Religious change is the great missing piece in the puzzle of social-ecological change in the world’s drylands. We propose to investigate how patterns of religious transformation mediate environmental changes in dryland areas of Inner Asia, Africa and North America, i.e., in the Mongolian steppe, Kenyan and Mozambican pastoral and farming systems, and the US Great Plains.Arid and semiarid areas, covering 41% of the world and sustaining two billion people, many of them food insecure, are uniquely challenged under global environmental change. Extensive interdisciplinary scholarship has examined the rapid, interconnected changes impacting the livelihoods of natural resource-reliant populations in Asian, African and American dryland social-ecological systems. Drylands are the birthplaces of the world’s great monotheistic religions. Christianity, the world’s second fastest growing religion after Islam, is expanding in Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa; and Buddhism is reclaiming its former space in Inner Asia. In drylands around the world, spiritual revitalization, radicalization & conversion to global religions are occurring alongside cultural change & economic diversification, political marginalization; and instability. Equally, shifts in land management, conflicts for natural resources, social unrest, and climate change, challenge drylands. Significant scholarship highlights the local power of religions: Pentecostal Charismatic Christianity is becoming a political force in Africa; Islamic radicalization destabilizes parts of Inner Asia and Africa; and Evangelicalism, and Buddhist/shamanistic beliefs, respectively, shape North American & Inner Asian politics. Religious organizations have led development efforts across the developing world. These works, however, do not acknowledge the influence of religious institutions, beliefs & practices on environmental management & have failed to examine the central role of religious shifts in mediating social-ecologic...

Imagining and Building post-Covid-19 futures: Tourism, conservation and dryland communities in Africa. NSF, CONVERGE & Natural Hazards Center, University of Colorado-Boulder, USA (with PI Mara J. Goldman; co-PI: Angela Kronenburg-Garcia and Joana Roque de Pinho) USD 4,500

Drylands and their inhabitants are facing complex challenges regarding the development of their economies and productive agricultural systems in the face of climate variability and future climate change, adverse market conditions and political instability. They are the most insecure areas in the world and are home to vast numbers of malnourished people who lack basic services such as education, health care, energy supplies and market access to. Many of these areas are experiencing violence and political instability, and have malfunctioning political institutions that prevent dryland inhabitants from creating their own path to development. As a result many people are on the move to look for a better existence.