Rangeland Ecology and Management

Livestock obtain forage by grazing on rangeland. In California annual rangelands, residual dry matter is commonly used to determine proper grazing levels. Rangeland forage biomass and quality can degrade dramatically during the dormant summer period. We examined 25 sites across an annual rainfall gradient (183–492 mm) over 3 contrasting rainfall yr (2015–2017) that varied from 57% to 152% of average annual precipitation. Overall fractional biomass loss was 54.4% (range = 46.5–61.5%) with greater fractional losses occurring in dry years. Biomass losses were related to the amount of peak standing crop and plant composition—both a function of annual precipitation. Fractional seasonal losses from the peak standing biomass in 2015 = 962 kg/ha (61.5% seasonal; 9.7% monthly), 2016 = 1 541 kg/ha (55.0% seasonal; 8.7%monthly) and 2017 = 1 923 kg/ha (46.5% seasonal; 7.3%, monthly). Forage quality metrics were strongly affected by summer weathering processes. Crude protein concentrations decre...

In the vast high altitude rangelands of the Tibetan plateau, and of the surrounding mountain regions of Central Asia – from Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan in the far west, to Mongolia and Bhutan in the east – yak husbandry has for millennia contributed to the sustenance and cultures of people living in these challenging, often marginal lands. Today, of the world’s estimated 14 million domestic yak, around 90% are found in China, 4% in Mongolia, and the rest are in the Himalayan and Central Asian countries (Wiener et al. 2003).

First domesticated around 10,000 years ago, most likely in the Changtang region of Tibet, yak provide many fundamentals necessary for both traditional and modern lifestyles, from meat and milk products, to fiber (for clothing and habitation), yak dung (for heating and cooking) and transportation. ...

Mountain rangelands in Asia constitute the most extensive high altitude pastoral regions worldwide. Other noteworthy zones exist in the Andes of South America, and in smaller isolated ranges or relatively high plateaus in Africa. There are also similarities with extensive rangelands and traditional resource-based livelihoods, such as practiced by Sami reindeer herders in cold northern climates. However, nowhere else in the world are high rangelands and nomadic pastoralism as extensive as on the vast Tibetan plateau and in the surrounding mountainous areas of the Himalayas and Central Asia.

Indigenous multipurpose fodder trees have important social, economic and ecological functions such as
controlling erosion, contribute to human quality of life, provide sinks for carbon dioxide and methane at the interface
between the decaying fallen leaves and the soil and are a source of biodiversity. In this study, we assess ecological
and socio-economic importance of the indigenous multi-purpose fodder tree (MPFT) species in three districts of
Wolayta Zone of Southern Nations Nationalities and Peoples Regional State. Structured questionnaires’ were
distributed to 270 respondents. The results indicated that indigenous MPFTs have important social, economic and
ecological functions, such as food supply, shade, traditional medicines, and the preservation of milk, animal nutrition,
social values and household income. For animal feeding, vegetation was cut, especially leaves, young tips, twigs
and fruits. About 70% of the respondents were unaware of the benefits of the MPFTs. It is concluded that the
indigenous MPFT have a strong social and ecological value, and a source of income supplementation.

Balancing the population of large herbivores, whether livestock (such as camels) or wildlife (such as Arabian Oryx) or a combination, is the single most important issue for managing a rangeland.  It is thought that most rangelands are overgrazed, leading to a lower overall capacity to support herbivores.  Evaluating the 'correct' level requires an understanding of biomass production over multiple seasons, and also of the heterogenic nature of arid ecosystems.

SUMMARY Rangeland degradation remains a serious impediment to improve pastoral livelihoods in the lowlands of Ethiopia. This review paper presents an overview of the extent of rangeland degradation, explores its drivers, discusses the potential impacts of rangeland degradation and also suggests alternative rangeland restoration techniques. It is intended to serve as an exploratory tool for ensuing more detailed quantitative analyses to support policy and investment programs to address rangeland degradation in Ethiopia. The extent of rangeland degradation increases with time, and the productivity of rangelands are losing if not given due attention. The major drivers leading to rangeland degradation includes climate change, overgrazing, bush encroachment, population pressure, drought, and government policy, encroachment of rain fed agriculture and decline of traditional resource management institution. Degradation of rangeland has resulted in substantial declines in rangeland condition, water potential, soil status, and animal performance, livestock holding at the household level and community become destitute. Another consequence of rangeland degradation is linked to food insecurity, poverty to the extent of food aid, expansion of aridity and the need for alternative livelihood and income diversification. Moreover, it has increasingly become a threat to the pastoral production systems, and has contributed towards increases in poverty and tribal conflicts over grazing land and water resources. In spite of these impacts, the adoption of alternative restoration techniques in the country is highly insufficient. To address rangeland degradation problems, there is a strong need to substantially increase the investments and strengthen the policy support for sustainable land management. RESUMEN La degradación de los pastizales sigue siendo un serio impedimento para mejorar los medios de vida pastoral en las tierras bajas de Etiopía. Este documento de revisión presenta una visión general de la extensión de la degradación de los pastizales, explora sus causas, discute los impactos potenciales de la degradación de los pastizales y también sugiere técnicas alternativas de restauración. Se pretende que sirva como una herramienta exploratoria para realizar análisis cuantitativos más detallados para apoyar los programas de políticas e inversiones para abordar la degradación de los pastizales en Etiopía. La extensión de la degradación de los pastizales aumenta con el tiempo, y la productividad de los pastizales es está perdiendo si no se les presta la debida atención. Los principales factores que conducen a la degradación de las tierras de pastoreo incluyen el cambio climático, el sobrepastoreo, la invasión de matorrales, la presión de la población, la sequía y la política gubernamental, la invasión de la agricultura alimentada por la lluvia y el declive de las instituciones tradicionales de manejo de recursos. La degradación de los pastizales ha dado como resultado una disminución sustancial de la condición de los pastizales, el potencial hídrico, el estado del suelo y el rendimiento de los animales, la ganadería a nivel de los hogares y la comunidad. Otra consecuencia de la degradación de las tierras de pastoreo está relacionada con la inseguridad alimentaria, la pobreza en la medida de la ayuda alimentaria, la expansión de la aridez y la necesidad de medios alternativos de subsistencia y diversificación

This is a chapter from the Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems EOLSS  Volume 5.35 Range and Animal Sciences and Resources Management  (2011). The volume is edited by Victor Squires. Rangelands comprise over forty percent of the earth's land surface and, as one of the most prevalent land systems on the planet, rangelands are critical habitats for myriad plant and animal species and form many of the world's major watersheds e.g. the three major rivers that arise in the Tibet plateau (Mekong, [Langcan], Yellow River and the Yangtze), the Orange River that arises in Lesotho and runs across South Africa and Namibia, the Amu-Daria and Syr-Daria rivers that flow across the Southern Kazakh steppe, the Kyzyl-Kum and Karakum desert in Central Asia, as well as the Euphrates and the Tigris that flow through rangelands in southern Turkey, Syria and Iraq. Rangelands are categorized in two distinct ways: (a) as a type of land or (b) a type of (land) use. For many years the literature and the " science " of range management was centered on the type of use (mainly livestock grazing) but of more recent times the definition has been amended to be more inclusive. Rangelands are those parts of the world where pastoral people graze native and domestic herbivores on native vegetation. Here the natural and fossil resources are utilized by other people for a host of purposes, including: water, fossil fuels, mineral ores and other saleable commodities as well as " invisible' ecosystem services such a watersheds, carbon sequestration, and tourism, For the purposes of this essay rangelands are defined as " uncultivated land that will provide the necessities of life for grazing and browsing animals and the herder families that depend on them. Therefore it includes deserts, forests and natural grasslands and shrublands. " Rangelands have a key role as grazing lands for pastoral uses, as wildlife habitat and as biosphere reserves and this will be the focus of this volume. Appropriate management is essential for all these uses if we are to prevent degradation of the resources that provide the base for all the activities that occur now on rangelands or may occur in the future. The development of thinking that underpins the science and management of rangelands in both North America and elsewhere is outlined and new paradigms are explained. Rangelands are mostly thought of as being in the drier regions (drylands) and this is certainly the case for most of them but upland areas and some cold lowlands (notably in Iceland and the tundra region above 60 o N latitude) are also classified as rangelands. Drylands, as defined by the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), include the arid, semi-arid, and dry sub-humid zones and cover almost 54 million km 2 of the globe. The definition is based on the length of the growing season. The zones falling between 1-74 and 75-119 growing days represent the arid and semi-arid drylands respectively. Many of the world's drylands are grazed rangelands. Semi-arid areas are most extensive, followed by arid areas and then dry sub-humid lands. These drylands are spread across all continents, but are found most predominantly in Asia and Africa where the principal land use is as rangeland used for herding and opportunistic agro-pastoralism.

Study on Indigenous Weather Forecasting Knowledge of Oromia Pastoral Area Community of Ethiopia
Abera Bekele Dinsa (PhD candidate at AAU), Eermiyas Teferi (PhD) lecturer at AAU1, Fayera Senbata (PhD) lecturer at AAU and Tamirat Teshome (PhD) lecturer at AAU
Abstract
Pastoralism is a rational, adaptable, tried and tested production system uniquely suited to the dry lands. Pastoralism occupies a quarter of the world area, which is predominantly arid and semiarid. Pastoralism developed autonomously across the world‘s dry lands from some 7000 years ago. It is still widely practiced today and remains a dominant feature of rural east African in which most household sustain their means of living from keeping domestic livestock. Pastoralism is practiced under marginal condition and high production risk because of different natural and manmade factors in which weather based disaster is the major serious hazard and continuously threatening the livelihood of pastoralists ‘in an alarming rate. In the past pastoralists spread weather risks particularly drought risks through using traditional early warning of weather forecasting signs. This study was conducted in four patoral woredas of Borena, Gudji and Bale zone, pastoral areas of Oromia, Ethiopia with the objectives of undertaking study on the traditional early warning of weather forecasting signs of Oromia pastoralists. To conduct this study, a total of 390 purposely sampled households, 130 focus group discussion participants, 30 knowledgeable key informant interviews and secondary data sources were used. It is identified through this study that from the time immemorial Oromia pastoralist communities have used traditional weather forecasting signs in order to minimize risks ;and to save their lives and livelihoods from the weather related disasters such as drought, flood, disease outbreak and local conflict. As they confirmed, types of the traditional weather forecasting signs that are used by Oromia pastoralists are Sun, moon, stars, and wind direction, behaviors of domestic animals, trees, wild life, birds, livestock intestine, reptiles, social insects, Geda cycle and Aayyana (27 days of the month/days of moon). It is identified that Oromia pastoralists could easily predict normal occurrence of rainfall and/or occurrence of severe drought and other disaster events of the current particular season and also the probable weather events of the future season even up to as long as more than eight year which help them to make seasonal based livelihood decisions and practices.

This is a chapter from the Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems EOLSS  Volume 5.35 Range and Animal Sciences and Resources Management  (2011). The volume is edited by Victor Squires. Rangelands are those parts of the world where pastoral people graze native and domestic animals on native vegetation. But rangelands resources are also utilized by people who harvest products including water, fossil fuels, mineral ores and other saleable commodities  as well as “invisible’ ecosystem services. It is important to realize that rangeland resources in developing countries provide more than just forage for livestock. In practice, they provide foods, fuels, medicines and building materials on which poor people depend. Current trends in many areas of the world show that livestock raising is steadily eroding these communal rangelands, “grassland” and “forest” resources to the advantage of richer stock owners, farmers and at the expense of the poorest groups.

The socio-economic changes that profoundly affect herder communities are both effects and causes of the degradation of rangelands. The coherence and homogeneity of herder communities have disintegrated as new employment opportunities and production practices widen income differentials between households and disperse economic interests and labor resources among many sectors besides livestock.
Many people have an interest in rangeland issues (not only rangeland users). Their well-being and that of the rangelands are intricately interwoven. How should we consider the "people issues" of the rangelands such as mobility and migration, regional determination and the relationships between culture and landscapes in building the future?
There are a few key questions that have been asked and will continue to be asked until some answers are found.
• How do we bring together the issues of vegetation, grazing, resource accounting, biodiversity, people and economics at the enterprise level?
• How do we adapt management to different tenure systems?
• What is the role of subsistence enterprises in a market economy.
Decisions made today on how to tackle these problems will have long-lasting implications for ecosystems and the livelihoods of people that depend on them. This paper canvasses the major issues

The world’s rangelands constitute an important global resource. Range has been defined by
the society for range management as land which supports vegetation useful for grazing on
which routine management of that vegetation is through manipulation of grazing rather
than cultural practices. Grazing systems are biological systems controlled by: a- the biotic
factors of climate and site, b- the management inputs and decisions of man, and 3- internal
regulatory mechanisms involving feedback.
General introduction for dry lands in which, most of rangelands are distributed, refer to
areas with primary productivity limited by water. They cover about 40% of the land surface
and contain about one fifth of the human population. This population is typically
convergent on areas with relatively lower aridity, further intensifying the stresses on these
marginal lands. The concept of marginality applies to these dry lands in a socio-economic
sense, where the inhabitants commonly suffer poverty and lack of resources. Anthropogenic
activities are almost entirely responsible for these factors. Included with, over-utilization of
vegetative cover through improper rangeland management, poorly planned conversion of
rangelands to croplands through irrigation schemes, and degradation of soil quality through
salinization and input of chemical pollutants. The impacts of these factors on the human
society are quite profound and often lead to trans-migration to other eco-regions as well as
social and political strife. Thus approaches for management of dry lands resources must be
viewed in the broader socio-economic context by providing the opportunities for local
communities to explore viable, alternative livelihoods while maintaining their own cultural
and societal fabric. Many approaches for managing the scarce water resources are available
and form the underpinnings of overall resource management in drylands. These include
water harvesting techniques, safe re-use of treated wastewater for irrigation, improving
ground water recharge and deficit irrigation. Newer approaches of drylands aquaculture
using brackish water and ecotourism also hold considerable promise for the future
(UNU/MAP/UNESCO, ACRDA, 2003).

Rangelands are complex systems because the dynamic relationships between their parts result in self-organization, emergent properties, and
unpredictable behavior. This panarchy of nested adaptive cycles that oscillate between order and chaos is what many land managers call “the real world.”
Considerable debate in the rangeland profession, and especially within the ranching community, surrounds our notions of the efficacy of planned grazing management to achieve plant community, livestock production, and profitability goals. A variety of rotational deferment, rest, and grazing approaches have been promoted and applied by managers from geographically disparate regions. Rotational grazing (a single herd moved through multiple paddocks) in particular has been applied in many variations (e.g., rational, high-intensity/low-frequency, short-duration, time-control, management-intensive, or cell
grazing). Often rotations are installed on a rigid calendar basis, sometimes adapted to unique on-site conditions. It is ironic that the phrase grazing “system” as popularly used tends to imply rigid application—the polar opposite of the word’s meaning in systems theory. Such grazing “systems” can be simple or complicated solutions to complex problems. Studies that compare grazing “systems” are inconsistent, and most have found little or no advantage of rotational over continuous grazing. Particularly disappointing to managers who
use rotational grazing is the apparent inability to document differences in plant growth and recovery or animal production, particularly in more arid environments. The lack of clear advantages of rotational grazing is especially apparent when pastures are small and lack plant species diversity. We have come to realize that it is especially hard to demonstrate the impacts of any grazing “system” when animal movements are applied on a rigid schedule for the sake of scientific rigor, a common conclusion of recent scientific literature.
And yet, substantial evidence is documented in scientific and case studies, and the practical experience of individual ranchers, indicating that strategic grazing management—if well-planned and adaptively managed— can have profound effects on the landscape, animal production, and ranch economics on individual landscapes. The discrepancy has been noted by scientists who suggest that our profession must do a better job of documenting range management at the landscape scale, identifying and recording the variety of factors associated with adaptive decision-making, and consider a less controlled approach to studying comparisons of grazing ”systems.”
Our classic approach to range science is still effective in isolating individual portions of ecosystems, but practical experience within the context of complexity has shown that researchers and managers must expand our frames of reference. The papers within this sponsored issue are intended to move the profession beyond debate as suggested by Brown and Kothmann in 2009 and Briske et al. in 2011.

In recent decades, the control of floods is an efficient management practice for the rehabilitation of rangelands in most arid and semiarid areas. To evaluate the benefits, we used the Landscape Function Analysis (LFA) method to assess the function of patches and qualitative capability of a rangeland ecosystem in Gareh Bygone region, Fars province, southwestern Iran. Landscape functionality depends on soil, water and nutrient (collectively called “resources”) conservation and use within a given ecosystem. Many landscapes are naturally heterogeneous in terms of resource control and possess patches, where resources tend to accumulate, and inter-patches. Assessing rangeland health and function of landscape patches in response to environment and management can give rise to correct management decisions for qualitative improvement of the ecosystem. Therefore,
our study area was divided into two parts, i.e. water spreading and control parts, and sampling was done using LFA method in each part separately. Structural parameters, including the number, length and width of patches, and the mean length of inter-patches, were determined by the method to characterize the functional status of the monitoring sites. For each patch/inter-patch type identified in the transect organization log, we recorded its soil surface properties classified according to the Soil Surface Assessment Method. The density, canopy cover and composition of plants were then assessed. The results showed that the number of ecological patches and their dimensions were significantly increased in the water spreading site. Soil stability and the values of nutrient cycling indices were increased but the infiltration values were decreased in the water spreading site. It could be related to the effect of
suspended materials transported by floods to the soils in the study area. The improvement of ecological patches and rangeland ecosystem was achieved where water spreading systems were practiced. Therefore it can be concluded that water spreading as a management plan plays an important role in arid land ecosystem functionality.

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. One example is of the high altitude trans-Himalayan rangelands of the Jammu and Kashmir State in northern India: major socio-political reorganization over the last five decades has significantly impacted the traditional pasture use pattern and resources. We outline the organizational transformations and movement patterns of the Rupshu pastoralists who inhabit the region. We demonstrate the changes in terms of intensification of pasture use across the region as well as a social reorganization due to accommodation of Tibetan refugees following the Sino-Indian war in 1961-1962. We focus in particular on the Tso Kar basin - an important socio-ecological system of livestock herding and biodiversity in the eastern Ladakh region. The post-war developmental policies of the government have contributed to these modifications in traditional pasture use and present a threat to the rangelands as well as to the local biodiversity. In the Tso Kar basin, the number of households and livestock has almost doubled while pasture area has declined by half. These changes have potentially negative consequences for the long-term resilience of nomadic pastoralism as well as for the survival of rare local wildlife. To increase the pastoralist standard of living, having fewer pastoralists may be the only solution, and alternative livelihood options may bring this about. Development programmes should concentrate on enhancing opportunities for herders so that there is a greater diversity of employment opportunities and potentially better chances for the persistence of biodiversity.

Rangeland degradation remains a serious impediment to improve pastoral livelihoods in the lowlands of Ethiopia. This review paper presents an overview of the extent of rangeland degradation, explores its drivers, discusses the potential impacts of rangeland degradation and also suggests alternative rangeland restoration techniques. It is intended to serve as an exploratory tool for ensuing more detailed quantitative analyses to support policy and investment programs to address rangeland degradation in Ethiopia. The extent of rangeland degradation increases with time, and the productivity of rangelands are losing if not given due attention. The major drivers leading to rangeland degradation includes climate change, overgrazing, bush encroachment, population pressure, drought, and government policy, encroachment of rain fed agriculture and decline of traditional resource management institution. Degradation of rangeland has resulted in substantial declines in rangeland condition, water...