The resilience, diversity and stability of mountain ecosystems are threatened by climatic as well as land‐use changes, but the combined effects of these drivers are only poorly understood.
The European hare (Lepus europaeus) has declined throughout its native range but invaded numerous regions where it has negatively impacted native wildlife. In southern Sweden, it replaces the native mountain hare (L. timidus) through competition and hybridisation.
Increasing land utilization through diverse forms of human activities, such as agriculture, forestry, urban growth, and industrial development, has led to negative impacts on the water quality of rivers.
Resistance to the use of prescribed fire is strong among many private land managers despite the advantages it offers for maintaining fireâadapted ecosystems. Even managers who are aware of the benefits of using prescribed fire as a management tool avoid using it, citing potential liability as a major reason for their aversion.
The Gunnison sage-grouse (GUSG) is an iconic species recently proposed for protection under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). In Colorado's Upper Gunnison River Basin, ranchers own the majority of water rights and productive river bottoms as well as approximately 30% of the most important GUSG habitat.
Governance plays a key role in rangeland management. In China, all rangeland, including pastoral land and agro-pastoral land, is owned by the State. Since 1980, use rights have been granted to households by the Chinese government extending the household contract responsibility system (HCRS).
Woody plant encroachment—the conversion of grasslands to woodlands—continues to transform rangelands worldwide, yet its causes and consequences remain poorly understood. Despite this being a coupled human-ecological phenomenon, research to date has tended toward ecological aspects of the issue.
In China, three major rangeland management policies have caused dramatic social, economic, and ecological changes for pastoral regions in the past 30 yr: the Rangeland Household Contract Policy (RHCP), Rangeland Ecological Construction Projects (RECPs), and the Nomad Settlement Policy (NSP). The impacts of these policies are greatly debated.
The objective of this study was to determine the impact of livestock grazing management systems on soil and vegetation dynamics under different environmental conditions of Botswana. Soil and vegetation were randomly sampled along transects located in three ranches and adjacent communal grazing land in 2009 and 2010.
Long-term agricultural sustainability and water quality may be threatened by inadequate land management. Carbon (C) losses at the catchment scale largely depend on land use and management practices. In “Abelar” farm (A Coruña, NW Spain), swine slurry was directly discharged during a period of about 30 years onto agricultural maize fields and rangeland under cattle production.
This study examines the causes and consequences of gully erosion, as perceived by the local people of Dangara area, Nigeria.
The conversion of agricultural land to forest plantations is a major driver of global land‐use change, and considering that large portions of the planet are covered by forest plantations, understanding their impact on biodiversity is a research priority.