Metadata only record ; The promotion of commercial livestock husbandry has long been seen as a means of destocking African rangelands and increasing livestock output through increased offtake. This paper argues that commercialization does exact a long-term downward pressure on African stocking densities, which will make many policy makers, administrators, and range scientists happy. However, the shift form subsistence to market-oriented forms of range livestock husbandry also exerts downward pressure on total rangeland output and undermines the capacity of rangelands to support human populations, a possibility that is no likely to be warmly welcomed by displaced pastoralists.
15 páginas, un mapa, 6 tablas y una figura ; Large Scale Grazing Systems (LSGSs) in Europe are extensive systems of grassland management, which have developed from the interaction of historical background, human behaviour and natural resources, and are mainly located in the Less Favoured Areas (LFAs). LSGSs currently face competing threats towards intensification and/or abandonment but, at the same time, they harbour a significant part of European nature values. Socio-economic driving forces of land abandonment and intensification are poorly addressed. The current system assumes that these LSGSs are inherently uneconomic and only payments for the potential delivery of environmental services and side line activities are the source of continuity and justification of support. Our conceptual approach, however, is based on the assumptions that endogenous development and targeted policy schemes cannot be disregarded. A framework profile is provided for the identification and description of European LSGSs where regeneration plans can be more cost-effective. Under this conceptual approach, operational tools such as pastoral strategies for survival and system-specific management alternatives can be devised for interplay of environmental and socio-economic functions, facilitating interdisciplinary research within and across systems. From the empirical perspective, we show how the trend of abandonment of LSGS in the last 60 years is spread over different regions of Europe, how management alternatives are designed for six separate LSGS, and how beneficial management alternatives, environmental functions and side line activities cited by experts on an additional sample of 46 European LSGS are grouped by type of action. We conclude that the continuity of LSGSs in the European Union (EU) may require a new and sustainable intensification path with new farming models and farming categories as far removed from the conventional intensification path as from the low-input, nature reserve and generalised policy support paradigms. Beneficial management with key actions can be a sensible rationale for specific and dynamic support to LSGS in the next CAP reform post-2013, time of stressing budgetary conditions. ; The author wishes to thank partners of the EU-funded LACOPE project (Contract EVK2-CT-2002-00150) for discussion and implementation of the LSGS concept and descriptions of the six LACOPE case studies, and to Xavier Fernández Santos in drafting the map. The author wishes to thank the following representative experts for their contributions in filling out the 46 questionnaires on the territorial identity of European LSGS and further narrative comments and explanations to their responses: Brendan Duncan (case study N° 1 in the map), Norbert Röder (2), Ewa Tyran (3), Juan Antonio Valladares (4), Niklas Labba (5), Teresa D. Soares and Augusta Costa (6), Nathaniel Page and Razvan Popa (7), Sally Huband (8), Geza Nagy (9), Rosario Fanlo (10), Suzana Kratovalieva (11), Nikos Theodoridis (12), Senija Alibegovic and Muhamed Brka (13), Anna Sidiropoulou and Vasilios P. Papanastasis (14), Pius Hofstetter (15), Andy Guy and Ian Condliffe (16), Giovanni Peratoner (17), Paride D'Ottavio (18), Lucia Sepe and Salvatore Claps (19), Tommaso La Mantia and Salvatore Pasta (20), Iva I. Apostolova (21), Tiiu Koff (22), Giampiero Lombardi (23), Anna Berg and Ulf Segerström (24), Berien Elbersen (25), Antun Alegro and Renata Sostaric (26), Fernando J. Pulido (27), Veronica Sarateanu (28), Rosa M. Canals (29), Rainer Luick (30), Jan Jansen (31), Ivica Ljubicic (32), Federico Fillat (33), Terry McCormick, Stephen Lard and Lois Mansfield (34), Marina Meca Ferreira de Castro (35), Bruce Forbes and Ari Laakso (36), Edgar Reisinger (37), Martin Stock (38), Martin Vadella (39), Marijn Nijssen (40), Jacques Lasseur (41), Davy McCracken (42), Pier Paolo Roggero and Simonetta Bagella (43), Marie-José Gaillard (44, 45). Particular thanks are due to Norbert Röder, Davy McCracken, and Lucia Sepe for their amendments and comments to a first draft of this paper. ; Peer reviewed
The global projections of population and food demand increases by 2050 highlight the importance of Latin America as one of the future big food suppliers for our planet. The region has high agricultural potential and activities such as cattle farming can increase the global food supply, i.e. through the adoption of sustainable technologies such as silvo-pastoral systems. Despite the importance of this economic sector for the region, its negative environmental impacts (especially those of traditional extensive production systems) are numerous and the shift towards sustainability is perceived as slow and uncoordinated. This study aims at identifying both success stories and difficulties in the implementation of public policies for the development of sustainable cattle production systems in Colombia, Argentina and Costa Rica during the period 2010-2020. Based on literature review, media analysis and legal document reviews, a qualitative descriptive analysis was carried out, documenting and outlining the main political activities in the region. The results highlight the development and application of policies aimed at the use of sustainable production technologies, the adaptation of pastures to changing environmental conditions and the use of silvo-pastoral systems for cattle production. Although common successes are identified in the three countries, such as the existence of a large number of public policies aimed at promoting sustainable livestock - which is strengthened through e.g. national level development plans and legislative advances - they also coincide in difficulties, such as a minimal articulation between national and local policies and the lack of continuity of development programs. We conclude that, although the selected countries have different socioeconomic characteristics, as well as different levels of progress in the implementation of their policies, the general perception among the three countries is relatively similar to the extent that their efforts are still insufficient, i.e. when the commitments made during the COP21 are being considered. Although the advances made so far provide valuable contributions, it is necessary to treat them as a first stage in a long-range process towards sustainability, and support their continuity and further out-scaling, i.e. for reaching the ultimate goal of a broader adoption of silvo-pastoral systems.
The pastoral systems of Eastern Africa have been affected by the alternated incidence of recurrent drought and flood for the last decades, aggravating poverty and local conflicts. We have introduced an innovation to convert floods to productive use using water spreading weirs (WSW) as an entry point to capture and spread the torrential flood emerging in the neighbouring highlands into rangelands and crop fields of low-lying pastoral systems in Afar, Ethiopia. The productivity and landscape feature have changed from an abandoned field to a productive landscape within 3 years of intervention. The flood patterns and sediment loads created at least four different crop management zones and productivity levels. Based on moisture and nutrient regimes, we developed land suitability maps for integrating crops and forages fitting to specific niches. The outcome was a fast recovery of landscapes, with 150% biomass yield increment, increased access to dry season feed and food. These positive outcomes could be attributed to the proper design of weirs, joint planning and execution between pastoralists, researchers and development agents, identification and availing best-fitting varieties for each management zone and developing simple GIS-based parcel level maps to guide development agents and pastoralists. The major 'agents' were community leaders ('Kedoh Abbobati') who keenly debated potential benefits and drawbacks of innovations, enforced customary rules and byelaw and suggested changes in approaches and choices of interventions. In general, an innovation system approach helped to create local confidence, attract attention of government institutions and helped local actors to identify investment areas, develop implementation strategies to increase productivity, define changes as it occurs and minimize conflicts between competing communities. However, the risk of de facto use of a plot of communal land translating into long-term occupation and ownership may be impacting a communal territory and social cohesion that was subject to other collective choice customary rules.
All eastern Africa is in the tropics, but its grasslands cover a very wide range of altitudes. Extensive grasslands are mostly in arid and semi -arid zones. The area is subject to droughts and a high degree of pastoral risk. Potential vegetation is largely desert and semi-desert, bush and woodland, with only a small area of pure grassland, but the grass -dominated herbaceous layer of the other formations is very important for wildlife and livestock; 75 percent of eastern Africa is dominated by grasslands, often with a varying amount of woody vegetation. The grasslands have been grazed by livestock and game for millennia. Eastern Africa is a centre of genetic diversity for grasses. Six to eleven main grassland zones have been described. Grasslands are either under government control, are open access or are common property resources. Access to resources are under national laws but frequently traditional land use rights are granted by local communities. National land tenure systems are unrelated to traditional ones. Governments supported cropping and reduction of communal grazing land; contraction of pastoral systems reduces the scale of resource use by pastoral peoples. The population is very varied - pastoral groups tend to be of different ethnicities from agricultural or agropastoral groups. Most pastoral systems are in the semi-arid areas, with small areas in hyper-arid and subhumid zones. Traditionally, livestock and their products were for subsistence and wealth, but now many are marketed. Grasslands are increasingly being integrated into farming as pastoral systems evolve. Sown forages are widely used in agricultural areas. Cattle, like people, are mostly in the non-pastoral areas (70 percent), except in countries with little high-potential land. Cattle, camels, sheep, goats and donkeys are the main livestock kept by the pastoralists for subsistence; most herds are mixed. Indigenous breeds are the majority, although exotic cattle are kept for dairying in high altitude zones. Wildlife are widespread in the grazing lands and are important for tourism. Agricultural development along watercourses limits access by wildlife and pastoral stock.
