ORIGINAL PAPER The challenge of participatory natural resource management with mobile herders at the scale of a Sub-Saharan African protected area Aure ´lie Binot Æ Laurence Hanon Æ Daou V. Joiris Æ Dominique Dulieu Received: 15 January 2009 / Accepted: 13 May 2009 / Published online: 6 June 2009 Ó Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009 Abstract In Sub-Saharan Africa, the management of rangelands used by mobile popu- lations, such as transhumant herders, must include large scale, sometimes cross-border, components. This mobility, common and significant in transhumant livestock production systems is, in most cases, not taken into account in conservation and natural resources management strategies around protected areas. Most conservation projects which include a development goal are designed to provide support to sedentary subsistence agricultural populations. Securing ‘‘pastoral lands’’ is seldom included as part of protected areas land management approaches. This paper focuses on the difficulty of integrating pastoral, agricultural and conservation issues into a regional land management plan. Based on a case study in Chad (Zakouma National Park), we pay particular attention to local mechanisms of land tenure negotiation, the mobile actors and the complex political landscape that this creates. Keywords Land tenure Á Mobility Á Protected areas Á Sub-Saharan Africa Á Transhumant herders Á Wildlife conservation A. Binot (&) Á D. Dulieu Environments and Societies Department, AGIRs Research Unit, CIRAD, Campus de Baillarguet TA C/E-22, 34398 Montpellier, France e-mail: aurelie.binot@cirad.fr D. Dulieu e-mail: dominique.dulieu@cirad.fr L. Hanon Á D. V. Joiris Universite ´ Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium e-mail: lauhanon@yahoo.fr D. V. Joiris e-mail: vjoiris@ulb.ac.be 123 Biodivers Conserv (2009) 18:2645–2662 DOI 10.1007/s10531-009-9664-9