Throughout the Middle East, a number of processes linked to globalization have, over the past decades, reshaped the world rural populations live in. Prominent among them are policies of liberalization (of markets) and privatization (of state institutions and resources), along with an ever-increasing mobility of people, goods, and ideas. These processes have directly and profoundly affected the nomads of Eastern Morocco as well. The high plateaus of Eastern Morocco have traditionally been characterized by nomadic pastoralism, and occupied a marginal position both in terms of economic relevance and public perception, in comparison to other Moroccan regions. Accordingly, the local nomads can be seen as a marginal group in the political dynamics, being just one among many competing actors with strong interests in the region and its resources. In the current power struggles about the collective rangeland and its utilization, for instance, different state agencies, international organizations, and foreign investors seem to play a more decisive role than the nomads. Fundamental transformations in land ownership and, consequently, land use have been an outcome of such processes. Local pastoralists are losing access to more and more parcels of pasture land. Moreover, the modes of land use have been altered by the introduction of pastoral cooperatives. Against this background, my paper examines how nomads respond to these transformations. It has been observed that diversification of economic activities constitutes a main strategic option for households to secure their livelihoods; I will address this issue from a political ecology perspective. Such an approach explicitly takes into account the interplay between socio-political dynamics on the one hand and natural resource dynamics on the other. The paper thus analyses the ongoing negotiation of land ownership and access in the region from the viewpoint of individual nomadic households, drawing upon fieldwork carried out in a joint research project with Moroccan academic institutions. Specifically, I will use exemplary case studies to discuss: - how nomads try to secure their livelihoods and their identities at the same time; - the relative importance of natural resource access in such household strategies; and - winners and losers produced by the current dynamics and the implications this could have for the region’s further development.