Pastoral nomadism is disappearing in Morocco. This way of life today concerns less than 5,000 people, moving in the great Moroccan south, compared to 25,000 in 2014 and 70,000 ten years earlier.
This year, Morocco is suffering its worst drought in four decades and the situation is expected to gradually worsen until 2050 due to a drop in rainfall (-11%) and an annual increase in temperatures, according to the ministry. of Agriculture. “Nomads have always been considered a thermometer of climate change. If they, who live in extreme conditions, can no longer resist the intensity of global warming, it means that the situation is serious”underlines the anthropologist Ahmed Skounti.“The drying up of water resources, visible today even among sedentary people, is the last nail in the coffin of nomads”he asserts.
“Water is scarce. Temperatures are rising, drought is rife and we can’t do much”, confirms Moha Ouchaâli to AFP, nomad of the Amazigh (Berber) tribe of Aït Aïssa Izem. Climate change first disrupts their transhumance journey. Normally, the Aït Aïssa Izem spend the summer in the mountainous valley of Imilchil because it is cooler there and prefer, in winter, the milder surroundings of the neighboring province of Errachidia. “It’s ancient history, now we go where there is a little water left to save the cattle”, explains Moha Ouchaâli. “We are exhausted”breath Ida Ushaali, his wife. The scarcity of water even forces some nomads to go into debt to feed their livestock, the main source of income.
But the most common phenomenon in the face of climate change remains the choice of sedentarization. “I was tired of fighting. We had become pariahs of society. I don’t even dare to imagine what the nomads of today endure”says Haddou Oudach, 67, who gave up nomadism in 2010.
Another itinerant, Saïd Ouhada, in his forties, has already set foot in town by moving his wife and children there for their education. “Being a nomad is not like before. I continue to be a nomad because my very elderly parents refuse to live in the city”.
The climate is not the only factor precipitating the deterioration of their living conditions.“The scarcity of pastures due to the privatization of land and agricultural investment contributes to this”notes Moha Haddachi, 54, president of the association of nomads of Aït Aïssa Izem. “It is agricultural investors who dominate areas where nomadic animals used to graze”, adds the activist. This competition between herders and farmers, over land and water, is a source of conflict in the region.
Nomads can also face “hostility” of certain villagers, reluctant to see them settling “at their home”. “However, it was not always the case, wherever we went we were welcome”, deplores the ex-nomad Haddou Oudach. Faced with these difficulties, nomadic life no longer seems to appeal to young people who dream of being sedentary.
Houda Ouchaâli, a 19-year-old girl, who is looking for vocational training after leaving high school, admits “hate” nomadism because she “can no longer bear to see (her) parents suffer and fight to survive”. “The new generation wants to close the chapter on nomadism. The simplest things become too complicated here.” It is a way of life but also a culture that is disappearing. A culture of hospitality, “and an art of speech and the concern for speaking well”summarizes Dominique Casajus, researcher at the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), in his book “people of speech”.