Controlling Land Degradation on Village Grazing Land

Village Grazing: Forming a Definition

• Is it rangeland?

• Is it communal land?

• Is it any land on which village livestock are herded?

• Is it land directly adjacent to the village or land within a prescribed distance from the village?

• Who are the users?

• What are its uses?

Definition

Grazing land adjacent or in close proximity to a village settlement that

offers all village livestock owners

a degree of access to grazing.

Land Degradation and Overgrazing: The Issues

• Overgrazing a definition:

‘grazing too many livestock for too long a period on land unable to recover its vegetation or of grazing animals on land unsuitable due to physical parameters such as slope.’ FAO 2002

• Carrying capacity/environmental constraints• Situation specific: e.g. West Africa, East African

Highlands, Eastern Europe. • Dynamic not fixed

Overgrazing: The symptoms

Pasture degradation- loss of vegetation as a result of selective grazing or

browsing.- decrease in palatable perennial grasses and increase

in annual grasses.- species rarity - bush encroachment (fire ban)- weed invasion

- Overall decline in nutritional value of pasture.

Overgrazing: The Symptoms Continued

Land degradation- reduced ground cover results in accelerated or

increased erosion by wind or runoff.

- areas are compacted by trampling and heavy use resulting in reduced infiltration and increased runoff leading to erosion

The Causes Behind the Symptoms: Overpopulation

• Overpopulation leading to increased cultivation of grazing land and reduction in grazing land.

• Unsuitability of much grazing land for cultivation.(Marginal land protected from erosion by vegetative cover)

• Crop cultivation and deforestation as major agents of land degradation.

• Fuel shortage leading to use of manure as fuel.

The Causes Behind the Symptoms: Land Insecurity

• ‘The tragedy of the commons’• ‘The tragedy of the individual’ (Bakema ed 1994)

• Land tenure- Government policy

- Indigenous management

- Private ownership

• Conflicts between users

Solutions: Technical

• Quotas/destocking• Restricted access• Intensification(fencing)• Reseeding• Fertilization(mineral)• Fodder banks and fodder conservation• Chemical treatment of crop residues• Controlled burning/weed control• Erosion control measures: litter lines, stone lines, tree

planting, fodder belts etc.

Possible Solutions: Socio-economic• Redistribution of property rights• Limited ownership?• Improved marketing facilities (destocking)• Multidisciplinary approach, inclusion of all stakeholders• Pilot projects building on indigenous knowledge vs.

blanket solutions• Dispute and negotiation management (land tenure)• Engineering government policy to enable local level

solutions.• Alternative non agri employment?

Barriers to Success1.The Need for Consensus at:2. Government level3. Community level4. Between government and community5. Cohesion between levels and in policy.6. The need for long term security and stability to make SC

investment worthwhile. (Involves addressing non agri employment alternative employment, out migration, inheritance etc.)

7. The beneficiaries of interventions.8. The importance of short term results.9. Labour inputs.

North Gonder Ethiopia: A Case Study

Table 1: Soil Degradation in the Ethiopian Highlands

 

Land Cover

Area % Highlands

Estimated Soil LossMilliont/yr

Total Soil Loss %

Annual Crops

15 342 33

Fallow Land

15 342 33

Grazing 55 149 14

Forests 5 3 -

Badlands 5 190 18

Unproductive

5 14 2

Adapted from Stone Ed 1992. 

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