> "It's always struck me as puzzling, why people in suits and ties in capital cities seem to think that the pastoralists don't understand very well how to manage these lands," Barrett said. "

The kind of ridiculous comment only an economist/business professor would make.

The agriculture equivalent of pastoralists also used to use slash and burn techniques to grow crops destroying and depleting massive troves of land. It was people in lab coats, suits and ties who figured this was wrong, found better alternatives and then passed policies and laws to switch to those better alternatives.

The appeal to folk wisdom is one of the most annoying rhetorical tactics and its use here only serves to undermine the credibility of the findings.