The Mediterranean agriculture systems have known increasing pressures that include demographic growth, urbanization, increasing demand for high value products, and a high competition for land and water. Besides some vulnerable zones in inland knows a dramatic departure of their active labor forces through migration that induces important changes of the global social and natural functioning of these zones. This is particularly relevant in arid and desert lands of south Mediterranean countries where the traditional societies used to explore and valorize vast uncultivated arid lands thanks to original livestock systems based on camels and small ruminants, grazing systems and mobility, and kinships links to manage common resources in their spatial and temporal dimensions. In particular, the system based on camel system at the interaction between oasis and desert lands has known radical functional changes over the last decades, due both to the urbanization and modernization of living conditions in the oasis and also to the intensification (or, sometimes, extensification) of the crop systems in these fragile environments that raise many challenges and also risks that can impede their durability. So the proposed project aims to describe, understand and model the past and recent trajectories of these “camel societies”, identify the main drivers (factors) that impact the combined social dynamic and ecosystems processes on the use of resources, in order to propose socially driven solutions emerging from the societies to sustain human activities and their local resources. The project CAMED proposes (i) to describe the past and recent trajectories of the societies based on dromedary system in Saharan zones of Algeria and Morocco (WP1) using holistic and systemic approaches (system approach at the community/territorial level and livelihood approach at the family level), and (ii) to analyze the present impacts of social and cultural changes and ecosystem dynamics on the whole socioecological systems (WP2) based on longitudinal and diachronic approaches at the farm, herd and resource system level. Along this process the research will have to determine critical key-pathways where sociocultural changes (WP1) affect radically ecosystem changes (WP2) and vice versa. The impact analysis in (WP3) will be based on the participatory impact pathway approach that will associate all the stakeholders of the local communities and policy-makers. The objective is to draw socially driven solutions. Some pilot projects related to value chain and resource management at the territorial level have been pre-identified. One important component of the project will be to provide research and development trainings (WP4) and share a common knowledge on these zones that are characteristics of the South Mediterranean countries. So this project proposes to combine systemic and holistic approaches, often used separately in human or natural/biological sciences, within selected socio-ecosystems related to camel society that have been little studied before. The goal is to share common scientific and indigenous knowledge between research and society related to these systems and to propose relevant actions for decision makers related to these zones that cover more than one third of the selected countries (Algeria and Morocco).

Marginal in the Maghreb and even more globally, camel breeding systems remain important in desert areas not only from cultural and identity perspectives but also as important economic asset. Moroccan and Algerian Sahara provinces have economic and social interests to develop these systems since this activity is likely to supply local products with a high food value and a potential value-added for the southern areas in the major consumption basins of Northern cities. The camel sector is fully in line with the territorial and economic duality, thus contributing to the reduction of observed inequalities. In this context, CAMEL-SHIELD aims at providing management solutions adapted to local conditions to improve the adaptability of livestock systems to climate change. These solutions take into account access to resources, breeding and feeding management strategies based on available resources, herd needs and characterization of camel populations, in order to manage herd demographics and to adapt products to marketing potential. The project contributes to the valorisation of traditional and new camel products insuring food and nutrition security and opens up opportunities for the valorisation of by-products. In addition, as part of an economic globalization, the project will allow an acceleration of the local, regional or international market access for products hitherto limited to their production area by the identity dimension of products with an emotional and symbolic pre-eminence. The project proposes an inter-institutional cooperation, involving development partners, academics and different stakeholders of the whole camel sector, through an interdisciplinary approach by mobilizing expertise, skills and competences. This project gives priority to the expression of the needs of the actors and the search for cultural value shared, by the promotion of values associated with camel breeding and its production.