Can Pastoral Nomads Return to Their Traditional Livelihood of Raising Livestock in the Registan Desert of Southern Afghanistan?

Abstract

In Afghanistan, there are several million nomadic people known as kuchis, a generic term used there mainly by non-nomads to describe pastoral nomads. A severe drought in 1998 caused the displacement of approximately 100,000 kuchis from the Registan desert in southern Afghanistan. Most of these people are now living in temporary settlements between the Arghandab and Helmand Rivers and Registan. Approximately 57,000 are being supported by the UN in camps for internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Maywand and Panjwayi districts of Kandahar Province; the rest are living in nonsupported settlements. The UN is currently seeking strategies to return the kuchis to their traditional livelihood of raising livestock in Registan and end UN support of the IDP camps. This also appears to be the desire of most kuchis, at least the elders whom we interviewed, although some kuchis believe that the nomadic lifestyle is coming to an end (Amani 2003). How can this be achieved and sustained? We start with the premise that the return of kuchis to their traditional nomadic lifestyle is possible if carefully planned, seeing that it was done successfully by kuchis themselves for many centuries. Our goal was to examine possibilities for the return of kuchis to Registan.