Odessa Centre

What we do

We specialise in research and consultancy on pastoral peoples of the world, their livestock production and land use systems. Raising domesticated livestock on extensive pastures is one of the oldest human adaptations as a system of provisioning and land use. More than 40% of the earth’s land area is still used as grazing land by peoples from the tropics to the sub-Arctic, including ranchers, nomads and farmers, settled or mobile.

Recent Publications

Behnke, R. 2021. Grazing into the Anthropocene or Back to the Future? Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems.

Gregorini, P., Gordon, I.J., Kerven, C. and Provenza, F.D., 2022. Grazing in Future Multi-Scapes: From Thoughtscapes to Landscapes, Creating Health from the Ground Up. Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems, 6, p 1-5

Kerven C, Robinson S. and Behnke R. 2021. Pastoralism at Scale on the Kazakh Rangelands: From Clans to Workers to Ranchers. Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems.

Behnke, R. 2018. Open Access and the Sovereign Commons: A Political Ecology of Pastoral Land Tenure. Land Use Policy 76: 708-718.

Kerven, C., Robinson, S., Behnke, R., Kushenov, K. and Milner-Gulland, E.J., 2016. A pastoral frontier: From chaos to capitalism and the re-colonisation of the Kazakh rangelands. Journal of Arid Environments, 127, pp.106-119..

Behnke R., and M. Mortimore (eds). 2016. The End of Desertification? Disputing Environmental Change in the Drylands. Springer, Dordrecht, The Netherlands.

Kerven, C., Robinson, S., Behnke, R., Kushenov, K. and Milner-Gulland, E.J., 2016. Horseflies, wolves and wells: biophysical and socio-economic factors influencing livestock distribution in Kazakhstan’s rangelands. Land Use Policy, 52, pp.392-409.

Kerven, C. (ed.) 2003. Prospects for Pastoralism in Kazakstan and Turkmenistan: From State Farms to Private Flocks. Routledge Curzon, London.

Behnke, I. Scoones and C. Kerven (eds.). 1993. Range Ecology at Disequilibrium: New Models of Natural Variability and Pastoral Adaptation in African Savannas. Overseas Development Institute, London.