The Nomad Pulse
Transhumance routes, seasonal camps, Amazigh pastoral life — the last mobile communities
The Ait Atta move their flocks from the Draa Valley floor to the High Atlas pastures above 2,500 metres every June. They return in September. The route has been walked for centuries — the same families, the same passes, the same campsites. The agdal system governs the highland pastures: collective ownership, enforced rest periods, staggered access. It is one of the oldest functioning commons management systems in the world.
The eastern steppes — the Hauts Plateaux between the Atlas and the Algerian border — support a different pastoralism. Here the movement is horizontal, not vertical. Families follow the rain and the grass across semi-arid plains with sheep and goats. The tents are different — low, dark, woven from goat hair. The distances are greater. The economy is more precarious.
The Saharan nomads — historically Tuareg and Sahrawi — have been largely sedentarised. Government settlement programmes, drought, and the Western Sahara conflict concentrated populations in towns. But camel herding continues in the Draa-Tafilalet and the southern territories. The moussem of Tan-Tan — a UNESCO-listed intangible heritage event — celebrates nomadic culture with camel races, poetry, and music.
The pressures are structural. Overgrazing has degraded pastures. Drought — intensified by climate change — has reduced the carrying capacity of rangelands. Young people leave for cities. The knowledge of routes, water sources, medicinal plants, and animal husbandry is not being transmitted to the next generation at the same rate.
The tent itself is architecture. The Amazigh tent — akhiam — is woven by women from goat and camel hair. Its construction, decoration, and orientation encode social information. The loom is the technology. The weaving is the knowledge. When the tent is abandoned for a concrete house, the weaving tradition goes with it.
What remains is not folklore. It is a land management system, a knowledge base, and a way of life that modern conservation science is only beginning to recognise as sophisticated.
Explore the full interactive module — with transhumance route maps, seasonal movement data, and the agdal system documented — at Dancing with Lions: https://www.dancingwiththelions.com/data/the-nomad-pulse
Interactive Module
Data and visualisation by Dancing with Lions
