Pastoral livestock keeping in arid and semi-arid zones across Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia involves unique welfare challenges related to water scarcity, extreme heat, long drives, and limited veterinary access.
Arid zone pastoral welfare challenges are often overlooked in welfare debates focused on intensive confinement systems, but the welfare costs of thirst, heat, exhaustion from long drives, and lack of veterinary access can be severe and affect hundreds of millions of animals. Traditional pastoral knowledge often incorporates sophisticated welfare management adapted to local conditions, and external interventions that disrupt traditional systems without understanding local context can inadvertently reduce welfare. The most effective approach combines mobile veterinary services, water point infrastructure, drought emergency feed reserves, and respectful engagement with pastoral knowledge systems.