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Dans les régions sèches, les résultats scientifiques montrent que l’élevage mobile permet de tirer le meilleur profit social, environnemental et économique de ces espaces. Cette activité offre à la fois une sécurité à court terme en cas de choc et, dans de bonnes conditions, une capacité d’investissement. Il est cependant délicat d’élaborer des indicateurs pour comprendre et évaluer sa contribution au développement territorial car elle se situe à l’intersection de plusieurs échelles de temps, d’espace et d’organisation sociale et institutionnelle. Le cadre opérationnel proposé ici vise à repenser le rôle de l’élevage pour la durabilité des ressources et des sociétés des régions sèches. Six types d’indicateurs de développement croisent ces trois dimensions : caractéristiques du troupeau et des biens et services issus des espèces élevées, taille du troupeau, conduite d’élevage, gestion des ressources communautaires, accès aux soutiens de l’État, dépendance aux marchés, usage des terres et des ressources. Ce cadre invite les décideurs politiques à intégrer ces différentes échelles pour comprendre les mécanismes d’adaptation et les risques en cas d’intervention.

In drylands, scientific research shows that mobile livestock systems derive the maximum social, environmental and economic benefits from these areas. These systems ensure both short-term security in case of shocks and, in the right conditions, investment capacity. However, it is difficult to develop indicators to understand and assess their contribution to territorial development, as they sit at the intersection between several scales of space and time, as well as of social and institutional organisation. The operational framework proposed here is aimed at rethinking the role of livestock systems in the sustainability of resources and societies in drylands. Six types of development indicators compare these three dimensions: characteristics of herds and of goods and services provided by the species bred, herd size, herd management system, management of land and resources use, access to state support, and dependence on markets. This framework invites policymakers to integrate these different scales in order to understand the adaption mechanisms and the risks associated with intervention.

Analyzing the sustainability of grazing livestock farming systems in the drylands at the farm and household or territorial levels (in terms of food security, well-being, value chain performance, feed supply, and maintenance of common grazing resources) constitutes a major challenge in the context of global changes. In particular, social–natural interdependency in an entanglement of spatial and temporal scales complicates the development of a common and systematic framework for assessing the sustainability of these grazing livestock systems. Our objective is to give an overview of some fundamental sets of indicators usually used and elaborate on some principles to guide the sustainable assessment of grazing livestock systems in drylands. To do so, this paper reviews a set of empirical, theoretical, and methodological studies related to the analysis of risk, adaptability, vulnerability, resilience, and sustainability of livestock systems in drylands based on grazing (mostly pastoral systems, but also some integrated crop-livestock systems). More concretely, this review seeks to compile a set of indicators to inform the processes of assessing the sustainability of livestock socio-ecosystems. It points to the wide range of approaches that have been used to address the sustainability of grazing livestock systems, ranging from those that focus on ecological or social approaches to more integrated and systemic approaches; from indicator-based approaches to those focusing on processes; from quantitative approaches to those that point out the need to take qualitative aspects into consideration; and from research-based assessments to participatory approaches. Based on this review, we propose a multi-scale indicators framework combining scales of space, time, and coordination to address the sustainability of these livestock systems. This framework aims to constitute a sound basis for elaborating a system of information that will contribute to and support policymakers and development agencies in developing their policies and measurements in order to ensure the sustainable development of pastoral and agropastoral systems in the short and medium-term. However, this study also warns about the multiple contextual scopes of the indicators and their implications, which reveal differing dynamics (and therefore adaptive capacities) of these systems.