Rangelands can renew itself or go backwards depending on the ecological factors. Rangelands exhibit positive, negative or neutral depending on using properties. The objective of this study was to determine rangeland health and ecological site distribution of grazed rangeland with cattle, sheep and mixed stocking in the Kargapazari Mountain Erzurum province. In the investigated rangelands, vegetation, soil and hydrology properties differed significantly. As a result of this study, it is possible to state that uncontrolled grazing with sheep gives more damage to vegetation and related resources than uncontrolled grazing with cattle in highland steppe rangelands where short grasses are dominated. But forbs of sheep taken under pressure should not be ignored. In conclusion, for sustainable use of steppe rangeland, providing suitable grazing season and grazing capacity, sheep and cattle herds can graze as mixture.

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On the Ground• Turkey is a country with many urban centers (Istanbul has 15 million people) and with a high gross national product (16th in the world). More than one-third of the country is rangeland and livestock production accounts for at least 30% of agricultural income. • Rangelands and livestock production on rangelands historically have been at the center of Turkish society, economy, and culture. Roots of many Turkish range management practices can be traced back to the steppes culture of central Asia in 2500 BC. • The government established strict policies and regulations on the communal rangelands allocated to each community by the central government. The grazing management regulations were based on strategies to ensure that 1) stocking rates did not exceed carrying capacity, 2) timing of grazing was in balance with seasonal conditions, and 3) grazing units were periodically deferred. • The composition and productivity of Turkeys rangelands have degraded considerably since the early 1900s with an increasing density of humans and their livestock on grazing lands and an abandonment of the traditional policies and structure regulating grazing of rangelands. • The Rangeland Act of 1998 gave the Turkish government authority to regulate the grazing season, carrying capacity, and rangeland development and use. Consideration of agrarian reform measures is at the center of revitalizing the publicly owned rangelands in Turkey.

Shrub encroachment involves abiotic and biotic factors that regulate demographic factors influencing seed production, storage, germination, and subsequent recruitment. In the rangelands of semi-arid and arid Australia, the thorny acacia, Acacia farnesiana (L.) Willd., is apparently encroaching into grasslands and changing the structure, composition, and functioning of native grasslands. The potential for A. farnesiana to expand rapidly in response to changes in land use was examined by quantifying the reproductive output, dispersal, seed-bank density, and germination of seeds of A. farnesiana. Even in the absence of high grazing pressure, low numbers of seeds were produced and these were mainly locally dispersed, although long-distance dispersal via floods could occur. Pre-dispersal seed predation is likely to reduce the seed output, and despite strong physical seed dormancy, soil-stored seed banks were not large. Seed dormancy is broken by scarification but not strongly synergistically with fire or by fire alone, and fire may have a small effect on recruitment. Hence, pulse recruitment seems unlikely given the match between seedling densities and seed-bank density. These patterns suggest that A. farnesiana is unlikely to encroach rapidly into grasslands unless there is widespread landscape disturbance that triggers broad-scale dispersal, such as floods, and or physical scarification of seed.

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