Rangelands, Drylands & Pastoralism

The grassland biome of South Africa is a major resource for livestock farming; yet the soils of these rangelands are stressed differently by various management systems. The aim of this study was to investigate how basic soil properties respond to different management systems.

Although the literature is full of references to soil degradation under forest cultivation, very little information is available on changes in soil properties following deforestation of the Hyrcanian area in northern Iran. Also, the literature provides little information on the effects of conversion from deforested cropland to grazing, a likely direction of land-use change in northern Iran.

Nomadic pastoralism has thrived in Asia’s rangelands for several millennia by tracking seasonal changes in forage productivity and coping with a harsh climate. This pastoralist lifestyle, however, has come under intense transformations in recent decades due to socio-political and land use changes.

This paper introduces a generic assessment method called pluri-energy analysis. It aims to assess the types of energy used in agricultural systems and their conversion efficiencies. Four types of energy are considered: fossil energy, gross energy contained in the biomass, energy from human and animal labor and solar energy.

Hunting is often either portrayed as the ultimate means to enact a close connection between the human being and nature, or investigated in terms of its contribution to livelihoods.

The use and exploitation of natural resources is generally structured by institutions, especially by property institutions. The main objective of this paper is to present a diachronic analysis of the institutionalization of common land property in Portugal. The several types of ownership may be largely explained by common land history.

The art and science of developing effective policies and practices to enhance sustainability and adapt to new climate conditions on rangelands and savannas are typically founded on addressing the “average” or “typical” resource user.

The effects of land management and disturbance on ecosystem performance (i.e. biomass production) are often confounded by those of weather and site potential. The current study overcomes this issue by calculating the difference between actual and expected ecosystem performance (EEP) to generate ecosystem performance anomalies (EPA).

Traditional nationwide agri-environmental policy measures are not always efficient to ensure the provision of environmental services that would match peoples’ preferences. This study suggests a landscape value trade (LVT) scheme to be locally implemented so as to ensure the supply of agricultural landscape attributes demanded by local citizens.

This paper mapped and valued key inter-related drylands ecosystem services of importance to pastoralists, crop farmers, the tourism industry, conservationists, and policy planners in the Ewaso Ng’iro basin, the largest of the five major basins in Kenya. We used an ecosystem services approach where only final benefits are valued to avoid double counting.

Woody encroachment is one of the several factors aggravating rangeland degradation in arid and semiarid areas. The goal of this study is to improve our understanding about the relationship between woody encroachment and its potential drivers by analyzing the temporal and spatial pattern of land-cover changes in the lower Omo region of southern Ethiopia.

Worldwide, changing climates and land use practices are escalating woody-plants encroachment into grasslands, reducing biodiversity and altering ecosystem functions. The loss of alpine grasslands is a major conservation concern as they harbor many rare and endemic species.