Impact of livelihood strategies and capitals on rangeland sustainability and nomads' poverty: A counterfactual analysis in Southwest Iran

Traditional ranching farming provides society with meat, agricultural products, leather, and hides in an economic procedure through livestock grazing on rangelands. Based on recent research, traditional ranching farming has a crucial role and a significant contribution to the employment of nomadic households. According to recent rangeland degradation, it is important to pay attention to the nomadic livelihoods based on the rangeland environment and the household economy. Global implications for the study of pastoral livelihoods are based on maintaining rangelands and improving household welfare (in terms of earnings). For this purpose, a sustainable livelihood framework based on livelihood strategies and natural and unnatural capitals was applied. The sample size of 393 households from 24 nomadic residences was selected based on the multi-stage cluster sampling method. Data were collected in the form of face-to-face interviews with sample nomads in 2018. The results of switching regression models for analyzing the counterfactual effect indicated that nomadic households who adopted servicing, agriculture, and diversification strategies caused the improvement of rangeland sustainability at 3%, 7%, and 4% and the reduction of household poverty at 4%, 7%, and 5%, respectively. In this regard, increasing human capital and financial capital have significant effects on rejecting ranching strategies and selecting agriculture and diversification strategies.