Innovative method to assess the sustainability of pastoral systems in their territories (PSSAF)

The future of pastoral systems and their interactions with territories are the sub­ject of considerable debate in the scientific literature and are still insufficiently documented. Assessing the sustainability of pastoral systems and their interac­tions with the sustainability of territories is thus a complex task. We proposed in this study a method to assess the sustainability of pastoral systems within their territories. After reviewing the literature, we conducted interviews with pastoralism experts in France and in Africa on the subject of sustainability in general and pastoral systems in particular. We designed our grid according to the principles-criteria-indicators approach and included 10 principles grouped into three major fields: ‘Availability of resources in the territory’, ‘Properties of the system’, and ‘Extended sustainability’. Understanding the strategies used in pastoral systems enabled us to propose a set of specific criteria per principle. Finally, we compared our grid with other methods used to assess sustainability.