Gallé Aynabé (Cyber Shepherd)

This project draws on ICTs - Internet-equipped computers and cell phones - to encourage pastoralists "to improve the feeding of their animals, to develop livestock production, and to manage the environment sustainably," by using these technologies to obtain and exchange information.

To begin, project organisers conducted field surveys among more than 200 families in 3 countries (Burkina Faso, Mali, and Senegal), to compile an inventory of traditional practices and local know-how in the use of pastoral resources, with a view to combining them with modern tools and knowledge and making them more accessible.

Three zones, known as "pastoral units" (PU) were selected in Senegal (Kouthiaba, Thiel, and Tessékéré) as sites for a pilot project to demonstrate "the use of ICTs for local communities in tracking the movements of transhumant herds for sustainable management of pastoral resources in the Sahel, Senegal." In each of these trial zones, herders were taught to read and to prepare geographic maps by working with Global Positioning System (GPS) devices that were linked to satellites and that could be used for accurate positioning on the ground.

Several of these herders were equipped with cell phones to speed up the exchange of information and provide them with an "early warning system" against pending disasters. Specifically, the phones enable pastoralists to access information about resources in the transhumance zones, and to track and monitor the course followed by selected shepherds and their flocks from one point to another in the forestry-pasture zone.

Some herders received IT training so that they could access information available on the Internet. All the equipment needed for Internet connection was installed in each pastoral unit, where real-time information could be accessed through a website that was created for them in July 2003. This website offers maps showing which sites are occupied and which have green vegetation, together with an estimated "carrying capacity" that indicates the number of animals that can be pastured there without risk to the environment and its resources. It also devotes pages to ways of recognising and dealing with animal diseases.

Technology, Economic Development, Agriculture, Environment.