of Nomad Affairs grants the Kurds grazing permits, the Turkmen are powerless to resist. In the past, quarrels between the Turkmen and the Kurds had at times escalated, and had resulted in several deaths. Indeed, the elders claimed that the Pahlavi regime fomented disagreements between them and the Kurds so as to encourage sedenterization.

Group representatives meet frequently with other Turkomen tribal members to discuss pasture matters, including the dates to move flocks and coordination of sales. About 50 households are represented at these meetings, all from the Chenaran area. This clan group, believe the Turkomen we spoke with, could form the nucleus of a management unit; however, they would not reduce their flock size if told to do so by a clan management unit. Concomitantly, the group wishes to have stronger linkages to the state. While they do not wish to sedenterize (because, they claim, their animals would die from heat if forced to remain in the lowlands during the summer), they would like additional state development targeted at their area, specifically a paved road, electricity, and water facilities for their animals (the state already provides schooling and veterinary services).

One group of Qashqai we visited near the town of Shahreza consisted of two households who mostly raise goats. They winter in a small village 12 km distant for 6 months, which was first settled by their kin 40 to 50 years ago, and spend 6 months in the summer yélak. Before the 1979 Revolution, the households herded sheep, but following the Shah's overthrow and the ensuing war with Iraq, the Iranian army used this area for maneuvers and the tanks and other vehicles rapidly destroyed the pasture. With the vanishing of most of the grasses as the soil blew away, the Department of Nomad Affairs advised them to exchange their sheep for goats, which they did in 1980. Their grazing area once supported 70,000 sheep, but today just 10,000 goats eke a living out of the remnant vegetation. From time to time, one of the animals steps on a mine. However, since these households sell both milk products (which they take to Shahreza themselves) and meat (which fluctuates in price at around 600 toman/kg) of their animals, goats have an advantage over sheep: goats provide milk for 5 to 6 months of the year compared with sheep at 1 to 2 months. Each nanny goat gives birth to a single or twin young, and the herders sell older animals so as to maintain a constant flock size, an economic strategy forced by the price of even subsidized supplemental fodder. To assist in keeping fodder costs as low as possible, the group gathers by hand plants from the mountains, and the inhabitants of the village have formed a cooperative purchasing society.

In contrast, the second group of Qashqai we encountered (halfway between Shahreza and Semirom) and interviewed were transhumant over a much longer line - 400 km, in fact - and have spent the past 16 winters in Khuzestan province bordering Iraq. While the group sends its heavy household appliances by truck, everything else traverses the distance on foot or hoof, a migration that takes about one month. Prior to the Revolution, the group spent the winter months in a neighboring valley that belongs to the tribe. At that time, both summer and winter pastures were the property of a Khan who was the head of a clan, and it was he who rented the pastures to the herders. Since the Revolution, the government has issued free permits for both summer and winter quarters. While Jihad's representatives stringently define carrying capacity at 1 ha/head (sheep or goats), the group itself decides on where to seek pasture. In the course of their travels over the past 16 years, they have not seen significant change in the quality or quantity of the grazing resource. However, while the older men of the group were convinced that only precipitation plays a role in the pasture's annual regrowth, a younger man dissented, stating that overgrazing had damaged the resource. The elders contend that precipitation has decreased since their youth, although there have been no changes in its timing.

Whether because of limited pasture or high expenses, the group keeps the size of its flock constant at around a total of 3000 head of both sheep and goats. The ratio of sheep to goats leans toward sheep, because of the extra income derived from wool. While the ratio has remained quite constant over the years, the group changed the strain of the sheep about 10 to 15 years ago, acquiring a varietal by purchase from the Bakhtiari that is better adapted to range conditions, exhibits a better response to the climate, and produces higher-quality meat and milk. The flock increases by around 50% per year, with the excess animals being sold for meat, albeit the group has allowed its flock to expand by 50% over the past 5 years.

Human population growth is also a problem within this group, members of which are cognizant of unmet needs. The nexus of finite pasture area coupled with increased herd and population size has led some members of the group to conclude that the most reasonable solution to this quandary is the provision of supplemental fodder. Even today, some Qashqai are not granted permission to to use pasture, and instead must rent grazing land from farmers - an expensive proposition. And even under current conditions, grazing at their present location would end by mid-July, after which they would be forced to purchase fodder or rent farmlands. The same constraints apply to their winter keshlak; in total, therefore, grazing provides just eight months of food for their flocks. Drought years, during which pasture is meager, are especially taxing. This is recognized by the state, which provided fodder during the severe drought of 1983.

For the past 45 years, the clan has migrated back and forth to exactly the same area. Its belongings, aged, wives, and young children now traverse the distance by vehicle. The clan receives permits from Jihad fee-free, but is constrained within well-defined boundaries around a 500 ha parcel in both summer and winter quarters. Nominally, the stocking rate in the summer yélak is 10 ha/head, but this is obviously loosely enforced. The clan elder claimed that his stocking rate is higher because the pasture is richer than normal for the area.

There were few regulations prior to the Revolution, and the tribal Khans and landlords were in conflict over the land. In these mountains, feudalism prevailed and the government had very little influence. Today, the situation is more relaxed, and the Bakhtiari can rely on government permission to graze; all they must do to qualify is maintain a notebook with data on each animal. From time to time, Jihad even provides them with fodder seeds free of charge, and the Ministry will also seed pasture from the air. Other government assistance now includes schooling, veterinary services, low- or zero-interest loans, subsidized supplemental fodder (during severe drought, the subsidy totals 100 percent), and subsidized foods. The new insurance program that had just begun in June, 1996, has a premium of 1 toman/head, and the clan will willingly take out a policy for their flocks. The clan elder would like to become sedentary, but this is not the desire of all members, who perceive the main problem in regard to sedenterization to be the harshness of the winter in the mountains and summer temperatures in the lowlands that can exceed 40ºC.

The elders contended that the quality and quantity of pasture is strictly a function of rainfall. Nearby bare areas on rolling terrain they claimed never to have had any vegetation cover, a situation they ascribed to the longevity of winter snows coupled with saline soils. Conversely, there was once a fairly dense forest from the foothills to the river. Riparian trees were drowned in 1971, following an earthquake-caused avalanche that dammed the river for some time. Removal of trees over the decades has resulted in Jihad prohibiting the cutting of live wood. In the vicinity of the encampment, the density of thistles (the roots of which provide human food) has apparently remained unchanged over the years. A nearby spring dries up by the end of August, just like it did decades ago; another spring closer to the river never dries up. However, the elders claim that not only has precipitation declined since they were young, but that the Indian monsoon reaches them at a much lower frequency today than in the past, now just once or twice a year.

Footnotes

a.There are 10 riyals to a toman; in May, 1996, the exchange rate was 410 toman per U.S. dollar.

b. Transhumance is the regularized movement between sites such that location is largely just a function of season. Nomadism, on the other hand, is more random; while equally as seasonally-driven as transhumance, it is not possible to predict where a particular group of nomads may be found. Some transhumant cultures possess permanent settlements, and it is only the men who migrate seasonally with the herds or flocks. Nomads, by contrast and by definition, have no permanent settlement. All of the pastoralists we encountered in Iran, with the exception of the first Kurdish group, are transhumant rather than nomadic, regardless of the absence of a fixed abode.

c. The name of this ministry in Farsi is Jihad, underscoring the folly of the ubiquitous Western translation of this word as "holy war."

d. The Ministry of Agriculture had, during the Pahlavi regime, constructed check dams for watering the livestock. These have now collapsed.

e. In actual fact, as the Iranian middle class grew as a consequence of oil-generated wealth, their diet progressively turned toward greater consumption of red meat - a demand that Iranian pastoralists alone were unable to supply. Yet the cause of meat importation does not deny its effect, which was to indeed depress domestic prices.

f. In contrast with the hot drylands of the world, one notable difference with the "cold" drylands of Iran - cold given that winters are harsh and often wet - is that grasses and forbs grow most densely on the sides of watercourses rather than at the bottom as in hotter regions.