Rangelands, Drylands & Pastoralism

Loss of biodiversity is the single most important threat to the conservation and sustainable use of drylands in northern Ethiopia due to many centuries of cultivation and heavy livestock grazing pressure. The current study assessed the restoration of biodiversity in highly degraded areas in eastern Tigray, northern Ethiopia using area enclosures (AEs).

The U.S. Army is responsible for preparing a well-trained combat force while maintaining the ecological diversity and integrity of the lands it manages. The ability to efficiently collect data that accurately capture plant community diversity and percent composition is imperative to proper monitoring and land management of military lands.

In a naturally heterogeneous landscape in arid central Australia, a previous study found that grazing changed the distribution of water and nutrients amongst different geomorphic strata of the landscape. In this concurrent study, we show that herbage biomass, cover and composition responded primarily to these geomorphic strata and not to grazing.

The distribution and quality of soil and land resources in heterogeneous grazing lands of central Australia were changed by grazing. Sites located at increasing distances from livestock watering points showed greater degrees of landscape organization and soil productive potential.

The rating of biodiversity in arid and semiarid regions on the basis of ecological function and genetic traits of adaptation to severe environmental stresses produces significantly higher values, than that based solely on the commonly applied structural criteria of forms of life and levels of organization.

The objectives of the conference were threefold. First, to determine the need for a regional approach to EA in southern Africa. Second, to determine the best way of accounting for trans-boundary and cumulative impacts in the region.

Inadequate feed and nutrition are major constraints to livestock production in sub-Saharan Africa. National and international research agencies, including the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), have developed several feed production and utilisation technologies. However, adoption of these technologies has so far been low.