Local Transport Solutions (Main Index)
 
Spontaneous spread
Adoption is not automatic
Women's transport constraints
Transport empowers women
Learn from experiences
Promote, evaluate and improve
Credit assists adoption
Transport services
Talk with stakeholders
Environmental factors
 
Further Information (References,background and contacts)
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Consider environmental factors
Adoption of intermediate means of transport may depend on environmental conditions, whether social, economic, technological or agroclimatic. Transport animals, such as donkeys and horses, have clear ecological niches.

Introducing donkey transport: successes and failures

Donkeys are adapted to arid conditions: they are mainly found in highlands or areas with less than 800 mm annual rainfall. Their drought resistance is a major factor in their increasing popularity. In West Africa, the southern limit of the donkey population (the ‘donkey line’) has been moving southwards. As environmental conditions have changed (decreased rainfall, less bush and lower disease challenge) donkeys have started to thrive in areas that had previously been unsuitable. There have been similar expansions of donkeys’ ranges in Eastern and Southern Africa.
The gradual introduction of donkeys has been due to farmers and traders purchasing donkeys in existing (drier) breeding areas and bringing them into the new areas. The overall success of the introductions (several million donkeys are now used in ‘new’ areas) has been based on large numbers of small successful attempts—and also very many failures particularly in the early years. Farmers and traders have arranged most introductions of donkeys without any government intervention or support. Some projects have assisted farmers to obtain donkeys for transport.
Photograph by Paul Starkey ©
Donkey carts in Guinea Bissau
 

Projects that have been successful have normally been in semi-arid zones, with close target areas. Major project failures have occurred when projects have attempted to bring donkeys over large distances and into humid conditions (eg, Gambia to Sierra Leone, Botswana to Malawi, Zimbabwe to northern Zambia, northern Uganda to Rwanda).


Horse pulling cart in Gambia Horses and donkeys
are susceptible to various health problems and have
distinct ecological niches and management requirements
  Photograph by Paul Starkey ©
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