Research, Policy and Practice
From: Pastoralism in Soqotra: external entanglements and communal mutations
Census dates | Animals | Notes and sources | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Goats | Sheep | Cattle | Camels | Donkeys | ||
1966 | 19,000 | 26,000 | 1,800 | 350 | 500 | It may have been the first, albeit informal, census, which was carried out by the British colonial officer Brown ([1966]), who candidly confessed that `field counts are at best only better than guess work'. |
Mid-1980s | 71,000 | 17,500 | 1,900 | 500 | NA | Cited in (Commission of the European Communities EU [2000b]) Sectoral Report: Agriculture and Livestock (pp. 2–5) without identifying source. |
Mid-1990s | 90,000 | 60,000 | 12,000 | 5,000 | 2,000 | These figures are supposed to be from the 1994 agricultural census by the government of Yemen. Given to the author by a staff from Soqotra's branch of the Ministry of Agriculture. |
2000 | 29,300 | 7,300 | 2,500 | 400 | NA | Conducted by the European Union Agriculture & Livestock team in 2000 as part of the preparation of the Soqotra Archipelago Master Plan. It took place soon after a major drought, which killed an estimated 60% of the livestock. |