Land degradation, stocking rates and conservation policies in the communal rangelands of Botswana and Zimbabwe

Abstract

Communal rangeland management policies in Botswana and Zimbabwe are based on incorrect technical assumptions about the stability of semiarid rangeland, the nature of rangeland degradation, and the benefits of destocking. Consequently, inappropriate policies, stressing the need to destock and stabilise the rangelands, are pursued. Acknowledgement of the great instability but intrinsic resilience of rangeland would encourage the Governments to more favourably regard the opportunistic stocking strategies of the agro-pastoralists of the Communal Areas. However, degradation of rangelands is occurring, although a t varying rates. This justifies the promotion of a 'tracking strategy', in which livestock densities are encouraged to follow, more closely that at present, variations in rainfall.The establishment of grazing territories controlled by specific 'communities' may be a prerequisite for the promotion of the tracking strategy, and for communal rangeland management and improvement. However, the establishment of such territories must take into account social equity, institutional problems and transaction costs, as well as spatial and temporal variation in rangeland resources.

Crop-Livestock Farming Systems Varying with Different Altitudes in Southern Ethiopia

“…This might be caused by the communally used grazing land in AT, which was not included in the estimates for overall farming area per individual households in our study. Interviewees with access to this communal grazing land estimated its size to be around 600 ha, similar to other studies in southern Africa (Abel and Blaikie, 1989;Shackleton, 1993). According to Sisay (2000), 75% of the total grazing land in the Mid Rift Valley is communally used land.…”

Effects of holistic grazing management on milk production, weight gain, and visitation to grazing areas by livestock and wildlife in Laikipia County, Kenya

“…Practitioners who support HGM argue that when animals are concentrated in small areas for short periods of time, the effect breaks the ground, allowing for water and nutrient flow, while sowing seeds and adding fertilizer through dung and urine (Strauch et al 2009;Savory 1983). This, coupled with the rotation of the concentrated herd, ensures that plants regenerate, making the rangeland healthier and more productive (Abel and Blaikie 1989;Savory 1978). HGM differs from the traditional rotational grazing in that, with the latter, animals are not moved on the basis of plant responses, but the grazing periods set aside for each paddock (Jacobo 2006;Wolf 2011).…”

African Landscapes

“…Abel and Blaikie (1989) and Watts (1988) , for example, have shown how the dynamics of a political economy come to interact with specific edaphic and hydrological features of the environment and how increasing poverty and vulnerability lead to environmental degradation and landscape level changes. In fact, much of the political ecology debate of the last decade (Kottak, 1999 ; for an early summary see Bryant, 1992) runs in this direction.…”