Dryland ecologies in Israel/Palestine are spaces where climate change, occupation, and multispecies survival intersect in uneven ways. Baladi cattle, an indigenous ecotype sustained for generations by Syrian and Palestinian herders, embody these contradictions. Considered “unproductive” compared to European breeds, they nonetheless endured in firing zones and marginal rangelands where sturdiness and drought tolerance outweighed productivity. Their survival reflects the persistence of herding communities who, under military rule, cultivated resilience as both livelihood and necessity.
Today, the Baladi exist across multiple terrains: a feral herd persists in the Golan Heights, research herds are maintained in the Hula Valley, and the largest populations remain with Palestinian herders in the Jordan Valley, although these communities face ongoing displacement. Across these sites, Baladi cattle are simultaneously marginalized and appropriated. Israeli scientists recast Baladi traits (drought and heat tolerance, parasite resistance) as genetic resources for the creation of new hybrids and for the development of a national cattle heritage. In this process, the Syrian-Golan and Palestinian knowledge traditions that sustained the herds are erased, even as the cattle themselves are mobilized for settler futures. Drawing on critical heritage studies, I frame this transformation as one of heritage-making and unmaking in the Anthropocene, where resilience is stripped of its cultural grounding and revalued as scientific resource. Following Tsing, I read the Baladi as feral ecologies persisting in the ruins of militarized landscapes. Their case highlights how dryland ecologies under occupation become laboratories of adaptation that produce futures for some while dispossessing those who cultivated resilience in the first place.
